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.

Godhand kicks ass, in all ways.

Enemies are so dangerous wtf, I am not even that far yet.

Does this count as "hard enemy"  btw?


They are so fun to fight in any difficulty. To me they are just as good as DMC 1's best.

I also think these dudes aren't too bad, quite annoying on DMD.

>Abyss
The abyss are great, definitely the best dmc3 enemy.

>Enigmas
I like these ones as well. They definitely get annoying later on when they start sliding away from you so often but I still wouldn't consider them a "bad" enemy. enemies like the blood-goyles, enigmas, and soul eaters are usually disliked because they're gimmick enemies that you can't style on and for attacks they do that could sometimes interrupt you when you're focusing on another enemy but that's what made them good. Dealing with normal enemies while having to keep in mind the gimmick enemies was always something I liked about dmc3.

MoonlightClaymore wrote:>Abyss
The abyss are great, definitely the best dmc3 enemy.

>Enigmas
I like these ones as well. They definitely get annoying later on when they start sliding away from you so often but I still wouldn't consider them a "bad" enemy. enemies like the blood-goyles, enigmas, and soul eaters are usually disliked because they're gimmick enemies that you can't style on and for attacks they do that could sometimes interrupt you when you're focusing on another enemy but that's what made them good. Dealing with normal enemies while having to keep in mind the gimmick enemies was always something I liked about dmc3.

Enigmas are menace that I enjoyed catching after.
Bloodgoyles are ok and soul eaters were annoying, but better on DMD. I died to enigmas and soul eaters most, followed by lust demons.

>Enigmas are menace that I enjoyed catching after.
It is satisfying to finally catch up to them. I also enjoy how you can absorb their arrows if you time your attacks correctly.

>soul eaters
They're usually considered the most frustrating enemies along with the fallen but surprisingly I never found them as hard to deal with as some of the other enemies in dmc3.

I Always struggled with soul eaters probably because I don't know many ways to deal with them... I Always try to shoot them down with spiral and KA After turning back, but maybe there Is a more clever way. Aside from this Enigmas and Blood Gargoyles are good After you know the Nevan properties

A enemy that isn’t just an easier version of the boss and is designed with groups in mind and is designed around the basic combat. A enemy that has a lot of ways to be beaten down, interacts with mooks in a interesting way or even if they don’t, they give said mooks a more scary present by the simple fact they require more of your attention which gives mooks the chance to surprise you if you aren’t careful enough. There’s of course much more but that is what I look for in a mini boss type of foe.

Azagthoth04 wrote:I Always struggled with soul eaters probably because I don't know many ways to deal with them... I Always try to shoot them down with spiral and KA After turning back, but maybe there Is a more clever way. Aside from this Enigmas and Blood Gargoyles are good After you know the Nevan properties

DTE could be the way to deal with them.
IMO, Bloodgoyles being weak to Nevan doesn't make them good necessarily, it makes Nevan better.
Love it and def would play with Nevan more.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:A enemy that isn’t just an easier version of the boss and is designed with groups in mind and is designed around the basic combat. A enemy that has a lot of ways to be beaten down, interacts with mooks in a interesting way or even if they don’t, they give said mooks a more scary present by the simple fact they require more of your attention which gives mooks the chance to surprise you if you aren’t careful enough. There’s of course much more but that is what I look for in a mini boss type of foe.

So... Godhand basically )

>but that's what made them good

right but that's the problem, they're basically all chores by themselves and i'm going off a year+ old memory here but i remember the campaign never, ever mixing them in with normal enemies, the Enigmas being the only exception. maybe it's slightly better on DMD, i wouldn't know because i haven't completed the game on DMD yet (lost my save recently and i've not gone back yet), but Bloody Palace is a million times better at mixing enemies. The Fallen is just annoying in any context though.

Jackie Estacado wrote:>but that's what made them good

right but that's the problem, they're basically all chores by themselves and i'm going off a year+ old memory here but i remember the campaign never, ever mixing them in with normal enemies, the Enigmas being the only exception. maybe it's slightly better on DMD, i wouldn't know because i haven't completed the game on DMD yet (lost my save recently and i've not gone back yet), but Bloody Palace is a million times better at mixing enemies. The Fallen is just annoying in any context though.

