∇
troperville

∇
tools

∇
toys

SubpagesImageLinks
Laconic
Main
Quotes

main index

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

random

Subpages:

source

history

edit page

Please don't list this on a work's page as a trope.
Examples can go on the work's YMMV tab.

Goddamned Bats

We can't stop here.
This is Zubat country.

"Every first-person game seems to have these tiny little enemies that hop at your face, are hard to hit and, worse of all, are unsatisfying to kill."

— David Wong, Cracked.com

They probably ain't gonna to kill you like them Demonic Spiders over there, but they're certainly going to harass you and slow you down, making it easier for something else to kill you.

Almost every video game has them. These are the enemies that are just a speed bump, even if they are not outright dangerous. They're not difficult to defeat, but because of the frequency with which they appear, they can become a significant hindrance to the player.

They're the goddamn bats, man.

A key trait is that they generally don't pose too large of a threat on their own; they're more annoying than deadly. When an enemy starts posing an actual threat, then it's a case of Demonic Spiders and, in extreme cases, the Boss in Mook Clothing.

Note that this designation applies to any type of non-threatening enemy whose purpose is to stall and harass the player. Goddamned Bats are common in Platformers, where they enjoy disturbing precision jumping.

They don't have to be bats. The best definition of the Goddamned Bats trope is that they are not only common enemies that will swamp you, and they are not only disgustingly easy to kill on their own, but they are also unsatisfying to fight - they take no skill to defeat, in RPGs they don't provide much (if any) experience or gold when beaten, and they aren't even particuarly interesting as enemies, and are sometimes flat-out-annoying.

Other following factors can contribute to a game having Goddamned Bats:

Player having relatively large health bar, reducing the enemies' relative threat (and thus the need to exterminate them quickly) - even if it's just Scratch Damage, enduring repeated hits adds up.
In platform games, character knockback can be exploited by Ledge Bats.
If the game relies heavily on Respawning Enemies.
If the player has a weapon with limited attack range or can't shoot vertically or diagonally, making it difficult to engage the bats.
If the battle becomes disrupted by technical issues, like a Camera Screw.

Occasionally, Goddamned Bats can be a result of the setting; for example, a water level can inadvertently graft Goddamned Bats characteristics onto any enemy if the game has poor movement controls.

See Goddamned Boss for bosses with these characteristics. For literal bats that God has damned, see Bat out of Hell.

Non-Video Game

Anime and Manga

One Piece has a villain whose main method of 'attack' is to hide behind a cloud of regenerating shadow bats as hard as bricks and run away when his opponent's not looking. Cue the protagonist spending the entire fight wandering around the forest looking for his enemy.
The White Zetsu from Naruto are this in straight-up battle, due to their main skills being infiltration and assassination.

Web Comics

Homestuck has imps, which become Bosses in Mooks Clothing after Jade prototypes her kernelsprite.
In Moon Crest 24, Morchego regurgitates bat-like creatures to attack Daniel.
AdventureDennis is attacked by bats at least once per level/chapter.

Web Originals

There's a scene in the Play By Post game What Time Is It Mr Wolf in which the protagonist opens the door to the attic...and is swarmed by bats. The other characters, all children, laugh at him for it. The protagonist is understandably miffed since everything up to that point has been trying to kill him.

Live-Action TV

Piranhas became this in an episode of River Monsters, in which Jeremy constantly caught piranhas, when he wasn't just having his bait stolen.
In Community, the hippies act as this when the group plays an important video game created by Pierce's elitist father.

Western Animation

A Tom Slick cartoon had Tom in Transylvanian race and he quips "Oh, rats! Bats!" upon beeing attacked by the winged creatures.
Scooby-Doo and his teenage buddies are constantly beseiged by bats. In "Decoy For A Dognapper," Shaggy and Velma are flailing away trying to avoid a flock of bats and Shaggy quips that they'd call that dance "the Batusi!"
The Danger Mouse episode "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat" has Dr. Frankenstoat having created a machine that will make a flock of bats—a flock of cricket bats with vampire wings.

Gang Up on the Human

Video Game Difficulty Tropes