Top 5 Most Unforgivable Video Game Enemies

Posted by Gary Hodges at 4:39 PM Apr 12, 2008

Well, I've read yet another "BEST VIDEO GAME BOSSES EVAR!!!" list. Hooray.

I'm not even going to bother linking it, since you've seen it all before. Maybe not that specific list, but come on, they’re all the same. Bowser. Ganon. Ridley. Dr. Wily. Sephiroth… Jesus Christ, wake me when it’s over. Hey, I loved all those badasses too, but seriously guys: Covered Territory.

The ironic¹ thing about all those legendary video game bosses is that they usually weren’t the game’s fiercest, most dreaded adversary. They were CEOs of evil; softbodied industrialists with a mission statement about a reign of terror, surrounded by the really scary motherfuckers who actually made it happen.

No, in those games it wasn’t the head honcho you feared… instead, it was some innocuous denizen working some humdrum corner of the game, just waiting for you to step into the invisible octagon he’d marked out in his mind’s eye. He wasn’t a boss; indeed many didn’t even have a name. But every time you saw this foe, your heart sank and you let out a groan because you knew no matter how righteous your gaming kung fu was, he was sure to hand you your ass 6 times out of 10.

This one goes out to those guys, the dirtiest-playing (and in one case, just plain dirty) sonsabitches from my youth, my Top 5 Most Unforgivable Video Game Enemies, ever.

#5

Reaper & Reapettes
(Kid Icarus)

I remember buying Kid Icarus at a Thrifty with paper route money back when it came out (20 years ago now, which is depressing to think about), and have hazy memories of playing through the entire game and mostly enjoying it. Replaying it recently on the Wii’s Virtual Console, though, I was infuriated and humbled.

This game is fucking hard. Did Nintendo make a less forgiving game in the NES years? I consider myself a decent gamer – not great, but far from mediocre – but Kid Icarus sent me scrambling for the “Back To Wii Menu” prompt before I even cleared the second board. I doubt I could play through the whole game today, unless I shaved my fucking head and devoted my life to learning its mysteries.

Thanks a fucking lot, Nintendo. That makes your Virtual Console guilty of, by my tally, at least 13 counts of nostalgiacide so far. We’ll get to that list another day.

Back on track: while most of the game’s difficulty is environmental (slipping off something and falling, missing a jump and falling, getting bumped by an enemy AND FALLING), a few enemies in the game are pains in the ass. The worst of them, the one I loathe the most, is the Reaper and his crew of Reapettes.

This shitheel just slowly paces a platform, looking harmless enough (well, as harmless as a shroud-wearing, sickle-carrying skull-faced dude can look) until he catches sight of you – at which point he flips out, charges you in the blink of an eye and summons his little underlings, the Reapettes.

Now normally I don’t even survive long enough to see the Reapettes, because the Reaper’s initial charge usually bumps me off the platform I’m on and I fall to my death. But even when I do elude his hysterics, the Reapettes just fucking swarm, harassing poor Pit into either falling or succumbing to their Lilliputian scythes… all to the enraging, mocking tune that only plays when the Reapettes are swarming.

I’ll be honest: when I’ve alerted a Reaper and that tune begins, I just jump off a cliff in the game and kill myself, denying those bastards the fucking pleasure.

#4

Heavy Object Throwing Soldier
(Bionic Commando)

First of all: how great is that fucking name? That's straight from the manual, by the way. Heavy Object Throwing Soldier.

In Bionic Commando, you can’t jump – I don’t know why, you’re too heavy or something – so instead you have to rely on a bionic arm that has a grappling hook in it, swinging yourself around. (As you may or may not know, the presence of a grappling hook in a game automatically adds 2 points to its review score², which is why Bionic Commando is typically given a 12 out of 10.)

