How Do You Design a Cast of Enemies?

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You could have the ultimate combat system for your game, but what good is it if you've got no one to fight? Constructing a cast of enemies is a tough task. Even great games like Breath of the Wild and Paper Mario: The Origami King haven't nailed it perfectly. You need to carefully balance visual and mechanical design to keep things interesting, and games like Pikmin and the Dragon Quest series have each figured out a way to do that well. Let's talk about how to design a cast of enemies, some problems to avoid, and some opportunities to add flair to make your fights worth fighting.
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#dragonquest #papermario #breathofthewild

[@DesignDoc]

The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: skl.sh/designdoc0820

[@davisdawson5047]

I really love how you flow into the skillshare ad here. Made me laugh.

[@elicenyne]

ofofouf

[@maskedman3672]

I have a question, Would it be possible to make a game with only one enemy

[@potentianox1573]

@@maskedman3672 I realise its been ages since it was asked, but yes, you can. Matter of fact, there was a game for the Vita "Trillion: God of destruction" The Only enemy in the game is Trillion, imaginatively named, for having 1 Trillion Health, he goes through seperate phases, depending on how much damage he has taken however its the same evolving enemy through the game. May be more examples, but any time I can recall something from the hidden library the Vita had is a good day.

[@maskedman3672]

@@potentianox1573 THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@zippy2058]

The zombies from “Plants vs Zombies.” Their designs are simple, informative, and just plain charming!

[@pepperplume]

Thats true, every other level introduced a new intuitive zombie, with every other level introducing a counter to that zombie, that game always felt fresh

[@honeybeeami2654]

It’s completely true. Just seeing the designs gives you an idea of what they’re special is alongside the plants you collect!

[@MustacheOnMars9]

Even in the newer games the designs are great!

[@doraeguyakaneddie6586]

I'm going to miss the series. To bad EA killed it

[@DatMageDoe]

It's amazing how much character and personality plays into their designs as well. Most of the Zombies wear what they're going to do on their design (What does the guy with a balloon do? Why, float over your defenses, of course!), but those few which lack a really on-the-nose design, in favor of them being more story-reliant. Take the Newspaper Zombie. It's not immediately apparent what he does, but the moment you break his newspaper and see him enraged, it all becomes clear - he's reading the paper, and after you destroy his paper, he gets mad. From there on out, you remember what the Newspaper Zombie does because of his own little internal story.

[@gyroge9]

The Mario & Luigi series does enemy desings differntly, instead of making new mechanics or making the player approach the enemy in a different way (Like using single hit attacks instead multi hit ones for high defence enemies) the Mario & Luigi series makes enemies with unique attacks to make the player dodge the attack differently even when using the same concept.

[@jimmybob3948]

What I love about the mario & luigi games is that technically, you could go an entire playthrough without being hit a single time, but to do that requires a lot of practice. There's also the risk v reward of simply dodging an enemies attack, or trying to time it perfectly to damage the enemy back. If you mess up, you could be hit yourself, but time it right and you can damage an enemy on THEIR attacking turn. Most of the battle in mario & luigi games is getting to recognise enemy patterns and capitalise on them, rather than attacking yourself

[@paolo2763]

The M&L went all in with crazy designs for familiar characters, I loved them

[@goldenyoshistar1]

My favorite is Lakitu X and Spiny X in Dream Team. LOL. Just kidding, Honestly, Partner's in Time has the best Enemy Design of the entire series. For the cases of the Shroob-like enemies, they all look cool and intimidating.

[@TheWernecker]

I feel like there was a missed opportunity of talking about monster hunter, a game that NEEDS to have a great bestiary to work as it does. Edit: Fixed some wording

[@LuvzToLol21]

The thing that makes Monster Hunter work is: 1. Fights are hard but fair 2. There's very little cheese What I mean is that some monsters, like Rajang or Fatalis, are extremely difficult to fight, but all of their attacks are telegraphed and have predictable patterns so it's possible to defeat them without taking any damage. And elemental weakness and status effects are a thing in the game, but it's not like you can one-shot monsters or just spam one strategy until you win. Even strategies like sleep bombing that are designed to take out a massive chunk of the monster's health in one blow require a lot of setup and player coordination to pull off. The only exception I can think of is Nibelsnarf in the older games who you can cheese by repeatedly making it swallow bombs, essentially letting you stun it on command.

[@nipples123nipples]

I like that in MH even the reskins feel fresh, mostly because they change some of the moves, making the new monster feel familiar, but different.

[@Emelenyt]

Really need to play Monster Hunter. Everything I have seen about it looks fantastic

[@foreverokami16]

@@nipples123nipples I think tiger stripe zamtrios is a good example of that, while it has one similar mechanic as the original it fights very differently.

[@wesleyedmundson8297]

@@Emelenyt it's a heavy learning curve, but once you learn the flow of the game, it's freaking incredible.

[@Quargos]

I think the one thing I'd want to actively add to this, is that it can be important to have enemies that fill specific design purposes; such as acting as a tutorial for a mechanic, by requiring and / or encouraging a player to make use of it. One example that comes to mind; though unfortunately an example of where the game failed rather than succeeded, is that Hollow Knight does a pretty poor job of teaching players quite how powerful the Vengeful Spirit spell they acquire early in the game is; with the forced gauntlet after you acquire it only containing squishy enemies that the player is accustomed to, where use of soul on spells rather than saved for healing would feel like a waste, and a unique enemy that you need to use it on, which the player lacks an existing frame of reference on. If the designers had included an enemy that's tough to fight close range; perhaps evading after being hit, but is taken out in one shot from Vengeful Spirit, I imagine that many players would be far more likely to realise quite how powerful the ability they'd been given is, and be willing to spend valuable soul on dealing fast damage with it, rather than saving it to heal up after the fight.

[@android19willpwn]

Honestly I feel that players get a pretty decent concept that the vengeful spirit is powerful, it's just that new players are *never* going to use it no matter how well they understand its strength. They might pull it out against enemies that are especially tough to hit like the moss knights, but think of it this way. Fighting with the vengeful spirit is spending soul, while fighting with the nail is gaining soul. Soul is valuable because you can use it for healing, and you can be damaged from both enemies and the environment. If you don't know what's coming next and aren't yet skilled at the game, a player is going to want to have as much soul as possible at all times so they can best deal with whatever they run into next. When it comes to regular enemies, players generally look beyond the current combat encounter and consider what would be best overall, which is also why they rarely use consumable items on trash mobs in JRPGs. Against bosses, players are more likely to play conservatively since they don't have the boss' patterns totally down, don't know how close the boss is to dead, and don't know what other tricks it may pull out later in the fight. And from a new player perspective it's probably better that they're healing rather than using spells, since that means they're spending longer fighting the boss every try, which means they're getting more practice against it each try. They'll toss out some spells if they think they're doing well, but will for the most part stick to healing.

[@robonerd125]

@@android19willpwn i've never used a spell and not immediately regretted it, which is why if there's one flaw with Hollow Knight (besides the fact that the gun mod isn't vanilla) it's that the SOUL system is basically begging to be a victim of "too good to use" syndrome... if the spells had been limited in almost any other way, they wouldn't feel like pointless metroidvania-like "you can go here, now. hope you marked your map -bitch- " maybe a cooldown that gets shorter as you do damage? retains the high aggression playstyle, while not completely boning you for using SOUL on something frivolous, like, not dying...

[@davidbrickey8733]

@@robonerd125 I think the real mistake was just tying attacks to the same resource as healing. If you had a special attack meter that rapidly refills whenever you land hits, and only performed special attacks, I think most players would use those attacks liberally. And if you had a healing meter that refills only when you land hits, and requires a safe moment to spend, you'd have exactly the same healing system as now. But if you combine them on the same meter, healing is almost always more important.

