FINAL FANTASY VII ENEMIES

Hey VGJunk, haven't you written about Final Fantasy enemies before? Why, yes I have. So isn't this sort of a lazy cop-out article? Perhaps, but sometimes a lazy cop-out is all the heart desires and the mind can cope with. Why are you talking to yourself? I don't know, maybe I'm losing my mind. Anyway, here are some of the many enemies faced by Cloud and Co. (a better name than AVALANCHE, if you ask me) during the vast adventure that is Final Fantasy VII, enemies weird enough, interesting enough or treated poorly enough by bad translation to catch my attention. One thing they all have in common is that looking at them makes me think of the phrase "Gourad shading" because the games magazines of the time used it incessantly, and after looking it up just now I finally understand what it is. Well, it's important to keep up with the latest technological developments, isn't it?

Razorweed

Razorweed, bane of all green-fingered inhabitants of Final Fantasy VII's world: spreads like crazy, naturally resistant to weedkillers, produces a constant stream of self-pitying whining when pulled from the ground. Look at it's dumb little face, there's no way that face isn't always saying things like "oh right, I guess I'm just not pretty enough for your ornamental rock garden." Evil grass might not seem like an especially terrifying foe, but I suffer from fairly bad hayfever (I know, what a shocker) so hacking away at grass with a sword would inflict the debilitating status effect of itchy eyes and a runny nose. Did you know some characters in Valkyria Chronicles actually do suffer from hayfever when in woodland areas? Valkyria Chronicles is pretty great, you should play it.

Rilfsak

Unthreatening as it was, at least Razorweed looks like it could run away or something. Not so in Rilfsak's case, an enemy so pathetic that the only possible response to it is sympathy. Random battles represent lurking monsters attacking the party, right? So what in the hell was Rilfsak hoping to accomplish by leaping out at the heroes of FFVII? The removal of its other eye? Rilfsak's only notable combat skill is that its evasion stat is quite high, making it difficult to hit. I suspect this actually represents the characters feeling so sorry for it that they can't bring themselves to deal the fatal blow. "Oh, no," says Tifa as she swings her fist well away from Rilfsak, "this foe is so nimble even my mighty martial arts cannot penetrate its defences." Sadly the Rilfsak is too dense to take the hint and is eventually killed when someone casts Fire on it.

Harpy

Okay, that's not a Harpy. Harpies are part-bird, part-women. This is a chimera. You can tell because it's part lion, part goat and part snake. This one has sprouted wings and a face on the right that might be from a Godzilla of some kind, but if anything that just makes it more of a chimera. Most conclusive of all is the fact that in the Japanese version of the game it's called Chimera. I know translation can be a tricky business but this shows a lack of care and attention - as well as a lack of knowledge about Greek mythology - that is very difficult to explain, especially when there's a palette-swapped version of it later in the game called Maximum Kimaira.

Well, they were getting closer. Maybe if there'd been another three or four chimeras in FFVII they'd have gotten there in the end.
As for the Harpy itself, I get the feeling that the lion is the one who does all the work in this team. The goat has horns where its eyes should be, which must limit its combat effectiveness, and the lizard head looks like too much of a good-time party animal to really focus on the task at hand. No, it's up to the lion, the sensible, dependable lion, to hold this rag-tag group together even though he can;' close his mouth because of his improbably large tusks. I also like to imagine that when it's the goat's turn to choose where they go for dinner and it picks somewhere vegitarian all the other heads boo it.

Vargid Police

"Freeze! This is the Vargid Police, you are under arrest! Put all your hands in the air and come out slowly!" Then Vargid Police slides over the hood of his police car, an action aided by the layer of slime I assume he's coated in, while his straight-laced, by-the-book partner shouts "Dammit, Vargid Police! We're supposed to wait for backup!" Then Vargid Police is killed by a passing group of adventurers. He was one day away from retirement.
I was looking at Vargid Police for a while before I realised what it reminds me of - sushi ginger. I don't know what that says about the sushi restaurants I've been to.

