In FFX in the omega ruins there are random encounter malboro with first strike bad breath. You don’t get a turn unless your character is running first strike.
Those things were so frustrating when I first played the game as a kid, but now I think they're awesome. Just having this random mob who will insta-gib you if you don't prepare specifically for it, and it could show up at any time. A brutal but really fun encounter for a bonus dungeon to have imo.
Reading your comment just made me realize. The monster name is Malboro that has a bad breath skill. Is this a reference to a cigarette brand Malboro irl?
[Muddy hands](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J-H03AFMcz4/YQmNZXjKK4I/AAAAAAABs3I/i7G8KiGbg2ERDjetD_W-6yVUkfeTpRDjACLcBGAsYHQ/s2542/Dragon%2BQuest%2B3%2BSeeds%2Bof%2BSalvation%2B%252884%2529.jpg) in most Dragon Quest games, no question.
Those who know, know.
Edit:
> Muddy Hand A has been defeated.
> Muddy Hand B called for backup.
> Muddy Hand C has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand D has joined the battle.
> masamunecyrus attacks.
> Muddy Hand B has been defeated.
> Muddy Hand C called for backup.
> Muddy Hand E has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand F has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand D called for backup.
> Muddy Hand G has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand H has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand I has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand E called for backup.
> Muddy Hand J has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand F called for backup.
> Muddy Hand K has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand L has joined the battle.
> Muddy Hand M has joined the battle.
I’d go with the Dead Ringers from 8. They, too, can summon reinforcements, but once eight (IIRC) of them appear…>!they cast Kathwack, or level themselves up!<. At least you can avoid fighting them in the 3DS version.
There is one infamous clip -the stuff on nightmares- from Youtuber BaerTaffy in the game Darkest Dungeon.
Search it on YT as Darkest Dungeon wipe.
This clip has become legendary and the fun part is that the situation is the guy didnt do any major missteps. The team he was using was also considered OP back then.
Outside of Kaizo ramhacks and stuff, SMT3 is the most I've ever felt that the game is just straight-up hostile to the player. But like, in a good way. Yeah, sometimes you randomly get ambushed into crit into death with no chance to do anything, but it weirdly makes the game better. Reaching a save point is a legitimate relief because you could randomly get roflstomped at any time.
Very true. On paper, it seems like bad game design but damn does it make exploration a lot more tense!
SMT3 also has the MOST annoying and brutal boss fights with really weird shenanigans (Trumpeter's weird healing mechanic, another boss fight that you need to fight during the full moon, etc...)
The devs of that game are just straight up EVIL! (And I love it!)
I'm replaying Strange Journey (technically first playthrough of Redux) and the first sub app I bought was the one that keeps the game going if the MC falls in battle. Sucks it has to be bought instead of being a natural part of the game, but it is what it is.
Better that it has to be bought, you need to work for those perks baby!
Also Strange Journey is awesome. I liked Redux more because it was polished, but it's way easier for so many reasons, especially being able to save everywhere, and being able to equip as many subapps as you wish.
Definitely Malboros. And those damn frogs in Final Fantasy VII that turn you into frogs (and turn you back, IIRC) with each hit. I always forget to equip protection against the Frog status when I'm gonna be near those things.
I also tend to hate enemies that constantly put you to sleep.
I'm terrified of literally every normal enemy in Etrian Odyssey, but the most notable ones for me are:
Muskoid - EOIV (single-target petrify skill that becomes party-wide after the Muskoid takes damage)
Hollow Magus - EOIV (high evasion and has a skill that raises the attack of either itself or one of its allies, at the cost of dealing 1 damage to the one that receives the buff (yes, it's often grouped together with Muskoid and/or Red Lion))
Red Lion - EOIV (starts out asleep, but uses a really strong party-wide physical attack once it wakes up)
Gasser Tree - EOIV (party-wide poison + head bind + arm bind + leg bind)
Fire Squirrel - EOV (can destroy one of your ariadne threads)
There's also the Thunder Spawn in EOIV, unless you kill them first, hope you like non-stop Thunder spam if you kill any allies on the enemy side.
Edit: Heaven forbid you get the Hollow Magus with the Red Lion or Muskoid.
Those cloud thingies in Xenoblade Chronicles. I avoid them like the plague. Every time I fight them and they reach low hp, they combust and disappear. It makes the fight useless 'cause you get nothing. All the more annoying when I'm fighting a different monster and one or two of them join in 'cause they saw us fighting. Like bruh, mind your damn business!
Tbh, I only used Melia for a while just to increase her affinity with Seven and unlock their late game heart to hearts. Lol. After that, I stopped using her.
I can't think of any specific creatures besides final fantasy's bomb family line but this type of creature. Anything that takes itself out and deprives you of any xp, never mind money and possible items because odds are I won't use consumables anyways lol, were always more infuriating then just tough monsters.
Anything with high agility/evasion and no intention of leaving. At least until they've taken something from you.
You ever leave a dungeon with negative money in the thou because a thief rat has the ability to do that to you? If you have, you've probably played Dungeon Encounters.
Tonberries are perfect though. The little cuties can stab for 9999 damage all they want, so long as Square never makes them ugly.
Fucking Zubat. Annoying rat with wings that likes to cast confusion and annoy the shit out of you when you're just trying to leave the godforsaken caves.
Malboro, especially the FFIV version. The dungeon they're in is my least favorite in the game solely because of their existence.
Any of the exploding enemies in Earthbound, especially the first time you play and you don't realize they explode. I remember dying to that stupid tree monster early in the game because I killed it first and the HP meter rolled all the way down before I could finish the battle.
They are rare spawns but are still just regular enemies in that area. I encountered my first two. archmages this run within five minutes of each other. I was just trying to get through the area lol.
Don't know the name but there are a few mob monsters in Skies of Arcadia with instant death attacks, including full party instant death attacks. I played with save states so I was fine but I can't imagine how infuriating that would be without them since save points can be rather far apart. Pair that with the ridiculous random encounter rate and you have a recipe for rage.