[@roomtemperature7096]

​@@davidbrickey8733 i actually like that they use the same resource for attack and healing. For me it adds another layer to the combat, yes most player would feel prompted to use it for healing but you can't do that forever, soul comes from melee so you eventually will have learn how to do that. It prompt me to play more aggressive than I would like (and I'm such a wuss too). I do agree they need to do better in displaying how powerful the spell is, tho I suspect most player who aren't using the spell much are probably the ones who aren't struggling much at the combat (nailing). I suck pretty bad so I had to learn to use it or I won't progress lol

[@TravelocityKirby]

Bias in my name aside, I wanna shout out the Kirby series for its bestiaries. While they may be pretty simple to deal with thanks to how powerful Abilities can be, with the amount of them each game, it allows for a wide variety of enemies that are simple yet appealing and you can tell immediately what power they’ll give when swallowed. And at the same giving enough variance to enemies that DON’T give Abilities and are otherwise ammo when you lack one yourself. ...Unless it’s a Scarfy, Mumbies, Gordo, or Shotzo. Shoutout in particular to the Dark Matter trilogy (Dreamland 2, 3, and 64) for having to spread only a handful of Abilities compared to most other games to a big cast of enemies. Though it helps that they’re simple enough like Fire and Stone with the oddballs Parasol, Bomb, and especially Cleaning.

[@Ratty524]

Enemies like Scarfy are particularly great because even in the first game, which had no copy abilities, Scarfy immediately stood out for how it served to foil Kirby's main attacking mechanics and force the player to take a different approach to dealing with them.

[@baconlabs]

I just finished watching Mark Brown's video on JRPGs in his "design icons" series, and I have to say, very few things in this life achieve the same level of perfection as Akira Toriyama's Slime design

[@Mac_Omegaly]

It really is iconic.

[@antusFireNova]

ESPECIALLY THE SLIME CONTROLLER

[@Mac_Omegaly]

@@antusFireNova I have never gotten my hands on any of the 4 slime controllers. But I don't think they would be particularly nice to use as a controller. Only for display.

[@Emelenyt]

Sometimes simplicity really is the best way. Less is more

[@dewaeryadi7776]

Indeed, even now you can still see the influence of akira toriyama slime design on the latest game like genshin impact

[@guttsu]

You showed it a bunch in the video, but I think Hollow Knight has a great bestiary. Early enemies walk at you, occasionally jog/jump a bit. As you proceed further into the world, the variety gets tougher, and each area has unique enemies.

[@markosmywords9202]

Once again Hollow Knight proves itself as an absolute masterpiece of a video game.

[@ee5142]

When the color of breath of the wild enemies change, their AI gets better, because golden enemies don’t eat food, and they can’t get distracted by food.

[@beardlessdragon]

*talking about designing good bestiaries* *shows Yoshi's Island* Aah, a man of culture

[@RandomMcSomethin]

It was so good that YIDS even had an enemy museum.

[@ethandement3921]

That game is the reason Shy Guys are my favorite Mario enemies. Shy Guys are great because they are so delightfully inventive and charming in the ways they try to fight, it leaves the player wondering, “What new costume are they gonna try next?”

[@N12015]

@@ethandement3921 Or what absurd tactic they'll try to defeat me? Thing like using slingshots and baloons, dancing with a spear on hand, being on fire, using stilts to be higher, being fat, a shyguy turret, an acrobatic jump, or my personal favourite, a toy tank.

[@Rodanguirus]

I don't know an official count, but I feel like there are very few, sprite-based platformers or action games with as many different enemy types as Yoshi's Island. And even variants with recycled sprites often have different behaviors. And that's not even getting into the amount of behaviors and expressiveness they showcase.

[@Evanz111]

Dragon’s Dogma took enemy weak spots and turned them from a way to deal damage to a way to entirely change the fight, and some fights are only winnable by exploiting them. Except unlike other games, hitting those weak spots takes exploration and skill, so winning feels like such an achievement!

[@KenBladehart]

As much hate color swap/elemental variant enemies does get. They can give interesting combat ideas like putting all of them into an arena. Giving players challenges like how to defeat them with relative ease or fast times Thats just me though

[@jacobaldrich8604]

I played through FFX for the first time and really enjoyed the elemental pallet swaps.

[@arogustus3984]

I think a good example of color/elemental variants is in the hounds of Don't Starve. Every few days, a varying number of hounds will show up to attack you, and they become more intense over time. And along with them, depending on the seasons, come their elemental variants. Ice hounds in Winter and Spring, and red hounds in Summer and Autumn. They act the same as regular hounds, except they have less health, but killing them causes them to explode, either freezing you or setting things on fire around them. They have different drops too, since they drop more teeth than regular hounds and can even drop gems.

[@brockmckelvey7327]

I feel like the Kingdom Hearts games have some really solid bestiaries. As they've added more enemy types, they've done less color swapping in favor of using a variety of enemies.

[@steveh1474]

even the color swaps in KH1 and 2 are more interesting than "just a color swap." theres obviously standard enemies like Shadows and Soldiers, but these guys never get color swaps. they just get stat boosts as you progress through the game. while the first encounter with a Large Body might leave a rookie player struggling, the endgame has no problems dropping you into a battle with 5 of them, with huge statboosts applied, and you still make short work of them. but there ARE color swaps, the "elemental music" enemies. they all have a signature bell shape and they fly around, but behave very differently. in KH1, the red ones are pretty slow, but might keep moving while they cast a slow moving fireball. the yellow ones are excitable and zip across the battlefield in the blink of an eye before they stop to cast an unavoidable thunder spell.

[@Epicvampire800]

@@steveh1474 yeah the elemental music enemies actually add a lot of depth to the game with their variations. They all test the same skills: pursuing the enemy and using weakness, but the variations in their ai and weaknesses test them in different ways. At least in kh1

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

yeah, as far as I know, the KH series never really seemed to have issues with what looks like color swaps. They've always seemed to make each enemy unique. And even if you find the same enemy in a different game, each installment is unique enough for you to feel like you're dealing with them in a new way. They could make a KH game with every enemy they've ever used and it'd still feel like a new experience to me.

[@benfoote9945]

I would like to hear your thoughts on how different types of enemies can be grouped together to make interesting scenarios. For example, how an encounter against a mix of melee and ranged enemies creates a different (often more interesting) challenge than fighting each separately.

[@hannahboo4343]

You’re one of those youtubers where when you upload it’s instantly a good day. Keep it up 👍

[@alexdombrowski9483]

Shin megami tensei or persona are some games with amazing enemies. All based on creatures or gods of myth, legend, and religion. All with stylish designs

[@dantemustdie00]

Yeah the Megaten series is really good with it's demon bestiary. You have to be careful fighting them as you need to find a weakness, at the same time, the enemy can do so to you. You also can't just simply go through the games with just Physical or Magic focused MC and Demons cause theirs gonna be something nasty like Alciel, Girimekhala, Rangda or something else that will block, drain or even reflect attacks back at you. Granted their are some palllette swap demons like Tam Lin and Cu Chulainn, thankfully their are some alternate designs of demons like the superior Devil Summoner Cu Chulainn, but I never understood why Atlus doesn't that design more.

[@dantemustdie00]

@Smash 456 Mara is peak level design my boy, look at that Girth, it's all about the Girth.

