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Hard to find, harder to kill, but so worth it.

"Those lucky enough to meet one of these and defeat it before it dashes off will find it a very rewarding experience."

A normal video game Mook is a monster that shows up regularly in large numbers, exhibits Suicidal Overconfidence, goes down in a sword strike or four, gives a little experience, and drops items that are Shop Fodder, Better Off Sold, or subject to the Antidote Effect. A Metal Slime is everything but normal: an uncommon monster with an uncommon reward that's uncommonly difficult to obtain from the monster before the battle ends.

To be a Metal Slime, an enemy must satisfy all three of the following criteria:

  • The enemy is uncommon, whether by means of rarely spawning, appearing only in out-of-the-way locations, or only appearing a fixed number of times.
  • The enemy has an unusual reward, such as bonus cash, bonus Experience Points, a higher chance for an item that Randomly Drops, or a unique (though not necessarily useful) item. It may also be an especially powerful Mon.
  • The enemy has a reasonably reliable way to end combatnote  before the player can defeat it and get the reward, whether it be running away, a special ability, or a feature of the zone that it appears in. In games with Pre-existing Encounters, this trait may manifest as the enemy avoiding the party in order to prevent the beginning of combat proper. As a result, it is difficult to obtain the reward from the enemy. As a corollary to this, a Metal Slime cannot also be a boss, generally speaking.

Most of the time, the enemy will give the reward if defeated, making the challenge to kill it before it escapes. A variation is an enemy that kills itself such as an Action Bomb that is lucrative to steal from or a useful Mon ā€” in this case, the issue could be that the enemy dies before you have the chance to catch it or relieve it of its Infinity -1 Sword or Rare Candy.

Assuming it's not of the "strip it bare before it dies" variant, there are many ways a Metal Slime can be difficult to kill. If the enemy has a very high chance of escaping, it may be a feat to take action against it at all. It could also have high defenses, such as a 98% chance to dodge attacks, or defense power so high it reduces all your attacks to Scratch Damage. Alternately, some enemies can disable your party's attacks outright, leaving the player with no way to take effective actions against it. Depending on the combat system used, there may be methods of survival that are even more unusual, of course.

A Metal Slime is a specific variant of the Goddamned Bats ā€” it is more annoying than deadly.note  Though most Metal Slimes lack significant offensive output, enemies are only excluded from this trope due to power level if they pose a significant threat to a party at the appropriate level for the zone.

Given the nature of the Metal Slime, it can be a major target for players working on an Elite Tweak or 100% Completion. If an item/cash-type Metal Slime ends up having an esoteric weakness that gives the player a decent chance of killing it ā€” or if the rewards are just that good ā€” it can also become a PiƱata Enemy. Should the Metal Slime only exist (or only exist in significant numbers) in one area of the game, said area immediately qualifies as a Peninsula of Power Leveling.

This trope is named after the Metal Slime from the Dragon Quest series. Despite being most common in RPGs, a Metal Slime can appear in games of other genres. Not to be confused with Metal Slug, although finding those is a fun reward in and of itself (especially if you manage to find the Neo Geo versions).


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Other examples:

