That One (Annoying) Enemy

[Something Amyss]

I've been playing Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, and the teleporting snipers have been a pain in my neck. Not so much the hardest enemy in the game, but like buzzing gnats I don't want to deal with. Which got me thinking that Saints Row has had a few of those in their games. Most recently, I was annoyed by the rolling alien tanks of IV more than anything else the game could deal up. It's not so much that it's hard, just time wasting. I could be super stomping things, but instead I'm strafing for weak points. 3's was the teleporting Deckers with the shock hammers.

And it's definitely not just that one series. Sometimes, it's a tactic, sometimes it's numbers, sometimes it's the AI itself.

What I'm curious about is what comes to mind in this case. It doesn't have to be the biggest, toughest enemy in a game, though if they're annoying, it can be (When I played a lot of fighting games, bosses in SP often fell into both categories). They can be fairly easy (Most Dynasty/Samurai Warriors games feature weak archers that are easily dispatched, but can be annoying anyway) or soul-crushingly hard. What they should have, is an annoyance factor.

Oh, and Phanto in Super Mario 2. Just because almost nobody else in the game behaved like Phanto.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Drowners in The Witcher 3. They are everywhere, they are easy to dispatch and they just break your flow when you just want to traverse the area and not get into tedious fights every 5 meters.

 

[Loonyyy]

Bloodsuckers in Call of Pripyat. They're invisible, and can take around a full mag to kill, but it's hard to tell if you're landing shots. They do a ton of damage at close range, and leave you bleeding, and after a while, they start spawning in the open. Always a tough, nuisance fight. In CoP, you can survive pretty much anything if you use your resources after a point, but I never feel like I get any better at taking them down. It's just luck if I find their attack vector and get a mag in before they hit me, or get them with a grenade. Since they drop nothing, killing them is worthless, so you lose no matter what.

The Chimera's in that game are pretty horrendous too. Plus, after you complete a quest for killing one, they start spawning, and they're a fucking nightmare to kill.

 

[Comic Sans]

Cliff racers. There, thread over. Nothing is more obnoxious.

 

[ffs-dontcare]

The most annoying enemies in The Witcher 3 are those damn archers. It's even more aggravating when you're fighting an unusually LARGE group of bandits. It's why I've learned straight away to go for the archers first because if I don't, they're going to be pissing me off for the duration of the battle.

 

[Casual Shinji]

- The little hover bots from inFAMOUS that chuck bombs at you. Their flight patterns are erratic as fuck, making your more stronger and slower attacks extremely hard to hit, and they can take a disproportionate amount of damage.

- The Novistadors from Resident Evil 4. The first time you encounter them in the sewer is actually great, but as soon as they start flying around in later parts of the game they become a nightmare. The real problem is that they initially start out as bruisers similar to Hunters and Lickers, but once they start buzzing around they become a combination of bruiser/annoyance enemy.

- Stalkers from The Last of Us. Halfway between a normal Runner and a Clicker these things are nearly impossible to sneak up on. And unlike Runners and Clickers, once they catch sight of you they won't simply come at you, they'll just start running around randomly for the longest time (making them a hard target) and then suddenly make a beeline for you. And when they grab you it takes a good 5 seconds of mashing to get them the fuck off. They're only used in two areas of the game, but they're notorious because of them.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Taken captains from destiny.

It has an elemental shield, so if you don't have the right element weapon equiped it takes longer to kill , and he throws a large dark ball of doom, that when it hits you not only does it take half your shield away, but makes your entire screen go dark for a couple of seconds. Do not get hit by that.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Choosing the first one on top of the pile, probably the one which is actual buzzing gnats despite being from a game that no longer exists: the Devouring Earth Swarms in the late City of Heroes. Little clouds of buzzing bugs that are difficult to see or count, they don't do much damage. They just inflict a very stackable slowing effect (as in 30+ making it so you take about 20 seconds to perform an action) while being extremely agile, dodging over half the attacks you throw at them. You can't escape them by super jumping, flying, or even teleporting. They will chase you.

Alone, the danger is just dying from aggravation. Together with other Devouring Earth, you will want to kill them first despite their evasion. At least they have crap health. Unfortunately, some of the DE in Taskforces and the like could summon them...

 

[RJ 17]

The Collectors as multiplayer enemies in ME3's multiplayer.

Oh I remember the days when I used to say to my friends "You know what would be sweet? If they added the Collectors as enemies to fight!" Well, as the saying goes: be careful what you wish for...