[@marcossierra3498]

You already pointed out Bug Fables with it's scaling and enemy designs but a good one for me is Megaman Zero (the series). They put what can seem like a common normal foe into a important position to block your path while platforming or even get the jump on you if you are focused on something else, there is a lot more that the games enemies can do but rushing through the level half haired will cost you more than you bargain for and the same thing for playing it safe.

[@harveybridgeman6895]

Y'know, Wonderful 101's bestiary is something to behold, it does great at showing off battle mechanics, with many different types of enemies often being weak to specific abilities, like how the giant turtle-like Megangs have armour that can only be shattered by using Unite Hammer (which also acts as a tutorial on using the ability itself), and if you're feeling adventurous, you can block their stomps to tip them over on their backs to attack their underbellies for extra damage! Yes there are some re-skinned designs but the overall variety is extensive throughout.

[@X9Z17]

Something feels good about seeing an enemy design that's super rare or restricted to one specific area. Such as in Donkey Kong Country 3, you get the Tyrant Twins who appear only in 3 levels, and only in the Lost World of Krematoa, it makes them feel like an occasion to see! Same with Swoopy, the bird who creates a platform in one of the earlier levels doesn't return until you get very deep into the game with a stage revolving around them. Along with the Koindozers, who have just 1 stage for them as enemies!

[@Lukz243]

I've been playing Dragon Quest XI S and I never feel tired of watching the monsters intro animation. I think they're funny (of course, their character designs have a great appeal)

[@krebooted5944]

the kingdom hearts games always have fun enemy designs that test the players’ ability to fight them off. beyond simple foot soldiers there are bigger enemies like large bodies that are only able to be damaged from behind or with magic, or floating elemental enemies that take more damage against certain spells or heal allies. different combinations of all these heartless leads to a variety of tactics needing to be employed against them, and they all have cute designs to differentiate them, including a special unique heartless design for every world you visit that comes with fun gameplay quirks like a ghost that becomes intangible on occasion for the nightmare before christmas world or a dandelion that splits into multiple smaller enemies to fight rather than one large one when hit with wind magic in the tangled world. relegating these enemies to one world also helps them maintain their novelty since you only see them on occasion. later in the series with kh2, new enemies called nobodies are introduced, whose designs are whispy and white to contrast the heartless’ stubbier black designs and set themselves apart. gameplay-wise they serve to test the player’s skill with the reaction command system that debuted with them in kh2 by being much weaker to them than the heartless while being stronger in most other areas. also, when reaction commands debuted, nearly every single enemy got one which served to further set them apart very nicely from one another :))

[@heck_n_degenerate940]

I think Arcade type games are an important topic to bring up when talking about enemy design as well. Good arcade games need to make fights tactical, fun, and not boring with even just 1-2 main enemies. The game Inversus is an arcade top down shooter, where things take place on a grid map. There’s basically 2 enemies you’ll encounter most of the time: One that shoots, and one that kills if it gets too close. The AI and ratio between the two varies between each map, highlighting the mechanical theme of that map. For example, one map (Roads) is an interconnected map of narrow hallways and passes, and all the enemies are the basic melee ones that just rush you down and overwhelm you. The map Globe, which is just a circle, has enemies circle around you, cutting off your line of retreat. Like arcade games, I think strategy games as well have to keep things interesting without introducing additional enemy types, like Wargroove is able to keep variety and force you to make meaningful decisions, even though it stops introducing new units after a while.

[@actualmadscientist]

One notable example of enemy design that encouraging variety. In borderlands 2 there are robots that can deflect bullets so the player usually needs to throw acid grenades to quickly defeat them.

[@VBall1295]

Hyper Light Drifter has a pretty great bestiary. Each area has it's own unique enemies and they all behave differently; they aren't just stronger or weaker versions of each other. There is also great visual design for them which conveys the story of the game, like Halo, which is especially useful since the game has no spoken or written dialogue.

[@FaelumbreProject]

I know Skylanders is a bit of a black sheep franchise, but something that I always loved in it was its enemy design. I recommend to anyone wanting to get more into this subject to check out Mike Stout's GDC speech about the game and how they got around the issues of making a cast of 40 playable characters with different mechanics (that only got bigger); and even after the first game, I can count the amount of genuinely unfair enemies in my hand because every entry followed the same rules, but different approaches to each purpose they had to fulfill in an ambush. Shoutouts to the entire line of Troll enemies that always have some mechanic to teach children to not just stand there and mash attacks.

[@katherinestacey3421]

I think the Megami Tensei franchise has one of the best bestiaries I've ever seen in a game! While there are a few recolours (such as Cu Chulainn and Tam Lin), the variety of enemy designs, as well as the mechanics surrounding their weaknesses, makes it hard to get old of the demons! The only Megaten games that have weaker designs (out of the ones I've played) are P3 and P4, as the same enemy designs are reused constantly throughout the game.

[@floofzykitty5072]

I really like how Bayonetta introduces a boss, and then later once you're better that boss can become a regular enemy (they might be powered down too, but I'm not sure)

[@cataquackwarlord5389]

I liked the overall design and diversity of enemies in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Admittedly, the main crop of baddies - the Snowmad vikings - remains fairly consistent throughout the adventure, but each island has its own unique creatures, with their own behaviors and attacks. For instance, Bright Savannah has buffaloes that charge you, while Juicy Jungle has toucans that ride poisonous fruits. Not only are these enemies diverse, but they help give more depth to the area - like how the owls, rats, and hogs of Autumn Heights have their own community and cities. It makes each island feel different and fascinating.

[@Stephen-Fox]

Late to this one so I'll note an example of what I think of as a good bestiary that's unlikely to have been brought up - Space Giraffe. Only a dozen enemies large, tops, distributed over 100 levels, but every enemy feels vastly different from the next, and how you deal with them differs based on both the other enemies on that level's web and if the web's topology is looping or not - Flowers are _much_ more dangerous on non-looping topologies, for example. After the first three enemies are introduced in the first 10 levels, the game slows down the pace of introducing new enemy types such that it can fully explore the possible interactions, and sprinkle in some harder waves focused on past enemy types than what would have worked at the difficulty curve of where that enemy type was introduced. They all look surprisingly distinct considering the minimalist art direction - they're almost all wireframes. No bosses, either, the same effect is generated by a level that serves the same pacing purpose followed by a ratchet down of difficulty, often while the game introduces a new enemy type. And then there's the enemies that cause an explosion of distortion that on most levels means you have to be careful when you kill them but on a couple the distortion they cause actually clears some general visual info up (and this is entirely by design, part of the challenge is to learn to see through the game's visual effects (The game isn't for everyone. and a lot of that is this aspect of the design - There are reasons the review scores I recall for it ranged from 10/10 all the way down to 3/10)), meaning I think every aspect of the design of the game is impacted by various of the game's enemies, including the game's visuals. A smaller bestiary with a high degree of distinction sometimes really does feel larger than a larger bestiary where some enemies feel similar to each other, even if there's the same amount of enemy types.

[@syrusgrove8682]

My favorite Bestiary is Miitopia there's tons of what at first look like palette changes but they are more than just a color difference most of the time and then other times the look gets a cool extra part to the monster and the ones that are just color changes that are stronger also most of the time have different types of faces they can have and the enemies are very expressive and the bosses are great since you can control how they look most of the time meaning you can have either the most intimidating boss or a boss with a UwU face and most of the time there is literally no middle ground.

[@jonathann.5754]

I really love the mario & luigi enemies exactly because they change up the entire battle. My only complaint is that there are arguably too many different enemies as you'll be trough an area before you know all the patterns.