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    Action Adventure 
  • The Mini Smiles in Killer7 fly at you at high speed. If they hit, they explode and temporarily blind you. Shooting red ones gives you a great deal of Thick Blood (which you use to power up), and shooting a yellow one heals you fully. The Camellia Smiles, likewise, run away as soon as they're shot and explode a few seconds later; killing them before they escape (which requires hitting their weak spot or a very fast character) rewards you with large amounts of Thick Blood.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:
      • One of the sidequests involves you searching the whole of Hyrule Field for Big Poes. You can only find each of them in very specific spots, you have to be riding Epona, and you have all of 5 seconds to kill them with arrows before they vanish and you have to try again. Hopefully your aim is good. Gathering all ten Big Poes will reward you the fourth and final bottle.
      • Killing Skull Kid (yes, you CAN kill him) as an adult awards you 200 rupees.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The Takkuri drops a lot of money, but it has a lot of health and may also decide to steal one of your items and run away with it, forcing you to either play the Song of Time or wait until nighttime and buy it back from its owner for a massive sum of money to get it back.
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Blue Chus are very rare, to the point that only one can be found at a time in a few obscure islands (except in Crescent Island, which has two). Their Jelly collectibles are required to help Doc Bandam brew the Blue Potion in his shop in Windfall Island.
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: While they don't disappear to make their spoils un-gettable, there are the gold versions of any common Mook. Only certain Kinstone fusions unlock them, and then you have to hunt them down in some treacherous (or tedious) spots in the overworld. When you find them, you'll discover them to be (a) lightning fast, (b) super aggressive, (c) requiring a boss-level amount of hits to kill, and (d) typically surrounded by several of their standard kin. But you'll get 200 rupees out of it, and The Minish Cap is a game that actually has a use for rupees.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: There are slime enemies known as Chus which come in various colors, combine with each other to form larger chus and divide when attacked and leave Chu Jelly behind when defeated. What the Chu Jelly does depends on the color of the Chu that dropped it (red ones restore health, yellow ones act as lantern oil, purple ones have a random effect from healing you fully to damaging you upon consumption etc.). The rarest kind is the Rare Chu, which is a pearly color and sparkles. The Chu jelly that this kind drops acts as the Great Fairy's Tears (a bottled item that not only fully heals you but also doubles your attack temporarily). Usually you can only hold one bottle of Great Fairy's Tears at a time, but you can have a bottle of Rare Chu Jelly while having a bottle of Great Fairies' Tears. Obtaining Rare Chu Jelly is extremely difficult because not only do they spawn very rarely, but they almost always spawn with other chus to combine with, and Chus always take on the more common Chu's color. Even if you manage to kill the Rare Chu first, you need to scoop up the Chu Jelly while having dozens of other Chus swarming you.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
      • Blupees, creatures that resemble glowing blue rabbits. If you manage to shoot them with an arrow before they run away and disappear they'll give you a random amount of rupees — in a game where rupees almost never drop from enemies. However, they're also rare — individual blupees spawn only in out-of-the-way, unmarked forest areas — and elusive; they startle much more easily than other animals and will quickly flee if startled, vanishing in a puff of magic a few seconds afterwards, and only respawning with the next Blood Moon.
      • Bears are very rarely encountered in the game; they are fixed spawns in a few very remote areas and extremely rare random spawns in most other forested areas. They also take a lot of punishment unless they're shot in the head with an arrow and can deal heavy damage if they maul Link. Successfully killing a bear nets Link a generous amount of Prime and Gourmet Meat with an occasional Courser Bee Honey or Hearty Salmon thrown in.
  • Castlevania
    • Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow:
      • The game has the Tsuchinoko, which flee as soon as you enter the room about 90% of the time. If you don't kill it fast enough, it will flee anyways. Compounding this is the soul it Randomly Drops which is needed for 100% Completion. Making it better: Tsuchinoko Soul decreases the buying cost of items, including the ludicrously expensive accessory that makes Souls easier to get. So you can grind money for the Soul Eater Ring to make it easier to get Tsuchinoko, or you can camp Tsuchinoko to make it easier to get the Soul Eater Ring. To top it all off, Tsuchinoko requires that you go back into a boss room, which you have no reason to do. And it doesn't always show up, either. And as if it wasn't troublesome enough, it spits poison at you if you're not careful, reducing your attack power.
      • The Sky Fish move (and thus flee) so fast you need a power that STOPS time just to slow them down to the point you can try killing them. Trying to time an attack perfectly so that you connect with one just when it's whizzing by or turning the area where it'd appear into a minefield wouldn't work either, since it can only be damaged with time slowed down.
    • Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin had an enemy called the Dodo. It appears on only one screen in the entire game, sometimes doesn't appear at all, has a decent amount of HP, and it runs away from you right when you enter. You have to kill it to complete a quest. The Dodo originally showed up in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as well.
    • Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance had the Rare Ghost enemy that you'd need to find in order to complete your monster logbook.
    • Castlevania: Circle of the Moon:
      • The game features the Trick Candle, an enemy that also only appears in a dead-end room previously occupied by a boss. Although it looks almost identical to a regular candle, whipping it causes an enemy to fall to the floor and disappear. You have about two seconds to kill it for its very useful magic card, which allows you to summon baddies.
      • There's also the Skeleton Medalist, which only appears in one room. As soon as you enter said room, it sprints headlong into the far wall, killing itself (which does not drop its rare item). In order to even get a shot at killing it yourself, you practically have to use the Stopwatch to slow him down enough to hit him. What's worse, the rare item he drops is only used to make a DSS Combo that turns you into a One-Hit-Point Wonder only marginally more usable.
    • Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has three enemies which can only be found by deciphering tabloids you find lying around. Of the three one is more of a Puzzle Mook (use the right weapon in its room and it dies instantly), the second is a normal enemy that can only be summoned under certain conditions, but the one that qualifies as a Metal Slime is the Yeti. It can only be summoned by using the right power in a room that you have no reason to return to. At that point it'll jump into the foreground, then quickly jump back giving you one or two hits to kill it at the very most.
    • Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia has the Sasquatch (which is basically the same monster mentioned above). Once it sees you, it panics and leaps into the background. Getting a picture of it for a villager mission is easy enough, but killing it for the Bestiary is another story.
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has Treasure Carps, ornate and harmless carps that die in a single hit, do not respawn if killed and always drop a Treasure Carp Scale, which is used as currency at two specific vendors who do not accept Sen. The catch is that the Carps will immediately swim away rapidly if they spot you and disappear if they get far enough ahead. Luckily they respawn at the exact same spot if you fail to kill them before they escape.
  • Luigi's Mansion has two creatures that qualify—the Speedy Spirits (or Blue Ghosts) and the Gold Mice.
    • The Speedy Spirits are bright blue ghosts that, when captured, offer a huge wad of cash and jewels (in the PAL version, capturing every single one of the fifteen Speedy Spirits is necessary to get a "Perfect" ending). To find each Spirit, Luigi has to tap on random objects in a room...before defeating all of the other ghosts inside (capturing the regular spirits turns the lights on and makes it impossible for the Speedy Spirit to manifest). Then you have to actually suck up the ghost by stunning it with your flashlight for just the right amount of time (too long and it will just fade away) and using the Poltergust—if it breaks free from the suction, it immediately disappears. And you only get one shot at each one. It's somewhat OK in rooms with Portrait Ghosts (which don't attack unless provoked), but others will see you trying to snag the money-laden ghost while evading others. There's absolutely no indication of where the Speedy Spirits are hiding, which means a player will have to pound on every bit of furniture in a room on the off-chance that there's one inside of it (and some are downright counterintuitive, like one appearing in a treasure chest after you open it). There is another chance to capture any you miss on your first time through a room—at the beginning of the fourth area of the game, there's a blackout, and the uncaught Speedy Spirits will reappear...but just to complicate matters, an additional three Speedy Spirits appear in random objects in rooms that didn't have them to begin with, so you have to go back through every room (which are filled with high-level ghosts) to snag them.
    • The Gold Mice are somewhat better, but still tricky, as they add an element of luck to the formula. Like the Speedy Spirits, there are ten total, and they also drop a huge amount of money and gems when snagged. Five can be found in by scanning hidden wedges of cheese in certain rooms in the mansion—again, before the lights are turned on—and then capturing the mouse as it manifests; the wedges are hard to spot, but if you're looking, you can see them. It's the other five that are the problem: they have a random chance of appearing in five specific rooms and hallways, which means the only way to be sure to get them is to enter said room over and over again in the offchance that it will appear—and even if it does, you have to catch it before it escapes, and if you enter from the wrong door, you have to repeat the whole process.
  • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon:
    • The Gold Greenies only appear if you search in certain vases, drawers, etc., and once you find them, they run around you in circles. (Except for one area in the Secret Mine where there are two of them that attack Luigi.) They give out a ton of cash when you suck them in, so it is worth looking for them.
    • A lesser version comes as gold-colored versions of minor enemies such as spiders and mice, which usually drop a gold bar or a wad of dollar bills if you use the flashlight on them quick enough.
  • Studio Nanafushi's Dead or School has the Rare Mutant, this enemy only appears in specific places and only randomly (to improve your chances of encountering one, you need an item with the Luck ability). It has no attacks, but it can run as fast as your hero Hisako and has unlimited stamina so you need to be able to chase it to a dead-end. If you defeat it, it drops a ton of money and always at least one piece of equipment.