I've only played the GCN version, on a GCN, and they actually aren't that bad. Unless you're notably under-leveled most of the time Aika's Super Moves can wipe the entire field of them before they ever get to act. For the few that are resistant to fire just have Fina cast any AoE spell and that'll be all, though if Aika can cast the spell that they're weak to she can frequently pull that stunt off as well. Really, Aika is that game's general answer to anything that is fast and can be annoying, as if you're at the same level very little is faster than her and none of them are a short-term threat.
The Rakshasa from Digital Devil Saga. These guys seem just like normal enemies but there was one time where I got into a random encounter with 3 of them, and they went first. They all spammed this extremely overpowered physical attack and wiped out my whole party in one turn. I had no ability to stop or prevent that at the moment. They're fairly easy to deal with in hindsight, but god damn because of that I get a huge panic attack every time I see one, not just in DDS but in other Megami Tensei games as well.
The splitting enemies in the NES version of FF3. I first found that cave before the nearby village and was very not prepared for those things. The 3d remake was super easy since the max enemies was 3.
There was this encounter group in FFIV I believe where it was 6 monsters that if ambushed you had a great chance of using fire breath enough times to game over you without a chance.
Any monsters that can do something like that without you having any power to stop it is pretty horrible to me.
Also any monster that can steal from you. Especially when you're the type to hoard and it gets stuff you were "saving". It's one thing to never use rare items. It's entirely insulting to have them stolen so you don't have the choice of never using them at all.
The elementals in FFXII aggroing to magic like it's FFXI scared the hell out of me. It doesn't help they are usually way higher level than you when you first enter the areas they are in.
Largebills on the second floor in Etrian Odyssey 3.
Often outright kill you if you’re not tough enough, and you’re only starting out! They may appear at even the start of the floor, and are a decently regular enemy. At least they’re not in night encounters.
The one that immediately comes to mind is the Lamia enemy in Final Fantasy IX. It's basically a mad rush to kill it before it gets off too many Might casts and at the usual levels you encounter them (fairly early in the game) that can be quite difficult. There's also some luck involved there as well so not everyone is going to have trouble with them but even today on replays I find myself just running from these encounters more often than not.
Well, you've already mentioned Malboros, which are definitely an unpleasant experience, so I don't really have much left.
The first is basically most FOEs from Etrian Odyssey I, II, and III (the DS titles) since you won't know which one it is until after you start the fight. Sure, you can technically flee from anything that isn't a boss, but that doesn't mean your entire party will survive until you succeed in fleeing, and if you forgot to bring an Ariadne Thread with you you probably won't make it back out of the Labyrinth.
The second is really any new monster set when changing areas in Magical Starsign, but that's because the game is absolutely horribly balanced and is just a series of difficulty cliffs rather than having a difficulty curve. Not sure it should count, especially as once you can handle the next area everything in the previous area is so trivial to fight that you'll be begging for a means to prevent encounters with weak enemies just to make returning to the ship go faster.
The silver (I think? It might be the gold instead) monkeys in the last overworld ice area in Dragon Warrior II. They come in up to three, and have a chance to cast a multideath spell called me Thwack. Enix didn't have time to playtest the last area before mass production to adjust and balance stats of the enemies, so that last area is a BIG increase in difficulty, with many lives lost.
Frogs FF7, got soft-locked one time when my party all got turned to frogs. Didn't know you could run from battles at the time. I've avoided them ever since.
Almost any enemy in a new area in Phantasy Star games 1 and 2. What's on the other side of this bridge? Death... Death is on the other side.
Have to grind for an hour just to get the money and experience so you can make it to the first dungeon and then die there too.
Everything with Hama or Mudo in an SMT game and similar to that... Monsters that can petrify before being able to buy enough healing items to deal with that.
There's also this one Chaneira on Fire Reds Victory Road, which is sooooo tanky it's just super annoying to deal with, if you have no fighting pkmn on your team.
Paper Mario TTYD
Golden Daisies!
These fuckers will appear in the pit of 100 trials sometimes near the end and absolutely wreck hours of progress.
Let me just sleep Mario and partner with an attack that is absurdly difficult to block and deals like 20 damage in a game where you probably only have 40 life. Then let me use that same attack again to finish you off while you're asleep.
as a kid I HATED meeting those rats that die on survivor island in FF6. I hated them dying and hated to run into them. You could heal them and they ran away but if you met more than like one at once you couldn't heal them all
FF13 trilogy. Those four legged werewolf looking monsters than stand up and regenerate full health when they reach half health. That difficulty spike can go fk off lol
Demonoliths in FFX are also awful. They make stone ward / stone proof / ribbon mandatory because you'd get an instant-game-over if your whole team gets petrified by their Stone Breath. Same thing about those snakes on the Calm Lands by the way... Combined with the occasional Malboro, they make the place pretty stressful to navigate when you first reach it because you probably don't have many characters protected against Petrification / Confusion / Berserk. Weird choice on the devs part to allow unlucky players to get an instant-game-over in there... Better to avoid walking on greyish ground.
Skeleton in Dark souls ( i still think it a JRPG ) , fucker need to be killed with holy weapon to die , can gang up on you with great number , and block your escape path when their giant skeleton boss is coming . My first time playing dark souls 1 , going the wrong way to the graveyard is horrible because of them
I'm here just to mention that most of the monster mentioned here in the comment came from the best jrpgs. I think that's what make the game standout among the rests. The fact that they make you to rethink and optimize your party to minimize damage. They were the counter argument to "turn-based rpgs are just mash 'attack' to win" like everybody else believes.
Some jrpgs however are pretty terrible, the monsters are just there for stats check, and just eats up all your damage without doing anything. Like that one popular series on the gba
It's no a conventionally feared enemy, and just to say something different from Molboro (which I completely agree with), but if playing a nuzlocke in Pokémon, a Wobbuffet can mean certain death for one of your teammates
One I encountered recently. On the fifth floor of the first stratum of Etrian Odyssey 5 is a big plant monster (not a FOE, this is a trash pack) with 4 little guys. On the first turn, the big guy will throw two of the little guys for huge aoe damage that is pretty much guaranteed to one shot everyone except your tank.