[@greatone10]

I'd like to see discussion on Donkey Kong Country's bestiary, and the changes that take place from DKC 1 to 2 to 3, and how they reflect the themes in each game. DKC1 introduces the Kremlings as a lizard tribe to oppose the apes that comprise Donkey Kong's world, but DKC2 goes a step further with many of them dressed in pirate garb or have weapons like artificial limb hooks and cutlasses to reflect the pirate theme. Also, the change in location is enforced by the additions of ghost kremlings and a beehive world, since you have gone from defending your world to infiltrating enemy territory. Then in DKC3, the bestiary is revamped to have a lot of mechanical enemies, be it Kremlings using bombs, cannons, metal shields, or the wasp-like Zingers being replaced with robotic buzzsaw bees indicating the change in theme to an industrial setting.

[@83Chrisaaron]

Really fun video. Definitely agree with Pikmin. The enemies have a way of feeling like a bigger part of the world than most games. Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES) really stands out for bestiaries. Each level has a nice variety of exclusive enemies, often linked with that region of Japan's culture/history. Plus their mechanics are really tricky and amusing. (The fisherman and and clowns having dangerous parts knocked off of them, the karakuri ninjas unexpectedly disbanding parts of themselves, etc.) Plus, if you were a 9 year old American kid with very little exposure to Yokai/Edo culture like I was, the unfamiliarity of it all made the enemies even more fascinating.

[@Genasidal]

The problems you addressed specifically with FFXII's beastiary was something I never felt. The world was crafted in such a way where finding new variants of previously fought enemies was something I REALLY enjoyed. Also, whilst I basically agree with your take on BotW, i will add one thing, in hope that Nintendo expands this idea in the sequel: stronger versions of enemies often have smarter AI, and will perform things the weaker variants won't, making for incredibly surprising moments, like when a silver bokoblin first kicked my bomb back at me and I blew myself up. More of THIS type of variety with the variants would REALLY spruce up BotW 2. I hope they simply keep all the enemies present here and add more based off of old zelda titles. Zelda has a massive beastiary to draw from too, which really helps here! BotW with Darknuts, Iron Knuckles and Stalfos Knights/ReDeads alone are exciting ideas. Let alone all the great enemy designs from the wind Waker, that had some brilliant concepts behind them on their own, like the plants that actually want too kill you, or that game's variant of the peahat. They really dont have to look far to draw inspiration for the sequel, so I'm excited to see what additions are made

[@HewleyxAngel]

I’ve been playing through SMT 3: Nocturne recently and I have to say that that game has some great enemy design and uses it to help convey the games bleak and somber tone. Not to mention the mechanics themselves lead to a decision of whether or not you want to stay in the fight or try and talk to an enemy, whether to get money or items or ask them to join you. It helps give the enemies and world more personality as it lets them feel like they’re actual other living beings in this world rather than just obstacles to overcome. At least a little.

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

The SMT and Persona series in general seem to get enemy variety down pretty well. And the mechanics between each game fits very well with the battles too.

[@ultrawaveyt5582]

the first 30 seconds are upsettingly accurate. i spent 90% of the time refining and evolving my combat system and none of the enemies remained compatible. i now have an amazing combat system with no enemies to use it on :(

[@lostmarble540]

I really like the worm bosses in terraria. A lot of enemies will shoot and charge at you and you have to be quick on your feet to dodge them, but worm bosses will often burrow underground so you have watch your minimap to dodge them when they resurface, but also there's also this pitfall where even if you dodge them they might dive back down right next to you and oops now the worm body has completely surrounded you and you should've been smarter about your position.

[@robonerd125]

the issue with that is that Terraria's movement is SO fucking clunky that the games like "ha, should've dodged that" like HOW?! its the size of the fucking ISS and all i have are these go-fast boots, and a grappling hook, maybe a fart in a jar if i'm lucky. and late game isn't so much better that the issue goes away, you get some wings, a way to dash (if you're playing expert) and maybe a flying "mount" that doesn't fly like a bus with propellers. just feels like the game just wants me to build sky-arenas for every fight, and i got better shit to do than spend a half hour for a 5 minute fight.

[@lostmarble540]

​@@robonerd125 lol that's fair. The character does kinda handle like flappy bird. Personally I think the game could've done with more creative boss design and less bullet hell. I've heard a lot of people build a sky bridge for some of the late game bosses (I built a sky bridge to fight the final boss) so you're not the only one.

[@regi5165]

Surprised you didn't mention the collectathon aspect of games like Pokemon and SMT. That's when a bestiary is the most important imo, and its appeal directly correlates to how often and deeply the player engages with the collection mechanic in such a game. Another thing worth mentioning is how in these specific games, enemies can expose the player to new monsters that they otherwise haven't seen before. This can incentivize players to engage with other mechanics like demon fusion in SMT or certain evolution conditions in Pokemon and incorporate more aspects of the game into the gameplay loop at the players' behest.

[@Leetheslayer]

Sonic, most enemies, especially in the classic games are unique to the zone and have different behavior and designs

[@dragonarcher89]

reskins are fine as long as they fit in the area they live in. look at monster hunter and the narjaala (i prpbably spelled it wrong). the big wyvern snake that was introduced in mh4. one of its attacks has it shooting its scales around an area and once it roars, the scales explode. ok simple enough but its subspecies does something different. instead of roaring to explode the scales, the sub species shoots out a water/ice ball and it ricochets from one scale to another. theres more examples in mh but it gives u an idea that the same type of monster does not always fight the same way.

[@GamerCrusader8]

There was a clip or two of the Kingdom Hearts series in this video and that reminds me of one of the fun things about progressing in that series is what new Heartless will you find in each new world. 1 & 2 did a great job at this and enemies even looked like they were made out of clay in the Halloweentown world since the film that level is from was stop motion.

[@Akazury]

Small correction, Paper Mario games are actually classified as Action Adventure games starting with Sticker Star instead of the Turn Based RPG classification the pre-reboot games had.

[@shadowpheonix1751]

I think an example of a good bestiary is the first two Paper Mario games. Their designs are usually distinct, their properties become clear from a glance at their appearance, and they all serve a different purpose in combat. An example of a lackluster bestiary is the one in Luigi’s Mansion 3. All of the enemy concepts are just redesigns of the ones seen in Dark Moon with a few subtle tweaks, and there are nowhere near as many as previous entries. The mini goob was also not my favorite, since it basically adds nothing. They can be defeated super easily. The game can combine the enemies in different ways for more interesting encounters at times, but there just isn’t enough variety. It’s not the worst bestiary out there, but they could’ve tried harder.

[@svenbtb]

I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily for a game like BOTW to have a handful of common enemy types. If you had to worry about randomly encountering 1 of 100 monsters in any given area at any given time when you're just trying to get from point A to point B (unless you were modding the game and trying to make it extra challenging), that would be straight up exhausting. It would kill the pacing if you had to stop and figure out/remember how to fight a brand new enemy every 30 steps. By having the more exotic enemies be more uncommon it lets the game focus more on exploration and discovery. And even with the common enemies, their kit, group size, location relative to other interactive objects, etc, adds a fair bit of variety and interest. I'm not saying it's perfect or that there's not room for improvement, but I feel like this was an intentional design choice in service to the overall experience. It also lets the more special enemies, like Lynels, really shine when you DO fight them.

[@desplanchesstevan1418]

I liked what Octopath Travelers did with each area, pretty much giving ''evolutions'' to the enemies as in like Pokémon, with each new iteration being in the more advanced zones.