    Driving Game 
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted has Sergeant Cross himself. A normal undercover Corvette will net you around $20,000 in bounty. Destroying Cross's car, however, will net you a whopping $200,000!

    Fighting Game 
  • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U: In the 3DS version, the version-exclusive Smash Run mode has several of these.
    • Iridescent Glint Beetles are rare, fast enemies that burrow underground after enough time has passed. Give them a good smack, and they'll drop lots of coins.
    • Sneaky Spirits move rather awkwardly, and can be hard to get a good hit on. If you can kill one, it drops a valuable star boost that raises all stats.
    • Souflees are extremely good at dodging attacks, and they move fast. Kill one, and it'll spit out a massive amount of stat boosts.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • Borderlands:
    • The Eridians in Borderlands appear in the last few levels in the game, give you shitloads of exp, are the fastest enemies in the game and have insane shields, but pretty low actual health. What's that, Mordecai? One of your skills allows you to bypass shields completely? Score.
    • Borderlands 2:
      • The chubby versions of enemies are incredibly rare but drop more loot when killed, on top of the usual rewards from killing a Badass. There's even an achievement for finding and killing one. There's also the Loot Midgets, who come out of containers you open and will drop loot, ammo and money when you shoot at them. In the New Game Plus, they have a chance to drop Legendary items.
      • Rabid enemies start appearing in True Vault Hunter mode. These hit like a train but also gives ridiculous amounts of exp when killed.
      • Loot Goon Goliaths very rarely appear where Goliaths would spawn. They are much more powerful than the normal goliaths, but retain the leveling up mechanic. This also affects the loot chest on their back, so a fully leveled Loot Goon not only has a chance of dropping legendaries on death, but also possibly having good loot in his chest.
    • Borderlands 3 have rare spawn enemies that often drop legendary weapons, shields, items, and most of them have specific item drops unique to them.
  • Deep Rock Galactic:
    • Huuli Hoarders are giant purple slugs with rare minerals sticking out of their bodies. The problem is they begin to flee screaming as soon as they see a dwarf — their velocity isn't nearly as troublesome as their ability to Wall Crawl to cover, combined with their relatively high health and short time to despawn. However, if you can ambush one with the whole team, use various abilities and equipment to slow them, or catch them in favorable terrain, Huuli Hoarders will drop a good deal of minerals native to the biome.
    • Rival Company Prospectors may not despawn like Hoarders do, but they similarly spend the entire fight whenever you find them fleeing into whatever corner of the caverns they can find away from you, all the while summoning other Rival Company bots to try and bog you down while it escapes and throwing up shields to protect itself until they fizzle out from overuse. Taking one down, however, gives you both a cache of valuable minerals native to the biome and an even more valuable Data Cell that DRG will handsomely reward you for.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 has the Fallen Survivor, introduced in "The Passing" campaign. These rare Infected have 1000 HP, as much health as a Witch, and are fireproof. They're non-hostile and can in fact go down in a single melee attack, but when confronted, they'll try to run away and slip through the crowd of normal Infected. But if you can bring a Fallen Survivor down, you'll be able to loot the medkits, grenades or other goodies they were carrying.

    Hack and Slash 
  • In Drakengard, there is one enemy per level that rises out of the ground when you enter his proximity, glowing either red or blue and switching between those two colors. You have roughly a minute or two to defeat this enemy. Only physical attacks can harm him when he glows red, and only magical attacks can harm him when he glows blue. If you defeat him, he drops an item which adds a certain amount of experience to all the weapons you have in your Hyperspace Arsenal.
  • Gauntlet has the Thief, a very fast enemy who runs up to your strongest player and steals potions, keys or even points from him/her. If you manage to kill him you can loot up a 500-point gold bag from his body; otherwise you'll have to get back your loot on the next dungeon level.
  • Fugitives in the third Sengoku Basara game. Each map has one, they have a random chance of appearing every time you start the map, they appear on a few predetermined and out-of-place locations on the map (and unless you bring a max level Hattori Hanzo, you won't know where) and run away about a minute after appearing. Fugitives only block and counter and have an extremely powerful block, making them impossible to kill without using a Basara art, Hero time or by loading your weapon full of Golden Centipedes. Each map's fugitive grants a permanent attack, defense or luck bonus when defeated, but only once for each character.
  • Path of Exile has Tormented Spirit enemies which can appear in any area. Spirits are guaranteed to drop at least one rare item, but they will only flee from players and will vanish after a set time. They also act as a Random Drop Booster, conferring a buff on any normal and magic monsters they pass that makes them deadlier but increases drop quantity and quality. They can also possess a rare or unique monster for an even greater effect. Unlike the typical examples, not killing them before they possess an enemy is harder than killing them.
  • Devil May Cry 5 has Red Empusas who carry a lot of Red Orbs and are generally docile, attempting to run away from the player rather than fight back. If they get away, they will escape, depriving the player of the reward.

