If the level design and Jump Physics don't kill you, the Demonic Spiders will.
- Banjo-Kazooie:
- Banjo-Tooie's Grunty Industries with its Tintop Drones, little mechanical buggers that shock you when they get close, and are invincible except for the single second they open their lids every so often. Made even worse by the fact that you can tell if you'll have to deal with them because their corresponding Mook Maker is hard to miss in the rooms, and while you can stop them by shooting out the camera that releases them, some of those cameras are so hard to find or even hit that it will often be better to just make a mad dash for the next door than to waste your Grenade Eggs trying to take them out. And they come in droves. Not groups, droves.
- In the first game, Sir Slush, the snowmen from Freezeezy Peak and the winter portion of Click Clock Wood. While they can't move, they really don't need to. They throw homing snowballs at you as long as you're within range, meaning you can't stop for a second, although they'll probably still hit you. They can only be killed with Kazooie's dive bombing attack, which not only works off the game's wonky flying controls but also has a really good chance of not only missing, but sending you crashing into the ground for huge damage. To get one Jiggy, you have to kill all of them in the level.
- Banjo-Tooie has the lava hands from the fire side of Hailfire Peaks. They pop out of fiery little crevasses in the walls, which doesn't sound so bad, but you'll unfortunately have to deal with lines of about three or four of them pretty often. They can only be conveniently killed by Grenade Eggs and Ice Eggs, but unfortunately, they don't spawn until you get very close to them, close enough that the former eggs will damage you with its explosion, but the safe line of their spawning is so thin they might hit you anyway. The only other option is just jumping over them, which some of the surrounding architecture thankfully allows you to do. Killing these things gets really tedious since the enemies in this game respawn after about ten seconds.
- Bonk, the first game, Crocket Dile. An aquatic enemy that's about as intimidating as is wretched with good reasons you'll see some players trying to avoid when possible. Just being near is a guarantee you'll either get hurt or have Bonk's head clasped within the enemy's jaws. The only safe way to bonk is from underneath with even that not being a guarantee of safety.
- Bug:
- Praying Mantises . Unlike most enemies that Bug could avoid or kill easily, these would go into a mad slashing frenzy with their claws as soon as they noticed him, making it nearly-impossible to Goomba Stomp (or jump over) them without taking damage. They also could take 5 hits from Bug, more than any other enemy at that point. The good news is that they're only encountered in the tail end of the final scene of Insectia, the bad news is that you'll have to face three of them on a linear path meaning that you are forced to encounter them one after another
. - The snails fought in Insectia aren't a problem, taking only three hits to die while being slow. The snails encountered on Splot while looking exactly the same are a much different story. They take 8-9 hits to die (the most of any mook in the entire game), are twice as fast, and if they spotted Bug they would whip a machine gun out of their shells and attack him at a mid-range distance. The fastest way to deal with them was to Goomba Springboard off them and hightail it out of there.
- Praying Mantises . Unlike most enemies that Bug could avoid or kill easily, these would go into a mad slashing frenzy with their claws as soon as they noticed him, making it nearly-impossible to Goomba Stomp (or jump over) them without taking damage. They also could take 5 hits from Bug, more than any other enemy at that point. The good news is that they're only encountered in the tail end of the final scene of Insectia, the bad news is that you'll have to face three of them on a linear path meaning that you are forced to encounter them one after another
- Those ants in Bugdom. What's so annoying about them? It's the way they come back as invincible ghosts when you kill them in later levels. Fake Difficulty meets Demonic Spiders, and they get along well enough to gouge huge chunks out of your sanity. About the only reliable way to deal with them is to get them to throw their spear, dodge, and then run like a scared little girl while they're retrieving it.
- Captain Comic I has the Killer Bees, found in The Cave, The Shed and The Castle. Like everything else in the game, they do two points of damage, but the way they move entirely in horizontal and vertical lines makes them extremely good at creeping up on you to attack from a place where you can't shoot them, usually either your knees when you're on a ledge, or from directly overhead. So effective are they at stinging the player to death that players getting paranoid and messing up jumps results in almost as many deaths as direct stings do. Perhaps their one mercy is that like all other enemies in this game, hurting you also destroys them.
- City Connection has that damn smiling, flag-waving Cat, who frequently shows up from nowhere and makes the player lose a life if it is run over. When it appears, chances are the player won't notice quickly enough or is landing from a jump and so can't dodge it. The Cat wants to be hit.