[@Ashen-Crow]

I think you overlooked the most important part of enemy design, how each enemy interact with the combat mechanics in different ways, and how to explore that and add complexity or subvert expectations over the game

[@RickyRiceB]

Personally, I absolutely love the original enemy designs from smash bros brawl’s sun space emissary. Especially when certain events kick the stakes from 1 to 11 in and instant where seconds ago you were plowing through primid goons minding their own business then next thing you know the same shadow bugs bugs that created said primids are forming into this robotic Siamese twin which gains support by balancing on wheels (duon from the halberd stage)

[@joshmackenzie]

I feel like most recent SpiderMan games does a pretty good job of differentiating it's enemies. The weapon they hold gives you an idea of what to expect from each fight.

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

One of my favorite bestiaries is from the SMT/Persona games. Having them be based on religion/mythology means that those aware of the backstories combined with the character designs could probably guess the weaknesses faster. And in a franchise where exploiting weaknesses is key to not dying, that's a really cool way to do it.

[@SlightlyInDepthGaming]

I gotta say jrpg wise Shin Megami Tensei games nail enemy design for me. Each demon feels and looks unique and by being based on actual demons in real life religions/stories make learning about where each demon is from and what they represent incredibly fun and educating

[@YoshiTheyosh123]

I gotta give a shout out to Doom: Eternal in this. The enemies gallery is numerous, visually varied, easy to tell who's what at a glance (for the most part) and very conciously crafted with the players arsenal in mind, with different demons and demon combinations encouraging different combos.

[@ArtofWEZ]

It's weird because I found the combat so much more addicting in BoTW because there is so many ways to take down each enemy. maybe if they had that freedom but hugely different shaped monsters that react differently to that freedom.

[@machadragonii145]

The kremlings from Donkey Kong country they be applied to multiple different settings and still have a lot personality and this coming from somebody how like the Tiki tac tribe & the Snowmads

[@Colconren]

i personally find some charm in palette swapped enemies as long as their are enough unique elements to make the encounter require different strategy. Also of course provided that there isnt too many palette swaps. Maybe it's just because it reminds me of days of yore in gaming when memory space required devs do pallet swapped enemies for lack of memory power in consoles and what not but eh i like em

[@SpiffierShindigs]

One thing I really like about how Bayonetta does its bestiary is that the "palette swaps" are actually WEAPON swaps. Sure, you'll fight Affinity a bunch of times, but the fact there are polearm, trumpet and mace variations keeps them feeling fresh.

[@mothersteele3218]

I don’t think I need to defend how amazing XCOM 2’s bestiary is. From mind controlling Sectoids to the ever venomous Chryssalids, each enemy adds its own flare to combat that completely changes up how you approach the situation.

[@MythrilZenith]

The biggest flaw of a ton of modern ARPGs, like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile, is the monster variety. Sure, you have a ton of unique looking enemies that theme well, but you interact with them all the exact same way, outside of the occasional elite where you have to dodge a mechanic while doing the same thing.

[@Volvagia1927]

Interesting. Would that deep dive be a Top 10. I think we'd know five or six entries of what that list would be (Pikmin, Mega Man, Hollow Knight, Doom, Monster Hunter and MAYBE Megami Tensei), but curious what the other 4 or 5 would be.

[@skc4188]

A shame you didn't even mention the Mario platformers. Some of the most iconic, most recognizable enemies in gaming history appeared in the Mario franchise, such as Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Piranha Plants, Shy Guys, Pokeys, Boos, Chain Chomps, Wigglers, Magikoopas, etc.

[@Kira-qp5ll]

I'm extremely surprised that Pokemon wasn't brought up given how iconic it is, but overall, great picks.

[@mortonandroy]

Ah, Bug Fables ♥ It really nails the OG Paper Mario battle style. The battles were so much fun mechanically, which allowed the bestiary to shine even brighter.

[@mb778_]

I am genuinely surprised by the lack of Pokemon, a franchise initially sold on its bestiary. Hundreds of unique creatures with their own stats and abilities, although the palette-swap problem is replaced with role reprisal. 3 3-stage starter lines. A two-stage rodent. A 3-stage bird. Not Pikachu.

[@ShinyGoldSteelix]

Because Pokemon's bestiary is actually terrible from a gameplay perspective. How often do you need to change your strategy from anything other than 'use most powerful attack available, preferably with type advantage'?

[@RustoKomuska]

I actually grew a deeper appreciation for Breath of the Wild's combat after playing Genshin Impact, which obviously tries to do many of the same thing as botw but to less success. Even the generic bokoblins, repetitive though they may seem, are a lot of fun to fight against, at least compared to Genshin's standard Hilichurls. Genshin Impact has a deep enough combat system to be interesting and it sort of is but Breath of the Wild and Bokoblins just feel more fun and I don't know why

[@paolo2763]

To be honest, I would take a Paper mario TOK 2 in the future (Since its clear they aren't going back to the rpg formula). There's room for improvement, the bosses were pretty fun

[@dogishappy0]

I really liked the enemy variety in Earthbound.

[@Genoprototype]

I think Dead Cells has a pretty good bestiary, due to the face-paced nature of the game, and how quickly you can die by making a single mistake, everytime you encounter enemies you need to be able to immediately identify each enemy by their unique silhouettes, and recall what type of attacks they can launch against you, turning each enemy encounter into a *very* quick "puzzle" to have the most effective approach.

[@quatromanthefourth4413]

Cool video, I was more looking for how to make a cast mechanically different and good examples of that, but a fun video nonetheless.

[@aRBy125]

Tales of Symphonia & Tales of Vesperia's bestiaries stick out a bit in my mind.

[@kevinclancy1573]

Same!!

[@truthspeaker7878]

paper mario origami bosses are sick

[@JoniWan77]

I'd like to make a rather late counter-argument to designing bestiaries after novelty. Some games do not strive for novelty as an important concept. Novelty is very important for classical adventure stories. Not all games are that, though. Games, that are more focused on worldbuilding and actually making you care about the world (which not many RPGs actually do), may benefit from a more cohesive bestiary. The Trails series comes to mind here: Instead of letting the player explore new areas again and again, trails games throw you into the same area again and again, both to make you care about that area and to pay-off of having made the player care. Utilizing re-skins also serves to make the world and its fauna more believable in this case. Enemies either stay exactly the same in a given area, get re-skinned a bit stronger or are complemented by only some new enemies on consecutive visits. Areas with a similar flora or which are close to each other have a similar bestiary just like areas with a similar flora have a similar fauna in real life. It also adds to one of the core themes of routine: Random encounter enemies are not meant to be a challenge, they are meant to be routinely dispatched. Henceforth a more samey bestiary may not fill the player with a sense of novelty and wonder (which is important for an adventure story), but may instead fill the player with a sense of growing experience and competence (which can be important for a story more into the themes of adolescence and being part of the world).

[@uninconnu5844]

I totally agree with Dragon Quest's bestiary, but for me, it's less about their goofy designs, than the wordplays in some of their names

[@Fullbatteri]

Shin Megami Tensei enters the game, with hundreds of demons to fight and fuse.

[@colressliker]

reminds me of the deer enemy model in base game ffxiv being used for another enemy in heavensward and how it blindsides players because those deer they saw always minding to themselves are out for your fucking blood in this area and it is hilarious

[@thereapersbro]

The second you said recolors, I thought “ Yokai Watch”

[@juanrodriguez9971]

I find weird that you didn't mention Pokemon, in Pokemon despite everything being playable, the player won't be able to play s everything the first time they met it, Pokemon like Zubat, Audino, Geodude and Kakuna must tell the player what are they gonna act as wild Pokemon, Goedude's design tells the player that them are rock type, meaning that our attacks aren't going to deal that much damage unless we figure out its weaknesses, Zubat is quite the same case as Geodude, but its design looks weak and its lack of rarity makes the player understand that there is no point in fighting them, Audino is a rare and soft-looking creature, meaning that her attacks aren't going to be that strong and that she is normal type, and her rarity explains the amount of EXP we can get despite their playable strength, and now there are Kakuna and Metapod, these Pokemon clearly can't do a thing, they are cocoons, they can't move, and that explains why wild Kakunas and Metapods are so useless explaining why we should train a Caterpie or a Weedle instead of catching the evolved forms.