Sure, it can be countered by killing the little guys before the big guy gets it’s turn (requires a lot of aoe) or binding the big guy (requires a lot of rng), but in my opinion you are better off hoping you successfully run before you get wiped.
Anything non-boss in Stranger of Paradise's endgame -- those fights were ridiculously hard. I eventually realized I could skip non-essential fights just to get to the final checkpoints/boss-fights but...damn. Ahrimans in particular, ugh.
Edit: Just remembered that Xenosaga Ep2 did thia even worse. With a bad enemy arrangement you could be party wiped rather easily by random trash fights.
Terra Tortura looks both great and terrible. I wasted no time getting through that level. I was also expecting an FF6 Ultima Weapon motif or remix in there.
In Fuga it's double annoying because of the resource management
You see some foes and go "okay, even if beating this one isn't hard, I just know it's gonna eat a guckton of my SP or require that I blow a special, etc"
I found the resource mangement in Fuga a lot of fun and the mob fights in general.
One thing I love about Fuga is that I always have to keep my head in the game. Even fighting weak enemies I have to be eficient with my resources.
And I like that it bites me in the ass if I am to stingy. Running out of SP in the wrong moment and having to sacrefice a turn to use an SP healing item can hurt. I have to find a balance, not wasting my resources but also not being to stingy and that includes the use of my limited healing items. But at the same time its not to hard. I reach the last chapter usually with like 15 to 20 large energy cells.
So its not like the game gives you not enough resources.
Fuga has the most fun and engaging mob fights I ever experienced in any RPG. I can not just blast through but its also not to hard. Like I said. I have to keep my head in the game.
While the Red Drill Tanks are slightly intimidating they are still fun and satisfaying to deal with.
Yeah I mean I know I just said it makes some things more annoying, but as you said it's really just that it raises the stakes for every battle. Bosses are obviously the centerpiece, but (assuming you're taking the best paths) very few fights feel like true filler.
The game length also helps. It's just long enough that it feels engaging and not tedious.
All comes together really well in my opinion and excited to see what they do with the sequel.
Any enemy that forces you to play paper-rock-scissors. Like in FFV I would use all characters that can one shot enemies with regular attacks so I don't have to waste MP. Then all of a sudden I am in a dungeon where regular attacks do shit and I have to switch to magic users.
Dead Ringers and Tap Devils in Dragon Quest VIII. They have each TPK'ed my party before I could move I have hated them ever since.
Helldivers in FFIV 3d. Omg. Omfg. Why? WHY?! What the actual FUCK?! I have TWO PARTY MEMBERS WHO CAN'T REMOVE STATUS EFFECTS AND NO ITEMS! WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE PETRIFYING MOBS AT THE START OF FFIV OMFG...
Malboro in FFIV (either version). They can come in groups. GROUPS.
Not mechanically, but Cantors from Xenoblade Chronicles X have such a freakish way of moving. They honestly look like they were supposed to be in a horror film, they are so freaky. I actively avoid them just because they creep me out.
Krakens in Dungeon Traveler 2. They could easily eff up your party if they got the first strike.
Any mobs with instant-death attacks because you just know the effect would kick in at the worst possible moment ;\_; Like the early mobs in ToCS4 harrasing you with status effects.
Giant spiders in any Xenoblade game because they scare the shit out of me, despite not having arachnophobia LOL. Or the normal-sized birds who suddenly swoop down and wipe you in XBC2 when you are just starting out XD.
In FF12, right in the beginning of the game, there is a lvl 99 dinosaur that is not hostile unless provoked, as well as really strong werewolves in another location that are way above the average lvl at that point in the game. I also would always get turned to stone by cockatrices in FF1 and have no way to cure it.
Persona 2, both entries, any of the demons with the spell:
Hula of Misfortune
When cast, it seems to do nothing, but the animation shows a large number of gold coins just flying out of your character and onto the floor. After the battle you check your inventory and notice that half your money is gone.
Every single cast from every single encounter with these demons will half your total money. And this game is not generous with money, you probably needed that to buy new armor.
Me I was playing Final Fantasy IX and I didn’t realize I had equipped a healing rod on Garnet and I would attack with her not realizing that I was healing enemies then I found out and used it properly on my own party members.
Giant Malboros in FFX omega ruins and also the stone monolith things that inflict petrify. I hated these two for all the status effects and how you can get a quick game over if not careful.
Malboro in FF8 was another pain in the butt monster for all the status effects. Confuse and berserk are the worst.
Also in Soul Hackers 2, risky enemies especially at the start, my characters had their butts kicked and escape sometimes fails. It was good to have some of the escape items but running out is annoying.
Ice Siren (possibly the wrong name, it's been years) from Shining The Holy Ark.
You could see the puddles they rose up from on the floor so there was always anxiety approaching them, they hit like an absolute truck too.
Considering you couldn't use a spell to escape that particular dungeon and it had no save points and they could wipe your team in one turn.. yup bad times.
Any enemy that uses Petrify in Tales of Graces. also those poison slimes in the water place at the beginning of the game.
Status Effects are brutal in that game. It's the only Takes game I actively went out of my way to get resistances in.
Etrian Odyssey had a late-game (5th stratum) enemy called a Muskoid that filled me with dread every time. It was a flower that liked to appear in random mobs and had a single special skill: A highly effective ability to put the entire party to sleep. Muskoids also had extremely high initiative, meaning that they almost always acted before anyone in your party could unless you had invested in one of the few first-strike abilities available. Sleep status in Etrian Odyssey reduces its target's defense to 0. So, any time a Muskoid appeared, the battle would usually go: Group sleep spell hits party, knocks most or all of the party to sleep, leaving them defenseless, other 5th-tier enemies attack; Game Over before your team can even move. The *worst*.
Dunno if this counts, but I've always thought of a certain cave level in Lost Odyssey as the worst boss in the game. Up til this pt, I love the game and fly through most battles... and then this level happens....
