10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console Off

WhatCulture

Sifu doesn't hold ANYTHING back.

Transcript

00:00In so many ways, video game difficulty can just feel cheap. By definition of how it's coded,

00:05a developer starts with enemies and design that would reduce you to a fine paste,

00:08before working backwards, creating a space for the player to exist, counter-attack,

00:12figure out what needs to be done and implemented, all while keeping the pressure on.

00:16It's a ludicrously tough balancing act to get right, and though many of the following are

00:20championed for pushing you to the absolute brink of losing it, there are those that go too far,

00:25making you want to take a breather, reassess or give up altogether.

00:29I'm Scott from RockCulture.com and these are 10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console

00:33Off.

00:34Number 10, Flying Drone, Returnal.

00:36Talk about the exact moment you noped out and walked away from a game.

00:40Returnal is one of those titles that walk the very thin line of asking so much of the player,

00:45literally pushing you to the brink of pure, utter frustration, while giving you enough

00:50gameplay possibilities to potentially make it through. It's demanding and excruciatingly

00:55difficult, this 3D take on the bullet hell genre sometimes wiping you out through the

00:59environment because some enemy attacks can catch you anywhere, the screen often a snowstorm of

01:04laser death waiting to ruin your current run. The suicide drones in third area Derelict Citadel

01:09though, they're something else entirely. Barely giving you enough time to comprehend what's up

01:14ahead, these things charge right at you, dealing a ton of damage or just one-shotting you,

01:19with the only solution being a perfectly timed dodge, something you'll likely miss the first

01:24handful of times. At time of writing, only 31% of people have overcome this third area,

01:30with forum posts across the board citing this exact encounter on the stairs as when they put

01:34Returnal down for good.

01:36Number 9, Basilisks, Dark Souls.

01:39There's nothing worse in video games than thinking your actual save is irrevocably broken.

01:44That you've done something that means no matter what else can happen,

01:47there's a world state or gameplay affecting issue locked to progression.

01:51Enter the Dark Souls Basilisks, coming at you with leaps and swipes, but worst of all,

01:56breathing a wide-reaching mist that turns your character to stone on the spot,

02:00cursing you as a status effect. What does that mean? Well, your health is now halved. You can't

02:05turn human to get help from other players, nor can you get any of the benefits of being human,

02:09like increased healing from your estus flask. The many gotcha moments of Dark Souls are well

02:14documented now, but discovering these creatures in a gated off sewer area surrounded by poisonous

02:20slimes dropping from the ceiling was one hell of a sorry what reaction in 2011.

02:25Number 8, Shinobi Hunter, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice.

02:28Another quickie from the masters of I'm-a-head-out, Sekiro's Shinobi Hunter often ties

02:33with the Chained Ogre as where a lot of people realise Shadows Die Twice just wasn't for them.

02:38Where the ogre has legit broken hitboxes grabbing you with its football tackle dive even if you're

02:43literally standing outside its arms, the Shinobi Hunter is the first enemy to demand you perfect

02:48the makiri counter, an animation where you charge into its thrust attack to parry effectively.

02:53The real brainbreaker is you're otherwise taught to avoid what's coming when this specific attack

02:57icon appears on screen, but here it's the opposite. Because, from software.

03:02Sekiro's whole thing is letting your muscle memory and reactions build over time to eventually nail

03:07this, but so many players hated being poked and prodded from afar by this super quick enemy

03:12anyway that even wanting to figure out the process was too much.

03:16Lynels The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild

03:19Besides silver bokoblins being out of nowhere one-shot machine variants of otherwise starter

03:24enemies, Breath of the Wild's first oh-guess-I'll-die-then moment comes with the Lynels.

03:29Hulking centaur-like creatures bearing down on you with arcing swipes and mobility in equal measure,

03:34if you've not mastered the game's slow-motion attack window that comes from a perfect dodge,

03:39you're gonna go down over and over and over again.

03:42Nintendo really know what they're playing with here too. Chances are the first Lynel you'll

03:46find will be solo, wandering an open area fairly nonchalantly, letting you walk up and discover

03:52this private hell all on your own. Later though, you'll end up trapped in circular rooms with one,

03:56especially if you're seeing everything the final Hyrule Castle space has to offer,

04:00and that's when you'll either survive or give up entirely.

04:04The Honey Badger Far Cry 4

04:06Whether it's Red Dead Redemption's panthers or Far Cry's own random eagle attacks,

04:10some open-world games with realistic aping food chains like to throw a predator your way every

04:15now and then. The Honey Badgers in Far Cry 4, though, took the cake. Ludicrously feral,

04:20hyper-aggressive creatures designed to almost be wrestling kayfabe versions of their real-world

04:25selves, they'll get all up in your face no matter if you're in combat or just strolling around the

04:29environment. Brilliantly, even NPCs and enemies will turn their attention to these badgers,

04:34firing wildly or collectively freaking out that a Honey Badger is carving its way across camp.

