The Top Ten Video Games with Amorphous Blob Enemies
Since I’m pretty sure all of you fine readers consider me to be one of the preeminent voices in the world of video game journalism, I wanted to make sure I continue giving you hard hitting analysis of the important topics in your gaming lives. It is my seriousness as a journalist that keeps you coming back, and I want to make sure I never waste that trust and respect by giving you something unimportant or unnecessary.
What did you say, dear reader? Is it an article analyzing how video games inadvertently become propaganda by mirroring cultural fears such as the Russians in the 80s and the Middle East in modern day? No. Not hard hitting enough. An article on misogyny and the way video games contribute to a patriarchal viewpoint? Not nearly topical enough, sorry. The role video games play as a technology in shaping the way we will interact with our environment in the future? Nobody wants to read about that. How about a top ten list that ranks the best video games to feature gelatinous blobs as enemies?
I knew you’d see it my way. Let’s do H. P. Lovecraft proud.
The Tower of Druaga
During Namco‘s early run as a powerhouse in the arcades, they released the awesome Tower of Druaga. In Tower of Druaga, you were Gilgamesh- or Mr. Gil if you’re nasty- who was tasked with climbing all 60 floors of the game’s namesake in order to rescue the fair maiden Ki. The actual relation to the Epic of Gilgamesh is about as tentative as the relation between the anime Gilgamesh was, except Tower of Druaga doesn’t end with you being cripplingly depressed while pondering the true futility of existence. I only skimmed the Epic of Gilgamesh’s Wikipedia though, so what do I know? Maybe he did used a sword and shield to make his way through a bunch of mazes.
More importantly than anything like gameplay or popularity, Tower of Druaga featured numerous early game slime enemies. Not only were there green slimes, but there were red slimes, and blue slimes. At least half a dozen different colors of slimes for you to effortlessly defeat on the way to more challenging bosses. Poor slimes, forever marginalized as a stepping stone to more capable enemies.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Yoshi’s Island devoured more kid’s time than pretending to be Power Rangers and accidentally hurting each other. Incredibly popular at release with both critics and consumers, Yoshi’s Island further proved that the Mario series would probably need to go out of its way in order to make a bad game. This was, of course, before they started strapping Mario onto everything until they were down to Mario Skeeball and Mario Constructivist Didactics 2, but the point still stands.
Amorphous creatures were also very well represented in Yoshi’s Island. You didn’t just fight one slime boss- you fought multiple slime bosses. This included Salvo the Slime and the Sluggies. Sluggies are notable for being hunted to extinction by the Made for TV industry in order to be sold as cheap, ugly Christmas presents to people all across the country. Like the world really needed amorphous slimes you could wear as a coat blanket. Shame.
Wizardry 8
I was always way into the Wizardry series growing up. Part of this was due to my attending a catholic grade school where the most modern technology in our computer lab were a couple of Apple II systems. The other part is my natural affinity for gravitating to dungeon crawlers. I sort of hated the outdoors as a kid. With 8 games, two drastically different trilogies, and one of the hardest RPGs ever made wedge in between them, the final game sports quite an impressive pedigree.
Even though the Wizardry series was right up there with Ultima at the time, modern gamers haven’t been so kind to it. After the last game was made in 2001, the series has become sort of an also-ran in gamer circles, not really getting the amount of respect it probably deserves.
Well, don’t worry Wizardry, I am giving you respect right now. Respect for going out on the highest possible note by finally giving RPG fans the one thing that they had been clamoring for since the very first Wizardry all those years ago history- slimes.
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
As the prequel to the classic RPG Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, as you could probably tell by Lufia being in the title, Lufia II It goes back in time and shows the ancestor of the original Lufia’s hero as he attempts to destroy Sinistrals and save humanity. As with most video game prequels, the game itself has numerous improvements that probably would have made the lives of the future-past characters a bit easier. From new skills and attacks to removing the large amount of random encounters in dungeons, many changes were made.
The most important change though? You guessed it- slimes. Rise of the Sinistral has slimes coming out of every orifice in order to get you acclimated to the changes as well as give your level 1 to 3 heroes some gooey things to take their bloodlust out on.
Honestly though, Lufia is another series I think deserves a larger place in the hallowed realm of historical acknowledgment than it gets. It is funny that I set out to do these sort of tongue-in-cheek pseudo-goofy lists and end up with a bunch of super great games. I promise I won’t make Earthbound number one on this one though.
Although I totally could.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Anytime I do a list, there is always at least one game that shows up on it that I can’t even comprehend having to explain. Are there people in this world that have never played Symphony of the Night? Are they the same people that have never played A Link to the Past? What do these people play? You are going to say Call of Duty and I’m going to sigh aren’t you. Okay, just say it then.
Sigh.
These particular green globs of horror infested the catacombs and included a very large variant that looked slightly more intimidating. Still, as is the trend with gooey blob enemies, they offer only a minor threat when compared to having to go slay god damned Dracula.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Zombies Ate My Neighbors was one of my all-time favorite games as a kid. It imbues in me a sense of nostalgia that trumps the combined nostalgia totals of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Samurai Pizza Cats, and not having any debts or knowledge of how fucked up the world is. I’d honestly still rather play this in co-op than 90% of the multiplayer games that have been released since 1993. I have more vivid memories about playing this game than I have about spending time with dead relatives. Clearly, my priorities have always been awesome.
