"Count Nefarious Vile, who has recently conquered the world with his army of monsters, demons, and those flying things that always knock you into pits when you're trying to jump."
Enemies in Platform Games that use Knockback to ruin your jumps, even when they are otherwise not that dangerous.
Every veteran gamer knows what it's like: You're jumping across a series of platforms... and then you spot that little bird roosted on solid ground on the other side. There's a pretty good chance that the bird will spook and defend its terrain the moment you try to cross the last gap. Although your HP would be hardly worse off for what damage it can inflict, the main threat is the aforementioned knockback. If you are really lucky, you may land back on the platform and get another chance to try again. But far more likely, you'll get knocked off these ledges entirely, usually leading to:
- You fall into Bottomless Pits, Spikes of Doom, a Lava Pit or Acid Pool, or anything else that costs you a life.
- You fall down a Non-Lethal Bottomless Pit or down to the bottom of the area and must climb all the way back up to try again.
These guys usually come in the form of an Airborne Mook, flying right into you and knocking you backwards into the pit when you jump over it. A less common variant is flightless but uses ranged attacks for the same general effect. Airborne Ledge Bats with projectile attacks are a more common combination.
Of course, if you have some kind of ranged attack at your disposal you may be able to dispatch the creature and make this jump in safety. Otherwise, you'll have to settle for striking it down in midair, and carefully time your attack to hit it before it can inflict its Collision Damage.
Some games may double the challenge by putting these enemies in Gusty Glade.
Very common in the arcade and 8-bit era, due to needing to keep the quarters pumping, and console games following that mold. 16-bit games began to phase them out, but they are still common and particularly so in the Metroidvania genre, where a combination of complex two-dimensional exploration and higher overall difficulties still provide a rich habitat for many species of Ledge Bats to inhabit.
A Sub-Trope of Goddamned Bats. A fixture of the Level of Tedious Enemies, particularly platformers.
Compare to Instakill Mook (which this trope can be if the pitfall is fatal), and Pushy Mooks, which are less an enemy, due to being unable to harm you directly, and more just a mobile wall, shoving you places.
Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- ANNO: Mutationem: In several areas where there are Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits, a few Attack Drones appear to fire some shots or detonate by themselves after getting close enough to knock Ann off the platform.
- Devil May Cry 4: In a secret mission, you have to traverse disappearing platforms without falling, while under attack from several flying enemies at once who are exceptionally difficult to finish off quickly. However, you can cheat this task a number of ways, ranging from starting the fight then returning to the landmass that you began on to fight off the enemies to simply hovering over to the orb fragment using one of Pandora's modes.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: The batlike Aches are a deadly nuisance around pits, but at least easy to kill. Moas, on the other hand, combine an unpredictable flight pattern with much higher attack and defense, and they're all over the place during the final trek to the Great Palace.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Moldorm, the boss of the Tower of Hera, is a Platform Battle with the additional challenge of knocking you back to a lower floor if it hits you or you hit it in the wrong spot in addition to the damage it does to you normally (you'll have to climb a lot of stairs to get back to the fight, and the boss will of course heal during this).
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening:
- Moldorm reappears with the same gimmick — get pushed off of its now-smaller platform, and you'll need to slog back up to the boss battle.
- The Evil Eagle in the seventh dungeon also works like this, flapping its wings to blow you off the tower. If you fall off, the Eagle gets all of his health back before you climb back up, but you don't.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The last Death Armos you fight in the Stone Tower Temple (which unlocks the chest you need to Hookshot to in order to reach the boss) is positioned on a narrow ledge and usually knocks you into the abyss when you try and jump to it.
Metroidvanias
- Afterimage: In the Columns, there are Sharklings that are scripted to spawn or roam around platforms, with the express purpose of trying to knock you off or mess up your landings while platforming.
- Castlevania: Bats —the trope namers, incidentally— are often used to knock players off of ledges and platforms, as are crows and the Medusa heads.
- Hollow Knight, with a dual focus on platforming and Soulslike difficulty, has several species of Ledge Bat:
- Vengeflies are a weak but common flying enemy found throughout the game. They're typically placed in platforming areas, especially ones that involve navigating around long drops or spike pits, and sometimes spawn in groups right when the player lands on a set platform in the middle of a complex section. The mosquito-like Squits play a similar role in Greenpath, where there are acid pools everywhere, with the addition that they divebomb you instead of flying at a steady rate.
- The Fungal Wastes are home to Funglings, Living Gasbag enemies that don't have active attacks and which float about randomly in small groups platforming areas, serving chiefly as awkwardly-placed sources of contact damage that populate areas where the player needs to navigate around the Wastes' long vertical drops, bouncing platforms, and acid pits. Mantis Youths, Fragile Flyer versions of the Mantis Warriors who focus on hit-and-run tactics, are a downplayed example in that they're often found in horizontal sections with limited platforming, but a number are placed in the vertical shaft leading to the Mantis Village and the one within it leading to the Mantis Lords' arena to make travel down the first area's long drop and bouncing platforms and the latter's spiked walls a bit more challenging.
