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Demonic Spiders - TV Tropes

️Tue Apr 22 2008

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

"If you can beat it, that is great."

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. 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 common enemies that seem unfairly powerful, not bosses. 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 already 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 significantly more dangerous than any other random enemy, but unlike the Boss in Mook Clothing these are quite common. They're essentially Elite Mooks in the context of gameplay.

Demonic Spiders are usually made up of at least one of the following characteristics:

Prevent you from acting as they kill you (a big one).
- Bonus points if their attacks actually do a relatively low amount of damage, yet are still able to eventually take you down anyway solely because you can't fight back or retreat.
Draw Aggro away from the much more immediate threats.
Frequently employ debilitating Status Effects (e.g. Sleep, Paralyze, or Charm). In most cases, these same effects will either have no effect when used against them, or they won't be nearly as effective (or annoying).
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 Ambushing Enemy.
- 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.
Are exceptionally smart for a videogame NPC, expertising in countering your playstyle, whatever it may be. They might even exploit information that's not even accessible to players, like what the Random Number God is about to do, or what buttons you've just pressed.
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 a Challenger II 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.

Unintentional examples may be a product of poor playtesting; however, intentional examples do exist. Sometimes the intention isn't so much to fight them as avoid them or hope they go away. They may appear during a Stealth-Based Mission to justify the need to sneak around them rather than fighting them. Most enemies in Horror Video Games tend to be Demonic Spiders to some degree.

As usual, Tropes Are Not Bad. If a game doesn't have at least one or two enemies you have any reason to fear, then it may not be challenging enough to be fun.

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, which are bosses that have these characteristics, Contrast: Boss in Mook Clothing who tend not to be so common, and Ledge Bats who are dangerous for more indirect reasons. Ironically enough, can overlap with Breather Boss as despite being a tough and annoying field enemy, when used as a boss is a cakewalk by boss standards. Not to be confused with Giant Spider, which is more about literal spiders, although both can overlap.

Examples:

Other Game Genres

In Dokapon Kingdom, there are many enemies who have special skills that can instantly kill you (which can cause you to lose a town or a piece of equipment), stun you (often resulting in you being killed as well), or destroy your equipments. Because special skills can't be guarded with any form of defense options, they become this, and often times you'll want to give up if you can't finish them off or even just get your turn last when fighting them.
F-ZERO 99: Red Bumpers. You generally won't see them unless you're at the front of the pack, at which point watch out. They deal substantial damage and a careless race leader can find themselves faced with an abrupt CRASH OUT (even more humiliating if they're among the first casualties of the race) if they don't carefully weave past these vehicles, resist the urge to boost constantly and instead set some energy meter aside just in case of a Red Bumper collision or two, or drop back a few places on purpose and let some other opponents take a few hits for them. It gets even worse near the end of the race, as if you're anywhere close to the front of the pack, you'll see them in HORDES.
The Tower - Idle Tower Defense: Vampires will quickly deplete your tower's health meter if they're not immediately defeated. While they appear in the higher waves, your very first encounter with one will almost immediately end your run as you'll likely won't have the necessary upgrades that can counter them yet; Target Priority and especially Garlic Thorns can only be unlocked later when you've already progressed enough in the game.

Non-Game Examples

I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What?: Taylor's minions are no stronger or tougher than any other dungeon's minions, but her ability to simultaneously control any number of minions without loss of focus means that instead of fighting based off of bestial instinct, her minions fight as coordinated groups, use advanced tactics, and benefit from her combat experience and ability to read enemy motions. The popular figure is that her level one is the equivalent of a normal dungeon's level ten.