As one of the best run and gun games with a pretty large cult following despite not being very popular at the time of its release, Zombies Ate My Neighbors featured a metric-shit ton of weapons and enemies. Included in these enemies were Jelly Blobs, which were somewhere between a traditional slime and a horror movie blob. It is pretty common in video games that slimes and blobs have a glaring weakness and, as nature has taught us, their biggest weaknesses are popsicles. It is nice to see such attention to scientific detail.
Ultima IV
Ultima, you may have heard of it. One of the most popular and long lasting RPG series of all time, Ultima introduced a lot of things that innovated the genre and became staples in later titles. Like the previously mentioned Wizardry, the Ultima series has been in a lull for a while now. This is mostly because Ultima IX came out and pretty much killed the series dead in 1999. Before that dark time, there were seven whole Ultima games that were pretty damn good.
Slimes didn’t make their appearance in the Ultima series until after the initial trilogy. Is it a coincidence that when they did get added, the first game they were in is considered one of the best in the series? Totally doubtful. Gelatin creatures are obviously the one thing that a game needs to earn a spot in storied gaming lore.
Secret of Mana
Speaking of multiplayer experiences I’ll probably never forget, when Secret of Mana came out and supported THREE players action RPGing their way through the gorgeously designed world and detailed plot, it was social life and homework Armageddon for ten to fifteen year old RPG dorks everywhere. It is almost crazy to think of what a high water mark early to mid-90s RPGs were, and even when every game that came out was some degree of amazing, Secret of Mana was still such a gold standard that borderline crazy politicians want our fake economy to use copies of the game to back up our fake currency.
Cooperative multiplayer wasn’t the only thing that Secret of Mana had going for it, there were so many innovations stuffed into this rectangular gray box. Being able to customize your AI partners when you didn’t have any human beings around to control them was a huge inlcusion, and, fun fact, Secret of Mana also essentially invented the use of radial item menus.
I know what you are saying though, “forget all that crap Gavin, what about the SLIMES?” Don’t worry, Secret of Mana also had slimes, better known as drops in the American release. Drops use the tried and true formula of being different colors with different abilities. Green Drops will poison you, red ones will set you on fire, and blue ones will freeze you in place. Poor slimes, always being stereotyped by the color of their gel and not the content of their… uh.. hearts? I have to admit I don’t really fully understand the physiology of a slime.
Nethack
Immediately after the Big Bang, NetHack came into existence. NetHack was around before you were born, and will probably be around long after you die. It is scientifically proven that the only two things that will still be around after a nuclear holocaust are NetHack and cockroaches that will learn how to play NetHack.
NetHack was one of the three Magi of roguelikes and still one of the most popular out there. This is not a game for the light of heart though, as the ASCII based graphics and nearly incomprehensible level of complexity may be a turn off for most people. In the 25 years since NetHack was given unto the computer realm, many different versions of the game have been made that make it a bit more accessible – including a graphic based version – but it still remains in the demesne of the quite niche roguelike realm, as awesome as that realm may be.
While traveling through the games 50 levels of randomized dungeon crawling deliciousness, there are tons of things that can permanently kill you and force you to start from the very beginning. Among those things, none are more gelatinous than the amoeboid enemies. These include blobs, cubes, slimes, oozes, and my personal favorite- puddings. Puddings are like slimes, except hitting them with an iron weapon will cause them to split in two. This can be repeated ad infinitum in a process known as “pudding farming” which can give the player a glut of dropped items in exchange for excrutiatingly boring work. This actually gave rise to one of my favorite quotes ever during a discussion about adding a nerf or punishment to pudding farming in order to limit players taking advantage of the perceived exploit;
“The DevTeam has arranged an automatic and savage punishment for pudding farming. It’s called pudding farming.“
Take out pudding farming and add any exploit that seems just as easy for players to ignore than it is for the developers to patch it, and you see why it is so versatile.
Dragon Quest I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, ∞
While I generally adhere to the “Zelda” rule when it comes to opinion based list making on the internet, I found it entirely impossible to just pick one Dragon Quest game to represent the entire series and its contribution to the slime awareness and Gelatinous Shape Equality causes. This was the series that put slimes on the map as a staple video game enemy after all. Makes sense though, when you consider how truly popular Dragon Quest is. It is really the only traditional console RPG that can complete with Final Fantasy in staying power and sales.
Obviously, this has little to do with the story, gameplay elements, or creativity in the series and has everything to do with the power slimes have as a marketing force. Dragon Quest puts the focus on its tiny jello creatures more than any game that isn’t A Boy and His Blob, and they were rewarded by the Slime Gods with 50 million copies sold world wide. Of all the things Akira Toryama has ever drawn in his entire career, the adorable blob of semi-symmetrical ink from Dragon Quest might be the most easily recognizable. I wonder if that bums him out?
If anything, this just proves my theory that gelatinous blobs are one of the very few things that are universally enjoyed. If we could just get everyone to stop fighting over petty things like religion and money, they would unite under the banner of something truly important- slime creatures.
Or not, maybe I’m wrong. It was still a good excuse for a list.
