Demonic Spiders

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Fear the almighty Sorcerers!

"So this is the first enemy in the game and I can't even get near him because he's shooting bullets all over the place and running away like an asshole." —The Angry Video Game Nerd, on the Die Hard game for the NES.

Demonic Spiders: the bane of players everywhere, these are the enemies that will make you scream in fury (or quake in fear) each time you see them. A product of poor (or, perhaps, malicious) playtesting, these are the guys which will defeat you over and over again using tactics that just seem unfair at times.

The defining trait of Demonic Spiders is that they are random or common (in the case of games where Random Encounters don't happen) enemies that seem unfairly powerful. These are not dangerous because they distract from something else, they are likely what kills you when you're distracted. They are not dangerous because they push you into hazards, they are enough of a hazard by themselves.

Demonic Spiders are the enemies that, for lack of a better phrase, have the deck stacked in their favor. They have more Hit Points, they go swifter, they come in swarms, attacking them deals damage to you, etc. Basically, these are the enemies with annoying abilities granted to them by the programmers that make them exponentially more dangerous than any other random enemy, but no less common.

Demonic Spiders are usually made up of many of the following characteristics:

• Prevent you from acting as they kill you (a big one).
• Frequently employ debilitating Standard Status Effects (e.g. Sleep, Paralyze, or Charm).
• Deliver lethal or near-lethal attacks that are virtually impossible to dodge.
  • Or attacks that ignore accuracy/evasion/defense outright.
  • Have a larger melee attack radius than you do when combined with this, making it all but impossible for a melee-oriented character to get close enough to do his job without getting killed horribly.
• Appears suddenly at a very close range, like a Wall Master.
  • Or are almost impossible to see or track at any range.
• Can duplicate itself or summon reinforcements with no apparent limit on how many or how often.
• Require a special type of resources to defeat without extreme skill and concentration and some luck, and that resource is slow to get back. Typically, you'd have use rare precious health/magic replenish kits in case you encounter more demonic spiders, but you'd continue on low health/magic/ammo if there were no more demonic spiders ahead.
• Can take more punishment than an M1 Abrams tank.
• Move in manners impossible for your character (often with greater speed than you'll ever have).
• Are capable of nullifying your primary methods of attack/defense (often reflecting or absorbing it).
• In action games, may have melee based attacks (or counter-attacks) that quickly hit you from a fair distance away and then cause them to retreat in an equally swift manner.
• In RPGs with a Class and Level System, have the ability to take your hard-earned levels away from you, particularly when there's no easy way to gain them back after the battle and you have to gain them back the hard way.

Can overlap with Goddamned Bats. Particularly if RPG Elements are present, Demonic Spiders can become Goddamned Bats as characters level up. Compare: That One Boss, Contrast: Boss in Mooks Clothing who tend not to be so common, and Ledge Bats who are dangerous for more indirect reasons

Examples of Demonic Spiders are listed on these subpages:

• Real Life
• Tabletop Games
• Video Games
  • 4X
  • Action Adventure
    • Castlevania
    • Metroid
    • The Legend of Zelda
  • Adventure Game
  • Fighting Games
  • First-Person Shooter
  • Platform Game
  • Puzzle Game
  • Real Time Strategy
  • Roguelike
  • Role-Playing Game
    • Final Fantasy
    • Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
    • Pokémon
  • Sandbox Games
  • Shoot'Em Up
  • Simulation Games
  • Survival Horror
  • Third-Person Shooter
  • Turn-Based Strategy