    Maze Game 
  • In Wizard of Wor, the Worluk appears once per level, moves quite fast, and can escape through the side doors. If it is shot before escaping, points will be doubled on the next level.

    Miscellanous Games 
  • In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Tarantulas and Scorpions that have been players' bane since Wild World due to being one of the only things in the series that can actually harm the player have entered Metal Slime territory. They've had their aggressiveness turned upā€”they will now chase you if they even see you with your net out, their potential reward turned upā€”Flick will pay you 12000 Bells for each one caught, and their spawn rate turned down after said reward was found to be a somewhat exploitable Game-Breaker. Each does have a mystery island where a high amount of them appear, both of which have a very low chance of being reached in a given trip, but the trade-off is having to fight an entire onslaught of them in order to take advantage of it. Unlike other insects, in order to catch it, you need to either trap it with a shovel or duel it head-on, where it will counterattack if you mess up. And you're too far away or get your net out too slow, instead of engaging you, they'll run away and either despawn or drown themselves before you can catch up to them.
  • Feeding Frenzy: The Golden Minnow, a glowing golden Palette Swap of the game's smallest fish, is rare, very fast, and will vanish offscreen soon after appearing. If caught, however, it allows the playable fish to instantly gain a size.
  • Into Space: UFOs in the third game. They drop quite a bit of candy and gifts when hit and destroyed, but they are fairly sturdy and fly away from the rocket as soon as they are hit.
  • Progressbar 95: Green segments are especially rare compared to other segments and have a faint yellow glow to them. If you catch one, they automatically fill your progress bar to 100%. They'll also automatically correct any yellow segments you may have. However, they're also faster and harder to catch than any other segment.

    MMORPG 
  • Kingdom of Loathing:
    • The monsters that drop the Ultra Rare Items. The odds of encountering one are so slim as to be meaningless. For each of them, one player per day gets a shot at the fight, and it's determined by some byzantine step-measuring system that gives that one shot to the first player who's there during the right time of day and has the step counter that no one's allowed to see in the exact right position. In theory. Wait, no, that's how it used to work, and now nobody's got a clue. Essentially, if you're aware these things exist but haven't been informed that you'll never see one, you could waste weeks on one of these before giving up. Most veteran players have never seen one; fighting one is a once-in-a-lifetime event unless you search obsessively (read "search for it with all your turns every day for years").
    • The Black Cat familiar has many wonderful effects, one of which is randomly destroying dropped items at the end of combat. Ultra rare items are not immune to this, so at least one person has had the cat knock a one in a billion item down the drain.
    • Ultra Rare monsters are also hard-coded to win initiative, and a few of them appear in early zones where they are considerably more powerful than normal monsters the player may be equipped to fight.
    • One of them looks and fights the same as a common monster, except it has an animated avatar; better hope you don't run away from it by mistake...
  • There are several notable Metal Slimes in zOMG. The first is the Ring Box, which is a rare version of the Pink Giftbox Monster (which in itself is a Chest Monster). They fly very fast, and have higher HP than normal Giftboxes. Defeating them nets you several rare rings. The other Metal Slime is more of an Optional Boss. The Landshark appears randomly, deals a ton of damage, and is one of the only CL 10 monsters in the game. But it also drops the Surfboard Fin loot item, which is extremely rare.
  • Guild Wars 2 has the Skritt Burglar. Upon opening a random chest in the world, instead of loot, this guy pops out and takes off running. He is resistant to snares and will disappear if he reaches his goal. However, he occasionally drops loot simply when hit and has a move which transforms players into various critters, granting them an achievement. Defeating him grants guaranteed loot as well as standard event rewards.
  • Granblue Fantasy features an enemy type that literally plays all aspects of this trope. There are enemies aptly named "slimes" which are depicted as slimes peeking from inside metallic jars which have an extremely high defense but are vulnerable to Non-Elemental damage. They are only fought in specific quests dedicated for farming them for experience points or money (but can seldom appear in story quests). There are two notable variants — silver slimes which provide thousands of EXP, and the gold slimes which provide thousands of rupies. During weekends, there is also a chance-based quest where players may fight "Giant Slimes" which can provide ten times the reward than the regular slimes. Lastly, these Giant Slimes can unleash an attack that deals lethal damage to the party but will also instantly kill the Slime, and will provide the rewards as long as one party member is still standing.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • The game references the Diablo Treasure Goblins (under Role-Playing Games) with the Skumblade Pillager in the Troves of the Thunder King. It spawns when opening a chest, stuns the player, and "steals" the loot before running away. If not stopped before it reaches the end of the zone, it escapes with the loot. It also ignores all of the traps and mobs you have to deal with and closes locked doors it opens on the way.
    • As part of the twenty year anniversary of the original Diablo, Treasure Goblins were temporarily added. Killing them gave items needed to create a toy and opened portals to a cow level.
  • Phantasy Star Online 2 has the Tagamikazuchi, an electric wolf-like enemy that appears extremely rarely out on the field or in certain Emergency Quests and awards a ridiculous amount of EXP for killing it. It hits like a truck and has high defense on its body, but breaking the orbs on its head will neuter its defense. This also applies to its cousin, the golden Ikanekazuchi, who is similar but only takes Scratch Damage unless you break the orbs and instead of dropping lots of EXP, it drops Shop Fodder that sells for larger amounts than most other item drops in the game and gives a shot at rare equipment.
  • Final Fantasy XIV's randomized treasure dungeons (The Aquapolis, Canals of Uznair and Dungeons of Lyhe Ghiah) all have an uncommon chance of spawning additional creatures mid-fight. Sometimes these simply take the form of a giant cyclops or yeti to keep you on your toes, but other times the creatures are cute and harmless things like goblins or walking vegetables, that must be killed before they can flee — or in some cases, killed in a specific order. Managing to do so before they can get away will reward the party with bonus gil, elemental crystals, or furniture items.