Normally not being able to jump isn’t a big deal – in fact, swinging around is faster and a lot more fun. But then you meet Heavy Object Throwing Soldier (HOTS! from here on out), who has figured out a cunningly simple way to fuck up your action: stand at the end of a long hallway and roll Heavy Objects^tm at you, you but-I-can’t-jump-over-that-shit! scrub. Better yet, HOTS! does it on a tall tower, so not only can he bump you all over the place with his Heavy Objects^tm, he can sometimes knock you right off a 13-story ledge. Pwned, bionic boy.

What a workers’ comp nightmare, having a Heavy Object Throwing Soldier on the payroll. The guy doesn’t even have a lifting belt.

#3

Bald Bull
(Punch-Out!!)

I’ve never – not even in my gaming prime (age 14, YMMV) – been able to beat Bald Bull consistently. NEVER. Why?

That fucking Bull Charge.

You remember: just once you’re getting the upper hand on Bull, he backs off, slightly bounces up and down on his heels like a cat ready to pounce, and then charges forward with an uppercut that could split atoms, sending you reeling to the canvas no matter your health bar. You can block it, but all he’ll do is immediately back off and try again, doing it forever and ever until one of these three things happens:

1) He knocks you out.
2) You manage to catch him with a perfectly timed punch in the middle of his charge.
3) You whip your controller by the cord like a flail into the pool deck, shattering it into a thousand tiny fragments.

I could never, NEVER do #2 at will. NEVER. All I’ve ever done is trust in the Force and press a punch button during the charge when Obi-Wan tells me. Never worked that well, and now that I’ve seen Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, I know why:

Because Obi-Wan is a fucking liar. He lies.

Besides, look how this guy stands over you when you’ve been knocked out, with a laugh like a honking goose:

What an asshole.

#2

Red Aremer
(Ghosts N' Goblins)

You can’t make a list like this without Red Aremer, the most well-known and infamous of the stupidly hard random enemies. And he’s perfectly qualified, because he’s arguably the deadliest enemy in Ghosts N’ Goblins (which is brutal any way you slice it), yet appears barely halfway through the FIRST LEVEL.

LIKE 30 SECONDS IN.

And that’s as far as many ever got in GnG, “like 30 seconds”, before Red Aremer corrected them. And when I say corrected, I mean it in the way Jack Nicholson meant to correct his family in The Shining.

Initially, Red just sits in the lotus position in the grass waiting for you to come to him, like some perfect warrior from the deepest, most cruel crag in Hell. Sometimes he’ll even let you have the first shot before budging.

But then it’s on.

His movements are a blur, his techniques erratic, and before you know it he’s not just ripped the armor from your body, but stripped your bones clean of their juicy, delicious flesh.

Then, presumably, he goes back to sitting, contemplating the blades of grass and patiently waiting for the next hero who dares approach him.

#1
THE WORST OF THEM ALL

ALIEN SHOPKEEPER
(Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road)

To kill a body, that’s easy. The most evil among us, they kill souls. And Alien Shopkeeper was the master of such vileness.

The pain… the pain is still too deep. Let me tell the story in pictures.

Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road. Merely average game, but any game where you march along blasting mutants and tossing grenades is alright. In the very first level, a "SHOP" appears.

The shopkeeper, a strange alien, greets me. I go to buy a... um, what is...?

...what?

WAT

Uncircumcised alien penis, exposed. Displayed. Brandished.

There was no denying it, though I tried. Then – no doubt seeing the horror and revulsion on my face - he sheathed his weapon.

Business as usual, the shopkeeper went about his duties as if nothing had ever happened. But I remember. I’ll always remember, you bastard.

I hear you all clicking your tongues, blaming the victim. “Oh Gary! Alien Shopkeeper would never do such a thing, you must have misremembered it.” OH DID I? DOES VIDEO LIE??? (2:33 in, NSFW)

Alien Shopkeeper, you are the worst of them all, and you didn’t even fire a shot. I can’t write anymore, I need to go have a good cry.

FIN

Footnotes

¹ “Ironic” maybe, I dunno. After Alanis Morissette’s public humiliation over misusing the word, I’ve always been a little scared to describe anything as “ironic”.

² This is one of the bylaws in the Game Reviewer Union, of which I am a paying member.