Gighee

Now, a horse wearing a waistcoat with a guitar sticking out of it's arse. A natural creature that roams the lands or a twisted Shinra experiment to find out what happens if you ram a Stratocaster up a horse? I have no idea, but if it's the latter then the answer is "it develops a rather flamboyant sense of personal style."
Not content with being a magic pink horse, Gighee is also a four-legged David Bowie reference, it seems: it's Japanese name, Jigii, is also the Japanese spelling of Ziggy, as in Ziggy Stardust. Add that to the blonde hair and the guitar and I think you've got a pretty good case for saying that yep, this is a David Bowie reference, even if that isn't how the Thin White Duke usually transports his guitars. So, if you're the kind of person who has ideas about what David Bowie would look like as a pony - and a quick Google search tells me there are plenty of you out there - then I'm sorry but FFVII beat you to it by fifteen years or so.

Christopher

In battle, Gighee is always accompanied by Christopher. I just like that there's an enemy called "Christopher," is all. Gives him that common touch, you know? Most of you probably know a Christopher, and even if they aren't a prancing elf-child with a Beavis haircut and purple chaps there's still that pleasing connection to normality.

Bad Rap Sample

Still on the theme of names, I mention this one to restate an observation I made a while ago, and that was that "Bad Rap Sample" is the perfect name for an insufferable indie band. Of course, these enemies are only called Bad Rap Sample when they're summoned as helpers by Dr. Hojo, Shinra's evil head scientist who's doctorate is apparently in Impregnating Things With Other, Genetically Unrelated Things. Most of the times you fight them, they're just called "Bad Rap," the name changed from "Vanilla Ice" at the behest of Sony's legal team.

Bizarre Bug

What did this bug do to deserve the epithet "bizarre"? Okay, so it's about six feet long but in the world of Final Fantasy VII that's hardly a reason for it to be considered notably unusual. Nobody calls the Buster Sword "bizarre." Or maybe the Bizarre Bug's simple insectoid body plan is the reason it's bizarre, and people consider it shocking in its mundanity.
"Cloud, we're under attack!"
"What is it? Shinra troops? An ancient living Weapon? Sephiroth himself?"
"No, it's just a cockroach or something. I mean, it's pretty big, but still."
"Weird. Oh well, more EXP for us."

Castanets

There's a crab enemy called Castanets, and that is adorable. The crab isn't adorable - not even a mother crab could love that face, assuming this species is capable of any emotion beyond relentless, seething hate - but the name is wonderfully evocative of the sound its giant bladed claws make as they clack together. There must be an in-universe story behind the naming of these crabs, perhaps some ancient warrior musing "hark, I hear the ryhthmic sound of Spanish castanets coming from this oh god it's snipped off my legggs!"
As for the puzzle of how the inhabitants of FFVII's planet know about Spanish folk instruments, well, it might be more likely than you think, as we shall see shortly.

Eagle Gun

On the list of Very American Things, an eagle made out of guns falls somwhere between Mount Rushmore and ill-informed opinions about football. But how can it be "American" when it's from a distant fantasy world? Well, this distant fantasy world also knows about Texas, if this sign above Tifa's bar is anything to go by.

It makes sense to me - the Eagle Gun is the state bird of Texas, isn't it? Wait, what do you mean it's actually Mimus polyglottos, the Northern Mockingbird? In learning that fact, I discovered that Texas also has a state soil. Local pride is great and all but singling out a particular kind of mud for praise seems a bit much. On the other hand they also have a state dinosaur, and that I can fully endorse.

Devil Ride

"My arms are so tired. So tired..."

Gremlin

That's a very gremlin-y Gremlin, with an expression of cheerful malevolence that lies at the heart of all gremlins. That said, I would have called it a Hobgoblin...

...because it looks like the titular creature from the infamous 1988 B-movie Hobgoblins. If you're familiar with Hobgoblins (the movie, not the folkloric creature) then it's probably through the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode in which it featured, and if you haven't seen that episode of MST3K then I suggest you check it out. If nothing else, you can have fun imagining what would have happened had the hobgoblins used their power to make real the deepest fantasies of each member of AVALANCHE. Given that Cloud is made of fake memories, liquid souls and alien DNA I'd hazard a guess that his fantasies would be utterly insane.