Seriously, everything about these guys is a complete pain in the ass. And it all stems from the "possession" mechanic. At random, any given enemy can just suddenly decide it wants to go into Fuck You mode and get possessed. This makes their attacks much more powerful as well as gives them bonus defenses. For crying out loud, their husks - which already blow up upon death for a decent chunk of damage against you - get possessed and go nuclear when they die, killing you instantly unless you're one of the giant tank classes/characters.

There's the Seeker Swarms which are surprisingly hardy and just blow up in your face, locking your abilities for a few moments. There's the Praetorians with their lazer eyes of death and shields-o-cheese, and the Scions lobbing cluster bombs at you every three seconds.

Even on Silver these fuckers will likely wipe your squad out before the end of the match. On Gold you might as well just quit. And on Platinum they get reinforcements from the super units of the other enemy forces.

So yeah...fuck the Collectors and fuck me for asking for them!

 

[Kingjackl]

Any sniping enemy in any Souls game, honourable mention going to the two greatbow fuckers in Anor Londo in DS1. Y'all who played it know the ones. Greatbow fuckers might as well be their official name.

The machine gun splicers in Bioshock 1 I remember as being pains in the arses. It wasn't that they had powerful weapons that bugged me, it was how much health they had! It took forever to bring one down, and they nearly always came in groups. It doesn't help that they don't really show up until around the point where the game gets shitty.

 

[Cycloptomese]

In the first Ninja Gaiden game for the original Xbox from Team Ninja... Toward the tail end of the game you start to encounter these ghost fish. They're nothing on their own, but they come at you in packs and attach themselves to you, slowly draining your health. You have to button mash to get them off of you. REALLY annoying.

Seriously, it was a crazy challenging game filled with tough enemies, but these little bastards were the worst.

 

[go-10]

any Final Fantasy game ever -Random battle- Malboro has ambushed you! Game Over.

 

[sageoftruth]

A recent one for me is the Seekers in Transformers Devastation. Very weak and vulnerable enemies, but they can fly, and if you don't dispatch them, then you can expect to be repeatedly knocked out of your combos by shots fired from off-screen. Part of the frustration is that I'm playing exclusively as Grimlock, who is pretty terrible at long-range fighting. If I was Sideswipe, I'd take them out is seconds with the sniper rifle I gave him.

On a similar note, Starscream. I took on a challenge where I had to fight Blitzwing and Starscream. That creep kept relying on sucker punches to hit me for massive damage, and whenever I tried to fight him directly, he would transform and fly away. Kudos to Platinum for their success in capturing the sheer irritation that is Starscream.

 

[FPLOON]

Fuck you, Red Devils!

*ahem* I mean, the Hover Guards in Jak II especially on Hero Mode... They hit twice as hard as you while it takes two shots just to make them flinch in the air... Other than that, the Walkers from Jak 3 were just fucking annoying on Hero Mode...

 

[Something Amyss]

any Final Fantasy game ever -Random battle- Malboro has ambushed you! Game Over.

Actually, good point. Random encounters can be that thing in and of itself.

Though Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast version) was worse than any FF game I remember.

Zubats /thread

I always hated Geodudes more in terms of encounters. Though at this point, I could go with "cave sections" and be pretty accurate.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

What were they called, the Scions? From Mass Effect 2 and 3? The weird bloated shambling bastards with the AoE attack that hits through cover, knocks you out of cover, drains all your shields and then delays shield-recharge time.

Yeah, fuck those guys. Killed me more than a few times.

Also the Smokers from Left4Dead.

Hell, ALL of the special zombies in that game were right pain in the asses. But in online play, a skilled player with a Smoker can find that one spot that even if you kill him, the victim falls off a ledge.

Deathclaws maybe? Takes like a dozen rockets a point-blank range to kill them.

Oh! Regenerators and the chainsaw dudes from Resident Evil 4!

 

[Zeraki]

Medusa Heads... I don't think any video game enemy has ever enraged me to the same level as Medusa Heads. Extra anger points if they're in a clock tower stage.

 

[Harlemura]

The golden hand enemies in Persona 4 are always a pain because they take so, so long to beat, and as far as I know the only way to effectively take them down is cross your fingers and hope for critical hits. Hence why I like having Yosuke around. Thanks Yosuke.
I know they're easily avoidable and there's never an obligation to fight them, but how could anyone resist the amount of EXP they give?

Late-game Ratchet & Clank enemies are often horrid as well, those Quark robots from near the end of 3 still give me nightmares. The whole taking off a third of your health with one attack deal was bad enough, but having to use entire pools of rocket launcher ammo just to take a couple of them down was just uncalled for.