Favourite enemies and hated enemies

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Ceres
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Favourite enemies and hated enemies

Post by Ceres »

I love one feature of the Keen series: each game has its own slot of monsters and every monster has its unique behaviour and looks. i really appreciate this, no game has such interesting monsters, I think.

Do you have any Keen's enemies that you like very much? Do fighting with them is a special pleasure for you when you play the games? :) Do you fancy their looks or their behaviour? Let me read about your idols... I know that the Dope Fish rules, but who besides? :P


And what are the enemies you really dislike?


My favourites:


1-3. I like the Vorticon mamas. They make some impression with their postures, their guns, maternal care and... yellow dresses :D

I like the little yellow dusty also. I'm always sorry for frightening them, they are so shy and sweet... ;(

I don't like the pink robot and the Vorticon ninjas. They are just to quick and hard to defeat. Vortikids annoy me but I don't like to get rid of them: they are just children! :<

Keen Dreams. Nobody is better than squash! It is lovely, it jumps, it hides in the swamps, it smiles and it can fall from a platform in SUCH a cute way!! :D

Frantic broccoli - another good character. It's the most dramatic character in Keeniverse, I think.

Apples - they appear only on one level, so it's nice to observe them there and play with them :) they are so unusual! :D

There is one thing I slightly don't like about KDreams. Playing on 'hard' level means just a shorter time of confusement for the enemies. I'd rather have them more.


The Secret of the Oracle - Slug rules. He's so slow, stupid, but so dangerous and meeeean ! :) He could win the title of the Most Annoying.
And this is the one who looks really adorable when sleepinh in a hole (I thought that's an owl at the beginning :dead )


I like toadstools also. They are cool and remind of fairy tales here. The Ball is the most friendly and funny character in the Keeniverse, I really like it although it doesn't understand many of my ideas ;/

I don't like the Fire monster in the Island of Fire. He's scary and he can kill so unexpectedly although being blind.

and the ancient ones in one of the pyramids - or whoever those blue smiling ghosts are. They piss me off, robbers! ;\


the Shikadis' world

Shockshunds are real little bastards, ugh! >: But how to hate such small cute animals? When you love doggies, it's impossible :confused


special greetings go to the clouds, the sparkies (such creatures always are a good point of each of the Keen series)

And... last but surely not least... RED ROBO - looooooove <3 he's so dominant! xD


the world of Bloogs

favourites: the Giks (I call them hedgehogs) - it's really hard to jump on one's back without being caught red-handed and killed. But what a pleasure if you manage to do it! :D

the smaller Footleg - does he read a book or sleep when he doesn't see Keen? Anyway, he's very funny :)

dislike: flects. They annoy me with their big teeth and running on me, pfff
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Post by Shadow Master »

I love the Shikadi.

Why, you may ask? Well, I fell in love with them when I heard the sound they make when electro-shocking any poles where Keen is hanging on. Interestingly, the SoundBlaster/Adlib version of the electroshock doesn't sound as cool as the PC Speaker one.

BTW, we have never seen the Shikadi's homeworld. What you saw in Keen 5 were the Omegamatic (their massive destruction weapon) and Korath III (a planet which was used by them as temporary base).

I hate the Dopefish and Robored.

Um... wait a moment; when I was just 9 years old I thought the Orbatrix were floating living candy... aren't they? :confused
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Post by KeenRush »

Indeed, they are varying and unique, a point often made when talking about Keens. I like them all, but of course there are some that I like less. It's difficult to say which exactly are my favourites, there are so many good ones I like, and such things as favourites keep chaging during the time for me, too.

Haha, good reason to like Robo Red. :D Although that won't save one from 22 blasts of laser!

Episode / Like the best / Like the least
Keen 1: Garg (not my enemy :bloody) - Vorticon Guard
Keen 2: Scrub (technically not enemy) - Vorticon Grunt
Keen 3: Vortininja - Vorticon Grunt
Keen Dreams: Squash - Frenchy
Keen 4: Arachnut - MimRock
Keen 5: Slicestar - Shockshund
Keen 6: Nospike - Bobba

This perhaps shows I don't generally like the race of Vorticons much...

And Shadow Master, that sound is one of my favourite sounds in these games, it's just great! :)
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Post by XkyRauh »

Hmm! I'd never really considered this before.

Keen 1:
I really like the Robots, because of the way they move. The rotation of their treads, the herky-jerky of their upper bodies... they look like clumsy machinations, and they fill their role well.
I do not care for the Yorps, mostly because of their overabundance in mods and level packs. The original games had them in a few locations where the player knew things were pretty safe and serene... mods and level packs seem to litter them everywhere just for the sake of having moving things on the screen. Not the Yorp's fault, but a consequence of their function.

Keen2:
Scrubs are my favorite. Hands down. They offer little hints of puzzle-like design to the levels, they're cute, and they clean!
I can't stand the Vorticon Elite. Something about the masks they wear looks extremely stupid to me. I think their back story is neat--clipping their ears in loyalty, the fact that they're military folk, trained, focussed... but their outfits are dumb.

