When I look back at my past in gaming, I don’t know if I can pinpoint the origin of this particular fear. My first encounter with a thresher maw in Mass Effect comes readily to mind. If there was anything before that, it might have been one of many of the massive demons in Doom and Doom II, or the monstrous prehistoric beasts in in ye old Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. What a throwback! Anyway, the thing is, I really don’t like encounters with extra-large, seemingly overpowering enemies with insta-death capabilities in games. To be clear, I’m not talking about screen-filling, city-sized monstrosities, like some of the wildly gigantic bosses in the Bayonetta or Persona games. No, I’m talking about big, burly, angry beasts that hulk out as soon as they spot your tiny character and want nothing more than to take you out in a fit of rage.
So let’s talk about Mass Effect’s poison-spitting monster worms called thresher maws, because that first meeting is one I’ll never forget. The mission started out simply enough – check out a distress call. That was it. Little did I know Shepard would be walking into a trap. We landed, drove out to the site of the distress beacon, and boom! A giant creature with mandibles the size of semi-trucks popped out of the ground. I nearly had a heart attack, and then proceeded to die. In the game, I mean. Shepard and crew were in the game’s wonky MAKO vehicle, and my very poor driving skills lead to everyone’s quick demise…several times over. Eventually. That first encounter scared the living daylights out of me so well that I reloaded to an earlier save, keeping in mind that I would make another attempt at taking on the thresher maw once I felt ready.
More recently, my turn toward Fallout games has revived this particular fear several times over. No matter the time or place, I still run the other way any time I get wind of a deathclaw. I still find them among the scariest enemies in the series, because they are just so aggressive and relentless. There’s a particular quest in Fallout: New Vegas that can only be completed by taking out a nest of deathclaws, and just thinking about it gives me the shivers. (Now it’s a quest I won’t even attempt without a good sniper rifle!) Fallout 76 upped the ante with the even more terrifying sheepsquatch – a humungous hoofed, horned beast that emits an awful trumpet-like cry and shoots deadly barbs from its body. At the very least, they don’t travel in packs, but dealing with one is plenty frightful. The sheepsquatch is just one of the game’s creepy cryptids, and it wins the blue ribbon as my absolute least favorite.
Rounding out my short list of huge, scary enemies, it’s one thing when these creatures are grounded; it’s another when they can take to the air. I’m talking about gleeoks, and specifically all the ones I continue to avoid in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. These overwhelming, elemental, three-headed dragons are quick to react and difficult to defeat. At least for me, and that’s despite knowing the tricks to eliminate them. As I mentioned in my previous Spooktober post, my greatest challenge in most any game is overcoming my lack of timing and poor reflexes. They are the reason why I tend to feel so helpless when dealing with big, merciless enemies. Gleeoks really take the cake, because have powerful attacks, and their “third act” mechanics require some finesse with Link’s abilities, which I do not possess. Just surviving to the latter half of any gleeok battle is a chore, provided I can even find the will to start a battle in the first place. Just seeing that those three ominous, bobbing heads in the distance is petrifying.
Give me enemies I can meet eye-to-eye, I’m good. When those eyes are one, two, three feet above mine, glaring down with nothing but flesh-shredding hatred, I’m out. Provided I can even move, that is!
VIRTUAL BASTION 