what makes a good "hard" enemy? Bosses excluded

>My experience is pretty much limited since I only played a few action games on PC. I don't think it's controversial to say that MGR:R and DMC 1 handled "hard" enemies much better than DMC 3 or 4. I can't speak for Bayonetta, played only twice on normal and barely survived with stone across the board.

>Of course, "hard" is relative to the rest of the cast of baddies the game provides. I think every single enemy in Bayonetta is tough except maybe the common angels. Even then game finds way for them to kick my ass.

I'd say the combination of agression and numbers (and teamwork), in equal parts balanced, while also being open enough that all your tools have a function. I'm going to try and not mention NGII haha, so I'll go to my standby...NGB. Hahha!

The Black Spider Clan Ninja. High agression, comes in groups of 2-5. Have high agression, will work together. One will throw a shuriken, the other might go for a grab. There's still some slotting going on i.e. they don't all come at once, but the pressure is there. But meanwhile your tools do all work, you can headstomp to slow them down and create space, launch them etc.

A 'bad' hard enemy to me is one that for example forces long waiting times (limited openings, or inability to create ones yourself i.e. with the aformentioned headstomp) or just isn't interactable. Berserkers in Sigma 1 might be close to this, as they are so parry happy you might as well not attack them, instead forcing you to just bait+punish instead (as opposed to the Black version, which is more interactable).

W for NGB, man I miss this game.

How about DMC examples?

I will say that enemies like Blitz in DMC 4 make me bored. The shield has high health and stun you when hit so on base level you are incentivized to keep your distance and wait until you are free to deal lots of damage. That's not too far from Zelda style boss. Though I do admit there are lots of ways to beat Blitz, cool one is Gilgamesh straight punch + DT distortion when hit connects.

I'd say almost all the enemies in God Hand are good hard enemies - All your moves are viable against them, including guard breaks and counter hits, they are very aggressive, they work together and can flank you from all sides, and some of them even have an attack where they jump above another enemy to hit you.

God Hand is so great about this yeah, especially due to counter-hits being a thing. Fighting those purple/yellow guys you're always tempted to go for a sneaky hit in between his punch combo. The timing is tight, but if you nail it, so good.

> dmc examples
Honestly not a lot, DMC1 has good enemies but they are generally more interesting due to how well designed their kit is to your own as well as having some cool creative weaknesses (standing on the spikes for example). DMC3 is pretty interesting since a lot of enemies are bad solo, but work great in a group. Lusts(?) have only one attack which is an anti-air. Bad solo, great in groups when you're jumping alot.

Agreed about Counter hits, but guard breaks is another thing I love about the enemies in God Hand.

On level die, unlike lower levels (1 and 2 at least, not sure about 3), you have only one chance to break their guard, and their block lasts for a shorter duration as well so reacting to blocks becomes more challenging and rewarding.

Derailing here, but fuck that I'm the admin I can do what I want: if there is one thing I'm still mixed on in GH, it's blocking. It's the one thing enemies have that Gene doesn't, and the one thing that even Azel has that Gene doesn't, and the only way around it is a fucking guard-break move that leads to the most boring jab-jab-guardbreak-sway style of fighting that you see most newcomers do.

It also is a bit of an easy way to get to the counterhit state. Sure you have to be ready for it or sacrifice damage, but I dunno, always was mixed on it and the more I play the game the more mixed on it I become. Think if maybe they had low and high blocks and you could circumvent them that way, or use a grab when the blocked - maybe that'd be already more interesting for me. Minor gripe in an insane game btw.

Sorry for late reply, we live in different time zones...

I'd say almost all the enemies in God Hand are good hard enemies - All your moves are viable against them, including guard breaks and counter hits, they are very aggressive, they work together and can flank you from all sides, and some of them even have an attack where they jump above another enemy to hit you. wrote:

Man, there is ton of action games to play (Capcom when Godhand port), ZoE2 for PC is next on my list.

I would be ecstatic to see NG II examples as well.

Take your time man, no rush, that's the beauty of a forum.

> NGII example
Probably the IS-ninja. They work together as well, lots of great combination of ranged attacks with threat (IS), grabs and multihit chains. I really like that 'circeling you' move that messes with your grab inputs.

> lots to play
Definitely great. I personally ran out of the classics, so don't be in too big a hurry. You'll miss it when it's gone.

@Golden_GustVerse

If you can emulate, I'd recommend God Hand (obviously lol) and Viewtiful Joe, both were made by Clover Studio.

@Royta/Raeng

I agree about IS ninjas in NG2, I love how they move in circular patterns around you as well.

About guard breaks - The guard break window in level die is short so your timing also have to be tight to successfully pull it off, which makes it more rewarding and fun to pull off.

>" leads to the most boring jab-jab-guardbreak-sway style of fighting that you see most newcomers do."

You can say that about cheesy strats in every other game that has them (probably every game out there), including UT spam in Ninja Gaiden.

Also, from what I can tell, enemies don't start to block after an exact amount of hits anyway and it's mostly about your ability to react quick enough to blocks with a guard break, so it's not really an easy way to get enemies to the counter hit state.