[@Naixatloz]

Another one of Pokemon's big strengths in terms of its bestiary is how its designs use color to indicate type, without being lazy about it. There's always exceptions, but typically you can look at a Pokemon's color palette combined with its physical features and have a pretty good idea of what you should use to fight it. The key is color combined with physical features, because the color alone isn't guaranteed to be an indication. You could have a red water-type or a yellow ghost-type. The variety in coloration makes the world feel more realistic, worldbuilding communicated through design.

[@SyrathZidane]

Just a suggestion. Could you please put on the video the names of the games you are playing? I'd like to check some of them out, but without a name it's kinda hard

[@kobedickson3566]

monster hunter in its entirety

[@predovilela]

My favourite beastiary is, by far, earthbound’s

[@bello8418]

impressed you didn't talk about monster hunter

[@DesignDoc]

That’s more in line with boss design I’d say so I would leave it for that.

[@Shakzor1]

would say only a few are actually "bosses" like when you first encounter Nergigante, the elder dragons, the siege monsters or the final monsters for both the base game and Iceborne since they have very distinct "holy fuck, what the hell was THAT?!" attacks. A Tobi-Kadachi, Diablos, Great Jagras or Odogaron are probably not perceived as "bosses" by most, but mini bosses at best, since the aren't any really "normal" enemies. Doubt someone actually thinks of a Banbaro or Jagras as actual enemy, rather than inconvenience when mining

[@bello8418]

@@DesignDoc that's cool then :)

[@feasibilyheretical]

Monster Hunter World does Re skins of monsters the best everyone time I see one of these variants it makes me excited about the monster again and brings a new light to it and they always have new moves and behaviors and their designs are always fleshed out and make sense.

[@williambarnes5023]

Note to self: Do not use pallet-swaps to make enemies tougher, use them to make different but related enemies. The red goblin throws a torch at you and then runs away if it hits so the fire's DoT can do damage while it hides. The blue goblin stays near the water and tries to throw a rope around you and drag you in. The yellow goblin blinds you with sand and then sets traps near you. They all have the same stat block, just different behaviors.

[@E_Fig05]

Yellow Goblin hit em with that pocket sand.

[@benedict6962]

Supporting Notes: -Recolors are a lot easier to swallow if each element is mechanically different. A fleshed out elemental system can immediately triple or quadruple the number of unique monster encounters you make. -Monsters can be made more varied by limiting the equipment or tools that hard counter them with specific requirements. Meaningful Choice is king here, not necessarily the monsters themselves. -Don't forget storytelling in mechanics, the lore is a decent source of inspiration for how to make monsters mechanically memorable. -The longer the fight takes, the less often it should be fought. A monster that takes forever to kill can feel like it haunts you everywhere even if it's only as common as everything else.

[@migueeeelet]

Also you can get away with recolors if you don't abuse them. Sure, FFX reuses the same dingo multiple times and sometimes they have special on-hit effects. But the key thing about these dingos is that they immediately convey their mechanics: They're agile and magic resistant (bring Tidus to deal with them. Or Wakka). Repeating these monsters allows the player to save up on memory. Imagine if there were 6 completly different looking enemies but they all had the same baseline stats. It'd just get confusing, and in the end wouldn't provide much.

[@zidaryn]

On your second point about specific mechanics for specific enemies: just remember not to take it too far. It really sucks when you need a certain move to deal with one or two fights and after that you never need it again.

[@migueeeelet]

@@zidaryn specially when said move is a literal win button.

[@Emelenyt]

You raise a fantastic point about storytelling with different enemy types. The best example I can think of is the way the infection progresses through enemies in The Last of Us.

[@tomdekler9280]

Having a new attack to look out for also kinda hypes up enemy recolors for me. In Paper Mario, you have a dark color swap for the Koopa Troopas, but these can unleash a devastating attack when you knock them on their backs, and inflict new status effects on you. For me, it was a very defining moment of where the game started to ramp up the difficulty, and introduced it through a familiar enemy.

[@EidoEndy]

The criticism with BoTW's samey enemies everywhere, I've taken to calling 'Minecraft Mob Syndrome'. Because no matter where you are, in 90% of the game you are dealing with the same four or five enemies, and the results can get just as stale.

[@desplanchesstevan1418]

The little tweak there is the different weapons that they can hold, but still, BoTW lacks more ''regular'' enemies (I consider blobs, bats, octo' as gimmicky enemies, and Lynel as miniboss)

[@EidoEndy]

@@desplanchesstevan1418 The one big issue with those is after a certain point, those blobs and wolves and whatnot, barely count as an obstacle. But just the same, no matter where on the map you are, you ultimately end up fighting the same 4 enemies, and/or three bosses with little variety between places. I think a couple of tough unique enemies in each location (a la those sandworm-things in the desert) would have done wonders.

[@realIanIANian]

Both have a great cast of enemies, just not the type of bestiary that suits their type of game. Thats why there's so many Minecraft mods that give mobs elemental color swaps, that's what the game needs the most.

[@oscarrenaupallares330]

@@realIanIANian Seeing how well the Husk and drowned work, I can only say that you are right

[@chukyuniqul]

I will argue that it doesn't really matter in minecraft since the point there is not the combat, but either the exploration or-more likely- the building.

[@crisiscore341]

My problem is not enemy types and looks. They can color-swap enemy types, no biggie. My problem is dominant strategy when dealing with said enemies. Their behavior has to be set up in a way that lets me experiment with the combat system so it makes multiple tactics valid and fun to do. I got this vibe from Nioh because you can switch between five weapon types + bow and rifle at any time, have different stances, use magic and ninjutsu to your advantage (debuffs, elemental effects) and work with the environment. This way, I beat some annoying side mission bosses with unusual setups because it worked for me and my playstyle or was just born out of pure necessity and desperation. The same can be said about Hollow Knight. Great enemy variation and a build-your-own-hero charm system that lets you choose your favorite style.

[@RedEye761]

Sorry for the long read but it's hard to stop talking about this :D Interesting take I have a counter to it which is discovery there is no better feeling than when you discover the best way to fight an enemy vs the game telling you, take DarkSouls, for example, a hallmark of the series is enemy type weakness every enemy is weak to a specific thing and the game never tells you that it leaves it up to the player to discover and utilize another is (IFrames) while the game does say roll to avoid hits it never explicit that mechanic which is a huge part and for most people the only way to beat the game (I'm sure there is a crazy kid out there who can beat it without IFrames lol) so back to your comment of strategy if you choose to use melee on a boss that is weak to fire in DarkSouls is that the game's fault or is it your own this gets to the dare I say it the (git gud mentality) of DarkSouls games no one can deny that Discovery is both fun and rewarding but it has the risk of frustrating more action orianted players where strategy players are fine with the idea. I really don't see a way to make an action game without making generic enemies if you introduce strategy you have to slow the game down it can be done I'm sure but it is a very difficult thing to nail down, I haven't played Nioh so can't comment on it but I did play Hollow Knight and while there is plenty of ways to beat both the mobs and the bosses I just stuck to using the nail and the occasional spell so is that the games fault or is it mine (my opinion on it is that it's mine still loved the game BTW) So long as you want Discovery you're gonna have to make somethings implicit which runs the risk of players not finding it and I think that's ok especially for replayability and even conversion with friends where two people can take radically different paths to beat the same game.