- Claw, being quite a hard game, has its own share of them:
- Bear Sailor isn't too tough nor does he have some impressive range, but woe is you if you step into this range. To clarify, if they're too close to Claw, they will strangle him. Damage over time created by this is half of his health. Half. It's relatively easy to get out of the grip, but they can repeat it just a second later.
- Red Tail Pirate isn't too much of a challenge in seventh level when he first appears, but then there are Shipyards and Tiger Islands where he parries pistol shots and sword attacks with near-perfect ratio and making fast counters against your attacks. On smaller ledges, you will get hit at least once.
- Peg Leg is fragile and more of an annoyance than a real threat in ninth level. Then, level later, he gets better. Now, his combo is two-shots, one high and one low, making it difficult to avoid if you don't pay enough attention. And given plenty of traps trying to kill you in the meantime, you are likely to lose your focus and get stun-locked into death. They also have invinsibility frames sometimes which can trick you into attacking them which will almost certainly cost you another 20 hit points.
- Nothing beats Tiger Guards though. Tough, agile, dealing ridiculous damage, immune to pistol and dynamite, often paired up with traps and Chameleons... Thankfully they appear only in the final level.
- Crescent Pale Mist has areas in certain places of each Chapter of the game teeming enemies waiting destroy Yunou almost impossible to avoid attacks that can potentially deal tons of damage in a matter of seconds, especially if there's a Boss in Mook Clothing among bunch.
- Distorted Travesty has the Shrouds, which start appearing halfway through the game. Agents of The Darkness that hunt down its enemies, they randomly appear in any level you visit, in some cases even following you from room to room. They always appear in pairs, have enormous amounts of health, their attacks are tough to dodge, their elemental weaknesses change depending on whether they are flying or walking, and their behavior is set up so that they support each other in combat. And if you happen to encounter them while in the midst of a Platform Hell sequence... well, there's always Rave Mode.
- The original Donkey Kong Country, to begin with a tough game in a tough series, features the walking nightmare that are Rock Krocs from "Stop and Go Station". They only appear in one stage and, unlike most other Kremling mooks, never reappear at any later point in the series, and with good reason: they're totally invinciblenote , extremely well-camouflaged, have glowing red eyes that glare at you in the darkness, and have a very distinct sound. You can temporarily stun them by turning the green lights red by hitting specific switches throughout the stage, but this never lasts longer than, say, five seconds, and the final stretch of the stage is crawling with them.
- Not quite as bad, but still damn difficult, are the Grey Krushas. They are basically stronger versions of the normal Blue Krusha. The only way to kill them is with a barrel, and if you miss you're screwed. Especially considering the nature of the level (it's the last actual level in the game). Unlike the Blue Krushas, Donkey Kong's hand slaps won't even yield a banana from them.
- And then there are the Brown Gnawties riding millstones. They are unkillable, even with TNT Barrels, they are large and hard to avoid, and in one level, they actively follow you.
- In Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest there are Klobbers, Kremling enemies that hide in barrels and spring out at you when you are near, not really doing damage but pushing you, often off of cliffs. These in themselves aren't that bad and fairly easy to kill, but they come in different colors. The green kind simply pushes. The yellow kind steals your bananas with each bounce, making him a greater annoyance. The black kind... He doesn't kill you, he just steals those extra lives you're not using at the moment. Not only that, but he tends to only spawn in areas with very low ceilings, and since the only way to stun him is to jump on him, in these situations the only fallback is RUN. Then there's the red kind that run around in TNT barrels...
- Drawn to Life:
- Shadow Goo Monsters. Particularly annoying in the second boss fight, where they keep spawning out of thin air, interrupting your jumps and whittling down your health meter as you try to attack the boss.
- The third world features underwater sections littered with shadow fish. These living fish skeletons chase after you the moment they see you, move quite fast, and tend to travel in small schools of about two or three, almost guaranteeing that you take damage from one of them. Also, your hero is not a good swimmer even with his swimming gear on, so you're likely to get your ass kicked in these levels if you don't hide behind seaweed.
- The Combat Tentacles in Ecco the Dolphin. The're large, bodiless tentacles that stick out of walls and grab you and refuse to let go for anything. You can escape with enough charging and fast swimming, but good luck keeping your breath from running out while you do it. And if you're in debug menu invincibility mode, your only choice may be to reset the game entirely or turn off unlimited life so you can die.
