Unique Enemy: Difference between revisions

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A video game trope you've [[Seen It a Million Times|seen a million times]]: an enemy, just a plain old enemy that inexplicably turns up only once in the entire game. You wonder why the developers coded it; you wonder if it was partially [[Dummied Out]]. Sometimes it's just there to provide a special challenge for anyone trying for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]. Sometimes it's there because it exists to fit a unique circumstance in a level or sidequest. Whatever the reason, it's unremarkable in most respects except that it's just there the one time.

There are two types of this, broadly speaking: enemies who appear only once in an entire game, and those who appear a very few times in only a single level or screen of a game. For whatever reason, [[Metroidvania]] games seem prone to containing Unique Enemies. [[Game Mod|Mods]] and romhacks will often feature this enemy more often, especially if it has a good gimmick.

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** The dodo above re-appears in ''[[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin|Portrait of Ruin]]'' in a single room... sometimes. It's pretty much random. There are also a few others. [[Sand Worm|Sand Worms]] in the desert levels only appear once and never re-appear once killed, and there are two palette swapped kinds. A ghoul king only appears after killing ghouls in certain rooms after a certain time, and the giant ghost only appears in a single room after killing ghosts for a certain time. Aside from the sandworms, they're required for sidequests.

** Oddly, the Stone Rose/Man-eating Plant which is fairly common in later games only appears in one spot in Stage 1 of ''[[Rondo of Blood]]'', as well as the hunchback in Stage 3 who tries to steal your subweapon.

** The glass skeletons only appear in one room in ''[[Harmony of Dissonance]]''. They seem to be there to give nice exp.

** Castlevania examples, as you can see, go on for AGES.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]] [[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|A Link to the Past]]'' has a blimp-like creature that splits into multiple smaller enemies by the shore of Lake Hylia... and nowhere else.

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** Similarly, normal Poes are only found in one room of the Stone Tower Temple, and a solitary 'normal' (as opposed to Business Scrubs and Mad Scrubs) Deku Scrub enemy is found in the Swamp Spider House. Both of these were a lot more numerous in Ocarina Of Time.

* ''[[Mother 3]]'' has Negative Man, a rather unremarkable and comically-underpowered [[Joke Character]] enemy [[Urban Legend of Zelda|who has a rare drop]].

** He's just the most well known. There's also Fish Roe Man, Soot Dumpling, Mystery Metal Monkey, Bright Smile, Top Dogfish.... There's nearly a dozen more with completely unique sprites that many players may never see hidden in the game. Mother 3 lives this trope.

* In the NES version of ''[[Punch-Out!!]]'', King Hippo is the only boxer without a [[Head Swap]].

* The Giant Jellyfish in ''[[Cave Story]]'' shows up on a single screen just to provide an Item Drop without the usual [[Boss Battle]]. Oddly enough, you ''must'' kill it multiple times.

** ''Cave Story'' also has the mimic door and chinfish, both of which appear once near the start but never again in the game. Basil, an invincible enemy that can one-hit-kill you, only shows up in the undamaged Egg Corridor (although it functions more like a deadly room feature than an enemy), and an exploding green cloud only appears in the ruined Egg Corridor. The Gravekeeper is another unique enemy of no greater significance. [[Giant Mook|Giant Pingon]] in the same area is also an unique enemy.

*** The blowfish is mentioned in the closing credits as the "only one."

* There's a character named Mizzo in ''[[Super Smash Bros|Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' that looks like a marionette in a tank. He's only seen once in the game in Adventure mode, but it has a trophy... that details just how there's only one of him in the whole game.

* There's a character named Mizzo in ''[[Super Smash Bros.|Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' that looks like a marionette in a tank. He's only seen once in the game in Adventure mode, but it has a trophy... that details just how there's only one of him in the whole game.

* ''[[Pikmin|Pikmin 2]]'' has a single Toady Bloyster in the Perplexing Pool that holds a treasure. It's the only one you fight in the main game. You fight its bigger boss relative more times than this creature.

** Weirdly enough, the log file on it shows close to a dozen of them in one place.

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** ''Super Mario World'' also had the Fishin' Boo, a rare ghost Lakitu that follows Mario with a flame on a fishing rod. It only appeared for a short while in the first room of the Choco Island Ghost House. The same stage also had a few ghosts that turned into solid blocks when Mario looked at them.