[@crisiscore341]

@@RedEye761 I see your point, and I have to agree. This is probably just a matter of preference. Everyone plays different and expects different things from their games. As mentioned, generic monsters are no problem, as long as I can dance my way around them however I like. I'm just one of those folks who take forever with games and replay them over and over, so it's kinda obvious why I like the varied approach. Just so you know: Nioh is a loot-based soulslike with deeper (I guess) combat mechanics than in Dark Souls, and it doesn't punish me for, as an example, taking a purely dodge-based approach or a purely parry-based one. Anything goes, although enemies do have weaknesses assigned to them that make it easier to defeat them if you so wish. It also features some crazy double boss fights I still haven't dared to try, much like Hollow Knight's pantheon.

[@anonyme4881]

I can agree but for hollow knigh I always end up as a Nail Based Knight in hollow knight... You know, Mark of Pride, Long Nail, Quick slash...

[@crisiscore341]

@@anonyme4881 Really? I had some bosses that forced me to rebalance my build, i.e. Watcher Knights, Lost Kin and the bad boys like Grimm and Radiance. But if you're good and quick with the nail, that's cool!

[@anonyme4881]

@@crisiscore341 Nail Art damage are insane and without them I cant do the pantheon at all. To be fair I never had trouble with watcher Knight.... I first tryed it... And found the secret room to kill one just after lol I find Lost Kind safer at close combat and the extra nail range is handy to control the little radiance monster that come at you. Grimm is patern heavy For Radiance I can understand if you want to kill her faster. The only time I changed my build was for lv10 Grey Prince Zote with the Fluke Shaman Combo to do mass damage because its lv10 fucking Zote and you've got no time to nail him corretly Guess thats just my playstyle to going melee

[@sanfransiscon]

One way to spice up a bestiary is to take inspiration from Pokemon and, instead of making palette-swap enemies, give your enemies evolutionary/mutation lines or trees. This provides the additional benefit of potential world-building and environmental storytelling, and immediately clues a player in on how to beat the encounter since it's a variant of something they have already dealt with.

[@crupplemcsplits792]

Variants and/or evolutions are always interesting enemies to me. Especially if it's a boss that's the leader or strongest of a species. Unlike palette-swaps that just lazily reuse assets, variants really can make something feel like an army or species.

[@Doublemonk0506]

@@crupplemcsplits792, even elemental variants could work if you give visual stimuli of what the enemy is. A lightning enemy should be quick and constantly moving while an ice enemy should be sluggish and slow. Of course, you can tweak design elements to fit the game, but elemental variants shouldn't just be mob recolors with a brand new elemental attack.

[@crupplemcsplits792]

@@Doublemonk0506 I do love a good elemental variant. One thing is, I think the base enemy needs to fit with changing elements as well. For example, a generic blob creature would definitely be better for that role than a very specific design.

[@Skuller-kh9ek]

risk of rain moment

[@enterguavastuff]

undertale hard mode: exactly

[@WDGen]

"Got your aesthetic nailed down" _Shows a clip of Hollow Knight_

[@Fullbatteri]

Ha, I love those “I see what you did there” moments.

[@fantomp1773]

Ikr

[@Kuu-n-koi2317]

*nailed down*

[@amansaxena5898]

Earthbound : Let's Fight Tent, Speed Limit Signpost and Barf 😂

[@bluevoltahoge8695]

Dont forget Depressed "Spongebob"

[@dantemustdie00]

By far the weirdest Beastiary of all RPG's, but that's what makes the Mother series interesting, you never know who's gonna attack you on the overworld.

[@OriginalGameteer]

Never forget The almighty mens bathroom sign

[@joshcarbine2191]

Gotta love fighting the drunks and Karens.

[@arogustus3984]

I'm glad you gave Pikmin time in the spotlight. It really deserves it. So underrated. Don't Starve, for being a game who's combat amounts to wacking things with sticks, it still has good enemy variety. Spiders that are easy to kill but come in hoardes if your not careful, protective and territorial Tallbirds, Pigs that try to hit and run you and turn into Werewolves under certain circumstances. Tentacles that slap you silly. And the hounds that periodically ruin your best laid plans. It helps that they all tend to stick to their specific biomes. You won't find tentacles in the same place Hounds spawn (well, unless you make it that way) and the survival mechanics and the different things they drop means that fighting these enemies is less about when you'll fight them, but who you should bother to go after. Need silk? Spiders. Low on food? Tallbirds, or if your feeling cheaky, hunt for Koalafants. Even the time it goes into pallete swaps in the Fire and Ice hounds can be forgiven by the fact that they have their own unique mechanics and drops.

[@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz]

Don't starve needs a combat mod so bad

[@Deadflower019]

@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz It's normal combat really does suck ass, I wish they fleshed it out more than just "Hit, run away, repeat, sometimes pause and heal or switch equipment for a second". I main Wheeler in singlelayer because she gets a dodge ability, more speed, and for her neutral special, she weilds a gun, all of those things making her really fun to fight and explore with.

[@bruhkan457]

@@Deadflower019 To be fair, combat is not the main focus of the game

[@Deadflower019]

@@bruhkan457 Yes, but we have 3 fighting based characters and one of them is mostly about using a Ghost to deal with them for you and dozens of unique bosses that serve as major mechanics one way or another.

[@bruhkan457]

@@Deadflower019 The bosses mostly have interesting patterns that aren't just "hit, run, repeat", the old ones are like that yes, but the newer ones (fuelweaver, toad, crab king) have some pretty fun mechanics to work with, using just the basic combat. I don't think the combat needs to be changed, just more "explored", they have shown it has potential to be interesting and maybe complex, they just got to do more with it.

[@samuelthayre6134]

Enter the gungeon has a great line-up of foes. They fit the theme of the game, stand out visually and (most) are also quite adorable in a way.

[@Mac_Omegaly]

The GBA trilogy and DS trilogy Castlevania games all have interesting bestiaries. Such exsamples like: •Iron Golum, that can only be instantly killed by two methods, but otherwise only takes 1hp of damage from all attacks and moves slowly. •one off enemies that can be completely ignored that you have to use special moves, or a certain action to get them to appear. •Enemies that drop items that help to heal the status effect they can cause if they touch you. •An enemy that is completely useless in attacking, but will call for reinforment if you let it escape. I could go on. •Enemies that have more then one state. •Enemies that change the surrounding physics, like gravity or block long range attacks. •stacks of a common enemy in one room that are much more dangerous then alone.

[@anonyme4881]

Castlevania is known for great bestiary throught, munch like all metroidvania like Hollow Knighy

[@flyinyoku3543]

Also enemies that are quite weak and die in 1 hit, but are difficult to actually attack. Like Flea Men.

[@sadam-kd5ug]

Can you tell about the method to kill the Iron Gollum

[@anonyme4881]

@@sadam-kd5ug There is a foe that drops a competence that switch magic point and health point Golem have 1 MP and 999 HP, so it one shot it

[@Mac_Omegaly]

@@anonyme4881 yeah that is the best method, but there is "the chainsaw method" too, where you use one of the three other weapons that deal a lot of small individual damage, if you want a "fair" way to kill the iron Golum. Lol *(I think one of them is useless since it requires such a short range.)

[@mikekeller9222]

I always pronounce it "Beast-iary" too, but learned earlier this year it's actually "Best-iary". I still think Beast-iary sounds better tho, given it's a dictionary of beasts lol

[@android19willpwn]

I've heard it both ways and I'm not sure that either is technically "correct." Could also be a regional thing.