DMD does mix a bit but I agree, Bloody Palace has so many mixups in there it's insane that devs didn't put good share of em into the campaign.

And fuck the Fallen, boring af.

>I Always struggled with soul eaters probably because I don't know many ways to deal with them... I Always try to shoot them down with spiral and KA After turning back
That's usually how I go about it. When there's a soul eaters encounter I always immediately focus on dealing with them first and if you're fast you could take a group of them out quicker than blood-goyles and enigmas since they usually take only 1-2 hits.

>Bloody Palace has so many mixups in there it's insane that devs didn't put good share of em into the campaign.
True

>the fallen
The only dmc3 enemy I'd consider a bad enemy.

to me a good enemy means have as much as enemy designs/variety/variations to have in a game. the devs who worked on dmc3 and ngb cooked with this one

Nuclear Sorrow wrote:to me a good enemy means have as much as enemy designs/variety/variations to have in a game. the devs who worked on dmc3 and ngb cooked with this one

Quantity = Quality lol

I do like having tons of different enemies, in the end though end up sticking with few.

I think Enigma's are honestly misunderstood, because mechanically they are quite an interesting foe. DMC3 has multiple styles to equip, and their projectiles are very dangerous on DMD, so they had to make sure you always had a solution to deal with them and I feel they succeeded, with every setup at least offering a solution for their projectile hell. You can get quite creative against them i.e. using Agni Rudra's attacks to destroy the projectiles, Nevan, "FREEZE" shield, wallrun's iframe-chaining etc. It's pretty well designed and considered, just a dangerous foe and chasing them down is more a skill-check I will admit (you often see players just dash at them, which is super suicidal).

I always dislike it when enemies teleport or run away from you because I think of how they'd be if they were to focus on going after you and that version of the enemy always sounds better to me but I do think they could be done well and enigmas are definitely one of them. I like how their projectile attacks work so you're not just chasing after something running away from you. You also have to really keep in mind where they are, when their projectiles shoot, and how you're going to deal with them while dealing with the other enemies you're currently fighting. They really do add a lot to the game whenever you're fighting them with all the other enemies which is why I still consider them a good enemy even if the sliding gets annoying.

>Agni Rudra's attacks to destroy the projectiles
I remember accidentally doing this during a bloody palace run when I was still just getting into the game and I thought I was so cool haha

Centaurs from GoW1 are interesting example. They play more like DMC1 enemy than GoW with how versatile they are - they can shoot, they can melee punish you and they have shockwave that bypasses block. When they block an attack, they will retaliate with 2 hit attack and first hit doesn't deal dmg - it only stuns, which is interesting. They also can't be easily grab looped as other enemies due to to QTE prompts.

Also, Cerberus Breeders from GoW1 are great as well. Great example of an enemy that can put high pressure, but is still open to juggles, grab loops and RO. The seeds are constant threat as they can  turn into breeders, but they also can be used as a colision tool, so there is very interesting dynamic there. And whenever I fight them I always end up with at least one growing to full-size, so there is that unpredictability.


Revenants from classic Doom are great as well. They doesn't have much health, but can be deadly due to its dmg. The first thing how you distinguish veteran player from beginners is how they deal with the homing missiles. Beginners usually run around a map to loose homers, but experienced players know how to deal with them instantly and stay in the face of Revenants. Their AI can be abused as well, since at melee range they can't retaliate with missiles, so the game rewards risky plays.

Archvilles too, since they're first order priority, but they're hit-scanners, so you will have to loose sight of them and risk possibility of them reviving enemies. An enemy, which attacks perfectly complements its function. They can really create fight or flight situation when let loose upon the corpses of already killed enemies, so they create uncertainty in the areas thet you already cleared.

Paul Allen's Profile wrote:Minotaurs from GoW1 are interesting example. They play more like DMC1 enemy than GoW with how versatile they are - they can shoot, they can melee punish you and they have shockwave that bypasses block. When they block an attack, they will retaliate with 2 hit attack and first hit doesn't deal dmg - it only stuns, which is interesting. They also can't be easily grab looped as other enemies due to to QTE prompts.

