Originally published for G4@Syfygames on 3/18/2016
Every video game in history has that one minor enemy that consistently annoys us. Even modern games can’t escape from the obnoxiousness of the little guys. But why do they annoy us so much? Maybe it’s the enemy design. Maybe it’s their persistency to slap our screens with Game Over messages. Maybe they derive pleasure from taking our last sliver of health when we’re right at the end. Regardless of the reasons, we at G4@Syfygames go through the same eye-rolling motions you do. So, without further ado, here are the staff’s picks for most annoying minor enemies in video games. Who knows, you may get worked up just by looking at them!
Christian Vazquez — Rip Van Fish (Super Mario World)
I love the water. I love seafood. I love Super Mario World. I hate Rip Van Fish. These little pests are the bane of my existence. The water levels are supposed to be a (somewhat) soothing journey. The cool blue backgrounds and tranquil music can lull any player into a zen-like state. Even the Rip Van Fish themselves can’t help but snore away. However, the moment you pass by these critters, they will wake up and pursue you to the ends of the universe. To this day, I’ve never understood why. Are they angry that you woke them up? Are they wonderful morning people that just want to smooch you? Or are they looking to devour your soul and doom you into purgatory for eternity? Whatever their reasons are, these guys raise my sodium levels just looking at them, and the end of Donut Secret 1 is the ultimate reason why.
I remember cruising through Super Mario World‘s first water level with ease, thinking, “It couldn’t get easier than this.” I was wrong, very wrong. The above image is the end of the level, and if you can sneak past the Rip Van Fishies, good job. But Chargin’ “Troll” Chuck on the bottom right decides to blow his whistle to wake all five of them up. Instantly, a swarm of fish start gunning for you, and suddenly the end of the level becomes a race for your life. The moment you cross that goal tape, you truly breathe a sigh of relief. There are several annoying enemies in Super Mario World, but Rip Van Fish is the main course for my obnoxious plate.
Marcus Estrada — Crawling Shadows (Deadly Premonition)
2010’s Deadly Premonition was perhaps one of the weirdest titles on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 at the time, and I absolutely loved it. With that said, not everything about the experience was great. Key on the list of problems was the game’s combat, which felt ripped from a PlayStation 2 era title. To make matters worse, one enemy type in the game proved to be an absolute chore to take down: Crawling Shadows. Although they only appeared in one area of the game, they quickly became the most annoying enemy I’d ever faced.
You see, these characters with their traditional Japanese horror look (think Sadako from “The Ring”) start out invisible until you shoot them. Once shot, the player must time their bullets extremely carefully to hit them as they skitter across the ceiling. You can only fire off one or two shots at once, though, as if they get near they’ll grab York and lift him off the ground. So basically, the pattern is shoot two bullets, run back, and repeat until their obscene health levels finally deplete. Then, do this again ten more times because the game developers decided that Crawling Shadows were the only enemy needed for this entire area!
Jason Fanelli — Zubats (Pokémon Red)
So I’m playing the classic Pokémon Red and building my team, training tough and trying to be the very best like no one ever was. After a few trips to different cities and some intense Gym battle action, I come to my next obstacle course: the Rock Tunnel. I think, “Well, here come the Ground and Rock types, thank Arceus I’m the only person on Earth that chose Bulbasaur,” and I venture in. It’s dark, but this TM Flash will be the only item I need to get through. Or so I thought.
A few steps in the screen flashes and I’m greeted with a blue bat-looking fellow with small eyes and fangs. “Wild Zubat appeared” the screen reads, and I ready my man Sauron (because nicknaming Pokémon is the way to go) and start battling. I give him the old Vine Whip, but it’s not very effective on Flying types, so that’s cool. I tackle him but that’s not getting me anywhere. He hits with Supersonic and I start slapping myself around, which makes the blood pressure rise. I finally get out of there, heal up, and start on my journey again.
Not ten steps later the screen flashes again and another flying blue bat stands in my way. “Forget this,” I think to myself, “I’m running.” “Can’t escape” the game tells me, just before another Supersonic scrambles Bulbie’s brains. Another self-slap fight, another reach for the pressure meds. After conquering this nuisance, it only take four steps to run into another Zubat, and I turn the game off in disgust. When I return to my save just outside of this cursed hole in the ground I immediately backtrack to Cerulean City, purchase every Repel I can, and get through that damn tunnel before I run into another one of those infernal creatures. I still hate Zubat to this day.
Kevin Tucker — Malboro (Final Fantasy II)
I don’t think any list of ultra-annoying enemies in video games could be complete without Malboro, the hideously-ugly nuisance found across Final Fantasy titles reaching as far back as Final Fantasy II. More than just a physically-large enemy capable of absorbing a higher-than-average amount of damage — which, of course, slows the already-abysmal pace of grinding for experience down to an excruciating halt — it’s also an enemy that fully intends to leave its mark on the band of heroes even after the battle against it has been won.
All Final Fantasy players have been there. You’re roaming the wilds, slaying creatures left and right, collecting the experiential pittances of their demise, ruing the necessity of it all, when you’re sucked into battle with a Malboro. “Ugh,” you mutter with exhaustion, rapidly commanding your party to attack, hoping to put an end to the beast before it can make its inevitable strike. But, as always, you fail, and the Malboro’s Bad Breath sweeps across the screen, afflicting your party with blindness, silence, poison, confusion, and often several other status ailments.
