10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console Off
Sifu doesn't hold ANYTHING back.
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00:00In so many ways, video game difficulty can just feel cheap. By definition of how it's coded,
00:05a developer starts with enemies and design that would reduce you to a fine paste,
00:08before working backwards, creating a space for the player to exist, counter-attack,
00:12figure out what needs to be done and implemented, all while keeping the pressure on.
00:16It's a ludicrously tough balancing act to get right, and though many of the following are
00:20championed for pushing you to the absolute brink of losing it, there are those that go too far,
00:25making you want to take a breather, reassess or give up altogether.
00:29I'm Scott from RockCulture.com and these are 10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console
00:33Off.
00:34Number 10, Flying Drone, Returnal.
00:36Talk about the exact moment you noped out and walked away from a game.
00:40Returnal is one of those titles that walk the very thin line of asking so much of the player,
00:45literally pushing you to the brink of pure, utter frustration, while giving you enough
00:50gameplay possibilities to potentially make it through. It's demanding and excruciatingly
00:55difficult, this 3D take on the bullet hell genre sometimes wiping you out through the
00:59environment because some enemy attacks can catch you anywhere, the screen often a snowstorm of
01:04laser death waiting to ruin your current run. The suicide drones in third area Derelict Citadel
01:09though, they're something else entirely. Barely giving you enough time to comprehend what's up
01:14ahead, these things charge right at you, dealing a ton of damage or just one-shotting you,
01:19with the only solution being a perfectly timed dodge, something you'll likely miss the first
01:24handful of times. At time of writing, only 31% of people have overcome this third area,
01:30with forum posts across the board citing this exact encounter on the stairs as when they put
01:34Returnal down for good.
01:36Number 9, Basilisks, Dark Souls.
01:39There's nothing worse in video games than thinking your actual save is irrevocably broken.
01:44That you've done something that means no matter what else can happen,
01:47there's a world state or gameplay affecting issue locked to progression.
01:51Enter the Dark Souls Basilisks, coming at you with leaps and swipes, but worst of all,
01:56breathing a wide-reaching mist that turns your character to stone on the spot,
02:00cursing you as a status effect. What does that mean? Well, your health is now halved. You can't
02:05turn human to get help from other players, nor can you get any of the benefits of being human,
02:09like increased healing from your estus flask. The many gotcha moments of Dark Souls are well
02:14documented now, but discovering these creatures in a gated off sewer area surrounded by poisonous
02:20slimes dropping from the ceiling was one hell of a sorry what reaction in 2011.
02:25Number 8, Shinobi Hunter, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice.
02:28Another quickie from the masters of I'm-a-head-out, Sekiro's Shinobi Hunter often ties
02:33with the Chained Ogre as where a lot of people realise Shadows Die Twice just wasn't for them.
02:38Where the ogre has legit broken hitboxes grabbing you with its football tackle dive even if you're
02:43literally standing outside its arms, the Shinobi Hunter is the first enemy to demand you perfect
02:48the makiri counter, an animation where you charge into its thrust attack to parry effectively.
02:53The real brainbreaker is you're otherwise taught to avoid what's coming when this specific attack
02:57icon appears on screen, but here it's the opposite. Because, from software.
03:02Sekiro's whole thing is letting your muscle memory and reactions build over time to eventually nail
03:07this, but so many players hated being poked and prodded from afar by this super quick enemy
03:12anyway that even wanting to figure out the process was too much.
03:16Lynels The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild
03:19Besides silver bokoblins being out of nowhere one-shot machine variants of otherwise starter
03:24enemies, Breath of the Wild's first oh-guess-I'll-die-then moment comes with the Lynels.
03:29Hulking centaur-like creatures bearing down on you with arcing swipes and mobility in equal measure,
03:34if you've not mastered the game's slow-motion attack window that comes from a perfect dodge,
03:39you're gonna go down over and over and over again.
03:42Nintendo really know what they're playing with here too. Chances are the first Lynel you'll
03:46find will be solo, wandering an open area fairly nonchalantly, letting you walk up and discover
03:52this private hell all on your own. Later though, you'll end up trapped in circular rooms with one,
03:56especially if you're seeing everything the final Hyrule Castle space has to offer,
04:00and that's when you'll either survive or give up entirely.
04:04The Honey Badger Far Cry 4
04:06Whether it's Red Dead Redemption's panthers or Far Cry's own random eagle attacks,
04:10some open-world games with realistic aping food chains like to throw a predator your way every
04:15now and then. The Honey Badgers in Far Cry 4, though, took the cake. Ludicrously feral,
04:20hyper-aggressive creatures designed to almost be wrestling kayfabe versions of their real-world
04:25selves, they'll get all up in your face no matter if you're in combat or just strolling around the
04:29environment. Brilliantly, even NPCs and enemies will turn their attention to these badgers,
04:34firing wildly or collectively freaking out that a Honey Badger is carving its way across camp.
