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Underground Monkey: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.UndergroundMonkey 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.UndergroundMonkey, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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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.
The most common Underground Monkeys are those whose names begin with one of [[Fire, Ice, Lightning|fire, ice or lightning]]. In games which play [[Elemental Rock
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.
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* 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.
* In ''[[Jabless Adventure (Video Game)|Jabless Adventure]]'', there are [[
== Beat Em Ups ==
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* 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.
* ''[[Bug! (Video Game)|Bug]]!'' You fight snail enemies in [[Green Hill Zone|Insectia]] Scene 3, each of which were very slow and took three hits to die. And then when you get to [[Bubblegloop Swamp|Splot]], you see them again. Except that they take ''nine'' hits, and move twice as fast. And when they see Bug, they take out freaking '''[[More Dakka|MACHINE GUNS]]''' from their shells and fire at him!
== Real-Time Strategy ==
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** 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 (Video Game)|Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime]]''. Each of the 100 different members of the [[Monster Town]] is a different type of slime.
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' uses this in most incarnations, especially with the [[Elemental Rock
** ''[[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.
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** 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.
* ''[[Persona 3]]'' is another good example of this trope--practically every enemy inside [[
** 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.
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** 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.
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' notably does not perform "[[Palette Swap|PaletteSwaps]]" of its [[Mon|monsters]] (aside from the rare "shiny" Pokémon, which are explicitly the exact same species as the non-Shiny versions, only with some sparkly-ness). The closest thing to recycled enemies might be evolved forms of previously encountered Pokémon, or simply the ''same'' Pokémon but at higher levels. This lack of palette-swapping monsters makes logical sense when you consider that the whole premise of the game is built on having a wide selection of Pokémon to customize your team with. There ''are'', however, many Pokémon that fall under the "similar but with different element" category, such as the [[Fire, Ice, Lightning]] trio of Legendary birds from the first generation -- Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres.
** 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.
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{{quote| "There's also supposed to be a camouflage-coloured ninja, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|but no one has ever seen him]]".}}
* 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 (Video Game)|Boktai]]'' has this in all its incarnations, though sometimes coloration is used as a hint to its [[Elemental Rock
* ''[[Ultima V]]'' contains literal monkeys found only underground -- the Mongbats -- but they resemble nothing else in the game.
** ''[[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.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|Color-coded dragons]] predate most video games, as they appeared in the [[Tabletop Games]] ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', which was first published in 1974. Evil ("Chromatic") dragons have scales of a particular solid color reflecting their place in the [[Elemental Rock
** On one occasion, the color-coding is used as the basis of a truly heartbreaking [[Monster Is a Mommy]] story, when a noble silver dragon is born with albinism, and is hunted down and killed by an adventurer who thinks it's a white dragon.
*** One adventure featured a similar story with an albino red dragon, causing the party to prepare to fight it in ''the least effective way possible.''
** This was parodied in the webcomic ''[[Order of the Stick]]'': in one comic, a paladin discovers the titular party has killed a dragon. She then accuses them of possibly killing a creature of benevolence and wisdom, and asks why they thought it deserved death, to which Roy Greenhilt replies, "Erm... its scales weren't shiny?" which placates the paladin. Elan then breaks the [[Fourth Wall]] by winking at the reader and saying, "Dragons - now [[Colour
*** Ironically, the comic does this itself with goblins/hobgoblins/ghouls.
* A particularly infamous example is the Rothe, which is a semi-literal [[Underground Monkey]] ''of a bison''.
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