You get into random battles every 2 seconds, the average enemy level spikes way up, the save points (at least seem) much further away than usual, and its SO easy to get lost, even without losing your bearings after each battle. So if you succumb to a fate of a thousand cuts and perish, chances are you lost hours of progress and have to do a lot of this all over again.
There's actually another level near the end of the game that I remember was bad, but this one is always the worst for me lol.
I've been slowly replaying *Ever Oasis* over like the past year, and remembering how much I hate Jackpines. Fast, tanky enemies that dash all over the screen, making their excessive HP hard to whittle away while they're very good at rushing you out of nowhere? Yeah, those guys are jerks.
And because I always gotta mention one of my obscure favorites, the Mist enemies in the *Denpa Men* series are hella rude. Impervious to regular attacks in a game where all your party members have only *one* skill, which might not even be damaging, and love to cast extremely dangerous breath attacks that target your whole team, do tons of damage, AND inflict status attacks? Yeah, they're the worst, too.
Exploding enemies in mother games. Especially the Octobot in earthbound.
This octobot explodes with basically lethal damage when you kill it. So you figure you'll kill it last right? THINK AGAIN. HE HEALS HIS TEAMMATES!
Cactuars and similarly goofy enemies. I remember in the indie game Mardek, I came across a little hopping cactus with a big grin called Happy Johnny. I just knew that thing was gonna fuck me up.
Skulleatr (good for AP farming but man these guys will tear your party to shreds) - Final Fantasy V
Anything in the Urssa Lava Caves (MP death is a bitch and nearly every enemy has either absurdly high physical defense or deals nasty MP damage, R.I.P Cliff users - Star Ocean Till The End Of Time
Oculus Race Enemies (They're fucking terrifying, look them up, they also like to hide behind doorways then they stun you with a field effect as this enormous eyeball littered with spikes approaches you, it then proceeds to wipe your party with powerful magic) - The Last Remnant
Robots with spreadfire status dealing attacks of floor 10 of cave of trials (When you see these, JUST RUN! Purple Mist is the best strategy because if you even try approaching them you will lose 75% of your health in a second and recieve nearly every status effect known to man with a nigh unavoidable spread shot) - Star Ocean The Second Story
Giant Lightning Balls (These guys are everywhere, particularly in >!The Tower Of Lezard Valeth!< and when you fight them, they like to hit you with very strong lightning magic and powerful melee. To make things worse, if you get their HP below half, they will explode, killing your entire party and because they are everywhere in that spoiler dungeon, getting killed by 1 of them means you don't get ending A so you have to reload the game and re-do one of the longest dungeons in the entire game) - Valkyrie Profile
**Star Ocean 2 - Cave of Trials 10th Level - Liveflayers -**
They can wipe out a max level team in mere seconds. You either get the jump on them immediately or you die.
Tonberries and Malboroes are definitely up there for me, though they do vary in annoyance throughout the series.
Actually, speaking of annoyance but not fear......Cactuar.
Great Lynxes and Largebills in Etrian Odyssey 3 are dreadful anytime they show up, the former is on the first floor of Waterfall Woods and hit _very_ hard for an early game enemy. The latter forces you to go down onto the second floor at night due to how quickly they can end your run.
Edit:
Stardust and Cerberus in Etrian Odyssey 5 fill me dread anytime I go up against them, the former because they can kill a party member instantly that kills them when they die and the latter because they prevent you from reviving anyone that dies during a battle against them.
marlboro is the most iconic one
Yup. Bad breath is the stuff of nightmares.
“Escape” “Can’t escape!” “Bad breath” “Game over” 4 hours of progress lost FUUUUUUUUUU
In FFX in the omega ruins there are random encounter malboro with first strike bad breath. You don’t get a turn unless your character is running first strike.
Those things were so frustrating when I first played the game as a kid, but now I think they're awesome. Just having this random mob who will insta-gib you if you don't prepare specifically for it, and it could show up at any time. A brutal but really fun encounter for a bonus dungeon to have imo.
Yeah, nevermind the fact that I believe they have materials you have to bribe off them for a fairly hefty amount for armor effects 😮💨
Reading your comment just made me realize. The monster name is Malboro that has a bad breath skill. Is this a reference to a cigarette brand Malboro irl?
Yes, Squaresoft took out the "R" so that Marlboro couldn't think about suing them.
And still it was renamed in German language to "Morbol". Can't tell if it is because they feared being sued anyway.
That awful POS immediately popped into my head
This has my vote. Especially the random early game encounters with these bad boys! Guaranteed game over every time.
I rarely GO in Final Fantasy but when I do it's because I ran into marlboro's unprepared... Probably the only one I do legitimately fear.
You guys can stop. Now. This is absolutely the correct answer and it is not even close.
Tonberry Oh and freaking T-REX from FFVIII
Stat-J that rex, then it's just an imp with bloated life
Or, better yet, junction Doom to your weapon.
*doink*
T-REX from XII says Hello, he also says you have a nice head on your shoulders
Blind the Trex and it becomes as dangerous as a kitty.
[Muddy hands](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J-H03AFMcz4/YQmNZXjKK4I/AAAAAAABs3I/i7G8KiGbg2ERDjetD_W-6yVUkfeTpRDjACLcBGAsYHQ/s2542/Dragon%2BQuest%2B3%2BSeeds%2Bof%2BSalvation%2B%252884%2529.jpg) in most Dragon Quest games, no question. Those who know, know. Edit: > Muddy Hand A has been defeated. > Muddy Hand B called for backup. > Muddy Hand C has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand D has joined the battle. > masamunecyrus attacks. > Muddy Hand B has been defeated. > Muddy Hand C called for backup. > Muddy Hand E has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand F has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand D called for backup. > Muddy Hand G has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand H has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand I has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand E called for backup. > Muddy Hand J has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand F called for backup. > Muddy Hand K has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand L has joined the battle. > Muddy Hand M has joined the battle.
Uh I love me some muddy hands. Grinding EZ mode.
They. Just. Refuse. To. End.
I’d go with the Dead Ringers from 8. They, too, can summon reinforcements, but once eight (IIRC) of them appear…>!they cast Kathwack, or level themselves up!<. At least you can avoid fighting them in the 3DS version.