Touch Me

Touch Me? I will not, you weird little creep frog.

Cokatolis

Someone at Squaresoft really went off-piste with these mythological creatures, huh? Cokatolis is clearly supposed to be a cocatrice, but the cocatrice of legend is mostly dragon with a rooster's head, which presumably makes it the king of the roosters but a laughing stock amongst dragons. FFVII's Cokatolis is a chicken with the head of a chicken. It's just, you know, a chicken. There are already Chocobos in this world, Cokatolis. We don't need any more giant chickens, especially not ones that can turn people to stone by breathing on them.

Headbomber

There is absolutely nothing not to love about an extremely angry yellow penguin with cacti for flippers and a punk hairdo. How do I know Headbomber is angry? Because the writing on his chest is the Japanese kanji for "anger." You don't paint "anger" on your belly unless you're fairly cranky. What is Headbomber angry about? Judging by its haircut, I'd guess "its parents."

Brain Pod

Brain Pod is a little teapot, short and stout. There's its handle, and there's its spout.

And there's the human head it keeps inside. Final Fantasy VII is a game that lets you fight a mechanical teapot with Bob Hoskins' head inside, so it's little wonder that it's regarded as one of the all-time classics.

Sculpture

All I can think of when I look at Sculpture is the shrieking headlines of a Daily Mail-esque tabloid complaining about the state of modern art. SCULPTURE? MORE LIKE NO SKILL-PTURE, that sort of thing, the letters page flooded with people writing in and saying "as someone who once looked at a painting of flowers once, why aren't there more paintings of flowers? Instead the liberal elite force the garbage that passes for art these days on us. First an unmade bed and now a paving slab, it's Broken Britain, I blame the immigrants, bring back National Service." Well, I say good on you, Sculpture. You've overcome the handicap of being nothing but a lump of rock, escaped a dismal life as part of a patio or outdoor staircase and made something of yourself. You're an inspiration to us all.

Manhole

It's a good job this enemy is called Manhole, otherwise I might have thought Satan had taken a job as a waiter. Satan Waiter wouldn't spit in your food, he'd subtly convince someone else to do it. Also, what do you think: is that his nose, his chin or some kind of beak? I think it's a beak. A beaky Beelzebub who lives in the sewers, moving between three manhole covers in a kind of living three-card Monte routine. It's little wonder that I spent most of my childhood wishing that when I grew up it would be my job to design monsters for videogames.

Hungry

Hungry.
Hungry.
HUNGRY. HUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHHUNGRYHUNGEYGHUHNGREY H  Uu  nn.. GggRryyHHHHHHH

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OCTOPUSES!

So, I think octopuses are really cool and endlessly fascinating. I mean, why wouldn't you be fascinated by a highly intelligent, colour-changing, multi-limbed creature that can squeeze itself in and out of tiny holes like it was made of putty? That's right, you can't help but be a little in awe of them. VGJunk is about videogames, though, so rather than reading about my plans to breed a species of terranean octopuses to replace guide dogs and other helper animals you get a short article about some of my favourite videogame octopuses instead. I'll add a link to the "Operation Landopus" KickStarter later.

This octopus, from Sega's Laser Ghost, did not make the list as his shifty and violent nature brings other octopuses into disrepute. Not really, it's because he's not that interesting. Sorry, fella. Anyway, who's first?

Octoman, F-Zero series

As much as I love the original SNES F-Zero, (and I really do,) the series really took off with the release of F-Zero X for the Nintendo 64. It added wonderfully varied and fully 3D courses, an unparalled sense of speed and best of all a whole host of utterly mad new characters, each with their own machines and often ludicrous backstories. One of these new characters was Octoman.

