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[Muz]

The Moloch in ADOM. There's a point in the game, where you've got a ton of artifacts, can beat most of the 'heroic' enemies, defeat legendary creatures, kill dragons and liches, etc. You get a *THUMP, THUMP* warning when the Moloch is in the same level. He can see invisibility, see in the dark, typical defense mechanisms that the player has late game.

If you ignore the warnings (and why shouldn't you, you've been able to beat all other creatures in the game).. he's just really hard to hit and once he hits you once, you lose around 50 of your 200 hit points. He'll smash doors open easily, unlike other creatures.

There are altars in ADOM where you can sacrifice creatures to instakill almost all them (you can be instakilled by standing on an altar as well). The Moloch just smashes those open. The Moloch's level scales with your own. It doesn't even run after you, it just slowly walks in your direction.

If you somehow manage to kill one, there's still the Greater Moloch to worry about. And the extremely rare Emperor Moloch.


It does have its weaknesses though. The Liches in the game are way more powerful, but the Moloch wins a lot of points for intimidation.

[keo]

that brought up something.  when there's an enemy that's smart enough to open doors, that freaks me out, you should feel safe in another room, because there's a whole loading screen, so the room should only have loaded and the developers should be too lazy to design smart persistent enemies that's the thought, but there's this thing waiting outside the door you learn as they bang on it.  Oh he can open and now you are backed into a corner.  I panic and hyperventilate, being stuck in trapped in small spaces with something with murderous intent.  Ugh

Feeling like the only option is to run and get around the enemy, and being chased, freaks me out also, survival mode kicks in, and you look have to look for cover/higher ground.

being up close to them, as you sneak by.  during hide and seek I use to wet myself uncontrollably when my friend would be passing, and my friend's sister would comment on it and I would just say I was sweating but you can only use that excuse so many times you know, thats why you never play hide and seek with the same crowd twice - golden rule.

[JMStark]

I always thought that the build ups to both the fight with Magus and the fight with Lavos in Chrono Trigger were handled well in this way. Both are hyped up by the narrative, and both are visually presented in an intimidating fashion. Giving the players the opportunity to battle Lavos rather early in the game was a brilliant design decision. The player just isn't ready for that fight in the beginning, and it can be proven to them that they must become far more powerful to face the final boss.

Though, I can't really remember if Lavos was even that difficult. If I recall correctly though, Magus's battle did live up to the hype.

[Molten_]

An intimidating enemy needs to make the player feel helpless. There's more too it, but I think this is the foundation of designing intimidating enemies.

Two examples off the top of my head (Both from Nintendo games ):

-Waterwraith from Pikmin 2. Not only can he 1 hit kill your Pikmin, but he is also invincible (Until you get to the final floor). This makes you feel helpless, because you have this big huge enemy that relentlessly pursues you, and you can't do anything about it. Waterwraith actually has a lot more going under the hood from a design perspective that I think is worth an in-depth analysis, but now is not the time. He's a fascinating enemy.
-Dead Hand from Ocarina of Time. The thing about this boss is that he's very easy once you battle him as Adult Link, but the first time you fight him the game pretty much forces you to trap yourself. This really hits home as far as I'm concerned, because the boss is already pretty intimidating looking as is. They didn't have to go the extra mile and do that, but they did. I think this exact design philosophy, creating an emotional response through raw design, is the hidden genius of Miyamoto ... but that's another discussion for another time.

So yeah, helplessness.

[Muz]

Seems to be more hype than hopelessness. Or the illusion that they're undefeatable. If a bunch of characters tell you that you can't beat him.. well, you won't listen to them anyway since they're all lazy buggers. But if the game reinforces that view in-game, you're more inclined to believe it.

Like I thought fighting The Master in Fallout 1 was more intimidating than fighting the final boss of Fallout 2. The Master was much weaker, but he's a legend. You've fought his underlings and they were tough. Fighting the mega-baddie had to be a lot worse.

That guy at the end of Fallout 2.. he was really hard to beat, but heck, he's so underhyped I can't even remember his name. He was just some super-soldier who stood in your way and his armor wasn't that cool either. Your critical hits barely scratched him and so was piling up all the firepower from your friends. By right, you should feel helpless. But he just appeared to be a lot of hitpoints.. a wall you could hack through given time.

[Oskuro]

Baron Von Blubba

(If you don't know what it is, turn in your classic gamer card)

• Indestructible
• Hard to Avoid
• Kick-ass Music Cue
• Looks Spooky (In the context of the game)

The really intimidating thing about this monster is the sense of inevitability you get. It is, after all, the game's "Time's Up" mechanic. It will always show up, relentlessly chase you (there is no place it can't go to) and will eventually catch you.