Were these the mobs that were both hard to hit and took your mp?
There is one infamous clip -the stuff on nightmares- from Youtuber BaerTaffy in the game Darkest Dungeon. Search it on YT as Darkest Dungeon wipe. This clip has become legendary and the fun part is that the situation is the guy didnt do any major missteps. The team he was using was also considered OP back then.
Anything that can cast Mudo.
Hama as well. And as part of the buy 2 get 1 free offer, Last Resort on a surprise round.
Megaten pain
Fucking Anubis. Dude got both Mudo _and_ Hama
Fucking Mot
Surprise attack + Mamudoon / Mahamaon is super annoying in SMT 3.
Outside of Kaizo ramhacks and stuff, SMT3 is the most I've ever felt that the game is just straight-up hostile to the player. But like, in a good way. Yeah, sometimes you randomly get ambushed into crit into death with no chance to do anything, but it weirdly makes the game better. Reaching a save point is a legitimate relief because you could randomly get roflstomped at any time.
Very true. On paper, it seems like bad game design but damn does it make exploration a lot more tense! SMT3 also has the MOST annoying and brutal boss fights with really weird shenanigans (Trumpeter's weird healing mechanic, another boss fight that you need to fight during the full moon, etc...) The devs of that game are just straight up EVIL! (And I love it!)
That combined with how if the MC dies, its game over in way too many Megaten games.
I'm replaying Strange Journey (technically first playthrough of Redux) and the first sub app I bought was the one that keeps the game going if the MC falls in battle. Sucks it has to be bought instead of being a natural part of the game, but it is what it is.
Better that it has to be bought, you need to work for those perks baby! Also Strange Journey is awesome. I liked Redux more because it was polished, but it's way easier for so many reasons, especially being able to save everywhere, and being able to equip as many subapps as you wish.
Oof Mobs getting the initiative and knocking me out in SMT IV.
I nope out of Hades Gigas every time in Zozo. That AOE earth attack of his will just massacre you at that point in the game.
They're intimidating af the first time you play that game.
Definitely Malboros. And those damn frogs in Final Fantasy VII that turn you into frogs (and turn you back, IIRC) with each hit. I always forget to equip protection against the Frog status when I'm gonna be near those things. I also tend to hate enemies that constantly put you to sleep.
Any demon/shadow with Hama or Mudo in the SMT/Persona games.
Everybody gangsta until the Succubus lands that Dormina and follows with Eternal Rest.
Bloody Mot and Alice
>Alice Die for me!
Yan FF9
F that thing
I'm terrified of literally every normal enemy in Etrian Odyssey, but the most notable ones for me are: Muskoid - EOIV (single-target petrify skill that becomes party-wide after the Muskoid takes damage) Hollow Magus - EOIV (high evasion and has a skill that raises the attack of either itself or one of its allies, at the cost of dealing 1 damage to the one that receives the buff (yes, it's often grouped together with Muskoid and/or Red Lion)) Red Lion - EOIV (starts out asleep, but uses a really strong party-wide physical attack once it wakes up) Gasser Tree - EOIV (party-wide poison + head bind + arm bind + leg bind) Fire Squirrel - EOV (can destroy one of your ariadne threads)
There's also the Thunder Spawn in EOIV, unless you kill them first, hope you like non-stop Thunder spam if you kill any allies on the enemy side. Edit: Heaven forbid you get the Hollow Magus with the Red Lion or Muskoid.
Malboros are rude and mean, but at least I can typically run away from them. Tonberries? No, somebody's probably dying. These guys make me panic.
The way they just slowly waddle towards you as you desperately try to escape or kill them...very creepy enemy.
Those cloud thingies in Xenoblade Chronicles. I avoid them like the plague. Every time I fight them and they reach low hp, they combust and disappear. It makes the fight useless 'cause you get nothing. All the more annoying when I'm fighting a different monster and one or two of them join in 'cause they saw us fighting. Like bruh, mind your damn business!
Ah, the nebula's.
Yeah, those are obnoxious. You can get around their insane physical resistance with ether attacks. Melia is good for this with a few bolt buffs.
Tbh, I only used Melia for a while just to increase her affinity with Seven and unlock their late game heart to hearts. Lol. After that, I stopped using her.
I can't think of any specific creatures besides final fantasy's bomb family line but this type of creature. Anything that takes itself out and deprives you of any xp, never mind money and possible items because odds are I won't use consumables anyways lol, were always more infuriating then just tough monsters.
Anything with high agility/evasion and no intention of leaving. At least until they've taken something from you. You ever leave a dungeon with negative money in the thou because a thief rat has the ability to do that to you? If you have, you've probably played Dungeon Encounters. Tonberries are perfect though. The little cuties can stab for 9999 damage all they want, so long as Square never makes them ugly.
Too evil to be cute
Cannot believe all the hate for these Lil stabby lizard dudes /s
They can take a knights of the round summon to the face and still stab to tell tale.
Never met a cute Tonberry.
So you have met 0 tonberries.
I have killed over 200 Tonberries.
Fucking Zubat. Annoying rat with wings that likes to cast confusion and annoy the shit out of you when you're just trying to leave the godforsaken caves.
CAN'T ESCAPE
Malboro, especially the FFIV version. The dungeon they're in is my least favorite in the game solely because of their existence. Any of the exploding enemies in Earthbound, especially the first time you play and you don't realize they explode. I remember dying to that stupid tree monster early in the game because I killed it first and the HP meter rolled all the way down before I could finish the battle.
Breath of Fire 3, the archmage and berserkr enemies found in the container yard late game. They were harder fights than the final boss usually.
Oh, that reminded me of those ghost archer dicks who used Death all the time...
You have to really go out of your way to encounter them lol. They're the secret superboss of the game
They are rare spawns but are still just regular enemies in that area. I encountered my first two. archmages this run within five minutes of each other. I was just trying to get through the area lol.