- Crabs, King Crabs, Trilobites... Anything that jumps out at you from off screen.
- The Vortex. Fine, they're easy to shoot out, but they take up to 3 hits — 1 to kill the body, 1 or to 2 to kill the head. Once the heads are on top of you, they quickly take away health at a speed that can only be described as eating you, killing you in maybe 2 seconds if not instantly. On a long fixed scrolling level, too.
- The infamous Red Arremers of Ghosts 'n Goblins fame. If you try to hit them straight, they just dodge your weapons and fly away where you can't even think of getting them, have an annoyingly precise projectile attack, and fall on top of you with VERY QUICK dashes, helped sometimes by the game's glitchy walls and platforms. They're the number one cause of putting people out of the game, and in later levels there's plenty of these red bastards; since attacking them randomly is a no-no, only a patient and precise player can overcome them. And guess who was Capcom's Final Boss Mascot Fighter in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, and made a comeback in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3?
- A Hat in Time has the Ice Statues in the Subcon Forest, and they're not to be trifled with. You don't come across them often, but whenever you do, get away from their vicinity as fast as possible, as these statues will spring to life and start chasing after you the moment you're anywhere near them. They move faster than Hat Kid's default running speed, and they're totally Nigh-Invulnerable, so they cannot be killed. They can easily chew away at Hat Kid's health in a matter of seconds, leading to some cheap deaths. Many new players are often caught off-guard by them because they see them as just seemingly harmless objects until it is too late.
- The Lazy Paw Gang Members encountered in Alpine Skyline and Time's End, who are invisible unless attacking you with only a faint outline of them being able to be seen while invisible, can't be hit while invisible, run as fast as Hat Kid and chase her on sight, automatically steal her hat and/or pons and knock her down once they get close, and once they have stolen something from her, they will start using a shove attack which has huge knockback if it connects, which, since they are usually encountered around ledges, can easily knock Hat Kid off the level to take off half her health (one hit from the shove, the other from the bottomless pit/lava).
- In Heart of Darkness, the shadow spiders are a perfect match. Your character usually fight them while climbing, limiting your movements; they drip poison on the handholds that can make you fall, and they evade any shot you can fire at them unless you let them come very close. Then you have a split-second to blast one before it'd eat you. The one end of a level where a literal swarm of shadow spiders is attacking you is, thankfully, just the game giving you the hint that you should flee, and fast.
- Hollow Knight has several kinds of enemies with explosive attacks that deal 2 damage. Their attacks are usually very fast and have some way of tracking your position.
- Soul Twisters frequently teleport around to either avoid or pursue you. And when they're not, they're still floating out of your range anyway. They're protected by an orbiting projectile and can fire a homing one when you're close, so taking on them is nearly guaranteed to be a damage race if you're out of MP for your own bullets. Even after opening all the shortcuts at Soul Sanctum, you'll still have to face one of them on your way to the Soul Master.
- The Giant Hoppers aren't particularly prepossessing — but they are big, fast, and relentless, and they have a ludicrous amount of Hit Points.
- Primal Aspids fly, dodge your attacks, follow you relentlessly throughout the room, frequently gang up on you, and are encountered most often in vertical rooms where you'll inadvertently climb straight up into their ambush. In a game focused on melee combat, they have a long-range spread-shot projectile that's just unpredictable enough that you can easily dodge into it.
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (SNES) has a couple enemies that are quite dangerous to Kevin. Usually, they have a One-Hit Kill method in their attacks.
- Vacuums, which move in a fixed pattern from left to right, will try to inhale Kevin if he gets too close to them. Depending on what platform you're playing, they're either nigh-invulnerable or completely invulnerable.
- The ambushing enemies in the Central Park appear from the bushes are not only invulnerable in some versions, but attack very quickly. They are especially dangerous in the NES version because they are the only enemies to deal two units of damage instead of one.
- Journey to Silius's third stage has a floating enemy one fan calls "Humpbot" which tends to hover around you causing repeated Collision Damage, and potentially screw up obstacle dodging. At least there aren't any Bottomless Pits in the stage it appears in. Then there's a Mini-Boss version in Stage 4 whose head comes off and attacks once you destroy its body.