Hailing from the planet Takora and racing for cold, hard cash, Octoman combines the advantages of both man and octopus into one hard-drivin' whole: his multiple limbs make controlling his craft a breeze, while his humanoid, forward-facing eyes give him the depth perception and field of vision required to participate in the elite F-Zero races. Actually, I think that's the only humanoid feature that's working to his advantage: all the other attributes of octopusosity could come in handy. I mean, you saw how small a gap an octopus can squeeze into, right? Octoman's ship wouldn't even need a cockpit, and that's bound to save some race weight. Forward-facing eyes, though - they're important. You wouldn't have a chance of winning and F-Zero Grand Prix if your eyes are looking out of the side windows the whole time.

As for Octoman's personality, his post-race interviews reveal him to be a kind, sensitive young space-creature who vows to use his winnings to feed a bunch of octo-kids as well as campaigning against those who would use his tentacled brethren as a food source. Then you complete the game on "Master" difficulty, and you unlock this video:

Octoman cements his place as a truly memorable videogame octopus by attacking the unappreciative audience of his one-man bodybuilding stage show. This kind of thing is why I lie awake at night, praying for the day that Nintendo and Sega get their acts together and make a new F-Zero game that's as eyeball-meltingly fast and as completely barking mad as F-Zero GX.

Super-8, Cyberbots / Armored Warriors.

You don't have to be an actual octopus to make it one to my list. Oh no, you just have to posess enough of the spirit of the octopus: the tentacular essence, if you will. Super-8 has that in buckets, even if he is a mecha featured Capcom's robot-based beat-em-ups and not a squishy deep-sea cephalopod.

Super-8 is most recognisable to gamers from its appearance in... well, I'm not sure, actually. Cyberbots is where it had its biggest role, but it's not exactly a famous game that loads of people played. I think if people have seen Super-8, it's mostly from Devilotte's appearance in Marvel vs Capcom as an assist character. This cameo doesn't really portray Super-8 in the best light, because all it does is appear and then explode.



Super-8 is the personal mecha of space pirate, angry young lady and proud owner of the most ridiculous name in all of Capcom's fighting games, Princess Devilotte de Deathsatatan XIII. This is great, because if you're travelling through space you might as well make your mecha look like a giant robot octopus. It's not like you need to worry about aerodynamics in space, so why not build all your intergalactic vessels in unusual shapes? Have a star-cruiser shaped like a bucket of fried chicken! A short-range interceptor modelled on the face of Dustin Hoffman! The possibilities are endless. Super-8's octopus-based design, with the traditionally sinister and slippery tentacles, is an excellent match for Devilotte's devious personality.

Yeah, that's definitely the reason that she pilots Super-8. It's certainly not because Capcom made Cyberbots by just reusing assets from their arcade beat-em-up Armored Warriors, where Super-8 is the second stage's boss.

Dark Octopus, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Alright, allow me to tell you a story. We're in Transylvania during the late 1700's, and Dracula has once more returned to un-life after his umpteenth beating at the hands of the Belmont clan. With weary resignation, he hauls himself out of his coffin and begins preparations for the inevitable arrival of the latest wielder of the Vampire Killer who'll be along any minute to smash all his candles and put him back into the grave. He takes out a list of all the monsters, demons and fiends at his disposal and goes through them one-by-one, hoping to find something that might stop the Belmont's impending rampage. Zombies, skeletons, Frankenstein's Monsters, even Death himself - none have them have worked. And then, at the bottom of his list, he sees a monster he's never tried out before: the Dark Octopus. Dracula sighs, frustrated at the unending cycle of his existence, and fills the caverns beneath his dark citadel with hundreds of mutated sea-creatures. You never know.

The Tako Family, Parodius series

If you're making a series that'll gently mock (parody, if you will) your most famous shoot-em-up series, what better to replace your sleek space fighter with than an octopus?

Not just one octopus but a whole dynasty of them, their interstellar battle beginning with Tako's appearance in the very first MSX Parodius game. Later games featured Tako's son and occasional lecher Takosuke and Takosuke's younger brother Takohiko. In case you haven't guessed, "tako" is Japanese for octopus.