Also, Cerberus Breeders from GoW1 are great as well. Great example of an enemy that can put high pressure, but is still open to juggles, grab loops and RO. The seeds are constant threat as they can  turn into breeders, but they also can be used as a colision tool, so there is very interesting dynamic there. And whenever I fight them I always end up with at least one growing to full-size, so there is that unpredictability.


Revenants from classic Doom are great as well. They doesn't have much health, but can be deadly due to its dmg. The first thing how you distinguish veteran player from beginners is how they deal with the homing missiles. Beginners usually run around a map to loose homers, but experienced players know how to deal with them instantly and stay in the face of Revenants. Their AI can be abused as well, since at melee range they can't retaliate with missiles, so the game rewards risky plays.

Archvilles too, since they're first order priority, but they're hit-scanners, so you will have to loose sight of them and risk possibility of them reviving enemies. An enemy, which attacks perfectly complements its function. They can really create fight or flight situation when let loose upon the corpses of already killed enemies, so they create uncertainty in the areas thet you already cleared.

These are fantastic examples, looking forward to GOW1 and Doom 1&2 already, but I am busy with college and existing backlog.

Gonna add Capcom's most iconic beat em up, Final Fight.
Holy shit the elites are a menace.



(same Hugo in Street Fighter) Andore, Poison/Roxy (Roxy is lesser health variant), El Gado/Bollywood (Bollywood is lesser health variant, though low health enemy that throws molotovs is also called Bollywood). Challenging enemies, life threatening in group.

First what makes them dangerous AF is they get basic privileges that every Final Fight fodder gets: if they are close enough they are happy to stunlock you in place or knock your ass down with unreactable attacks. Since you can only attack left or right at a time it's especially dangerous to get cornered from two sides by multiple enemies. In that case you can't fight back and the damage stack is so high you die in seconds. Now what's unique about the elites?

1) Hugo stands his ground in Final Fight: he has comparable normal attack range to you and has some very high priority attacks. They are the choking grab, grab into piledriver, the ground pound and running chest bump, latter especially is difficult to avoid. If he does any of other three signature attacks you are fucked.

2) Poison is really mobile jumping around and casually trying to divekick you. Your back is a high priority target for her so it's best if you don't let her jump over you OR grab her immediately on landing and throw her back. One Poison is perfectly manageable but if there's more they can easily jump around and stun you from both sides. When approaching carelessly she may do spin kick that knocks you down.

3) El Gado is the most asinine enemy in this lineup, no contest. With his knife out his normal range is superior to yours, ready to stablock you. He also throws knives when you are not quite close enough to hit him back. His signature attacks are the unreactable sweep in close range and screenwide leap where he stabs you while getting behind simulatenously. He also has high health comparable to Hugo, which is insane for a ranged enemy. There is an encounter entirely consisting of El Gados and Bollywoods with total number of 8 or so, the death is guaranteed.

Final Fight is a fantastic game, play it and face the legendary bastards of Capcom. You can see really similar enemies in God Hand, particularly fat guys or the knive dudes.

God, I'm fucking idiot, I meant centaurs, not minotaurs.

> looking forward to GOW1 and Doom 1&2

Finished Doom 1, but never force myself to finish 2. Plutonia is where the real meat is at.

Also, another thing to note: centaurs are the only enemies (or at least only one that come to my mind, so I might be wrong) that can block collisions and if you OH one centaur into another and he blocks it, the one thrown is immediately restood - nasty.

And to reiterate on Doom: Its RNG implemention plays into enemy desing as well. Pain chance (hitstun) is dectated by RNG. Archvilles have the lowest pain chance (30 % IIRC), soo the weapon choice is the factor as well.  Rocket launcher, while high dmging, has low pain chance, its missile travels slowly ( and do splash dmg), but something like SSG or plasma gun have high pain chance due to larger number of RNG calls.

Similar thing with Revenat, but he's far more messy. He has high chance, but pain state can change his projectile type - either from normal or homing misslies - and he is program to retaliate with missile after pain state, so in the chase distance he will fire instead of going for melee attack.


>Final Fight
Such a legendary game, gotta get to it someday.