- The closest thing to this trope that the Kirby series will give us is probably the Scarfy. At first it merely hovers around innocently — and with that adorable face, what harm could it possibly do? However, if you try to inhale it (like for any other common enemy) it will completely resist it and instead transform. Its face becomes horrifying and cyclopean, and instead of unassumingly flying in place it will psychotically charge straight for you, and even explode at the end of its attack. They aren't too hard to dispatch with exhaled items or Kirby's powers, but in the absence of either, they can be quite scary to confront. Played straight in Kirby's Epic Yarn, where they will charge at you regardless of whether you interact with them first.
- The Red Archer Fairies in Koumajou Densetsu II's Phantasm stage will make you tear your hair out. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways: They are very accurate with their arrows, those arrows hurt, and they can keep up quite the rate of fire. They appear in the most annoying places, and usually attack in concert with other enemies whose attacks you also want to avoid, they have this habit of jumping away if you want to kill them with your sword or with a subweapon, and worst of all, they are completely immune to Sakuya's time-stopping ability. Yeah. Have fun.
- LEGO Adaptation Game:
- LEGO Star Wars went from a light, enjoyable platformer to an exercise in precision controller-hurling over the course of the Dagobah level in The Empire Strikes Back, thanks to the incessant bats circling the swamp. Between LEGO Luke's spastic lightsaber "technique" and the bats' instinct for homing in on him, the simple act of crossing a swamp became something slightly more difficult than, say, defeating a Sith Lord in one-on-one combat.
- Dementors from LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. While they usually only appear in Year 3, they're infuriating while they appear. Their main attack drains health and has a long attack animation, and they appear in swarms. It's not uncommon to be attacked by three at a time, and after getting attacked by one, another one moves in until you die. They're only killed by one spell — and said spell has a long wait between attacks and is lengthy unless you jump and use it.
- Super Meat Boy is supposed to be Nintendo Hard. But one enemy in the game sticks in the mind of most players, first encountered in the level called Abbadon. It's known by some fans as Demon Maw, Munching Missile, or other names. The first part is that they come from a small black portal and make a Scare Chord-like noise when fired. The Demon Maws are pretty big (about the size of 3 Meat Boys standing next to each other), have homing capabilities, and a moderately tight turning radius. Their hitbox makes this part less threatening than you'd expect, but what really makes a Demon Maw a Demonic Spider is that once it hits something, it explodes and splits into 6 tiny Demon Maws, all flying in different directions. Due to its high flying speed, you'll probably be near it when it explodes, and thus have literally no room to maneuver between the mini-maws. Appropriately enough, this enemy is first seen in the fourth world, which is titled "Hell". And Hell isn't even the hardest world! Wait until you get to Rapture, The End, or *shudder* Cotton Alley... and don't get us started on the Dark World.
- Every single Mega Man (Classic) game had a type of bouncing, spring-like enemy that not only had a ton of HP, but also drained one-fourth of your life bar IN ONE HIT. The worst of of the bunch, however, must be Sniper Armor from Mega Man 2. Much like the other big mid-bosses in the game, it comes with a whopping 20 hit points. It is too large to jump, but itself can do long and low jumps that take 1/3rd of your health from collision damage! Once you take out the armor itself, there's still the regular Sniper Joe left to deal with which has another 10 HP. All in all, this tough as nails mid-boss comes with the same amount of health as a Robot Master. And to top it off, they're everywhere! Unlike other mid-bosses, you can encounter them in packs of two to three armors in the same corridor!
- The PS2 exclusive Monsters, Inc., based on the film, has one of the main enemies, the CDA, as this. They cannot be attacked in any way and will deliver a One-Hit Kill just by touching you. Your only option is to run away from them.
- N is Nintendo Hard, you're a One-Hit-Point Wonder, and have no defenses (other than running). To elaborate on is spiders:
- Zap Drones patrol mindlessly, unless you bump into one, in which case, they'll shock you and kill you. Those are Goddamned Bats. There's the tracking version, which will chase you down if it sees you, or if you happen to be beside, directly above, or directly below one. Those are Demonic Spiders.
- Laser Drones are like the Gauss Turrets (which are even worse), but can move (albeit slowly), and fire a laser beam which takes about half a second to charge, but actually lasts for a little while. A little while enough to screw you over.
- Chaingun Drones are blessed with a rapid-fire chaingun and will activate if it senses you (which is basically "if it isn't blocked by a solid object")and let loose a hail of bullets. Often, while fleeing one, you may activate another, which means you're screwed in tight spaces.