Even worse, if there's another player around, two will show up, one chasing each player. If you think about it, this monster is a metaphorical personification of death in the game's universe.

Most times simple things work best.


Further reading: The 10 Most Terrifying Video Game Enemies of All Time

I curse Sonic's drowning mechanic with my dying breath! 

[GhostBomb]

Ok... I take back what I said at the very start of the thread.  Invincible one hit kill "time's up" enemies are freaking terrifying.  The ones that really stand out to me are the previously mentioned Water Wraith from Pikmin 2 and also that ghost from Spelunky.

[Azure Lazuline]

Tips for any enemies-in-training who want to become more intimidating!

- You need to be bigger than the player. That one's simple.

- You should be invincible to the usual tactic: if the player attacks and the sword just bounces right off with a "ting" sound, that's scary. Or if damage numbers are displayed and they have been steadily climbing into the hundreds throughout the game, at least be strong enough to reduce that to single digits.

- You definitely need a big charge-up animation, possibly for a laser beam. Kirby bosses are good at this. You just know when one is going to fire a giant laser and you need to get the hell out of the way, even if you've never fought that boss before.

- Blow something up before the battle. Just look at what this bat does!

- Specific tactic that only really works once per game: make the player weaker for it. Take their powerups somehow, like that section in Zero Mission. You're scared of those pirates because you only have a crappy gun that can't even kill them. It's a variation of point 2, I guess. Works more for game sections than for bosses. (Although, my favorite example is the final boss of Drill Dozer.)

- Opposite of that: the player gets a powerup, but so do you. They get an earth-sized mech, but you grow to the size of the sun. Final boss of Viewtiful Joe 2 comes to mind here, which just builds off how crazy the first game's final boss was.

- You probably need multiple forms, and make each one difficult. A final boss needs more forms than any previous enemy, otherwise the player expects another battle and feels like it was too short/easy.

- Very specific to final bosses with multiple forms: they should get bigger and bigger, but then the final form can be human-sized. Anime does this a lot, especially DBZ. All the power of that huge planet-destroying thing is now condensed into a much smaller space... law of density lets you know it's powerful.

- Most important tip of them all: have an awesome theme song. Like Magus. No intro speech is complete without a theme song.

[kinglake]

Oooh... I thought of one more thing relating to something Azure mentioned about multiple forms.

One of the most intimidating things about a few of the bosses in the original Resident Evil Trilogy was the fact that you can be confident you have killed the boss, exhausting 99% of your ammo and using your last herb and BOOM they pop through the window and you have to fight them again and they are even stronger than before!

In particular i'm thinking of the final bosses.

[John Sandoval]

have it kill all your friends

[eyeliner]

Knowing he is coming, and you can't stop him from it.

[Oskuro]

Like the lawyer unit from Civ: Call To Power? A smartly dressed man carrying a suitcase, with the power to completely freeze an entire city, and it's a stealth unit to boot.

I had to build an army of Cyber-Ninjas just to take care of them.

But the point is that the unit shifted the paradigm. I had a sizable army, with my tanks, warships, and the odd unit of pikemen, and a new unit that operated on a different paradigm (stealth unit with economic effects rather than military) terrorized me and almost brought me to my knees.

The lesson here (apart from the value of ninjas) is, again, to push the player out of their comfort zone.

[Medevenx]

I disagree with Azure. SA-X was fucking intimidating DESPITE being the same size as you. I think having the enemy share similarities with the player is a factor. Kind of like enemies that can open doors that has just been said.

[Oskuro]

Mirror enemies are intimidating just by their nature. You know what you are capable of, and suddenly are facing your own lethal weaponry.

SA-X, though, had excellent presentation. Whenever she showed up, the scene got creepy, and her slow and deliberate motions made her much more intimidating.

Also, smaller creatures can be scary, very scary. Think facehugger.

[Azure Lazuline]

I disagree with Azure. SA-X was fucking intimidating DESPITE being the same size as you. I think having the enemy share similarities with the player is a factor. Kind of like enemies that can open doors that has just been said.

Yeah, they're just all general rules, it's not like one enemy can have all of them! SA-X follows points 2 (invincible to normal shots), 3 (big charge-up animation), 4 (blow something up beforehand; SA-X absolutely loves this), 5 (make the player weaker), and 9 (music change). So you can't disagree THAT much, 5 out of 9 is pretty good!