    Platform Game 
  • Hey! Pikmin: Seedbaggers are gelatinous creatures that store large caches of Sparklium seeds in their bodies. They're a very rare encounter — only one spawns in one area of the Echo Cavern level — and, while they are entirely passive, they have high health and will attempt to flee by burying themselves in the ground once they're attacked.
  • Mega Man Network Transmission: The Mole and Mole2 enemies, which one of them only appears for a limited time before running away in a certain area of Legendary WWW Area with each visit. Deleting the brown-colored counterpart can reward players with a Recov300, the best Recov chip in the game, while its pink-colored counterpart can reward the PopUp chip, the game's strongest Invis type chip.
  • Kirby:
  • Sonic Adventure 2: Gold Beetles only appear for a brief moment in one specific part of each level, and vanish just as quickly. Destroying one nets you a huge amount of points for your score, which go a long way to earning a better rank for certain level requirements.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Koopa Troopas, despite being common enemies in the series, rarely appear in Super Mario 64. Not only can they not hurt Mario at all, they run away the minute they spot him. Stomping on them punts them out of their shells and you can use their shell to slide across the ground to defeat enemies and even slide up slopes. Defeating the Koopa itself makes it drop a blue coin, which is worth 5 coins and is helpful for 100% Completion since 100 coins gets you a star for that level.
    • The Moneybag and Coin Coffer are recurring enemies that, on being sighted, run away from the player, and drop some kind of reward upon being defeated.
    • Super Mario Sunshine: Yellow birds are very rare, and spraying them with water or Yoshi Juice to kill them is the only way get their Shine Sprites. Slightly more common are the blue birds, which yield blue coins (necessary to get more Shine Sprites).
    • Super Mario Galaxy: The Starbag is encountered in only a few areas, and at first you can only see its footprints traveling across the ground. It is otherwise invisible. Approaching it causes it to run away from you. If you spin-attack just ahead of the footprints, you'll expose the enemy, who will get stunned. You can then defeat it with another spin-attack to get a shower of several dozen Star Bits.

    Puzzle Game 
  • Bogs which randomly appear in Elemental Story take only 1 damage from any attacks, attack every turn and runs away after a set number of turns. However, defeating them gives more mana and experience points.

    Real Time Strategy 
  • Pikmin: Iridescent Flint Beetles are invincible, randomly appear, scurry around, then burrow back underground. If you can make a thrown pikmin land on its back, it will drop pellets and nectar. Skilled players can get multiple payouts from the same bug, but never more than three. The sequel keeps the Flint Beetle and adds two cousins: The Iridescent Glint Beetle, which has a shiny golden shell and drops a Treasure or multiple sprays when hit; and the Doodlebug, which can drop sprays, pellets, or nectar, but periodically releases poisonous gas that can kill non-white Pikmin.

    Roguelike 
  • Ancient Domains of Mystery:
    • There's the fast and powerful giant boars, which are only encountered in the wilderness, where it is possible for enemies to flee. If killed, they sometimes drop a giant boar skull, which is required for an Ultra ending.
    • Filk, the quickling bard also in ADOM fits the bill. He lives in (usually) a deep level of the infinite dungeon, has the highest speed in the game is extremely good at dodging your attacks. Killing him is also required for an Ultra ending.
  • Smeagol in Angband. He moves fast, is hard to hit, and can teleport away after stealing gold (or, in previous versions, items). Very difficult to kill when you're first likely to encounter him. Wormtongue is not as fast, but is also very difficult to hit when you first meet him, steals your gold and items then teleports away, and makes traps. This means that you might kill him, then fall through to the next level before you pick up the awesome artifact he just dropped. Hope you have preserve mode set. Many of the thieving monster in this game fit this to some extent.
  • The Binding of Isaac: Rainbow champions are extremely rare rainbow-coloured variants of enemies that combine the effects of several other champion enemies and drop a random coin, bomb, key, heart, pill, card, and trinket on death.
  • Elona's Bells have great evasion, move very fast, and vanish after a few turns. The Gold Bells drop large amounts of gold, while Silver/Platinum (depending on the version) Bells drop Platinum coins or small medals (one of the few unlimited sources of them in the game). The most reliable way of killing them is poison, since they take several actions for each of your turns, which greatly multiplies the damage they take, or magic darts, since they're ranged and never miss.
  • Enter the Gungeon:
    • The Supply Drop update added Keybullet Kin, modeled after Dark Souls' crystal lizards: They spawn randomly in pregenerated rooms, and instead of shooting, they run away from the player and despawn after a short time, but they drop a (rare) key if you kill them. (If said Keybullet Kin somehow ends up jammed, you get double loot!... at the cost of having to deal even more damage to it) Much like the crystal lizards, chasing them usually leads you directly into the path of several real enemies.
    • The Advanced Gungeons and Draguns update added the Chance Kin, who behaves the same way but drops either a heart piece, some ammo, or an armor piece.
  • The Guided Fate Paradox: Gold Crabs, which always run away from you and have ridiculous evade; however, if you manage to kill it, you gain a buttload of experience and money. There are also versions that drop Apples upon defeat.
  • Streets of Rogue: Any NPC with red eyes has a Shapeshifter inside. Killing the host causes the Shapeshifter to pop out and run away at very high speed, but it will drop a lot of cash if killed. Fortunately, it has low HP and Cops are hostile to it. The same is true for playing as a Shapeshifter.
  • Jetpack Santa Claus in Toe Jam And Earl will occasionally appear, fussing over his sack. If you're lucky to see him from far away enough, you have a chance of sneaking up on him from behind (a mechanic no other enemy in the game uses) and get a few presents for your trouble. Otherwise, off into the wild blue yonder he goes.
  • In Zettai Hero Project: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman, there are Metal Cacti, enemies that run away really fast, and require you to corner them to get any hits in.