- Then there's the Homing Turret. It fires ninja-seeking missiles that turn somewhat fast and will become even worse when other enemies are nearby, like...
- The Gauss Turret. Oh god, the Gauss Turret. You see that crosshair? That's not where it hits, that's where the angle of fire is. The shots travel instantly. Which, most of the time, will be you. Did I mention that the closer you are to one, the faster they'll shoot?
- Nebulus has an enemy that resembles a giant floating clump of marbles. This enemy cannot be killed. Worse, it doesn't move around the tower — it moves across the screen on a tangent perpendicular to the tower. If it's coming at the player from the left, no matter how far around the tower the player goes it will still be approaching the player from the left.
- Fleeches in Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus. They move quickly and kill you in a handful of hits, and wake up when you tread on a Slurg without sneaking. To make it worse, up until then, you've mostly faced enemies who gave you time to plan and figure out what was going on — sligs that were sleeping, for example, or levels where the challenge wasn't to navigate it but to take out the Sligs and get the other Mudokons free in the process. The level that introduces the fleeches also repeatedly drops you into Slurg/Fleech nests with no warning or time to prepare.
- In Pac-Man World 2, when you're trekking through the snowy mountains, Rev-Roll Rams will charge into you, usally knocking onto slippery ice or into a bottomless pit. And even if you avoid their charge, they still have the tendency to travel a very far way. The only way to kill them is a two-step process- rev-rolling into them and butt-bounce on their head, which leaves the player open and takes time, and they love to recover before you can deliver the second attack on them. Nasty things.
- Archers in Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?. They have two attacks, depending on where you are in relation to them. If you're trying to jump over, they'll aim high and shoot a very hard-to-dodge wave attack. If you're at the same level or lower, they'll just duck and fire three arrows in rapid succession. It doesn't sound too bad...except the game loves to place them with or behind pits, obstacles, hordes of lesser Mooks, and in narrow alcoves where you can't jump over or stun them. And if you get too close, they'll jump far out of range and start firing away.
- To a lesser extent succubi, who's heart attack is homing. In most levels this isn't a problem because it's stopped by walls, but in wide open levels with plenty of Bottomless Pits like "Marona of Phantom Isle"...
- Prinny 2 has blonde succubi which teleport, become invincible and summon a horde of bats to chase you around the level. They're not too tough once you get used to timing your prinny dance and their teleportation patterns but they can and will attack you from offscreen, especially if you try to run away, in which case you need to be listening for their sound effect to know it's coming.
- Band Land's grasshoppers in the original Rayman. They're extremely good at predicting your moves, and will dodge and block most of your attacks, especially if your fist isn't fully upgraded. They also have a tendency to rush you and attack you repeatedly the instant you turn your back. And this is in the second world. The first game is known for its Difficulty Spike for a reason.
- The Robots in Origins. They are almost completely invincible save for being slapped into buzz saws or crushers, but they can recover if your timing is off. Their lightning attack has a ridiculous reach and lasts longer than your invincibility frames, usually forgoing your extra hit if you get caught.
- RosenkreuzStilette featured several gargoyle statues that had a lot of HP and could also take off one fourth of your life bar in one hit. Since this is a Mega Man clone, they behave the same way as the spring enemies mentioned in the Mega Man section above.
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: All of the slime-based enemies from Mud Bog Island. They hit hard, they take lots of abuse, they like to ambush you from the ground, ceiling, or by pouncing from off-screen, they come from every direction, they're quite difficult to avoid, there are lots of them, and they will chase and overwhelm you if you try to run past. According to Ray Narvaez Jr during his spot on Grumpcade, he finds the area swarming with them to be more difficult than the Final Boss.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- One of the first notable ones can be found in Hydrocity Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If you are unfortunate enough to be hit with a Mega Chopper, you are as good as dead. These suckers leech one ring a second, while disabling jumping and spinning, trapping you in that section of the level to die a slow and painful death. Fortunately for those playing as a Sonic/Tails duo, Tails can just bust them open... if he doesn't have one on him as well. (You can also just shake them off by moving back and forth rapidly, but the game gives no indication of this.)