Keen3:
Vorticon Grunts are the best part of this episode--they're the average joes, the gears and cogs of the Vorticon empire. Half of these guys are just kicking it at home, cheeseburger on the table, soda on the fridge, when suddenly Keen shows up in town and they have to defend their land. :) Go get 'em, guys.
Jacks, on the other hand, should never have happened. What a stupid, evil idea. Moves fast, lurks off-screen, and kills instantly. How did this idea get past the drawing board?

Keen4:
I'm really not sure what to put here... I don't really like any of the Keen4 monsters that much. Mimrocks, I guess.
Berkeloids are probably my biggest frustration with Keen4, because their projectiles clip through walls and they're invincible jerks. Thank goodness they're confined to a single level.

Keen5:
Sparky never gets any love, because he's a lesser Garg. I like him because of his hamburger-shaped design and the arc of electricity between his antennae.
I had to look up the name of Spherefuls, because I care so little for them... I'm not even sure what function they serve in the game. They look like the sort of thing that should be confined to a little pit that offers a slim chance of survival should the player fall down, but otherwise has no contribution to gameplay. Invincible, homing, and annoying. Yuck.

Keen6:
Flects are too cool. I like reflective shields, though they're usually more common in puzzle games. There's no real way to use their reflectivity to achieve anything you couldn't do with your gun anyway, but the fact that it requires a specific maneuver to defeat them is neat.
The Orbatrix looks really neat, but I feel like they were never really put to good use in the game. The fact that they're invincible does more to harm their usefulness than help. They're such a specific, awkward type of enemy, I'd almost like to see them be stunnable while they're unfurled, so as to make them more versatile. I like all the enemies in Keen6, though (kind of a mirror to K4) so when I say I dislike the Orbatrix, it's more of a disappointment than an actual loathing.

Dreams:
No comment. There's no ups or downs here--it is what it is.

Overall:
Scrubs rule, Berkeloids drool. :)
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Post by ckguy »

This is an interesting discussion. Looks like KR and Xky disagree on lots of stuff. :)

I can't think of any enemies I really hate. (Now levels, that's a different matter. Even thinking about Neutrino Burst Injector makes me nervous.)

Some favorite enemies ... shikadi, arachnuts, wormouths, blooguards, ceilicks.

Actually, now when I think about it, I don't really like meeps. It really, really sucks how their sound waves block Keen's bullets. :(

Oh, and is it 22 robo red shots? I could tell it was always the same, but I guess I never thought to count exactly how many it was.
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Post by KeenRush »

About Robo Red shots, I was too lazy to check/count, so I checked KeenWiki. :D I hope the info there was correct...

Hm, I am shocked :shockshund, I had the impression Xky loved pretty much everything in the games, especially all the animated sprites! :eek

I too have to say that yorps, or more like yorp replacements, are really annoying, as some mods have few dozen of them in every level. :)

Yeah, meeps are annoying, perhaps I should've chosen those of Keen 3, too... Precisely because their shots aren't stopped by Keen's. And in Mangling Machine the meep shot that goes under Keen just barely manages to kill him, if player forgets or doesn't notice to jump in time... Edit: Of course it's meant to be that way, but it's garging annoying!
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Post by Shadow Master »

XkyRauh wrote:Flects are too cool. I like reflective shields, though they're usually more common in puzzle games. There's no real way to use their reflectivity to achieve anything you couldn't do with your gun anyway, but the fact that it requires a specific maneuver to defeat them is neat.
Oh, come on, admit that you like to shoot many times at it so and run away so that the reflected bullets hit those poor Blooglets!

Now that I think of it, two facts about Keen 6:

- I used not to shoot Blooglets when I was 9 y.o. They looked just so... defenseless, that I couldn't help but feel bad for harming them.

- When I saw the Flect for the first time, Barney's friend came to my mind. Dunno why yet.
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Post by ckguy »

Shadow Master wrote:Oh, come on, admit that you like to shoot many times at it so and run away so that the reflected bullets hit those poor Blooglets!
Hell yeah! That's the best part of the first dome of darkness!
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Post by XkyRauh »

Shadow Master, if you think any Blooglets were left alive onscreen long enough for the Flect to show up, reflect my Neural Stunner shot, and peg one of 'em... you're wrong. I kill/killed Blooglets on sight. Hated the little things, because they used to push me off of high places. :)

Keen4's enemies just suffer from not really standing out. There are no enemy types that move randomly and threaten you, except for the Skypest. Anything else that harms you moves straight towards you or in a straight line that ignores you... I really appreciate the Vorticon AI for being a jumble of conditional statements.

Meeps wouldn't be given a second thought if their shots were about 4 pixels shorter vertically. The fact that they contact 3 tiles at once makes them more formidable than they ought to be.
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Post by shikadi314 »

Keen 1:
Favourite:Yorp
Hated:Shooting robots
Keen 2:
Favourite:Vorticon/Grunt
Hated:Vortion Warrior :dead
Keen 3
Favourite:Foob.Vorticon Ninja wins second. :D
Hated:Meeps
Keen 4
Favourite:Licks,used to love playing the Pyramid of the Gnosticene Ancients.
Keen 5
Favourite:Spirogrip
Hated:Shikadi Master
Keen 6
Favourites:Bloogs/Blooguards and Nospikes.
Hated:Bobba,although they/it looks good. :)
Keen Dreams
Favourites:Apples and Peapod
Hated:Asparagusto
There's my hated/favourite aliens from Keens 1-6. :p
Last edited by shikadi314 on Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:36, edited 4 times in total.
Been playing Keen for years.
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Post by StupidBunny »

Keen 1: The yorps are probably my favorites, just because they're so funny and cute and stuff.
My least favorite are the butler robots; they're just plain annoying. On the plus side, they're normally not seen near dangerous things.