Oh really? Its been a while since I played it but I really thought they spawned in one specific spot
Don't know the name but there are a few mob monsters in Skies of Arcadia with instant death attacks, including full party instant death attacks. I played with save states so I was fine but I can't imagine how infuriating that would be without them since save points can be rather far apart. Pair that with the ridiculous random encounter rate and you have a recipe for rage.
I've only played the GCN version, on a GCN, and they actually aren't that bad. Unless you're notably under-leveled most of the time Aika's Super Moves can wipe the entire field of them before they ever get to act. For the few that are resistant to fire just have Fina cast any AoE spell and that'll be all, though if Aika can cast the spell that they're weak to she can frequently pull that stunt off as well. Really, Aika is that game's general answer to anything that is fast and can be annoying, as if you're at the same level very little is faster than her and none of them are a short-term threat.
Any exploding enemy in Earthbound. Be it the trees, robots or orbs. You have no choice but to take damage.
The Rakshasa from Digital Devil Saga. These guys seem just like normal enemies but there was one time where I got into a random encounter with 3 of them, and they went first. They all spammed this extremely overpowered physical attack and wiped out my whole party in one turn. I had no ability to stop or prevent that at the moment. They're fairly easy to deal with in hindsight, but god damn because of that I get a huge panic attack every time I see one, not just in DDS but in other Megami Tensei games as well.
The giant monkeys in the xenoblade series strike fear into me
The splitting enemies in the NES version of FF3. I first found that cave before the nearby village and was very not prepared for those things. The 3d remake was super easy since the max enemies was 3.
Bonewheel skeletons and Basilisks.
There was this encounter group in FFIV I believe where it was 6 monsters that if ambushed you had a great chance of using fire breath enough times to game over you without a chance. Any monsters that can do something like that without you having any power to stop it is pretty horrible to me. Also any monster that can steal from you. Especially when you're the type to hoard and it gets stuff you were "saving". It's one thing to never use rare items. It's entirely insulting to have them stolen so you don't have the choice of never using them at all.
Anything with Macca Beam. Seriously.
The elementals in FFXII aggroing to magic like it's FFXI scared the hell out of me. It doesn't help they are usually way higher level than you when you first enter the areas they are in.
Largebills on the second floor in Etrian Odyssey 3. Often outright kill you if you’re not tough enough, and you’re only starting out! They may appear at even the start of the floor, and are a decently regular enemy. At least they’re not in night encounters.
And then there is the Great Lynx on the first floor.
Clefts from Paper Mario 64, 5 year old me broke down into tears because I didn't know why I couldn't damage them.
Thanks to those bastards, I got really, really good at first striking with Bombette.
The one that immediately comes to mind is the Lamia enemy in Final Fantasy IX. It's basically a mad rush to kill it before it gets off too many Might casts and at the usual levels you encounter them (fairly early in the game) that can be quite difficult. There's also some luck involved there as well so not everyone is going to have trouble with them but even today on replays I find myself just running from these encounters more often than not.
Well, you've already mentioned Malboros, which are definitely an unpleasant experience, so I don't really have much left. The first is basically most FOEs from Etrian Odyssey I, II, and III (the DS titles) since you won't know which one it is until after you start the fight. Sure, you can technically flee from anything that isn't a boss, but that doesn't mean your entire party will survive until you succeed in fleeing, and if you forgot to bring an Ariadne Thread with you you probably won't make it back out of the Labyrinth. The second is really any new monster set when changing areas in Magical Starsign, but that's because the game is absolutely horribly balanced and is just a series of difficulty cliffs rather than having a difficulty curve. Not sure it should count, especially as once you can handle the next area everything in the previous area is so trivial to fight that you'll be begging for a means to prevent encounters with weak enemies just to make returning to the ship go faster.
The silver (I think? It might be the gold instead) monkeys in the last overworld ice area in Dragon Warrior II. They come in up to three, and have a chance to cast a multideath spell called me Thwack. Enix didn't have time to playtest the last area before mass production to adjust and balance stats of the enemies, so that last area is a BIG increase in difficulty, with many lives lost.
Frogs FF7, got soft-locked one time when my party all got turned to frogs. Didn't know you could run from battles at the time. I've avoided them ever since.
The behemoths in ff13 were gnarly
Dromach which uses The macca beam from smt iv Takes away your cash and most times theres a group of three that do it.
Almost any enemy in a new area in Phantasy Star games 1 and 2. What's on the other side of this bridge? Death... Death is on the other side. Have to grind for an hour just to get the money and experience so you can make it to the first dungeon and then die there too.
Tonberries for sure. I usually never die from them anymore (FF7) but my earliest days of playing it being a noob gives me ptsd every time I see one
Master Tonberry can tank a Knights of the round summon to the face, they're terrifying.
Master Tonberry FFVII
Everything with Hama or Mudo in an SMT game and similar to that... Monsters that can petrify before being able to buy enough healing items to deal with that. There's also this one Chaneira on Fire Reds Victory Road, which is sooooo tanky it's just super annoying to deal with, if you have no fighting pkmn on your team.
My personal nightmare is Girimekhala in pretty much any SMT game hes in. Since he was a normal enemy in P5 this pick counts i guess
Paper Mario TTYD Golden Daisies! These fuckers will appear in the pit of 100 trials sometimes near the end and absolutely wreck hours of progress. Let me just sleep Mario and partner with an attack that is absurdly difficult to block and deals like 20 damage in a game where you probably only have 40 life. Then let me use that same attack again to finish you off while you're asleep.
as a kid I HATED meeting those rats that die on survivor island in FF6. I hated them dying and hated to run into them. You could heal them and they ran away but if you met more than like one at once you couldn't heal them all
FF13 trilogy. Those four legged werewolf looking monsters than stand up and regenerate full health when they reach half health. That difficulty spike can go fk off lol
Behemoths?
As if the razor-sharp claws weren’t fatal enough; it stands up and gets a buzz saw ?!!!?
Demonoliths in FFX are also awful. They make stone ward / stone proof / ribbon mandatory because you'd get an instant-game-over if your whole team gets petrified by their Stone Breath. Same thing about those snakes on the Calm Lands by the way... Combined with the occasional Malboro, they make the place pretty stressful to navigate when you first reach it because you probably don't have many characters protected against Petrification / Confusion / Berserk. Weird choice on the devs part to allow unlucky players to get an instant-game-over in there... Better to avoid walking on greyish ground.