[@danielevans7439]

I would say “ best” as a kid but kept getting corrected by family and friends. Go figure.

[@Emelenyt]

I 100% agree with you and will pronounce it Beast-iary until I die

[@android19willpwn]

@@vermiform that's not how bestiality is pronounced though. And I mean I've heard bestial pronounced both ways too but never bestiality (though, admittedly, that one comes up less often).

[@dkpsyhog]

It comes from the Latin word “bestia”, meaning ‘animal’.

[@n30hrtgdv]

I tihnk Crypt of the Necrodancer did a great job at this because the enemies have a unique attack pattern and rythm to hit them, so much that there is a training area where you specificaly learn how to deal with that particular enemy using only the knife.

[@S.I.L.]

I agree. Even recolors are interesting like the dragons.

[@iantaakalla8180]

It helps that because movement is key in Crypt of the Necrodancer, having different types of monsters that move in different ways and hit you for various damage makes intuitive sense.

[@masterofdoom5000]

Sometimes instead/as well as a palette swap there can be signs of growth from one form to another. This isn't a red Goblin, this is Blue older goblin that fights fiercer and has grown longer teeth. It's small but makes the enemies seem like they are creatures rather than a change of paint.

[@steveh1474]

talking about palette swaps, its a great way to make a game easy to learn for newcomers. lets look at Final Fantasy 12 as a great example, as you showed with the Wolves, theres a lot of them. you know what else theres a lot of? Malboros. in the other game you mentioned, FF10, there were only 2 Malboros. the first time you see one, it probably killed you with its signature Bad Breath attack. then when you see the palette swap in the final dungeon, you already know how terrifying it is, and you destroyed it with no mercy. thats great design. you dont know it, its exciting, you die for it. you learn from it, you see it again, you react accordingly. but now look at FF12. the first time you see them, they really arent that threatening. they have a new move called Cloying Breath, which causes only a few ailments. its annoying, but not deadly. as yo progress through the game, youll see two, three, five more kinds of these tentacle-plant monsters, and each one has a nastier version of their signature attack. Bad Breath has a few more ailments, and if youre undergeared and outnumbered, could lead to hasty retreat. you might not die, but you probably havent fled from many battles. then youre coming up to the final dungeon, and the crimson colored Cassies hit you with the ultimate nose-killer, Putrid Breath. for a fun fact, FF12 has more status ailments than any other FF game, and Putrid breath causes ALL OF THEM on a single character. if you havent done any sidequests, some of these ailments will be completely new to you, even if youve played every other FF game. some of these ailments persist even after death, which makes recovering from it very difficult, especially if two people are struck by it. HOWEVER, this is great game design. youve seen these enemies throughout your journey, youve seen them get stronger and stronger with each iteration, and compared to the other enemies around you, its easy to see that they are the biggest threat. getting struck by Putrid Breath is strictly your fault, you should know at a glance which enemies have which spells, and what makes them dangerous or not.

[@Emelenyt]

The Malboros in FF12 are good design because it's more than just a pallet swap. They actually behave slightly differently as well.

[@GILGAMESH97]

Although I do agree that the dozens of pallette swaps in 12 are a drawback, I would like to add to its defense that the overall feel of their overworld helped make it a lot more palatable than it would have been otherwise. The final design of the game sells this fantasy of monsters having a real ecology that you're exploring, with powerful predators existing in low level zones, monster hunterish bounty quests, and monsters interacting with eachother in the overworld even letting you scare off a pack of monsters chasing you by running them into their predator. All that really helps 'sell' the notion that palette swapped monsters are all naturally adapting/evolved to suit their unique environment. I guess all I'm saying is that proper theming really helps compensate for weaknesses in design, even if it's just to take the sting out a bit.

[@TNobody0214]

I also wanted to add that even as reskins their are quite a few times the reskins will act differently or have different abilities meaning a how you approach them may change. FFXII played with this alot, not just with the different area reskins, but also with the rare hunts which are often far stronger and need to be taken on carefully to not be thrown off.

[@Emelenyt]

@@TNobody0214 Yes, you are right here! They weren't just re-skins, but they actually acted slightly different as well, as opposed to the FFX example where that pretty much was a straight-up pallette swap.

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

yeah, I really enjoyed the fact that some would start fighting each other or even EAT each other. Was an interesting mechanic that was partially brought back in later final fantasies. 13 brought back the enemies fighting each other mechanic to an extent.

[@anonyslime]

if recolors are rare enough they can actually become kind of exciting. like:"Oh I've progressed this far that I'm seeing the next tier"

[@pforgottonsoul]

i like how Dragon quest 11 did it where all the enemies changed once you cleared an act of the story.

[@jasonreed7522]

Change colors/recolors you mean pokémon shinies. I know you mean just make the goomba dark blue/green and buff it once you enter the endgame areas.

[@pforgottonsoul]

@@jasonreed7522 quite honestly palette swaps are something that are pretty common among pretty much all games early games like mario bros, metroid, etc did it too so it's not just exclusive to RPGs.

[@ethandement3921]

I thought Super Mario RPG did a good job with that.

[@dantemustdie00]

Tales of RPG series is notorious for palette Swap Design, at least after Symponia. Symphonia had at least one palette Swap per enemy, but not every enemy, but Tales of the Abyss, Vesperia, and onwards started getting really lazy. It's weird cause they make your playable characters insane in combat, but aside from bosses, regular mobs just aren't fun.

[@GamingDreamer]

You forgot to talk about the Enemies teams dynamic, Like in JRPG how fighting Three Slimes is not the same as 2 Slimes and one Goblin , how one enemie type is not that hard but some combos maybe deadly when they team up. I think Megaman Battle Network did it the best

[@PlentyofFodder]

would love to hear what you think about games like pokemon or shin megami tensei, where the enemies you fight are also the tools you use to take them down

[@chubomikz7104]

Fire Emblem included in that, enemies having skills and weapons that are usually all stuff that you can utilize too

[@Naixatloz]

I'm really interested in this too. Games that use this concept are usually RPGs, a genre where players and enemies are typically on an uneven playing field. Players rarely get access to the same skills enemies have, and vice versa, and challenge is often maintained by balancing how many characters are on each side of the battlefield with how strong they are (e.g. a small army of weak monsters vs one strong warrior). Games where (almost) every enemy can be a potential ally make it difficult to rely on the usual methods of creating challenge, yet while Pokemon is thus unsurprisingly considered very easy, SMT is known for being challenging. I'd love to see a comparison of how they approach the limits of their mechanics.

[@thetackydramatic]

I’ve only played one SMT game and it’s not even mainline it’s just persona 5 royal lol, but I love it!

[@thirdeye440]

@@thetackydramatic play a real shin megoomi tensei game (just in case, I'm joking)

[@thetackydramatic]

@@thirdeye440 I am actually planning on playing nocturne, that’s the only SMT game I can play since I have a ps5/switch.

[@kokopelli434]

Dragon Quest Slime is the best designed enemy. It's so cute lol

[@somestranger4287]

It might be interesting to do a comparison of the early Paper Mario games bestiary and the modern ones

[@paulgrotebeverborg1119]

Old ones win by a landslide

[@iantaakalla8180]

You can’t do much of a comparison because there is not much to talk about with the modern Paper Mario bestiary. They are mainline Mario enemies except for Origami Kong’s bosses.

[@somestranger4287]

@@iantaakalla8180 I meant more what each one was trying to accomplish

[@iantaakalla8180]

Talking about how badly the modern Paper Mario games are is always a win.

[@kingkui12]

Ian Taakalla wrong.