Why do I love the Tako family? Well, for one thing they're a bunch of tough hombres - they can fly through the vacuum of space without batting an oversized anime eyelid. They still die in one hit, but then so does the Vic Viper and that's apparently a spaceship designed especially for combat. Badly designed, you could argue, but maybe the bad guys in Gradius and Parodius fire incredibly powerful super-weapons and that's why the Vic Viper is the only ship left. Still, it's impressive that the Takos can operate in deep space with no more protection than what they're wearing on their heads, be it a headband, a baseball cap or in Takosuke's case a pair of knickers. I don't want to know where he got the knickers for. I know how the Japanese are with their tentacles.

Another reason I personally like the Takos is that their weapon set is taken directly from the Salamander series of games. Okay, maybe not directly - you can't fire smaller octopuses at the enemy in Salamander - but you do get the Ripple Laser. It just makes sense to me, the octopuses using the Ripple Laser, because their O-shaped mouths are perfectly formed for it. It's this kind of logical approach to the science of space-based laser weaponry that makes me love Parodius so much, you know.

Ultros, Final Fantasy VI

Of course Ultros on this list. How can you talk about videogame octopuses without mentioning the greatest of them all? For those of you who have never experienced Ultros' unique charms, he appears in Square's classic SNES RPG Final Fantasy VI. He's a recurring boss and a comedy foil, breaking up the serious business of saving the world from camp clown with delusions of godhood by popping up for the occasional battle, trying to drop iron weights on your head during an opera and eventually getting his comeuppance in the form of massive debts and a lifetime of servitude.

As I mention whenever I talk about Hallowe'en-y games, I love things that are a mixture of the creepy and the cute. Ultros is a good example of this - check out his out-of-battle sprite:

He's adorable! Look at those cutesy eyes, he looks like the obligatory talking animal sidekick from an 80's cartoon. Compare that to his battle sprite, pictured above. He's still kind of cute, but he also looks like someone shoved a handful of rotting bananas into a pile of strawberry jam. Teeth of that size and number are generally an indicator that you should stay away and Ultros is no exception, especially when he's telling your female party members that he likes pretty girls.

Everyone loves an underdog, and that's exactly what Ultros is. He's a simple-minded, lecherous young octopus who makes the mistake of attacking a group of adventurers who turn out to be the most powerful people in a world filled with gods and robots. His stubborn nature demands that he tries to avenge his earlier defeats but he's just not tough enough, his ambitions thwarted at every turn by his own incompetence. You end up rooting for him, not because he's a good guy but because, despite being a giant purple octopus, he's relatable. Plus, towards the end of the game he ends up working as a receptionist at the Coliseum to pay off his gambling debts and the cheery way he greets the player is one of my favourite lines in all of videogaming.

Ted Woolsey gets some stick, but "Look at me! I'm a receptionist! G'fa, ha, ha!" feels so right that I never want to find out what a more literal translation of the Japanese version would be. I'm just glad the game ends and Ultros is still alive. Thanks, Ultros, for being the big purple cherry on top of FFVI's already delicious cake.

Ultros made a return this year, appearing in Final Fantasy XII-2 as a DLC battle. I played the demo for FFXIII-2 and I was thoroughly unimpressed, but seeing Ultros recreated in modern HD graphics and with appropriately goofy voice acting has redeemed the entire game. He's just fun, wherever and whenever you encounter him, and you can never have enough of that.

Octopuses in gaming, then: usually red, sometimes lecherous, but appearing in a wide variety of different genres to cheer me up with their multitudinous tentacles and ability to pilot high-performance racing vehicles. You'll notice that all the octopuses featured here appeared in Japanese-developed games - my personal theory on this is that octopus is eaten a lot more in Japan than it is in the west, and there's nowt that defines a culture so much as its food. Maybe there's a Japanese version of VGJunk where some nerd with too much time on his hands is talking about his favourite sheep in videogaming.

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SUPER MARIO'S MOST DISTURBING FOES

It's not all sweetness and light in the Mushroom Kingdom, oh no. There are dark things there, just waiting for their chance to take down Mario and assist in the glorious counter-Princess Peach revolution.