- Orbinauts. The floating balls surrounded by spike balls. Three varieties come to mind. The two in the first game: The Orbinauts in Labyrinth Zone and Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 aren't particularly bad, because they shoot their spike balls forward, but their placement is occasionally awful where it's hard to dodge (especially underwater.) In Starlight Zone, they don't shoot the spikes, and while most are out of the way and easy to avoid, some are again placed in difficult places. These ones you have to hit at just the right angle to be able to destroy. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the Launch Base Zone Orbinauts are designed similar to the Starlight Zone ones and are everywhere (when not locked on anyway). A couple in particular can corner you in a tight space. Made slightly easier by Sonic's flash-shield extented attack if you get good at timing and aren't wearing another shield, but otherwise you learn to stay cautious.
- Most Artificial Chaos in the ARK levels of Sonic Adventure 2 tended to be this. The lasers they fired from their eyes would fire *just* as your homing attack was about to hit them, and if they were floating you would just bounce off, right into an attack, or to your death. Their practically instant arm extensions could hit you with near-pinpoint accuracy (and often ridiculous range if you were playing as Tails or Eggman). Cosmic Wall and Eternal Engine also had sections where you would fall down a long tunnel and be ambushed by a number of them, and you'll always get hurt at least once on the way down. The camera didn't help either, occasionally hiding one until it attacked
- To add to their difficulty, the points required for A ranks in the first and the 5th mission of Cosmic Wall and Eternal Engine demanded you get the highest combos you can, as well as kill a majority of enemies within the level. Skipping these were a bad idea, but also, if they managed to hit you after you were targeting — or even after you had fired, your lock would be reset or you wouldn't get the combo.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), not content with being a game of bad controls, bad cameras, Bottomless Pits and game mechanics that seem designed to exploit these flaws to the max, ups the ante for The End Of The World, the final story level rush. Strange spheres with more than a passing resemblance to Sauron pop up all over the place. The purple ones act as black holes, sucking you towards them and causing instant death if you make contact with them. The orange ones throw boxes at you, often with pinpoint accuracy, causing you to lose your rings and stop momentarily—making you easier prey for the purple ones. How demonic and spidery is this? See here (this video contains large amounts of swearing).
- Pay special attention to the sandtrap in Silver's section. You'll see.
- Dark Titans from Sonic Unleashed. These massive beasts are extremely strong, can attack with most any part of their bodies (including an almost unavoidable shockwave), have massive HP bars, and all their attacks not only send Sonic flying, but actually keep him stunned on the ground for several seconds (often setting him up for a shockwave move, which knocks you back again). Worst of all, they often appear with swarms of smaller enemies, in cramped quarters, or on guardless platforms just waiting to toss you into the void. The only good thing about them is that they often kill other enemies while trying to get you. The absolute worst solo encounter is in Empire City, as they fight you on the roofs of buildings. Very small roofs. Getting close means you're guaranteed to get pounded because there's no room to really maneuver. Staying back, on the other hand, will likely cause the Titan to send a shockwave at you, stun locking you and knocking you off the roof and killing you instantly. And no, activating unleashed mode won't save you — the shockwave won't damage you but it'll toss you off all the same. May Chip help you when the final showdown in Eggmanland pits you against two of them.
- Also immensely annoying to kill are Fire Masters, which are magician-type enemies that are, as their name implies, on fire. Trying to attack them will result in Sonic being set on fire and steadily losing health for about thirty seconds unless he can find some water to douse himself in. To attack them safely, you must hit them with barrels full of water. Also, the lock-on targeting system is kind of finicky and while there are a fair number of barrels, they are not infinite. Because Sonic will stop attacking as soon as he touches fire, it's impossible to use combos, forcing you to use repeated weak attacks, slowly chipping away their health.
- And then... Heal Masters; capable of gifting their allies copious amounts of their health back. A savvy player will know to target them first. The only problem is that they can also heal themselves, very quickly. Seeing one of these in a group of enemies is an automatic Oh, Crap! moment.
- Symbiotes in Spider-Man (2000). They take a ton of hits to kill and dish out a lot of damage, along with being able to jump around and fly up to the ceiling, along with hitting you from a distance with whip-like tentacles. The Web Trap and Web Ball moves are pretty much ineffective against them as well (though the former can at least stun them for a brief second.) Just one can give the player some serious trouble, and eventually the game expects the player to fight 2 or 3 at a time. The only saving grace is that the game will occasionally give the player Explosive Barrels and magnesium power-ups that cause Spidey's web to catch fire, and since Symbiotes are weak to fire, a single barrel or flaming Web Ball will One-Hit Kill them (though thanks to somewhat iffy controls, the Web Ball can be hard to pull off on command).
