Savage Setpiece: Difference between revisions

* ''Zelda''

** Multiple franchise installments have the Cuccos, vicious birds who many old-school gamers can recognize by name as being this trope. In every game they appear in and are attackable they'll gang up on Link and viciously destroy him should he poke them with his sword one too many times.

* ''Super [[Metroid]]'' has a turtle-like creature and its adorable babies in certain areas of Zebes. While they're normally utterly harmless, I'm sure you can guess what happens if you [[Mama Bear|attack the little ones.]]

* The Game Boy Advance RPG ''Dokapon'' had the Shopkeepers. While they would never pick a fight with you, you could [[Izchaks Wrath|pick a fight with them... Ouch.]]

* ''[[Kirby]]'' has the Scarfies, adorable little floating cat-head things... which abruptly transform into cyclopean, razor-toothed monstrosities should you attempt to inhale them, or when you do minor damage. In some games they perform the more traditional mook role of only attacking when the player character is facing away.

* In the jungle stage of ''[[Contra]] Hard Corps'', there's an apatosaurus whose back you land on after defeating one of the stage's minibosses. You have to walk up his neck and over his head to move on, but if you shoot his face, he'll unleash a stream of white-hot plasma DEATH out of his nose. In the Japanese version where you could take up to 3 hits before dying, this is the only attack in the game that kills you instantly.

* In the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' series, you can occasionally find shops in dungeons. Attempt to shoplift, and you'll face an army of extremely high-level Kecleon with max stats. Even if you're prepared, they'll probably wipe the floor with you. The worst part is that [[Gotta Catch Them All|this is the only way to recruit a Kecleon for your Rescue Team.]]

** The shopkeeper can also go ballistic on you or the enemies if accidentally struck by an attack. His behavior is rather unpredictable in that regard, so fighting around him is generally a bad idea.

* In ''[[Temple of Elemental Evil]]'', there are several locations which automatically spawn groups of giant rats (such as the Moathouse entry hall). Unlike most rats you'll meet, these are not hostile. You can attack them, but if your party is low level (which is usually the case) you could end up with a couple of diseased characters. The rats mostly serve the purpose of indicating that a location is not healthy for sleeping.

* In ''[[Age of Empires I (Video Game)|Age of Empires I]]'', elephants (except for King Elephants) only attack if you hurt them first. While they're dangerous to hunt as a result, you can safely ignore them. This is a big contrast to lions and crocodiles.

* The Zombie Pigman from ''[[Minecraft]]'' will even walk right up to you ''and look at you'' without attacking. When you attack him, not only does he attack full-on with his sword, but any other Pigmen in range come in swinging, and on the normal difficulty, they can take off a quarter of your maximum health with one hit. The game actually encourages you to attack them by making them drop gold nuggets, which is more fun than mining for gold and arguably faster. Wolves behave with a similar pack instinct, except you can also tame them so that they'll gang up on monsters that attack you. Spiders are hostile at night, but turn into this in the sunlight, albeit without the group attack. However, due to how the AI works, you can kill them without fear of reprisal by maneuvering them into harmful obstacles like cacti, nudging them off cliffs, or starting a fire ''under their feet''.

* The [[Easily Angered Shopkeeper|Shopkeepers]] in [[Spelunky]] are like this. Even worse, killing one directly would cause all the other shopkeepers for the rest of the game to be hostile as well.

** Similarly, the Long Guis and Shaolong Guis in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'' ignore you completely unless you deliberately pick a fight with them. They don't show up nearly as early as the FFXII example, but they are very powerful for when you first encounter them. By the postgame of XIII, however, you'll be farming them if you want to achieve [[One Hundred Percent Completion]].

* [[World of Warcraft]] has a neutral NPC named [http://www.wowhead.com/npc=6466#comments:id=1200166 Gamon] in the Horde capital. He used to be the general beating doll, then apparently [[Took a Level In Badass]] and can now deal enough damage to one-hit players attacking him.