Bestiarium Entry: The Slime: happy-go-lucky; easily killed.
Slimes are the first enemies you encounter in any game in the Dragon Quest franchise. These blob-like monsters are very easy to kill, but they are also very cute. Since 1987, although they were not the first slimes in videogames, they were one of the most recurrent enemies in Dragon Quest. In fact, they are the official mascot of the franchise, and it’s easy to see why. They’re easy to draw, easy to recognize, and did I mention oh-so-very cute? Because of that, many other franchises have adopted slime creatures as enemies.
Even Nintendo wants in on the slime action.
But what exactly is a slime ?
Slimes come in all shapes, colors and sizes.
The Slime is an amorphous monster that looks like melted ice cream or really poorly made jello. These creatures can be made of water, metal, garbage, sludge, poop or anything gross that you can imagine (thank god I didn’t see more blobs made of other things that came out of the male body in in particular). They are always treated as foolish creatures, and they usually prove to be very rude. They can even adopt shape shifting abilities, but for the most part, they are always the weakest monster in the game, depending on their composition.
Naturally, Metal Slimes are harder to kill.
This monster has become one of the most generic in RPGs, but they often appear in other genres such as adventure games. Consider, for example, The Great Mighty Poo from Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
“Mi, mi, mi, mi, miiiiiiiiiii!”
Slimes also appear in fighting games like Clay Fighter (sadly, it’s not a good game for any kind of monster).
Slime Wins!
And slimes appear in puzzle games like Puyo Puyo.
Like Columns, but with slimes.
And if you think about it, Kirby is not so different from some slimes except for the fact that he has feet and arms (I guess those are arms).
Kirby: is he really just an evolved slime?
Slimes also appear as monsters like Ditto from Pokemon (because even Pokemon has RPG clichés), the chaos monsters from Sonic Adventure, and Abyss from Marvel vs Capcom 2. But unlike the other slimes, these slimes can actually be pretty strong. That’s something I like, because to be fair, it’s pretty hard to kill a living jello.
Am I right?
This is something that I hate in most RPGs, because even if it’s easier to stab jello than a giant lizard, that doesn’t mean that it’s easier to kill. Especially considering that this blob doesn’t have vital organs like your average monster.
Take special precaution with Slimes that are robots sent from the future to kill you.
But at least in other games they include species of slimes that are indeed hard to kill, like the giant Slime of Lufia 2. That was really disappointing.
Sadly, Hedorah wasn’t a boss. That would be an awesome slime boss fight.
The list of games in which slimes appear is huge. It’s pretty much on par with games that have dragons. It is a cliché monster of the RPG genre, but man, is it cute!
Slimes: they’re cute when they aren’t trying to absorb you.