- Mantis Petras in the Queen's Gardens are a stronger reskin of the Mantis Youths that also throw boomerang projectiles at you while you're navigating collapsing platforms over spike pits.
- The Fog Canyon is home to Oomas and Uomas, jellyfish-like creatures that float in groups in vertical shafts and above acid pits, bobbing up and down while you try to navigate the areas. Oomas can be taken out directly as long as you avoid falling down while doing so, but Uomas have the added trick that, if killed, their explosive cores rockets violently towards you.
- The City of Tears and Ancient Basin are home to two types of flying guards — a sword-wielding melee kind and a spear-wielding kind that mixes ranged attacks with swooping dives. While a number are found in cramped indoor areas, several inhabit the City's tall external sections, the long shaft connecting the the two areas, and a spike pit in the upper Basin, areas where the player is restricted to "staircases" of narrow ledges.
- The Primal Aspids in Kingdom's Edge abound in the area's tall vertical shafts, where they pelt the player with Spread Shot projectiles while keeping their distance from melee range.
- During her boss fight, which is fought in the dark over a spike pit, No Eyes summons invulnerable ghosts that fly back and forth across the screen.
- Iji: Some Komato Skysmashers (flying turrets) do this, especially on the left side of the last level.
- Metroid:
- Metroid 1: Wavers are fast, slender, irregularly-moving annoyances with the ability to interrupt Samus' jump by knocking her into an uncontrolled fall if they collide with her in midair. Given that most of them show up in areas with irregularly placed platforms over lava, their irritation factor is understandably high. The Ice Beam and the Screw Attack go a long way towards mitigating their threat and are extremely cathartic besides.
- Metroid Fusion: When escaping from the Restricted Zone, the room containing the exit is filled with Metroids. They don't hurt Samus, but colliding with them while performing the Space Jump negates Samus's momentum and you have only one minute to escape before the area is shot into space and blows up.
- Metroid Prime: The fission Metroids end up like this, as the area you find them in requires a lot of platform climbing. Plus they are quite powerful and difficult to kill without Power Bombs (which you must stand still to use), and if you do kill them they respawn. Fortunately, Fission Metroids stay still for several seconds to divide. Unfortunately, they're invulnerable for that time, and afterwards there are twice as many Metroids chasing you. Whether stunning them and running is worth it is a personal decision.
- La-Mulana: Many enemies, from bats to birds to Surprise Fish to Invisible Monsters, to Medusa Heads can and will push you off platforms, making you fall down ladders and ruin your jumps. Perhaps the worst single example is a certain Mini-Boss/Unique Enemy in the Confusion Gate which is called a bird but moves and looks like a giant bat and whose room is almost entirely made of narrow ledges. The remake notably has the Scriptures item, which renders the player completely invincible to bats (including the knockback!). Unfortunately, you get said item at around the time that bats are largely replaced with more dangerous, non-bat enemies, but better late than never.
Platformers
- Banjo-Kazooie:
- "Big Cluckers" are birds that pop out of holes in the wall to knock you off ledges in the final level. The designers even included a progressively more difficult gauntlet of ledges guarded by these. Earlier levels have Chompas, green (or, in one level, skeletal) fanged monsters that pop out of grates, but not with the same frustrating skill level as those cluckers.
- In the second game, there are clamp monsters that snap out of the wall when you pass near their hole. They usually only appear when you're grip-climbing across a crack, and getting hit guarantees falling.
- Bug! (1995) features a few of these, especially one area in Splot where you had to jump from small platforms platforms with enemies on them.
- Castle of Illusion: In the Storm level of the Genesis game, the bats tend to jump out at you right as you're crossing a gap.
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!: The pink Koindozers, mooks who all carry large shields with which to ram you off cliffs. The good news is, they only appear in one level in the game. The bad news is, they're all over That One Level. You can't kill them, just avoid them (and it gets pretty difficult to time your jumps properly so that you land safely on top of their shield rather than right in front of it at perfect bulldozering range), suggest that the good people at Rare do something physically and anatomically impossible with their mothers, and never play the level again.
- Frankensteins Monster on the Atari 2600 has every enemy knock the player back, but never kill them... it's the water that's lethal, so of course they have spiders that mess with your jump and send you into the water.
- I Wanna Be the Guy has the Medusa heads from Castlevania (which temporarily turn you to stone and knock you backwards), as well as the Cheep Cheeps in the Road to Guy's Castle (which push you around randomly, usually off the cart and to your eventual death), as well as the aforementioned Ninja Gaiden birds in the Ghosts and Goblins section, which try to push you around into spikes or falling tombstones. It's worth noting that these are the only enemies in the game that don't kill you with one hit.
- The Lion King: Literal bats in Level 8, "Be Prepared". While during the first half of said level they are already plenty irritating with them swooping down on you while you're trying to jump over lava geysers, they are easily at their worst during the segment where Simba has to ride a river of lava on small rock slab, and any of these can easily push you off it with their Collision Damage for an instant life loss.
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master:
- In Level 8, bats are placed specifically to foul up your jumps over fire pits.