04:39These miniature woodchippers will put an end to whatever you had planned,

04:42but in a nod to how crazy OP they feel, follow-up Far Cry Primal did let you tame

04:47them and wreak havoc yourself. Armoured Candaces

04:50Gears of War 2 onwards. Gears' horde-mode runs were such a capital T time for 2000s gaming.

04:56Introduced in Gears of War 2, the idea of tackling 50 waves of enemies with a set group of friends

05:01is something I'd literally recommend to anyone. Also brought in across Gears 2 were the Candaces,

05:06dodge-heavy twin-machine pistol-toting a-holes that were just annoying to pin down. Screaming

05:11at you while their armoured variants soaked up a ton of damage, they'd even bring back

05:16other downed enemies to keep the pressure on, if you weren't positioned well enough to flank and

05:19stop them. As Horde is all about teamwork, the Candaces feel specifically designed to

05:24exploit chinks in your group armour. As they can soak up a ludicrous amount of damage,

05:28even standing inside a Hammer of Dawn's beam for what feels like forever,

05:32any lone player trying to take one on would get wiped immediately. This often led to a clown car

05:37of revives and downs that ended your glorious run to victory right there.

05:42The Creeper Minecraft

05:44You have to hand it to Mojang, making a game about building whatever shared utopian paradise

05:48you like, but also including an enemy that even through a wall without you knowing,

05:52could blast apart a solid afternoon's worth of survival and construction. Literally,

05:57these things exist to slink up to you in total silence, stand there until you whirl around to

06:02see their soulless faces, then blow up on the spot, obliterating everything, often including

06:06yourself, in one swift move. Over the years, dedicated Minecraft builders simply won't

06:11engage with the modes of the game that feature these things, but for any of us feeling Minecraft

06:15out that very first time, they're a total menace. Jackal Snipers

06:20Halo 2 on Legendary

06:22Part of me just wanted to include every annoying hitscan ranged enemy here,

06:26as from Uncharted to Spider-Man, all those Anor Londo archers in Dark Souls,

06:30there's nothing more fun-killing than being wiped out from across the map.

06:34Let's drill down on Halo's Jackal Snipers though. Not much of a bother on lower difficulties unless

06:38you play your card spectacularly wrong, on Hard or especially Legendary, Jackal Snipers became

06:44a meme, a shared infuriation from hardcore players, as their AI would always get the

06:48better of you no matter what. It's precisely because they can be knocked out with a swift

06:53melee that those end-of-fight killshots are so annoying. Chief's shields are already screaming

06:58for a recharge, you know what's about to hit you, but you can't close the distance or evade

07:02fast enough to avoid doing the whole thing over again. Throw in the occasional flood enemy with

07:07a rocket launcher, and you're not making it through original Halo 2's toughest difficulty.

07:12Sean, Sifu

07:13The enemy that caused level completion percentages to halve from Sifu's first level to its second,

07:18Sean had to be actively patched by developer SlowClap in the game's release week,

07:23simply because he was stopping the majority of consumers seeing what the hell they'd just bought.

07:27Obviously super tough early bosses have their place, hello Ninja Gaiden,

07:31but the issue with Sean was that you barely knew what you were doing wrong.

07:34Closing distance and coming at you with a range of swipe attacks that need to be

07:38actively sway-dodged on the spot rather than tap-blocked or parried as Sifu had been prioritising,

07:43scores of players would fight through the whole level, get destroyed by a boss using

07:47a technique they could barely comprehend, and would give up entirely.

07:51Honestly, mastering Sifu has been the most enjoyable and rewarding experience of my

07:55gaming year so far in 2022. Getting its sway animations down almost breaks the game with

08:01how many enemies and bosses you can then exploit, but boy if Sean isn't a massive

08:05walking roadblock unless you really put the time in.

08:09The Marauder

08:10Doom Eternal

08:11Single-handedly designed to be one of those enemies we talk about for the rest of time,

08:15an awful encounter that actually binds us together through sheer shared hatred,

08:19the Marauder might be the single reason only 36% of people on PlayStation have

08:24finished Doom Eternal on any difficulty. Why? Because he requires a completely different

08:29tack to any other enemy in the game. Where everything else can largely be taken down

08:33through a glorious mix of tanking hits through armour, chainsaw health pickups and a lot of

08:37gunfire, the Marauder can only be hit at all if you maintain a specific distance.

08:42Too far and he'll throw energy bolts your way while unleashing a dog that's too close and the

08:46shield goes up while it attacks with a devastating axe. The only way to do anything is maintain an

08:51invisible amount of distance you have to feel out amongst the chaos, triggering a lightning-fast

08:56attack that can finally be interrupted, giving you a millisecond of opportunity to get some hits in.

09:01Doom Eternal's reputation feels notably mixed, even years after release.

09:05I'd hazard to guess it's because of encounters like this.

09:08And those are just 10 video game enemies that made you turn the console off.

09:12Let me know your favourites down in the comments below and please subscribe

09:15to the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast. For now, I've been Scott from WhatCulture.com,

09:19and I'll catch you soon.

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