** One Ghost House also had a [[Degraded Boss|degraded version]] of the [[King Mook|Big Boo]].

** The Torpedo Teds of the Soda Lake level, anyone? They appeared in bunches, but thankfully, just in [[That One Level]]. It's a hidden level too (which leads to Star Road), so it's likely the first time you'll see them is in the ending roll call.

** There is only one yellow Koopa in the entire game. Tons of green, tons of red, a fair amount of blue - and one lonely yellow one. In a similar vein, each alternately-colored Yoshi appears in only one or two Star Road levels. (You ''can'' turn any Yoshi blue in the SNES version if you find Yoshi Wings.)

*** This is because yellow koopa shells are coded to go into that whacky invincible mode if a koopa is inside. Imagine having to deal with those constantly

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** Sacred Icon has the [[Deflector Shields]]-equipped Advanced Sentinels.

** Cairo Station has a pair of Elites dual-wielding plasma pistols at the beginning (they don't know how to use charged shots), and an Elite wielding both a Plasma Rifle and Needler at the end. At the end of the underwater passage on Regret, you encounter a group of stealth-cloaked Grunts, which are never seen again.

** ''[[Halo 3: ODST]]'' has an NMPD officer who turns on the Rookie because [[He Knows Too Much]] on Data Hive. This is the only time you fight an NMPD officer in the game and also the only non covenant enemy in the game.

* In every level of ''[[Halo: Reach]]'', there is a special hidden Elite who will randomly appear out of nowhere in certain areas if you're fast enough in playing the level. These elite, nicknamed "BOB", give you a load of points when killed (to add to your credits if scoring is turned on) and a special medal if your Xbox Live account is linked to Bungie's site, but if you don't kill them fast enough they will disappear. BOBs come in two flavors: Gold Spec-Ops Rangers and completely white, random model Elites, similar to the aforementioned Honor Guard Councillor. The second variety's white coloration is due to a spawning error where the game "forgets" to add the correct color to the Elite character model.

** There's one point early in the game where you fight a pair of King Kong-sized lizard-gorillas, apparently a form of local wildlife on the planet. They're tougher than normal infantry, but not so tough that you could call them a boss battle or anything. They're never seen or heard of again afterwards, making the whole encounter something of a [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]].

** Similar to the BOB's, the first level contains a lone Stealth Elite (different color than the cloaked Spec-Ops Elites encountered later) nicknamed "Bill", which can be spotted just before the moas first appear. If killed, it drops a data pad that can be read. This also may be a leftover from a dummied-out objective.

** Zealots are only fought three times in ''Reach'', as a group of three at the end of Winter Contingency, as a singleton on Tip of the Spear, and another trio on The Pillar of Autumn accompanying the [[King Mook|Field Marshal]] (not including the two killed in a cutscene).

* Most of the room-specific enemies in ''[[La-Mulana]]'' are really minibosses, but there are a few exceptions: Thunderbird in Tower of Ruin, a large white thing that fires lightning downwards; Ba in the Confusion Gate, which looks and acts like a larger version of the [[Goddamned Bats]] ''La-Mulana'' players all know and hate; and Spriggan in the Chamber of Extinction's [[Disconnected Side Area|upper area]], a giant which the player needs to turn into a stepping stone to a higher platform.

* ''[[StarTropics]]'' Has Squidos, enemies that only appear in one room in the game. To top it off, they appear shortly after you acquire a [[Smart Bomb]] attack, so you probably won't be seeing them for very long.

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* At the end of the first stage of ''[[Time Crisis]] II'', after the semi crashes, a group of gray soldiers with rocket launchers attacks you. Nowhere else do the gray soldiers wield rocket launchers. Also, during the first [[Boss Battle]] and nowhere else, there are Aqua Ninjas that periodically jump out of the water. The first game also had knife-throwing guards during the [[Disc One Final Boss]] battle, which became recurring enemies in later games.

* At the start of the Starbase level in ''TMNT IV: Turtles in Time'', there is a robot moving up and down who fires lasers at you. It takes one hit to kill, and no more appear.