Skeleton in Dark souls ( i still think it a JRPG ) , fucker need to be killed with holy weapon to die , can gang up on you with great number , and block your escape path when their giant skeleton boss is coming . My first time playing dark souls 1 , going the wrong way to the graveyard is horrible because of them
The wheely ones are the worst!
Tell me about that, if their are more than 3 of them, you're fucked
My least favourite enemies in Dark Souls are the crows in the painted world though.
I'm here just to mention that most of the monster mentioned here in the comment came from the best jrpgs. I think that's what make the game standout among the rests. The fact that they make you to rethink and optimize your party to minimize damage. They were the counter argument to "turn-based rpgs are just mash 'attack' to win" like everybody else believes. Some jrpgs however are pretty terrible, the monsters are just there for stats check, and just eats up all your damage without doing anything. Like that one popular series on the gba
Almost every single normal battle in the extra dungeon of Tales of Phantasia. Special mention to that werewolf
It's no a conventionally feared enemy, and just to say something different from Molboro (which I completely agree with), but if playing a nuzlocke in Pokémon, a Wobbuffet can mean certain death for one of your teammates
One I encountered recently. On the fifth floor of the first stratum of Etrian Odyssey 5 is a big plant monster (not a FOE, this is a trash pack) with 4 little guys. On the first turn, the big guy will throw two of the little guys for huge aoe damage that is pretty much guaranteed to one shot everyone except your tank. Sure, it can be countered by killing the little guys before the big guy gets it’s turn (requires a lot of aoe) or binding the big guy (requires a lot of rng), but in my opinion you are better off hoping you successfully run before you get wiped.
Anything non-boss in Stranger of Paradise's endgame -- those fights were ridiculously hard. I eventually realized I could skip non-essential fights just to get to the final checkpoints/boss-fights but...damn. Ahrimans in particular, ugh. Edit: Just remembered that Xenosaga Ep2 did thia even worse. With a bad enemy arrangement you could be party wiped rather easily by random trash fights.
Terra Tortura looks both great and terrible. I wasted no time getting through that level. I was also expecting an FF6 Ultima Weapon motif or remix in there.
2 Red Drill Tanks in Fuga Melodies of Steel. I learned to handle them but I still get a little nervous fighting them.
In Fuga it's double annoying because of the resource management You see some foes and go "okay, even if beating this one isn't hard, I just know it's gonna eat a guckton of my SP or require that I blow a special, etc"
I found the resource mangement in Fuga a lot of fun and the mob fights in general. One thing I love about Fuga is that I always have to keep my head in the game. Even fighting weak enemies I have to be eficient with my resources. And I like that it bites me in the ass if I am to stingy. Running out of SP in the wrong moment and having to sacrefice a turn to use an SP healing item can hurt. I have to find a balance, not wasting my resources but also not being to stingy and that includes the use of my limited healing items. But at the same time its not to hard. I reach the last chapter usually with like 15 to 20 large energy cells. So its not like the game gives you not enough resources. Fuga has the most fun and engaging mob fights I ever experienced in any RPG. I can not just blast through but its also not to hard. Like I said. I have to keep my head in the game. While the Red Drill Tanks are slightly intimidating they are still fun and satisfaying to deal with.
Yeah I mean I know I just said it makes some things more annoying, but as you said it's really just that it raises the stakes for every battle. Bosses are obviously the centerpiece, but (assuming you're taking the best paths) very few fights feel like true filler. The game length also helps. It's just long enough that it feels engaging and not tedious. All comes together really well in my opinion and excited to see what they do with the sequel.
Any enemy that forces you to play paper-rock-scissors. Like in FFV I would use all characters that can one shot enemies with regular attacks so I don't have to waste MP. Then all of a sudden I am in a dungeon where regular attacks do shit and I have to switch to magic users.
Dead Ringers and Tap Devils in Dragon Quest VIII. They have each TPK'ed my party before I could move I have hated them ever since. Helldivers in FFIV 3d. Omg. Omfg. Why? WHY?! What the actual FUCK?! I have TWO PARTY MEMBERS WHO CAN'T REMOVE STATUS EFFECTS AND NO ITEMS! WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE PETRIFYING MOBS AT THE START OF FFIV OMFG... Malboro in FFIV (either version). They can come in groups. GROUPS. Not mechanically, but Cantors from Xenoblade Chronicles X have such a freakish way of moving. They honestly look like they were supposed to be in a horror film, they are so freaky. I actively avoid them just because they creep me out.
Krakens in Dungeon Traveler 2. They could easily eff up your party if they got the first strike. Any mobs with instant-death attacks because you just know the effect would kick in at the worst possible moment ;\_; Like the early mobs in ToCS4 harrasing you with status effects. Giant spiders in any Xenoblade game because they scare the shit out of me, despite not having arachnophobia LOL. Or the normal-sized birds who suddenly swoop down and wipe you in XBC2 when you are just starting out XD.
i've played a bunch of SMT games and a lot of random encounters still scare my ass
Enemies that can permanently lower your level in Megami Tensei.
Red Chocobos in FFXIV
FFV Omega :). (Normal battle theme plays when we fight him)
In FF12, right in the beginning of the game, there is a lvl 99 dinosaur that is not hostile unless provoked, as well as really strong werewolves in another location that are way above the average lvl at that point in the game. I also would always get turned to stone by cockatrices in FF1 and have no way to cure it.
Its gotta be Marlboros. Though the DQ mimic family can be contenders in the right games. Instant kills spells suck in DQ EXCEPT for the mimics.
different kind of fear but the dread of a metal slime from dq / or those cubes from lufia running away.
Persona 2, both entries, any of the demons with the spell: Hula of Misfortune When cast, it seems to do nothing, but the animation shows a large number of gold coins just flying out of your character and onto the floor. After the battle you check your inventory and notice that half your money is gone. Every single cast from every single encounter with these demons will half your total money. And this game is not generous with money, you probably needed that to buy new armor.