Keen 2: I agree with Xky about the Vorticon Elites. The idea behind them is super awesome, plus the fact that they're the only Vorticons to carry weapons, but I think their uniforms are kind of silly.
My least favorite would be the vortikids, just because they have the nasty habit of zooming up on me out of nowhere when something dangerous is coming my way.

Keen 3: Foobs are the best. They're so very cute and I like how they can't harm me in any way. Vortininjas are also awesome.
My least favorites are definitely the meeps: their sound waves are just so hard to avoid, and their small size makes hitting them a nuisance.

I can't rate Keen Dreams since I rarely play it ever. :P

Keen 4: It's hard to say, but I would probably go with the licks. They're kind of cute in their own way, and they provide a bit of a challenge without being a pain in the ass.
On the other hand, Berkeloids, though only present in one level, are immensely frustrating. When they're around, they're almost impossible to get past. And their indestructibility and the tendency of their fireballs to go places they shouldn't make them even worse. Berkeloids suck.

Keen 5: The Robo Red is undeniably very cool, but isn't actually my favorite. I love little amptons, though. I can't say why, but they're very interesting little robots, between the way they work on the computer consoles and their use of poles.
The bouncing slicestars are horrible. They're not nearly interesting enough to compensate for their aggravating behavior.

Keen 6: I liked most of the creatures in Keen 6 and it's hard to choose a favorite, but I might go with the babobbas. They're very distinctive and are a lot more fun than their adult brethren. The way they hug their blankies is really what sells them, though.
It's hard to choose a least favorite for this episode. Although I like ceilicks in general, I find that they're just an annoyance, and really just get in the way when I'm trying to avoid something more worrisome. Orbatrixes and giks also get on my nerves.
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Post by MortimerInBlack »

I think their back story is neat--clipping their ears in loyalty,
Whoa, where in the official story does it say they clip their ears?

And man, it is totally possible (and very awsome) to whoop those blooglets with a reflected shot off the flect.

If you don't mind a follow up question, what are some funny names u used to call the enemies when u were little? I used to call the blooglets 'pushy-birds'.
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Post by StupidBunny »

I remember having a discussion about funny names for Keen things a while ago...it led to the whole issue of what treasure eaters/Gnosticene ancients/smirkies/etc. are called.

Anyway, I had a bunch of silly names for things. My sister always thought the Bloogs were birdies of some kind. I never had a name for them, that I can remember. Most of my interesting names were in Keen 4. Arachnuts were "crab things," sprites were "teddies," skypests were "dragonflies." In a rush of creativity, I came to refer to poison slugs as "slugs." I think wormouths were just "mouth things." One of my favorites is the name that I used for Fleexes: I called them "grandpas." Keen 5 was an exception. I learned the names for most of the Keen 5 creatures before I had even beaten the game, which was æons ago.

Also, I came to call the Vorticons "coyotes." Why they should be coyotes and not any other dog escapes me, but the name stuck. (Also, just to point it out: I thought for a long time that the Vorticon Elite were shooting out of their fingers, and it took me a while to notice they were carrying pistols.) I called the Meeps "potatoes." For some reason, figured out early on that yorps were called yorps, and never really had a name for them. Or the gargs, now that I think about it. :garg
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Post by KeenRush »

And for some reason I thought Vorticon Elite were using skates. :D Their fast speed and slower animation made me think that.

As a kid I couldn't read English or Finnish, so it took a long till I got some names for things. And back then I didn't much care about English when I learned it, so I stuck to the names I had invented, for more or less every creature... Can't remember them all, especially the more creative ones. Many of my names were simple and based on the way things look (like wormouth 'snake' and spindred 'diamond'). And yeah, my names were in Finnish and don't necessarily translate that well.
yorp = 'one-eye'
garg = 'two-eye'
vorticon = 'rat'
treasure eater = 'seal'
skypest = 'grasshopper' (yes, I know, I know... :bloody)
mad mushroom = 'mushroom' :dopekeen
scrub = 'ball joint' (came from something Finnish word for something way I thought the creature had its legs attached to it, can't be sure such word really meant what I thought it did)
bounder = 'sphere/ball'
council member = 'grampa'
sprite = 'white cat'
korath = 'scott'
shelley = 'strawberry'
slicestar = 'snowflake'
spirogrip = 'flying hand'
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Post by shikadi314 »

[quote="MortimerInBlack
If you don't mind a follow up question, what are some funny names u used to call the enemies when u were little? I used to call the blooglets 'pushy-birds'.[/quote]
Vorticons=Wolfmen :o
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