Underground Monkey: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

The solution many games go for is to have a small set of monster types, but have them appear with different graphics. Often, this change of design will be accompanied by a new adjective to go with their name (if the monster was based on a mythological or cryptozoological creature, subsequent names will be alternate names for the creature ([[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|Bigfoot to Sasquatch to Yeti]]), or the name of a similar creature (Cockatrice to Basilisk)). Typically, all such monsters will be vulnerable to the same strategy, or a variation thereupon, but later colors will tend to be more powerful. Elemental variations are a common version of this trope as are variations in size and adding or removing features like horns or [[Flying Mook|wings]] or [[King Mook|crowns]].

Results in the somewhat strange phenomenon that as you travel a diverse world, rather than seeing a diversity of creature types, you see ''the same'' creature types, in a diversity of versions: in [[The Lost Woods]], you find the Wolf, the Giant Rat, and the Forest Dragon; in the [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]], you find the Arctic Wolf, the Snow Rat, and the White Dragon; in the [[Temple of Doom]], you'll face the Dire Wolf, Plague Rat, and Zombie Dragon.

Named for a [[Running Gag]] in [http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030423.html RPG World], wherein the Underground Monkey is suspected of being attracted by [[Genre Savvy]] characters.

----

== Action-Adventure Games ==

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' also produced several colors of its major enemies, indicating their strength. Versus Books' [[Strategy Guide]] for ''[[Majoras Mask]]'' characterized the White Wolfos as being "like regular Wolfos, only, um, whiter."

* While the main-series [[Kingdom Hearts]] games largely avoid this by simply scaling the strength of enemies found in later worlds, 358/2 Days plays it straight, with up to 3 different versions of many mooks where the only difference is size, a design choice that may have been mandated by limited space for the game data.

* ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series has several: the Brain Sucker in ''3'' is an upgraded skin-swap of the Drain Deimos, the Sweeper in ''Code Veronica'' is a poisonous version of the Hunter, ''RE 2'' has Super Lickers, the Iron Maiden in ''RE 4'' is a [[Demonic Spiders|more demonic]] version of the Regenerator, etc.

== Beat Em Ups ==

== Maze Games ==

** Many early arcade games did this, due to the hardware limitations of the day. Some examples include ''[[Berzerk]]'', ''[[Missile Command]]'', and ''Pengo''.

** Played extra-straight with the monster (and quest) Terokkarantula. Tougher than the smaller spiders nearby, as would be expected by it's named nature and elite status, the player who hasn't been there before is probably STILL not expecting a spider that's larger than a good-sized HOUSE.

** Somewhat averted in expansions as the developers go through a good deal of work to create a few "unique" creatures for each expansion (especially the alien planet Outland). Still, you're unlikely to hit a zone that doesn't have at least two or three models you've seen before.

** It is found already with the creeps in ''[[Warcraft]] III''

** They have even ''[[Lampshade Hanging|hung a lampshade on]]'' the practice with a quest in Evendim, in which you are sent out for your umpteenth "kill me some boars" quest. {{spoiler|It doesn't actually tell you to kill the boars, just look for some. This is important in that there are no boars in Evendim.}}

*** Which was further [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshade Hanged]] in a later introduced dungeon in Evendim, {{spoiler|where you actually ''can'' encounter boars. If you kill one, a quest starter item will drop giving you the quest to ''finally'' bring the original questgiver his boarmeat.}}

** ''Everquest 2'' has some sort of skeleton or zombie in almost every zone.

* Perhaps parodied with ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' with the [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Perpendicular_bat perpendicular bat]. Its description when you fight it is "This bat is perpendicular to the ground! That makes it totally different from a regular bat!" ''Definitely'' parodied with the [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Completely_different_spider completely different spider], which is nothing of the sort.

* In ''Keith Courage in Alpha Zones'', the [[Final Boss]], the Titan Warrior, is a gold [[Palette Swap]] of Mr. Roboto, the boss of Area 4.