NINJI

Oh how adorable, a bouncing little gymnast thing. Still, those teeth look a sharp. They could probably give you a nasty bite, but I'm sure Ninji won't be doing that, will he? Look at him, he's adorable!
Well, he'd be a lot more adorable if he wasn't the Mushroom Kingdom's version of a ninja. That's right, the Mushroom Kingdom contains a race of remorseless hired assassins. Mario should consider himself lucky to have made it through Super Mario Bros. 2 without a poison-tipped dagger being embedded between his shoulderblades. This is almost certainly why all Bower's fortresses are of an all-stone construction - it stops the Ninjis from carrying out the standard ninja technique of sneaking into a castle and setting it on fire.

ROCKY WRENCH

You remember the Rocky Wrench family: they're the little bastards in SMB3 that pop out of manholes on the airship stages and throw wrenches at you. I always thought they were moles, you know. They look like moles, they come from underground, their tinted goggles replicate the mole's famously impaired vision. They're not moles, though. Look at their artwork; they've got a mole-ish face, but a Koopa-like shell. Now, the Super Mario series has a mole enemy in Monty Mole. It also (obviously) has turtle enemies. What you're witnessing in Rocky Wrench is one of Bowser's twisted eugenics projects, a forced union between Koopa Troopa and Monty Mole, an inter-species offspring so hideous they're forced to live in the dark bowels of Bowser's airships. Mario's really doing them a favour by crushing their skulls beneath the heel of his boot.

EERIES

For the star of a videogame series that's usually the epitome of super-rainbow-happy-fun-times, Mario sure does come into contact with a terrifying spirit-world full of vengeful undead creatures on a regular fucking basis. Normally it's the Boos, everyone's favourite bashful soul that's trapped in limbo, but Super Mario World also features Eeries.
They're dinosaur ghosts that look like a Yoshi. More specifically, they look like baby Yoshis:

Are we to assume that Eeries are the ghosts of dead baby Yoshis, forever condemned to roam the Ghost Houses of the Mushroom Kingdom, never getting to grow up and experience the joy of having a fat plumber ride them around? Yes, yes I think we are supposed to assume that. The darkness at Shigeru Miyamoto's heart is becoming ever clearer. I expect the Nintendo hit-squad to arrive any moment to silence me now that I know the terrible truth.

BULLY

Appearing in Super Mario 64, Bully stretches use of the term "Character Design" to breaking point by consisting of little more than a black sphere with horns and googly eyes slapped on. "Right boys, that's another enemy designed. Next! How about... a cube with eyes! What do you mean we've already got Thwomps?!"
Bully's not here because of his design though; he's here because he is, quite simply, a dick. His name is appropriate, because all he does is run into you and knock you about, clearly furious at Mario for some undisclosed reason. "Bully" seems like something of an understatement, though: my schooldays were a while ago now, but I'm pretty sure bullying stopped short of trying to body-check someone into a pool of lava. Maybe that kind of thing went on at the tough inner-city comprehensives.

GRINDEL

Speaking of cubes with eyes, here's Grindel. He wants to hurt you, Mario. Can't you see the psychosis lurking in his smile? Grindel feels nothing... until he's grinding your bones beneath his weight, when white-hot ecstasy courses through his veins (bandages? teeth?) and he is, for a brief moment, sated.

PTOOIE

A Piranha Plant that has gained the ability to move around sounds like something that could be a real threat. Sadly, the Ptooies' evil ambitions are hampered by the spiked ball they have to keep balanced over their mouths at all times. Imagine if medieval knights had to do battle whilst balancing a rolled-up carpet on their head, and now stop imagining it because it's quite funny and undermines the very serious point that I'm trying to make.

What kind of evolutionary imperative would prompt this trait to emerge? Maybe I'm just not seeing the big picture, but I just don't see the benefits of having a steel ball constantly hovering over your head, ready to crush you at any moment should you lose concentration for even a second.
Of course, they probably didn't evolve. We've already seen the results of Bowser's genetic meddling in Rocky Wrench. He'll try anything in his insane quest to manufacture the perfect soldier, even if it means crossing a houseplant with a mace.