    Shoot 'em Up 
  • Bloons Super Monkey 2 features Gold Bloons that appear at set points in most levels. They're fast, hard to hit, and can take a lot more punishment than the average Bloon. However, destroying one rewards you with valuable Gold Blops and a powerup that can transform your Super Monkey into a master of a certain class of weapon.
  • Brood Star has the Gold Mantis, an enemy which rarely spawns and has a lot of health. It doesn't stick around for long after it spawns, but if you can kill it before it leaves, it will drop a ton of coins.
  • Mad Shark (the Arcade Game by Allumer) has a green car that sometimes appears midway through Round 1, at a point where lots of other enemies are onscreen. Destroying it nets you 50000 points, but you can't even hit it until it starts speeding away.
  • Star Force has the mysterious picture of Cleopatra, hidden only in certain areas. Destroying it (which takes more than one shot) wins you one million points, but since the game is a Vertical Scrolling Shooter it could easily pass off screen first.

    Survival Horror 
  • Resident Evil:
    • Resident Evil 4:
      • Garradors drop a ton of cash upon their defeat. Upping the ante further, one Garrador that spawns in a cage actually guards a treasure chest with a very valuable piece of Shop Fodder in it, and predictably, it's pretty hard to get the item without killing the Garrador first. Garradors appear about four times in the entire game (one of which is a heavy Garrador). Unlike Regenerators, who also share the aforementioned traits, defeating Garradors (or even damaging them) is almost never absolutely necessary, to the point where running from them is easier than fighting them thanks to the Garradors' crippling blindness.
      • Novistadors. Earlier versions can turn completely invisible and have an attack that involves vomiting highly damaging acid on Leon's face, while the later version gain a pair of wings in lieu of being invisible but still retain the same acid attack and are a pain in the ass to shoot but thankfully are a One-Hit-Point Wonder when in flight. Their reward? They drop "eyes", which are precious gems that can be applied to another treasure you find which, if completed with all three different types of eyes, can be sold for an obscene amount of cash. The Gems themselves are also worth something too. They only appear in the bowels of the castle, and will completely disappear when you destroy their nest just a few scenes later, and the gem color is completely random, sometimes forcing you to either sell the item for greatly reduced cash, or wait until New Game Plus to get another shot at the ultra-rare Blue Eye.note 
      • The Dr. Salvadors. They are fairly uncommon, take alot of damage, can One-Hit Kill, and can be avoided most of the time, but taking one down nets you 10,000 pesetas.
    • The Executioner Majini in the first level of Resident Evil 5 takes many magazines of handgun ammo to kill, but drops a load of gold and one of the game's treasures, which you have to pick up to count towards the achievement.

    Third-Person Shooter 
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising:
    • The game has the Souflees, monsters that look like small cakes. They pop up at least once per level, and they're always hard to attack; they can appear far away so a precise shot is needed to hit them, they can pop up when you least expect it and run off just as quickly, and they're often in inconvenient locations overall (one late-game level has a Souflee in a hot spring; chase after the Souflee, and you'll most likely miss out on a well-needed heal). Manage to kill one, and it'll drop a ton of hearts, the game's currency. Killing enough of them also checks off some of the Treasure Hunt boxes.
    • The Treasurefish, which are similar to the Souflees, except they usually just drop power-ups or smaller bonuses, and aren't nearly as hard to kill as a result. Then there are the Gold Treasurefish, which randomly replace normal Treasurefish and move much faster, but will drop much more lavish rewards (including weapons) if you kill them.
  • Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare: The Treasure Yeti from PVZ2 is back with a vengeance, able to slow you down with freeze attacks and yeti imps in the small window of time you have to vanquish it. For your trouble, it drops coins every time you damage it, plus a hefty reward when killed. GW2 introduces the Plant's equivalent in the Marigold, which appears to actually be made of gems.
  • Warframe:
    • The Oxium Osprey, a rare enemy from the Corpus faction. They are the only reliable way to gather reasonable amounts of Oxium, a resource needed for crafting a number of Frames and weapons. They're also tougher to kill than other standard Osprey variants and have a bad habit of making kamikaze charges, granting no reward if they explode on contact with a player. These charges are announced by a unique sound, alerting the player to the Oxium Osprey's presence so they can dodge and follow up with a proper kill.
    • Another Corpus annoyance is the Crown Bearer, a tough and annoying mook that spawns once per mission. While he can't attack you, he takes considerable firepower to put down, runs away at surprising speed, turns invisible, and throws tether grenades to stick you to the floor. He also escapes via teleportation if you don't kill him within 90 seconds of his appearance. The reason to bother taking him down at all is because he drops Granum Crowns, a type of access token for the special Granum Void zone which is the only place where parts for certain weapons and frames are located.