* The first-person shooter ''[[Ubersoldier]]'' features a single flamethrower-toting, gas mask-wearing soldier in the final level. He can be killed quickly, and never appears anywhere else.

* ''[[Streets of Rage]] 2'' has a number of regular [[Mook|Mooks]] that have names unique to their respective sprite-palette combos. Examples include a Joseph named "Talk" and a Donovan named "U-3". Killing such mooks will net juicy point bonuses (useful for racking up [[Every Ten Thousand Points|extends]]).

* The Killer Tomatoes in ''[[Donkey Kong 64]]''. They only appear in one specific area of Fungi Forest, and after you kill them, they're gone for good. The toy-themed enemies in Frantic Factory are also very rare.

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* ''[[Resident Evil Code Veronica]]'' has the [[Demonic Spiders|poison moths]] in [[That One Level|that one corridor]], which you unfortunately have to traverse multiple times. When you revisit the area as Chris, they're gone, replaced by zombies. Earlier, in the passage to the seaplane port, there's a group of zombies that inexplicably have [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]]. Cyber-zombies?

* In ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'', only 12 enemy [[Superpowered Mooks|Nanosuit Soldiers]] appear throughout the entire game. While this somewhat makes sense from a storyline perspective (Nanosuits costs about 1 million dollars each), it's a bit underwhelming from a gameplay perspective since they're only about as tough as a [[Halo|Covenant Elite]], so they could have easily been used more often without being unbalanced, especially in the later levels.

** There's a type of alien trooper that has a different head crest and is equipped with a freeze ray instead of an ice gun. There are only about 3 or 4 of them in the entire game. Again, they're a fairly standard enemy, so it's not like they make up for their rarity by being much tougher than normal or anything like that.

* The "Bouncer" Big Daddy enemy that serves as the mascot of ''[[Bioshock]]'' is actually only fought twice; once on the second level and once on the final level. All other Bouncer-type Big Daddies encountered in the game are the Elite variant, which uses a different character model.

* Lots of things in [[I Wanna Be the Guy]] only show up in one particular place, usually to punishing you for a completely logical action with a [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]]. These include [[Street Fighter|Ryu]], [[Mario Paint|a plane]], and [[Super Mario Bros. 2|the Red Snifit himself]], armed with a BFG.

* Neo Garula from ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' counts, as it can only be encountered once in the game (and even then, not guaranteed).

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* In ''[[Super Robot Wars W]]'' there's a variation of [[Robeast|Beastman]] [[GoLion|Deathhell]] that only appears in chapter 25 (And only one of them, surrounded by several normal ones). What makes him so special? Instead of having his [[Dual-Wielding]] attack, his Nipplebeams have a really high range. While it makes sense to face a sniper enemy on this chapter (The hero team is trapped in the Space Wolf planet's high gravity and thus can't move, leaving them unable to escape long-ranged attacks), this super-Deathhell is never referenced in dialogue and there isn't a need for him to exist (The battleships do his job fine).

* One room in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'''s Black Omen is the only place you'll ever meet four Aliens (Ghajs in the remake); significant because they're one of the few enemies you can [[Video Game Stealing|charm]] for Magic Tabs.

* In Armor Armadillo's stage in [[Mega Man X]] 1, there is exactly one batton (the bat-type enemy from the classic series) among the newer, skeletal bats. Notable in that this one [[Randomly Drops]] high-potency medicines very frequently, so it can be used to farm for life ups.

* The third stage of ''[[Journey to Silius]]'' has the [[Personal Space Invader]] [[Fan Nickname|known as]] HumpBot, which fortunately only appears about four times, and is not seen in any other stage.

* In ''[[Killzone]] 2'', only several [[Elite Mooks|Elite Shock Troopers]] are fought, all in the third-to-last level. In ''Killzone 3'' only ''two'' of these guys show up in the entire game, as part of the first wave of enemies at the beginning of the last level. It's entirely possible for your allies to gun them down before you even notice them. ''Killzone 3'' also has the Capture Troopers and Hazmat Troopers, [[Big Bad|Chairman Stahl]]'s personal elites who show up frequently in cutscenes but are only seen a handful of times in the game.