04:39These miniature woodchippers will put an end to whatever you had planned,
04:42but in a nod to how crazy OP they feel, follow-up Far Cry Primal did let you tame
04:47them and wreak havoc yourself. Armoured Candaces
04:50Gears of War 2 onwards. Gears' horde mode runs were such a capital T time for 2000s gaming.
04:56Introduced in Gears of War 2, the idea of tackling 50 waves of enemies with a set group of friends
05:01is something I'd literally recommend to anyone. Also brought in across Gears 2 were the Candaces,
05:06dodge-heavy twin-machine pistol-toting a-holes that were just annoying to pin down. Screaming
05:11at you while their armoured variants soaked up a ton of damage, they'd even bring back
05:16other downed enemies to keep the pressure on, if you weren't positioned well enough to flank and
05:19stop them. As Horde is all about teamwork, the Candaces feel specifically designed to
05:24exploit chinks in your group armour. As they can soak up a ludicrous amount of damage,
05:28even standing inside a Hammer of Dawn's beam for what feels like forever,
05:32any lone player trying to take one on would get wiped immediately.
05:35This often led to a clown car of revives and downs that ended your glorious run to victory right
05:41there. You have to hand it to Mojang, making a game about building whatever shared utopian
05:48paradise you like, but also including an enemy that even through a wall without you knowing,
05:52could blast apart a solid afternoon's worth of survival and construction. Literally,
05:57these things exist to slink up to you in total silence, stand there until you whirl around to
06:02see their soulless faces, then blow up on the spot, obliterating everything, often including
06:06yourself, in one swift move. Over the years, dedicated Minecraft builders simply won't
06:11engage with the modes of the game that feature these things, but for any of us feeling Minecraft
06:15out that very first time, they're a total menace. Part of me just wanted to include
06:24every annoying hitscan ranged enemy here, as from Uncharted to Spider-Man or those Anor Londo
06:29archers in Dark Souls, there's nothing more fun-killing than being wiped out from across the
06:33map. Let's drill down on Halo's Jackal Snipers though. Not much of a bother on lower difficulties
06:38unless you play your card spectacularly wrong, on hard or especially legendary, Jackal Snipers
06:43became a meme, a shared infuriation from hardcore players as their AI would always get the better of
06:49you no matter what. It's precisely because they can be knocked out with a swift melee that those
06:54end-of-fight killshots are so annoying. Chief's shields are already screaming for a recharge,
06:58you know what's about to hit you, but you can't close the distance or evade fast enough to avoid
07:03doing the whole thing over again. Throw in the occasional flood enemy with a rocket launcher,
07:07and you're not making it through original Halo 2's toughest difficulty.
07:13The enemy that caused level completion percentages to halve from Sifu's first level to its second,
07:18Shaun had to be actively patched by developer Slowclap in the game's release week,
07:23simply because he was stopping the majority of consumers seeing what the hell they'd just bought.
07:27Obviously super tough early bosses have their place, hello Ninja Gaiden,
07:31but the issue with Shaun was that you barely knew what you were doing wrong. Closing distance and
07:35coming at you with a range of swipe attacks that need to be actively sway dodged on the spot
07:40rather than tap blocked or parried as Sifu had been prioritising, scores of players would fight
07:44through the whole level, get destroyed by a boss using a technique they could barely comprehend,
07:49and would give up entirely. Honestly, mastering Sifu has been the most enjoyable and rewarding
07:54experience of my gaming years so far in 2022. Getting its sway animations down almost breaks
08:00the game with how many enemies and bosses you can then exploit, but boy if Shaun isn't a
08:05massive walking roadblock unless you really put the time in.
08:08At number one, the Marauder, Doom Eternal. Single-handedly designed to be one of those
08:13enemies we talk about for the rest of time, an awful encounter that actually binds us together
08:17through sheer shared hatred, the Marauder might be the single reason only 36% of people on
08:23PlayStation have even finished Doom Eternal on any difficulty. Why? Because he requires a completely
08:28different tack to any other enemy in the game. Where everything else can largely be taken down
08:33through a glorious mix of tanking hits through armour, chainsaw health pickups and a lot of
08:37gunfire, the Marauder can only be hit at all if you maintain a specific distance. Too far and he'll
08:43throw energy bolts your way while unleashing a dog that's too close and the shield goes up while it
08:47attacks with a devastating axe. The only way to do anything is maintain an invisible amount of
08:52distance you have to feel out amongst the chaos, triggering a lightning fast attack that can
08:57finally be interrupted, giving you a millisecond of opportunity to get some hits in. Doom Eternal's
09:02reputation feels notably mixed, even years after release. I hazard to guess it's because of
09:07encounters like this. And those are just 10 video game enemies that made you turn the console off.
09:12Let me know your favourites down in the comments below and please subscribe to the
09:15WhatCulture Gaming Podcast. For now, I've been Scott from WhatCulture.com and I'll catch you soon.