* Several of the bosses in ''[[Wonder Boy in Monster Land]]'' do this, such as the Red Knight/Blue Knight/Silver Knight, the [[Grim Reaper]] / God of Poverty, and the Giant Kong/Snow Kong.

* In the first ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'' game, Krusha came in two varieties. The first kind was blue with green camo and was only beatable by either of Donkey Kong's main attacks or a barrel (Diddy Kong's attacks were laughed off). The second kind only appeared once in the SNES version, in the very last level before King K. Rool. This version was grey with purple camo. The only thing that could beat him was a barrel, making him the strongest of the Kremlings.

* ''[[Descent]]'': The Super Hulk or Super Mech is a red version of the Medium Hulk that is much tougher and armed with homing missiles. The Fusion Hulk is [[Degraded Boss|a scaled down version]] of the first boss armed with a Fusion Cannon. In the second game, the Spawn is a green version of the Red Hornet, and the Tiger or Red Fatty Jr. uses the same model as the first boss, although it is smaller and has completely different weapons.

** The majority of monsters in the series have at least one recolor, including regular bosses. In fact, the secret boss of Dragon Quest 6, arguably the single most glorified, powerful antagonist in the franchise, is a palette swap of an earlier boss. It's easier to count the few enemies with unique sprites.

** ''[[Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime]]''. Each of the 100 different members of the [[Monster Town]] is a different type of slime.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' has tons of instances of monsters that look exactly the same, only stronger and with a different name, including several Notorious Monsters.

*** And when monsters of the same species don't look exactly the same, they are palette swaps. In some cases this is justified. For example, rabbit type enemies have different fur color in different climates. It gets a little harder to justify with the Wings of the Goddess expansion, where forest tigers from 20 years ago are neon orange for no apparent reason.

** Worse yet, after a certain point, they didn't even bother to change the enemy colors. This left you with about 200 missions of fighting the same, boring avatars.

** Both ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' avert this trope, where (almost) every monster type in the game has a unique mesh, animation, and sound effect. The only exceptions (for VIII, anyway) are for human and humanoid enemies.

** Interestingly, this hardware limitation led to an inversion in ''[[Metroid]] 2''. In the original, getting Samus's Varia armor made the sprite change color, which wasn't possible on the Gameboy. To compensate, gaining the upgrade gave the Varia suit the huge shoulders that are now the character's trademark look.

*** ''Metroid: Zero Mission'', which is a remake of Metroid 1, lacks the round shoulders on the Varia Suit. However, near the end of the game, Samus's Power Suit is destroyed, and she obtains a new one. The new one has the large shoulders. The end of Zero Mission takes place in the immediate aftermath of the ending of Metroid 1, and as such explains how Samus came to possess the Metroid 2-style Varia suit.

** Multi-Colored Monkeys?

*** This was part of the game's world design. Monsters were designed to be "organic" in that one given monster species would have biodiversity. The player could encounter three mobs in the same battle, and each would have slightly different stats. In general, colour had less to do with power than size, with larger mobs being significantly stronger.

** Not only that, but every boss not important to the story is simply a giant version of a normal enemy, a practice that would carry over to ''[[Persona 4]]''.

** Note that this is a [[Justified Trope]], due to the [[The Heartless|nature]] of the Shadows.

** Some other examples of monster counterparts behave exactly the same but have very different appearances. For example, the Aptonoth looks like an amalgamation of different species of dinosaurs, while the Tundra-inhabiting Popo looks like a very short, trunk-less woolly mammoth. Both species behave pretty much identically, and they both fill the role of the harmless herbivore that gets eaten by everything else.

* ''[[Grandia II]]'' starts doing this about halfway through the game.

