Examples of enemies that manage to be challenging without having tons of health...?

[Zhukov]

[sub](Awkward thread title ahoy!)[/sub]

Are there any?

Just curious.

It's something that's always bothered me in games, even if just a little. I mean sure, it works sometimes, for example I never had a problem with Bioshock's Big Daddies being able to shrug off bombs, bullet and bludgeons like so many hailstones. In general however, relying on bullet sponges to provide challenge just strikes me as lazy design, especially in realistic-ish games where you end up being confronted with an ostensibly normal person who can somehow take thirty rounds to the chest and not give a shit.

 

[endtherapture]

Best boss I've fought recently was Mr Freeze in Arkham City.

He didn't have loads of hit points, but once you used an attack on him, you couldn't use that attack again as he would adapt and change the environment so you couldn't use the attack anymore.

Best boss design I've seen for ages. It was easy, but it was tense, and required planning and was a step in the right direction.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Well there are the Steelheads in Resistance: Fall of Man who have a weapon (Auger) that can shoot through walls. That makes fighting them and running away from them more difficult and a lot more annoying.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Most of the enemies in Dark Souls/Demon's Souls don't have that much health (There are exceptions, those annoying ass lava worms in Demon's Souls) but on the flip side even weaker ones can do a rather large amount of damage to you if you aren't careful.

 

[Skin]

Capra Demon from Dark Souls. He is not hard by himself per se, but the fight is in cramped quarters and there are 2 1 shottable enemies that cockblock and poison you.

 

[Brawndo]

I despise any type of scaling difficulty that only boosts the HP of the enemies instead of making them smarter. One of the worst offenders I can recall playing was Freedom Fighters. On the highest difficulties, the average Soviet grunt took an entire magazine from an AK-47 to put down, while on the lowest it was 3-4 shots.

 

[Tay051173096]

Anything that gets the drop on you in the stalker games...

Other armoured cores in the arena challenges.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Being a console character for about 70% or more of my gaming life, I was really impressed by Deus Ex: Human Revolution and their...well, the enemy characters in general. Not the bosses but the random NPCs between you and where you need to be. If you knock someone out with a stun dart their buddies will find them and could very well find your ass too. By contrast, enemy NPCs in Skyrim can be stealth-killed via face-stabbing or, mace bludgeoning...with their buddies within earshot. Then once you leave the room they barely acknowledge the corpse except perhaps for a single "you will be avenged" line.

I remember the enemy NPCs in the Hitman games being kind of like that too...they see a body and they start to get a bit suspicious of the new bald janitor they never noticed before that day.

 

[Roofstone]

Hmm, assassin/ninja in half life was rather challenging. You barely got a glimpse of them before they had shot you and once again hid around a corner. /flails

 

[TheKaduflyerSystem]

Metro 2033 had a system where if you turned up the difficulty, everything would do more damage, including you!
failing that, aliens in AvP 2000, jumpy buggers...

 

[Aarquus]

Creepers. Cos, well, they're Creepers. Tssssssss.....

 

[joe-h2o]

Elites on Legendary Difficulty in Halo - they're not much tougher than you (the red ones are exact duplicates of you in terms of shield power and health, for example) but the fact that they play like you do makes them tricky opponents if there's more than one of them.

They retreat when their shields go down, they can be patient if they know where you are and won't blindly come after you and walk into an ambush, although they will press in on you if they think they have the advantage, and they are excellent shots.

They'll also occasionally switch it up and rush in to melee you.


They were awesome in the first game, and then they had to go and ruin the enemy experience in Halo 2 (among many other flaws) by putting in "cheese" bosses like that one you face in the floating mining base thing as the Arbiter.

 

[Xangi]

Any boss in MHP3rd. They kinda nerfed the HP by quite a lot, so it's pretty easy by MH standards. Which is roughly on the same level as the hardest difficulty of any other game.

Now don't get me wrong, they do still have a lot of HP, but that isn't what makes them hard. The fact that they can combo kill you in less than 10 seconds if you don't know what you're doing is what makes them hard. If you have a PSP, and can read Japanese, I'd look into it. There are also ways of translating it, but... well, mod wrath and all that.

 

[loa]

The hammer bros in super mario anyone?
Or medusa heads on castlevania? Damn those medusa heads....

Or ornstein & smough in dark souls which are almost impossible to beat solo and pretty much end your game if you don't/can't play it online but don't have that much health at all.

 

[Dandark]

STALKER mutants. Especially Bloodsuckers.
They didn't have that much health but besides the fact that the gun your carrying may be a wel disguised piece of crap, they also camoflauged into their surroundings and would constantly try to come up behind you.

They were probably best in CoP where they had pretty good AI and a pack of them would surround you, one would distract while another moved in from behind.

 

[rissr]

Hmm, assassin/ninja in half life was rather challenging. You barely got a glimpse of them before they had shot you and once again hid around a corner. /flails

Hmm, assassin/ninja in half life was rather challenging. You barely got a glimpse of them before they had shot you and once again hid around a corner. /flails

i remember i had to quicksave after I killed one of them

 

[Section Crow]

well the bed of chaos was an absolute ***** for a boss and he mostly dies in one hit

and the armored core guys who dodge and fire flares every millisecond

 

[estoria-etnia]

Usually, the bonus bosses in Tales games ? and even the regular bosses can be this. They tend to have a lot of health, but they've also got access to a whole bunch of skills that can wreak havoc with your party. Nebilim stands out to me since she has access to almost EVERY Mystic Arte in the game (including one exclusive to her) and she causes a boat load of damage with them or any of her other artes. It just gets worse when you try to face the bosses on a higher difficulty... if you're not leveled properly and don't have the right equipment, you are screwed.