- Enemies that look like living maple tree seeds that fall from the sky tend to be found in areas where you're trying to climb things, such as the tree early in Level 2. A bad hit from one of them can knock Nemo to the bottom of whatever he's trying to climb.
- The army ant enemies, especially during the falling ceiling section of Level 8. They'll knock you into water where you'll have to fight off alligators and then try the series of jumps again.
- Mega Man loves these. Almost every level has at least one platforming section with flyers that knock you into the Bottomless Pit below.
- Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 9 have respawning drones that slowly home in on the player. They especially like to hang out around the infamous pop-in-and-out Temporary Platforms.
- Bright Man's stage in Mega Man 4 has a moving platform section with ledge bats that also serve as the area's only sources of lighting, so you'll either have to put up with them or not see the platforms' tracks.
- A variety are enemies who will jump out of Bottomless Pits. Particularly the ones that jump out, stall, and fall back in. If you are moving at top speed you will jump into one and recoil into the pit. Go play Mega Man 10 and start Commando Man's stage. They're all over the place.
- The most unique variety may be the Foot Holders from the first game, which are the platform, and shoot at you while you're jumping between them. Their random and unpredictable movement and shots make them a notorious source of frustration.
- Ninja Senki has ghosts on Sections 1 & 2: they get killed in one hit, but often appear in groups, spawn right when you're about to jump and are omnipresent when you're trying to navigate Temporary Platform. Then, Sections 5 & 6 feature demon heads: these have doubled health and they fly in circles around you, passing through physical objects and coming back if they miss you the first time.
- Oddworld 2D makes a habit of placing insta-kill bats near ledges, either to tell you to find another path or to take a leap of faith. And the game doesn't even tell you that these bats are deadly. Then again, everything kills Abe in one hit anyway.
- Shovel Knight has rockets in the Clockwork Tower level which use the same movement pattern as Medusa Heads and only appear on screens where the ground has been replaced with either a pit or spikes.
- The Simpsons: Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly: Eagles and boulders will try to knock you off when climbing Mount Deadly, and big bitey fish do the same in the levels where you have to cross rivers.
- Skunny: Save Our Pizzas: Crows can fly into Skunny as he jumps, causing him to fall.
- Songs for a Hero: Several enemies can make the Hero fall into the Bottomless Pits, especially actual bats inside of the cave in the third level.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Almost every long stretch of running and boosting or blind jumps in Dimps-developed Sonic games ends in you running into a badnik.
- Spelunky: The bats can disrupt your jumps and result in your injury/death.
- Spyro the Dragon:
- Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!: The party horns of the Magma Cone lava monsters do no damage, but will likely knock Spyro into lava.
- The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: When Electric Elemental Avatar in the GBA version becomes vulnerable, it summons a swarm of Ledge Bats to protect itself by knocking Spyro off the area.
- Velgress: None of the enemies can actually harm Alpha, but they deal significant knockback on hit, which can shunt you off platforms into the advancing spikes of doom, which is the only thing that can kill you.
- Wario Land II and 3: Almost all enemies and bosses are like this, because Wario cannot physically die via collision damage, bottomless pits or just about anything else. So instead, the game puts enemies around ledges and places you need to carefully jump across, and then them knocking you back simply wastes time instead of causing damage. In Wario Land 4 these exist too (despite you having a health bar), with examples like the robo birds in factory-themed levels and the stationary head things that shoot spikes in Pinball Zone. Oh, and from 2 onwards, Frozen Wario is pretty much entirely based around this annoyance, since it's used to send Wario flying back off ledges uncontrollably until he hits a wall or obstacle.
Role-Playing Games
- Xenogears manages to introduce the trope to the role-playing genre. When a random battle is triggered, there is about a one second lag between the trigger and the actual transition to the battle. During this time, you can still move around, but thanks to a bug, you lose the ability to jump, which frequently leads to you falling down several levels and forcing you to backtrack, thus making Ledge Bats out of invisible random encounters. A large reason why Babel Tower is That One Level.
Sandboxes
- Terraria, as a large-map 2D exploration game, uses this a fair amount. Nearly every enemy in caves and the underworld can act like this if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is mitigated by an accessory that makes you completely immune to knockback in the dungeon, or the use grappling hooks and wings to control falls. The common bats are some of the most likely to do this, as they fly, move in quick and highly erratic patterns, and are hard to hit.
- Valheim:
- Most enemies in the swamps can fill this role. Like with every enemy in the game, their attacks will knock you back, and the swamp is full of watery areas infested with giant leeches and often deep enough that falling in puts you into swimming animation and sheathes your weapon.
- Stone Golems in the mountains cause massive knockback even with basic attacks, and since it's the mountains, you can easily be sent flying off a cliff.
Shooters
- Deep Rock Galactic:
- Glyphid Stingtails are harpooning enemies that yank players off of cliffs to take fall damage. If you're unlucky this can lead to a One-Hit Kill from Falling Damage alone.
- Q'ronar Shellbacks are Pushy Mooks often placed next to deep pits.
- Journey to Silius: Airborne enemies typically appear in areas with bottomless pits.