High and low blocks sound like an interesting idea but I wonder if doing that would do the opposite of what you wanted and make guard breaks even more of a focus (especially if you have to equip 2 different guard break moves).

Ninja Gaiden the end.

> you can say that about UTs
Not fully true in this case imo. As noted, GuardBreaks are the only way (outside of the God Hand and Roulettes) to break guards, and there is no tell for when they guard, so it's your only option to deal with it, and that setup is the best one. It's not like UTs where there's a plethora of other ways to deal with combat scenarios. If you don't do that setup, yeah you look cooler but you're never going to 'react' I feel, esp. on DIE. As noted  it's a minor gripe, I just nnever liked how singular the solution to blocks was in that game.

> high low
Mean more that, if they block low, you can just hit them with a high-attack to circumvent the block if you get me.

>

Alright, how about "hard" enemies that fail?

Hard enemies that are badly designed are imo ones that are either:

a) complex for complexity's sake, with a lot of gotcha-moments that will kill you simply because you don't know the matchup yet. Souls is very guilty of this imo, especially with bosses.

b) purposefully limiting your kit. You mentioned Blitz, I once calculated how many moves he disables:
Let's grab Dante's moveset. 76 moves available. In a direct damage situation only around 22 moves work on a Blitz. That's ~72%. Dante is unique in that he can use starting-attacks though and cancel the damage with RoyalGuard.

Let's check the rest:

Trish: 83% of her moves are pointless against Blitzball.
Lady: 44% is useless. Have to admit I thought this would be lower, even she's handicapped against this colorcoded foe.
Vergil: ~87% useless moves.
Nero: 86% of moveset doesn't work against Blitz.

Even a character that exclusively uses guns, loses almost half(!) her available options when facing Blitz while Nero and Vergil are edging close to 90(!!!) percent. That's just bad design imo and a very bad way of making an enemy 'hard'.

c) few openings. This is mostly present in bosses, but giving an enemy very little openings and an inability to 'force' an opening, that's just a bad way of making a foe hard.

d) no interaction. Good example of good and bad in this can be Doctor Salvador in RE4 and its remake. In the original you can stagger him easily (headshot will do it, grenades and shotgun will ALWAYS do it) while in the remake (on hard or higher) it will straight up not work. He'll no-sell a lot of your interactions. So you might be in a situation, grab your shotgun, shoot him and nothing happens and he kills you. That's bad design. You see this happen a lot in the remake in general.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Hard enemies that are badly designed are imo ones that are either:

a) complex for complexity's sake, with a lot of gotcha-moments that will kill you simply because you don't know the matchup yet. Souls is very guilty of this imo, especially with bosses.

b) purposefully limiting your kit. You mentioned Blitz, I once calculated how many moves he disables:
Let's grab Dante's moveset. 76 moves available. In a direct damage situation only around 22 moves work on a Blitz. That's ~72%. Dante is unique in that he can use starting-attacks though and cancel the damage with RoyalGuard.

Let's check the rest:

Trish: 83% of her moves are pointless against Blitzball.
Lady: 44% is useless. Have to admit I thought this would be lower, even she's handicapped against this colorcoded foe.
Vergil: ~87% useless moves.
Nero: 86% of moveset doesn't work against Blitz.

Even a character that exclusively uses guns, loses almost half(!) her available options when facing Blitz while Nero and Vergil are edging close to 90(!!!) percent. That's just bad design imo and a very bad way of making an enemy 'hard'.

c) few openings. This is mostly present in bosses, but giving an enemy very little openings and an inability to 'force' an opening, that's just a bad way of making a foe hard.

d) no interaction. Good example of good and bad in this can be Doctor Salvador in RE4 and its remake. In the original you can stagger him easily (headshot will do it, grenades and shotgun will ALWAYS do it) while in the remake (on hard or higher) it will straight up not work. He'll no-sell a lot of your interactions. So you might be in a situation, grab your shotgun, shoot him and nothing happens and he kills you. That's bad design. You see this happen a lot in the remake in general.

This is an answer I hoped for, thanks!

GN1 wrote:@Golden_GustVerse

If you can emulate, I'd recommend God Hand (obviously lol) and Viewtiful Joe, both were made by Clover Studio.

@Royta/Raeng

I agree about IS ninjas in NG2, I love how they move in circular patterns around you as well.

About guard breaks - The guard break window in level die is short so your timing also have to be tight to successfully pull it off, which makes it more rewarding and fun to pull off.

>" leads to the most boring jab-jab-guardbreak-sway style of fighting that you see most newcomers do."

You can say that about cheesy strats in every other game that has them (probably every game out there), including UT spam in Ninja Gaiden.

Also, from what I can tell, enemies don't start to block after an exact amount of hits anyway and it's mostly about your ability to react quick enough to blocks with a guard break, so it's not really an easy way to get enemies to the counter hit state.

High and low blocks sound like an interesting idea but I wonder if doing that would do the opposite of what you wanted and make guard breaks even more of a focus (especially if you have to equip 2 different guard break moves).