** Played completely straight with some of the ''Trainers'' - While there are no palette swaps, and the in-battle sprites of the Trainer types are all unique, often several types share the same ''overworld'' sprite, so that in ''[[Pokémon Diamond Pearl and Platinum]]'', for example, Ace Trainers and Rangers look the same until you fight them (and the sprite is clearly that of the Ace Trainers). The most egregious example is perhaps the Rich Boys, Psychics, and PIs/Gamblers. PIs/Gamblers wear a fedora and a trenchcoat in battle, while Psychics wear a purple jumpsuit with greenish hair; the overworld sprite used for all three clearly has the Rich Boy's dark purple hair and white suit.

*** Although the reasoning behind PIs having Rich Boy's look could be the fact that they're supposed to be incognito. Psychics and Gamblers, however, have no excuse.

* Present throught out the ''[[Tales (series)]]''. Monsters that are purely palette swaps are most common in the games that utilize sprite based graphics, while the 3D games usually change their model a little, as well.

* ''[[Boktai]]'' has this in all its incarnations, though sometimes coloration is used as a hint to its [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|elemental affinity]]. This is more egregious in ''Lunar Knights'', where many enemies are colored solely by affinity - namely, the Ghouls, Vorns, Slimes, Hounds, and Chloroformin' come in different colors on this alone. The Slimes, strangely enough, are the only ones in this group that come in [[Light'Em Up|Sol]] flavor.

** ''[[Ultima III]]'' has multiple enemy types with the same colours where the only difference is the name - however, that's ''literally'' the only difference. No change in stats, health, damage dealth, weaknesses... Just Orcs, Goblins and Trolls, all exactly the same.

* This isn't often used in the [[Shining Force]] games, but when it is, it is jarring. the original [[Shining Force]], for example, had th regular [[Goddamned Bats|Bats]], and their aquatic cousins, ''Sea'' Bats.

** The third edition of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' features ''templates'', giving uncreative GMs the opportunity to color-code ''any'' monster into a water monster, a fire monster, slime monster, etc.

*** Although one 3rd edition ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' magazine article about creating monsters included "But this one's blue!" in a list of how ''not'' to do it.

* While discouraged due to the WYSIWYG rule of the game, ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' still has shades of this. Space Marines have more rules than the rest of the other playable factions combined, and the only way to tell them apart is by their armor and what kind of bling they have (Robed and Green, it's probably Dark Angels. Spikey and/or evil looking, probably Chaos. Red and Blood drops, Blood Angels. Knightly helmets and book emblems, Grey Knights. Swords and seals, Black Templars, etc...). Even within a single army, the difference between an elite squad of veterans armed with modified boltguns and a simple tactical squad is sometimes literally a differently painted shoulderpad. Averted with the other races, where each type of trooper generally gets their own model.

** There's now specific models for veteran Space Marines, with custom boltguns that look a bit different and shoulder pads that have embossed icons for non-codex chapters. Of course, these models are more expensive, so some players stick with the old palette swap method.

== Toys ==

* Other toys use a similar system, often called redecos (when identical molds are used but the color of plastic is altered) or retools (when most parts stay basically the same but are altered to include, for example, new accessories; this can also include a redeco). For example, in the most recent series of ''[[Transformers]]'', [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Storm_Cloud#Classic_Series Stormcloud] is a redeco of [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Powerglide#Universe_.282008.29 Powerglide], while [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Sideswipe_(G1)#Universe_.282008.29 Sideswipe] is a retool of [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Sunstreaker_(G1)#Classic_Series Sunstreaker].

** The most annoying use of this in recent series has been making Galvatron a redeco of Megatron.

* For most of its run, ''[[Bionicle]]'' sets were just recolors of each other with slight differences in assembly and parts. Sometimes, the ''only'' difference would be their [[Cool Mask|masks]] and their tools/weapons. Then, the Mahri Nui saga came along in 2007, and the [[Evil Overlord|Barraki]] were released, each looking very different from each other. Since then, the sets have been largely [[Averted]] this trope.