    Turn-Based Strategy 
  • In Fire Emblem, enemy thieves almost always fill this role. Typically, they are found at an out-of-the-way location in the levels, are quite fast and evasive statistically — making it fairly difficult to kill them immediately, steals items from chests and sometimes your own units -- often necessitating killing them ASAP, and will almost never engage your army troops in combat. They are one of the least common enemies encountered, and players often have only a few turns at the most to dispatch them before they can escape. When slain, they typically drop very rare items, a healthy sum of gold, and has one of the highest base EXP of any non-boss unit.
  • Terra Battle has several types of these.
    • The appropriately named Metal enemies. They are only encountered in the Metal Zones, which are inaccessible other than certain times of the day. They give a lot of EXP, but tend to run away as soon as they get their turn. The normal types are easy enough to kill, but there are also "Runner" types, which are capable of moving during your turn to avoid being pincered. Fortunately they are susceptible to status effects and getting afflicted will make them stop running. Later zones include Metal Mirrors, which dodges most physical attacks, absorbs physical attacks, and counters with extremely hard-hitting attacks, but like the Runners certain ailments will disable them.
    • The Hunting Zone enemies. Unlike the Metal Zones, the Hunting Zones are always open, but they change the enemies inside depending on the day of the week. The enemies have large chance to drop common items and small chance of rare items. Puddings drop elemental items, Tin soldiers drop weapon items, Puppets drop species items, and Coin Creeps drop large amount of coins.
    • The game also feature Daily Quests, which can only be done once a day, and changes every day. They often features enemies that only appear within the quest. The rewards vary from rare items, EXP, Luck boost (a stat that is notoriously hard to boost), to Energy (the game's premium currency).
  • Mordheim: City of the Damned: Chaos Daemons will appear on any Brutal difficulty level when your warband is above level 6. They're extremely dangerous in close combat, durable, hostile to everyone they encounter... and give you a huge 5XP if you manage to kill it.
  • Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance has Lucky Boards, small bunnies carrying large boards. They can't attack, but they're prone to running away, and are immune to every attack that doesn't inflict enough damage to One-Hit Kill them. In return, they grant a lot of whatever is on their board, be it experience points, weapon mastery, HL or mana.
  • Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark has two types of such enemies.
    • Bandit Kawas spawn infrequently and will automatically escape from the battlefield if you donā€™t kill them within four turns. They also resist all elements and are immune to several debuffs that would prevent them from escaping. If you manage to bring one down, it will drop several uncommon weapons or crafting components.
    • Zotzits are beelike monsters with high evasion and a counter skill that effectively makes them immune to the last type of offensive action (i.e., spells, skills, or regular attacks) used against them. They also have a Suicide Attack in Final Sting, which does massive damage and denies you any reward for the Zotzitā€™s death. If you can kill a Zotzit before it kills itself, youā€™ll receive a large amount of AP.

    Tower Defense 
  • GemCraft:
    • Labyrinth has the Apparitions. These are uncommon shadows that fly over the terrain, deal no damage to you, are slow, have a ton of health, and will most likely escape if your damage isn't high enough. Killing one of these grants the player 3 free skill points should they beat the level after that.
    • Chasing Shadows ups the ante with Specters, hostile versions of the Apparition who will steal your most valuable gem on the field if you don't manage to destroy them quick, Demons, who have an ever-expanding arsenal of Interface Screws, and Spires, hulking monsters with absurd amounts of HP and a hard cap on their damage received per hit. At the higher difficulty levels, many will spawn during the level, netting huge Experience multipliers if you manage to finish the level.
  • Infinitode: Bonus enemies, who appear randomly, have a 98% resistance to everything and drop items when killed. Luckily they don't hurt the base if they get inside, so don't worry too much about them escaping.
  • Plants vs. Zombies:
    • The Yeti Zombie. He first appears the second time you play through the whole game in Story Mode, in level 4-10, and appears occasionally at random afterwards. He will try to run away after taking damage, but will drop three gems if you manage to kill him.
    • The second game has the Treasure Yeti, which is actually a robot. He appears in a random level of the game (which the game notifies you of) every few days. Early versions of the game used keys to access Mini Games, and the only way to get them without spending real money was as a random drop from killing a Treasure Yeti (around one-third of the time, if you were unlucky the Yeti would just drop coins). After the key mechanic was dropped in a later update, the Treasure Yeti simply dropped large sums of coins every time.
  • In Star Fox Guard, there is a random, rare chance of a golden version of Nabbot appearing and running through your base. It has tons of health, but every time the player shoots it, it drops precious metals, offering a chance to earn a large amount of it all at once, provided the player doesn't get distracted too long and fails the mission because of it.