If the effects only lasted for the duration of the battle, maybe Bad Breath wouldn’t be so frustrating. Unfortunately, many status effects in Final Fantasy games continue on for a set period after battle, and sometimes indefinitely if not cured. In a matter of just a few inopportune moments, the Malboro is able to transform your otherwise ordinary war against the local wildlife into a question of whether or not you care to squander a few potions curing your fighter of blindness — of whether or not you want to disregard an active handicap against you simply so that you might grind as effectively as you were just a few minutes before. Not satisfied with merely poisoning your characters, the Malboro’s efforts break through the fourth wall and become an attack on the gamer’s psyche, turning its digital threat into a kind of real-world, personal affliction.
Josh Barnes — Medusa Heads (Castlevania)
I feel like one of the most classic examples of a normal enemy that has caused gamers no end of grief over the decades is the Medusa Head. This insufferable nuisance has plagued Castlevania for as long as the series has been around, and it never ceases to bring despair whenever it floats by.
If you’re unfamiliar with these little devils, they float across the screen in a wave-like pattern, bobbing up and down in a way that makes them particularly annoying in platform-heavy segments — which is, of course, where they usually spawn. The only positive thing to come from the Medusa Heads is a very cool little Easter egg attached to their ability to petrify the player in Symphony of the Night, which would, on rare occasions, cause Alucard to become petrified as a badass looking demon rather than his typical human form.
Matt Ferguson — Invisible Rogues (Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin expansion)
When it comes down to it, I like to think I’m a fairly decent gamer. I’ve been playing video games for over two decades now, and have overcome every irritation from the original Wallmasters to Persona bosses that just don’t know when to go squish. It wasn’t until I started really getting into Dark Souls that I had to stop and ask myself if I should start referring to my gaming prowess in the past tense. Dark Souls on the whole is full of “minor” enemies that can set you back hours of progress if you’re not careful, but Dark Souls 2 is home to a particular annoyance that really grinds my whetstone.
In my most recent playthrough of Scholar of the First Sin, I decided to try the sorcerer, and really delve into the magic in the game. It got to the point where I wondered why everyone didn’t just play as a sorcerer, or at least a character with solid magic ability, until I hit the Shaded Woods. The foggy area in the Shaded Woods is home to invisible rogues, who blend seamlessly into the environment and cannot be targeted with lock-on. As a character that relies almost explicitly on targeting enemies to deal damage, I found myself in an endless loop of being back-stabbed by unseen baddies and firing blindly into the fog. Once I got it into my head that I would be able to push through this area with my current specs and a slightly altered strategy, the only thing that finally stopped me was my wife asking if she had to listen to my profanities for much longer.
It took multiple hours, a Soul Vessel, some old crones, and a serious respec before I was in any condition to tackle the area like I wanted to, but at least my redefined Spellsword was much better suited for dealing with the variety of enemies I’d yet to encounter.
Jessica Famularo — Banshees (Mass Effect 3)
I don’t do scary — my imagination takes things and then just totally runs away with it. I still get scared that the little girl from “The Ring” is going to crawl out of my TV, and I only saw like 30 minutes of that movie over 10 years ago.
I was not expecting scary in my Mass Effect 3, but it somehow manifested in one of the game’s most annoying enemies. Once I heard that shriek wandering through the Ardat-Yakshi monastery for the first time, I knew I wasn’t going to like what was to come. Not only are Banshees absolutely terrifying, they’re tough. They look slow, stumbling around, until you find out they can warp behind you and stab your eyes out in .2 seconds. Not to mention they’re intensely powerful biotics and can take a few hundred shots to the head before they finally drop.
I was so traumatized by Banshees that, when replaying the game, I turn the difficulty down to easy whenever I know a Banshee is about to show up (blood curdling scream – another fun Banshee trait) just so I can get rid of it as quickly as possible. Annoying is one thing, but annoying and terrifying? No thank you. Life is too short for that nonsense.
Kami Fortner — Raaks (Borderlands)
In the Borderlands series, developer Gearbox whisked players away to an exciting new world. The planet Pandora has many gorgeous sights and diverse biomes with some interesting natural fauna who – unfortunately – all want to kill you.
Even the birds are no exception. Throughout the game, players will encounter small flocks of flying creatures called rakks, who will swoop in and attack the player when they see you fighting other enemies on the ground below. Rakks are lightning fast, and often strike when you’re already in the midst of a firefight, causing extra damage to your character. They distract players from their main target and cause chaos on the battlefield.
Even more annoying than these traditional encounters are the random spawns of Badass Rakks, which are exactly what they sound like. The title of “Badass” isn’t just thrown around in Borderlands; these enemies also cause fire, shock, or corrosive damage to your character. Instead of getting right in the player-character’s face like their less-menacing counterparts, these rakks attack from a distance with elemental projectiles and can dodge your bullets in the air. At their best, rakks are extremely annoying and at their worst, they are downright deadly.
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