The Divide: Enemies Within is a 1996 3-D Metroidvania-style action game made by Radical Entertainment and Viacom, directed by long-time Metroid Ian Verchere who in fact wants to make "his own version of Metroid" since the PlayStation could never get the rights to the Metroid series due to it being a Nintendo property.
Lifted backstory aside, instead of a bounty hunter, you play as a space explorer; finding an uncharted planet where a probe was lost after launch, you beam down on an ice-covered alien world in your mech-suit to perform a routine sweep of alien life, only to be ambushed by an alien monster and disabled. Covered in the snow and somehow still alive, you remain frozen in suspended animation on the planet's long winter, until the next spring thaws you out.
Awakening in an alien jungle, you realize you're alone on a planet full of hostile extraterrestrial monsters. And must repair your mecha and escape.
The Divide: Enemies Within contain examples of:
- Airborne Mooks: The Kimph, flying insectoid alien monsters that repeatedly zips around you from above. They can get really annoying in areas with platforming elements.
- Arm Cannon: Your walker have blaster cannons in place for arms, serving as your primary defenses against hordes and hordes of alien creatures.
- Blue Means Cold: The frost cavern stage is blue, everywhere. Including the floors and platforms. And most of the enemies infesting the stage.
- Boss Tease: The Creature, an unidentified gigantic alien beast, is introduced right in the opening cutscene, where it ingests the dropped alien probe (which killed another one of its kind), resulting in the machine assimilating it. Your backstory has you being ambushed by that very creature who then leaves you to die before the first level, and it returns as the boss of the second-to-last world.
- Chicken Walker: You spend the entire game piloting one trudging across a hostile, monster-filled planet as you explore the area and attempt finding a way out.
- Creepy Centipedes: The second boss of the jungle area is a massive centipede monster that sticks out the ground while attacking you with it's mandibles.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Nothing on the planet is on your side. If it moves and it's not a platform, it's an enemy not on your side. Heck, even most of the platforms will hurt you by collapsing under your feet!
- The Faceless: Your true face in-game is never revealed at any point; you're already in a face-obscuring full-body spacesuit in the opening cinematics, and spend the entire game piloting your mecha.
- Falling Damage: Dropping from a great height will cause damage to your mech, with an audible fizzing noise when you land which takes off points from your health.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Flame Laser upgrade, which functions like a normal flamethrower despite it's name.
- Forced Tutorial: The first stage, which eases you into controlling your mecha and teaches you to switch between using weapons. You're fully armed and spend the whole level (all 30 seconds of it) shooting at harmless crates and boxes, since it takes place before your accident.
- Foul Flower: The jungle stage has alien shrubs which can expel red pollen that damages your robot. And it ends with a boss battle against a gigantic alien plant, Papilon, who drops green spores capable of exploding all over the place.
- Gatling Good: The Gatling Cannon, which turns both your gun-arms into automated Gatling machine-guns.
- The Goomba: The Skrits, gigantic Waddling Heads on spider-legs with a weak organic turret who fires slow-moving projectiles. They're all over the early levels (the first stage contains three of them) and not too difficult to blow apart.
- The Ground Is Lava: In the aptly-named Floating City, the ground is coated with acid up to your mech's knees. While you don't die instantly, you still sustain damage for stepping on the floor and must jump to higher platforms quickly.
- The Great Serpent: The alien world has two gigantic serpentine monsters; a blue giant snake-creature in the frost caves, and a green version later on that periodically sticks out from a wall full of holes to ambush you.
- Human Popsicle: This fate befalls you in the backstory. You then thaw out and awaken after several decades, and realize you're on your own.
- Lethal Lava Land: Lava Rift is set inside an active volcano. You'll need to jump on platforms, and falling into lava will hurt you badly.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: The game has you piloting a bright orange mecha fighting assorted alien monsters in a variety of environments, from jungles to desert ruins and icy caverns and abandoned factories, with quite a lot of enemy types to shoot at. The cover art depicting a green beam of light against a pitch-black background doesn't really convey any of that to the players.
- No-Gear Level: Your start the game in a barely functioning mecha, save for your basic cannons, where the first stage has you literally dragging your machine across the monster-infested world. Thankfully, the first area contains only three Skrits (the lowest-ranked variety of enemy) and you obtain repairs for your robot's leg joints shortly afterwards, allowing you to at least walk normally. You then gain better equipment in proper later on.
- Obstructive Foreground: Very frequently, your line of sight will be blocked by pillars, walls, other platforms, and the like. And that is very prone to happen in areas with tons of platforming elements.
- Overheating: Your firearms are prone to suffering from this (with the game throwing an onscreen alert — "Warning: Overheating - Recover Cooling Unit"). You'll need to activate your cooling units, lest your guns begin jamming in the middle of fighting hostile alien monsters.
- Platform Hell: As the game goes on, the later levels can get really insane with the amount of areas loaded with hovering platforms, to the point that you can spend minutes jumping around just to get to the next area. Miss a jump, and if you survive, get ready to restart from the nearest drop-point. The fact that a lot of these are Temporary Platforms doesn't help either.
- Ragnarök Proofing: The last stage is set in a long-abandoned space outpost, but somehow the outpost's robot security, despite being covered in rust and moss, is still functioning. And attacks you on sight, leading to a level full of Mecha-Mooks.
- Respawning Enemies: Save for bosses, areas will regenerate enemies every time you leave and re-enter.
- Spike Shooter:
- The first boss, Moropus, is an alien monster "ogre" humanoid with long spikes in place of arms, which it can shoot at you as its sole ranged attack.
- Ice Cavern has a multi-limbed monster, GianWhu, who can shoot icicles.
- Stationary Boss: Papilon and GianWhu are both bosses tethered to the ground of their respective arenas, but they're still a threat despite being unable to move thanks to having a wide array of projectile attacks.