Can't emulate right now unfortunately
thanks for recommendation

I don’t think all of your kit should work on every enemy. I usually prefer certain launchers launching certain heavy foes(not talking about color coding but am mainly talking about how some launchers work on some and others don’t but not at all color coding if you get me since imo it should atleast stagger). If you could use each launcher to launch them, it makes the enemy less interesting to me since they lose some of their unique strategy’s on high level play depending on said game. Mainly used launchers as an example since it’s the simplest one. I do think SOME moves however should work on most enemy’s to give it a special identity IE: gale force from raggy or something like the LFE gun from vanquish. I also think said ways of launching those enemy’s shouldn’t be revealed by the game but instead by player discovery. Although this is a bit off topic of good hard enemy’s. I’ll give my take on that soon.

>blitz from dmc4
@Dante won’t like that take lol(jokes of course). But they seem to be decently interesting in terms of how to approach them.

-Blitz
Not even a hard enemy. Basically a remix of the Shadow enemy from DMC 1.

-NG II
IS ninja are great but I have complaints. Too much input reading (I generally dislike input reading). They are not committed to attacks or hit-stun and can cancel into bullshit at anytime making it feel like I'm stuck with NG rules and the IS ninja get to play Bayonetta. And IS insta exploding on surfaces is a monumentally retarded design choice.

-Godhand
Funny how being able to cancel your moves at anytime can suddenly make input reading tolerable. Always disliked the demons.

IMO Alchemists from Razor's Edge are the pinnacle of Ninja Gaiden enemy design. Multiple types of projectiles to deal with, grabs that steal your resources, a regenerating shield to break through (but which they also drop at certain times). Because they prioritize keeping their shield up, you can strategically break shields to manipulate their behavior. They frequently dodge and counter which makes dealing damage tough, but all of their defenses can be beaten by counters of your own.

>Basically a remix of the Shadow enemy from DMC 1
DMC4 tries to ape DMC1's enemy design ethos, with mixed results. Blitz are like Shadows minus the things that make Shadows fun. But damn do I love Mephistos and Fausts.

Enigmas are quite cool too, the only DMC3 enemy I'm really a fan of tbh lol.

>God Hand blocking
The main problem I feel is that at level 1-3 there's no punishment for hitting a blocking enemy. You can autopilot your guardbreaks and not really have to think about it. On level DIE it becomes a more serious concern since they are much quicker to parry and counterattack you. And because they only put their guard up for brief moments on DIE, simply waiting it out also becomes a reasonable alternative to guard-breaking.

-NG3RE
I actually really like Alchemists. Where the game stumbles is that it is too often the case you are fighting something like 3 alchemists at the same time, all spamming the same stuff. Can be a bit tiring. Would've been cool if the devs tried throwing an Alchemist into the mix of some other humanoid enemies to mix things up at times. Maybe the game does this a bit in the mission mode or something.

-DMC4
Doesn't stop at just aping DMC 1 enemies. Outright lifts some, Blades (renamed to Assaults I think) and Frosts namely. DMC 4 enemies are such a mixed bag in general. I love the knight guys, the Fausts and Mephistos, the Mega Scarecrows are awesome. But my god are there some stinkers.

-DMC 3
I despise pretty much all DMC 3 enemies.

Depends on the game's mechanics. In general i would say consistency and good telegraphing is of paramount importance. I find that making hard enemies isn't that tough but an interesting enemy is quite difficult.

Take grace & glory from bayo are harder than normal enemies but easier than some of the enemies that follow them yet i find them the most fun. They were the one of the first enemies designed and you can feel that the game's mechanics shine against them the most. Their attacks are properly telegraphed, very consistent in their behavior and really push games mechanics to its limit. Bayo's enemy roster is excellent but they are a cut above the rest.


DMC1's enemy roster is fantastic too. Shadow feels good to fight against because you are always moving and shooting compared to blitz or fury who brings the game to abrupt halt. I'm sure shadow's theme helps a lot as well.

Bad hard enemy is quite easy. You guys have already made good points like limiting you to one strategy, reading your inputs, bad telegraphing,inflated health pools looking at you proto angelo while fighting as V & Nero.

I would also like to add tracking too. I'm playing Avengers at the moment and the tracking in this game is insane. A lot of stuff in this game is unfun but the tracking makes me so mad. I thought it was because of how mobile the characters are so i started replaying bayo again and there is no enemy tracking despite how mobile she is which is extremely impressive. So infuriating to iframe enemy attacks and when they should be avoided by simply being in motion.

>Tracking.

Oh damn, this is a huge turn off. It's so easy to mess it up and make the fight exhausting.

> tracking
Really, really hate it when that's overdone. Sifu is fantastic, but at times enemies can feel like they're magnetized to you, making repositioning a useless tool as opposed to i.framing.

What do you think when enemy restrains/grabs the player/etc...

For example when spiders in DMC 3 shoot web and force Dante/Vergil to become a stationary target.

That's just a grab move, always like those, especially in block heavy games. Brings back those fighting-game fundamentals for me.