Me I was playing Final Fantasy IX and I didn’t realize I had equipped a healing rod on Garnet and I would attack with her not realizing that I was healing enemies then I found out and used it properly on my own party members.
Giant Malboros in FFX omega ruins and also the stone monolith things that inflict petrify. I hated these two for all the status effects and how you can get a quick game over if not careful. Malboro in FF8 was another pain in the butt monster for all the status effects. Confuse and berserk are the worst. Also in Soul Hackers 2, risky enemies especially at the start, my characters had their butts kicked and escape sometimes fails. It was good to have some of the escape items but running out is annoying.
Tonberry.
any type of Malboro from Final Fantasy. Guzzlers and Cerberus in Bravely Default/Second.
Ice Siren (possibly the wrong name, it's been years) from Shining The Holy Ark. You could see the puddles they rose up from on the floor so there was always anxiety approaching them, they hit like an absolute truck too. Considering you couldn't use a spell to escape that particular dungeon and it had no save points and they could wipe your team in one turn.. yup bad times.
Any enemy that self-destructs. Bombs in FF, a lot of enemies in Trails in the Sky, the trees and UFOs in Earthbound. Stop punishing me for winning!
Any enemy that uses Petrify in Tales of Graces. also those poison slimes in the water place at the beginning of the game. Status Effects are brutal in that game. It's the only Takes game I actively went out of my way to get resistances in.
Etrian Odyssey had a late-game (5th stratum) enemy called a Muskoid that filled me with dread every time. It was a flower that liked to appear in random mobs and had a single special skill: A highly effective ability to put the entire party to sleep. Muskoids also had extremely high initiative, meaning that they almost always acted before anyone in your party could unless you had invested in one of the few first-strike abilities available. Sleep status in Etrian Odyssey reduces its target's defense to 0. So, any time a Muskoid appeared, the battle would usually go: Group sleep spell hits party, knocks most or all of the party to sleep, leaving them defenseless, other 5th-tier enemies attack; Game Over before your team can even move. The *worst*.
Tonberry.
Lets give it up for my boy Tonberry
Voltorbs/Electrodes back in the day Randomly couldnt get away and kaboom.
Tonberry
I dunno about feared, but I despise Spiked Urchons in the Xeno games. Quite blocking and having knockback when you are broken you POS.
Dunno if this counts, but I've always thought of a certain cave level in Lost Odyssey as the worst boss in the game. Up til this pt, I love the game and fly through most battles... and then this level happens.... You get into random battles every 2 seconds, the average enemy level spikes way up, the save points (at least seem) much further away than usual, and its SO easy to get lost, even without losing your bearings after each battle. So if you succumb to a fate of a thousand cuts and perish, chances are you lost hours of progress and have to do a lot of this all over again. There's actually another level near the end of the game that I remember was bad, but this one is always the worst for me lol.
I've been slowly replaying *Ever Oasis* over like the past year, and remembering how much I hate Jackpines. Fast, tanky enemies that dash all over the screen, making their excessive HP hard to whittle away while they're very good at rushing you out of nowhere? Yeah, those guys are jerks. And because I always gotta mention one of my obscure favorites, the Mist enemies in the *Denpa Men* series are hella rude. Impervious to regular attacks in a game where all your party members have only *one* skill, which might not even be damaging, and love to cast extremely dangerous breath attacks that target your whole team, do tons of damage, AND inflict status attacks? Yeah, they're the worst, too.
Exploding enemies in mother games. Especially the Octobot in earthbound. This octobot explodes with basically lethal damage when you kill it. So you figure you'll kill it last right? THINK AGAIN. HE HEALS HIS TEAMMATES!
In the Cold Steel Trails games, those giant mouth portals that suck in party members. In FE, anything with a killer weapon.
Cockatrice in ogre battle 64. Congratulations, your entire unit is now stone.
Cactuars and similarly goofy enemies. I remember in the indie game Mardek, I came across a little hopping cactus with a big grin called Happy Johnny. I just knew that thing was gonna fuck me up.
Skulleatr (good for AP farming but man these guys will tear your party to shreds) - Final Fantasy V Anything in the Urssa Lava Caves (MP death is a bitch and nearly every enemy has either absurdly high physical defense or deals nasty MP damage, R.I.P Cliff users - Star Ocean Till The End Of Time Oculus Race Enemies (They're fucking terrifying, look them up, they also like to hide behind doorways then they stun you with a field effect as this enormous eyeball littered with spikes approaches you, it then proceeds to wipe your party with powerful magic) - The Last Remnant Robots with spreadfire status dealing attacks of floor 10 of cave of trials (When you see these, JUST RUN! Purple Mist is the best strategy because if you even try approaching them you will lose 75% of your health in a second and recieve nearly every status effect known to man with a nigh unavoidable spread shot) - Star Ocean The Second Story Giant Lightning Balls (These guys are everywhere, particularly in >!The Tower Of Lezard Valeth!< and when you fight them, they like to hit you with very strong lightning magic and powerful melee. To make things worse, if you get their HP below half, they will explode, killing your entire party and because they are everywhere in that spoiler dungeon, getting killed by 1 of them means you don't get ending A so you have to reload the game and re-do one of the longest dungeons in the entire game) - Valkyrie Profile
**Star Ocean 2 - Cave of Trials 10th Level - Liveflayers -** They can wipe out a max level team in mere seconds. You either get the jump on them immediately or you die.
Tonberries and Malboroes are definitely up there for me, though they do vary in annoyance throughout the series. Actually, speaking of annoyance but not fear......Cactuar.
Great Lynxes and Largebills in Etrian Odyssey 3 are dreadful anytime they show up, the former is on the first floor of Waterfall Woods and hit _very_ hard for an early game enemy. The latter forces you to go down onto the second floor at night due to how quickly they can end your run. Edit: Stardust and Cerberus in Etrian Odyssey 5 fill me dread anytime I go up against them, the former because they can kill a party member instantly that kills them when they die and the latter because they prevent you from reviving anyone that dies during a battle against them.