    Wide Open Sandbox 
  • Assassin's Creed II and its sequel Brotherhood feature pickpockets and Borgia Messengers who run away from you if they see you; if you manage to catch them, you get a hefty chunk of money as well as some rare trade items. Part of their difficulty comes from (besides their rarity) the fact that you're supposed to catch not kill them. Sure, you can shoot pickpockets or messengers and loot the corpses, but killing a messenger will make your notoriety shoot up to at least 75%.
  • Before the final release, Minecraft Slimes only appeared in first twelve layers of the world, four of which are full of unbreakable stone, spawn incredibly rarely, could only appear in one tenth of all chunks, determined on the world being generated, and frequently jump into lava or suffocate by spawning in spaces too small. The bigger ones also do enough damage to kill you very quickly if you have no armor, and split in two every time they are hit. On the other hand, the biggest ones can split into up to 64 Tiny Slimes, which each drop up to two slimeballs. Slimeballs happen to be incredibly useful for making piston machines (almost all types of machines are much simpler with Sticky Pistons, which can retract blocks in addition to pushing them) and are used in making useful potions such as Fire Resistance.
  • Cavelings from Necesse are disguised as rocks until you approach them, and try to run away when approached or hurt. If you can kill one, they drop a large amount of the biome's rarest ore.
  • Saints Row:
    • Saints Row: The Third has Professor Genki, who can be found running around Steelport killing random people. He has tons of health but when defeated gives you tons of money and Respect.
    • In Saints Row IV he now has Telekinesis and Stomp, but he's not as rare as before and sometimes drops a lot of health pickups.
    • In Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell he wields the Ark of the Covenant, the Seven Deadly Weapon that occupies the slot in your radial menu where you'd equip an RPG. In fact, defeating Genki (who shows up when you max out notoriety) is the only way to acquire the Ark. He also has enough speed to easily get within melee range of you even if you are sprinting with all related perks unlocked.
  • The Gold Slimes in Slime Rancher. They rarely spawn and can't be kept at your ranch and farmed like normal slimes, as it runs away from you disappears once you get close. However, throw things at it and it will drop its plorts, which are the most valuable things in the game. They can give you upwards of 400 newbucks each on a good market day.
  • Terraria:
    • The Truffle Worm is a critter that can only be found in the Underground Glowing Mushroom biome, and not only it is hard to spot and catch, but it will also run away and burrow offscreen if it spots you. Also, you have to catch it with a bug net, which has a paltry range, and if you accidentally attack it or it runs into a monster, it will die. It is required to fight one of the last end-game bosses. And you'll have to catch at least six (if you're really lucky) to get all the drops from said boss.
    • Pinky is a bright pink slime that randomly spawns during the day. It has ten times the HP of the basic Green Slime (150 vs. 14), is smaller, suffers double from knockback (hit it with an axe and watch it fly), and it drops gold coins when killed. (To put that in perspective: 100 copper coins make one silver coin; 100 silver coins make one gold. Green slimes drop about 20-50 copper coins. Pinky drops the equivalent of 10,000 copper coins.) It also drops the extremely rare Slime Staff at a higher rate than any other slime, as well as the special Pink Gel, which can be used to craft bouncy items, Peace Candles, and Restoration Potions.
    • Golden critters are exceptionally rare critter variants that can be caught with a bug net. You can sell them for 10 gold, craft a Golden Delight with them which is a meal that gives a huge stat boost and is required for an achievement, use them as bait with 100% fishing power if it's a golden bug, or put it in a cage for bragging rights.
    • Rainbow Slimes only spawn in the Hallow during rain, and are extremely rare even then. They drop Rainbow Bricks, which a building material with a cool kaleidoscope appearance.
    • Nymphs spawn very rarely in the caverns. What's worse, they disguise themselves as peaceful Non Player Characters, waiting until you approach them to attack you, so that you're taken by surprise... which means, even if you have a Nymph nearby, you may miss her because it won't attack you until you get very close. Killing one gives an achievement and it's the only way to get the metal detector.
    • Mimics are another example; they spawn randomly and fairly rarely in Hardmode, and drop up to ten gold coins and one of several items. Just like Nymphs, they disguise themselves as normal chests, which means again that you may miss it because it won't attack you until you get very close.
    • Hallow, Corrupt, and Crimson mimics all spawn at an incredibly low rate in their respective underground biomes. You won't mistake them for a regular chest due to their unique appearance, however they are a full-on Mini-Boss with very dangerous attacks. Each drop one of a few pieces of unique loot.
    • Golden Slimes are an enemy that only appears in the special Celebrationmk10 seed, and only at an extremely low rate. They drop 15 Gold coins on death, the most of any enemy in the entire game aside from the Moon Lord.
  • The Goner Aran of X3: Terran Conflict is an extremely rare and completely unique capital ship found only in Unknown Sectors reached by the Unfocused Jumpdrive. It doesn't appear on the Enemy-Detecting Radar even if it does spawn (<1%), forcing visual scanning of the sector in question. If you do detect one, you must use your Boarding Party to attack it, and if the marines die (not improbable), that Aran appearance has been wasted and you may as well go home. However, if they do succeed, you gain control over the Aran, which is the only ship capable of docking other capital ships to itself, which is extremely useful for piracy salvage operations.
  • Mr Shakedown in Yakuza 0. He walks around carrying millions of yen, which is conveniently displayed above his head. His attacks can empty your life bar in one or two hits, but they're slow and telegraphed. If you lose against him, instead of a Game Over, he just takes all or most of your money (which is then added to the reward for beating him) and runs away.

    Tabletop Games 
  • According to Gary Gygax, a similar creature appeared in the original Castle Greyhawk campaign he ran (not the version later offered by TSR). He threw a golden golem encrusted with gems (worth a small fortune if the thing were ever killed) at the PCs, but made it fast enough to always outrun them when fleeing. Later editions added the similarly rare Living Stell and variants based on other metals.

Alternative Title(s): Elusive Extraordinary Enemy

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Amazy Dayzee

Amazy Dayzee is a shiny enemy that drops the largest amount of Star Points when beaten.

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