- Spyro the Dragon (1998): The High Caves level features Metalback Spiders (pictured above) lurking about the eponymous caves. Should Spyro set foot on their ground, the creeps will chase after him like heat-seeking missiles. Worse, they're both large and metal, so Spyro can't handle them normally. He has to either find a supercharge ramp to pick up the speed to ram them or or slip past them to find the fairies that grant him superflame so he can scorch their metal hides.
- The Attack Frogs in Misty Bog. They have a huge attack range thanks to their Overly-Long Tongue, making it damn near impossible to kill one without getting licked. Worst of all, there's a section in the level chock full of them. As to be expected, it's not too easy getting through it without spending some lives.
- Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!: The robot sharks in Aquaria Towers are a perfect example. Much like the Metalback Spiders before them, they are both large and made of metal, so you can neither charge them nor flame them while your head is above the surface of the water (as seen with the first group of robot sharks, which will swim up to the surface to eat you). Unlike the Metalback Spiders, they are much faster than Spyro (at least when he's in the water), even while he is charging. Also unlike the Metalback Spiders, who still only took one point of health away per attack, they will eat Spyro in one single bite, regardless of Sparx's presence. They were also hard-coded by the game developers so that once they notice you, it's impossible to escape from them. As a result, they are capable of following you even if you jump out of the water and onto dry land. The only way to destroy them is to activate the Superflame power-up for that level. Without it, any entrance into their territory will quickly result in death with no chance of escape. You can't activate the power-up initially, so you have to pay Moneybags 100 gems to borrow his submarine just to get past them. You can ignore them early on, but later you have to deal with them to get the treasures they're guarding. Thankfully, the Superflame has a long range attack distance, so once you have it, you can safely snipe at them without having to get near them.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The Hammer Brothers in the original Super Mario Bros. are, by far, the most dangerous mooks in the game, including the fake Bowsers, which throw hammers on World 6 and on, but at least their jumps are bigger and floatier than the Hammer Bros. They aren't that bad when you're Fire Mario or when they appear on a platform above you, but when you're small and they appear on the ground in front of you, or even worse, on stairs..., they're extremely tricky to get around, let alone actually kill, without taking a hit. They will throw hammers at random intervals, and jump, also at random intervals (giving you a split second to react and run under them, unless you've already committed to jumping over them in which case you're dead).
- The sub species of Hammer Bros. are not much better. Sledge Bros. can cause shockwaves to stun Mario while he's on the ground, as well as throw hammers, Ice Bros. can freeze you, Boomerang Bros. can hit you twice if you are not careful and Fire Bros. are the worst of the lot, capable of firing projectiles much faster and much further than their counterparts. Super Mario World, meanwhile, had the Amazing Flying Hammer Brothers taking their place, which threw hammers much faster than their ground-based counterparts, making jumping on them a high-risk maneuver, while the Sumo Brothers actually caused lightning and fire to rain down upon you, couldn't be jumped on and were immune to fireballs.
- Hammer Bros are especially problematic in the Super Mario Maker series, because unlike most enemies, they have no set pattern and telegraph their attacks very quickly. This makes them decidedly difficult to design levels around. With enough Hammer Bros onscreen, the game becomes a flat-out Luck-Based Mission dependent on how many of them decide not to throw their hammers, something that certain troll levels have been known to exploit. It was so bad that the sequel changed this, giving them a predictable pattern. They're still difficult, but no longer a matter of pure luck.
- Super Mario Bros. 3 has Boss Bass, a huge fish that would jump out of the water and swallow you whole for a One-Hit Kill, no matter what powerups you were using, and usually appears on levels where the water rises and falls. He could be killed (usually with a block; blocks that can be picked up and thrown often appear in the same levels), but would come back after only, say, ten seconds.
- The Ninja class enemies in Super Paper Mario (Ninjoe, Ninjohn, and Ninjerry). They have highly erratic movement patterns (which includes jumping), are quick, and can throw shurikens in any direction with next to no warning. And when you finally manage to land an attack on them? They love to disappear, leave behind bombs, and re-appear after the explosion. Unscathed. It is no exaggeration to say that the rooms in either Pit of 100 Trials containing these guys are harder than the rest of them combined.
- Super Paper Mario also has the Muth enemies. They have literally hundreds of HP (the variant found in the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials has 255!), have rather strong attacks, and are quite large, to the point where you need Luigi (who is conveniently not in your party when you encounter them outside of the Pit of 100 Trials) to jump over them. So flipping to just avoid them sounds good...except they can also flip to chase you and are the only enemy in the game that does not have the outline that denotes they can even do this. Fortunately, they don't appear very often throughout the game, only in two areas and the Pits of 100 Trials.
- From this hack of Super Mario World played by raocow, the Koopa Elites. The green ones jump, the red ones shoot fire, the blue ones throw their shells into the air at you and the yellow ones do all that and turn into super fast invincible shells. Then there's the Para versions, which DIVE BOMB Mario and charge all through the air while doing the above.
- The Lakitus from SMB 1 are worthy of mention. Not only are they Mook Makers, they tend to be very difficult to kill (they fly around quickly at the top of the screen, which means that fireballs are useless and only a very well-placed Goomba Stomp to the head can kill them)—and on some stages, flat-out impossible to kill, since the Malevolent Architecture won't allow for Mario to attain the necessary jump height to hit them. Oh, and they chase Mario throughout the stage. It should say something that Nintendo actually removed these guys from the enemy line-up for many games.
- Cheep-Cheeps, when they're swimming in the water, are merely annoying. But come SMB 1 World 2-3, you're in for a nasty shock, as they suddenly leap out from the bottomless abyss to attack you. With no warning and practically no time to predict their flight path. On a level where you're jumping from platform to platform while trying to dodge these flying fish. And if you happen to travel World 7, you get to enjoy World 7-3: a carbon copy of 2-3, only with Koopa Troopas and more of those dang flying Cheep-Cheeps. While leaping Cheep-Cheeps have returned here and there, they have been much less frequent and much easier to see coming.
- Even in water, their placement and wavy movements make avoiding them at certain choke points very difficult. Super Mario Maker takes them up a notch - you can place them in levels with lava or poison, and they become engulfed in it and aren't harmed. Normally you can stomp leaping Cheep-Cheeps, but now they're on fire! (Oh, and fire Cheep Cheeps become immune to fireballs as well, though the poison ones are still vulnerable.)
- Rip Van Fish in Super Mario World will gladly chase you everywhere and they get quite dangerous in groups or when met with other fish enemies. Torpedo Ted in Soda Lake caused it to become That One Level, even though Rip Van Fish wasn't around.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 has the Blue (Pink in the NES version) Panser. Most of the Enemies in Mario 2 haven't been very imposing. Not even the Red and Green-colored Pansers, who were nice and only stood in one place and shot fireballs at you. That is until you've run into these guys. Blue Pansers are not only able to shoot fireballs in an arc like their Red cousins, but they move as well, and they are very aggressive. These guys without a doubt are the most dangerous enemies in the game, and are sure to cost you a hit point or two if you are not careful. Needless to say, 5-3 is considered That One Level for a very good reason...
- Within the same game are the first appearance of Bob-Ombs. Unlike their later appearances where they move slowly and only explode when attacked, Bob-ombs move rather quickly and chase after you and they explode after a short time. Dodging them is difficult, and trying to grab one is a huge risk since they explode. They're even worse when uprooted, where they explode nearly as soon as they are plucked out. So naturally, the infamous 5-3 has swarms of them combined with the afformentioned Pansers.
- The Time Trax video game had, well, spiders that would lurk sinisterly in the foreground before pouncing on the playing field. There was no way to tell when they would, it was random, and they were hard to avoid or kill.
- The Nintendo Hard Wonder Boy (especially the arcade version) and its NES clone Adventure Island:
- The frogs, aka Kellos. Once you hit them once or get in range, they start jumping towards you and become very difficult to hit again before they kill you.
- The cobras in Adventure Island, unlike Wonderboy, shoot erratically-moving venom projectiles.
- Whalers (swordfish) tend to spawn while you're navigating tricky platform jumps, and come at you almost non-stop in the later ocean levels.
- In the later levels you had to fight through hordes of literal demonic spiders (eg 7-4), if you die and lose your axe beforehand and there is no replacement readily available after the Point of No Return, Continuing is Painful, and in fact the level may be Unwinnable without the axe.