STRETCH

The rare and mysterious Stretch is found only in SMB3, waiting in some of Bowser's many fortresses. Taking the form of platforms, they wait for a portly plumber to jump on them and then bam, ghosts pop out and travel around the platform, hoping to collide with our hero.

That... that is horrible. Imagine that, after death, you discover that there really is an afterlife. Your soul remains in the land of the living. You drift aimlessly through the world, hoping that one day somebody can put your spirit to rest, until one fateful day when some turtley-dragony-dinosaury overlord thing offers you a chance to join his army. You see the proud ranks of assembled troops, the Troopas with their shining shells, the mighty Hammer Bros commanding crack strike teams of Para-Goombas and you think yes, I could be something here. You join up, go through basic training, form friendships with the other Boos, until the day you receive your orders: you have been assigned to "Operation: STRETCH".
Years pass, every day the same, trapped on this one platform by Bowser's dark magic. You see the other Boos, the fortunate ones, floating freely through the castle. Grinning. Laughing, the lucky bastards. You lie in the dark and wait. That's all you can do, wait and pray that one day soon The Plumber will arrive and he'll be as powerful as they all say; he can put an end to your suffering and finally free your soul.
He never comes. You wait, trapped, in the dark.

Well, that was cheerful, wasn't it?

Most pictures taken from the Super Mario Wiki.

GOOMBAS, GOOMBAS, GOOMBAS!

The Super Mario games, I think it's fair to say, have some of the most iconic videogame enemies ever created, with only Pac-Man's ghosts or Space Invaders', well, invaders matching up to the likes of the Koopa Troopas, Bullet Bills and Boos in the hearts and minds of gamers. Of all those famous critters, one in particular stands head and shoulders (or at least they would if they had heads and shoulders) above all the rest: The humble yet mighty Goomba.

It occured to me the other day that there are almost certainly millions of people out there for whom a Goomba was the very first thing they ever killed in a videogame. Millions. Personally, the first thing I ever destroyed in a videogame was a lime-green wireframe tank in Battlezone for the Atari 2600, but the first unambiguously living creature I digitally dispatched was a poor ol' Goomba in Mario Bros. The best thing about the original NES Goombas was the fact they looked so damn serious, which must be a difficult expression to maintain when you walk in such an adorable, wiggling manner.
Anyway, some Goomba facts: In Japan, they are called Kuribo, which apparently means "Chestnut People," although they are based on shiitake mushrooms and not chestnuts. They were put into the original Mario because the developers thought that Koopa Troopas were a bit too tough an opponent to start the game with. Yes, the Goombas are simply cannon fodder, placed into the Mushroom Kingdom to give Mario something on which to hone his bloodletting skills. What poor little bastards they are. One assumes the name Goomba comes from the Italian-American word Goombah, which I'm sure will be familiar to anyone who's watched The Sopranos, and it fits in nicely with Mario's Italian-ness. Finding out they are called Kuribo finally settled what was a great childhood mystery mystery for me. In Super Mario 3, there is one level which features a Goomba riding in a green wind-up boot that Mario can steal and ride himself. This boot is called the Kuribo's Shoe, and all through my childhood I wondered what the hell a Kuribo was, imagining it to be some kind of never-seen giant monster who has boots large enough for a lardy Italian plumber to ride about in. Now I know it just means "Goomba's Shoe", I have to admit to a certain amount of disappointment.
Another thing that confused me, Goomba-wise, were the Goombas in Super Mario World. Instead of the standard mushroom-shaped Goombas, there were these strange spherical fellows:

All through my childhood, I had no idea these guys were supposed to be Goombas. No idea! I don't know what the hell I thought they were, but when the internet rolled along and I noticed that other people were calling them Goombas, it all fell into place. Apparently, they are a slightly different species called Kuribon, but Goombas they be, and it's nice to know they hadn't been ignored in the SNES days.
According to Nintendo, the Goombas are a seperate species from the Toads, and both races lived in harmony in the Mushroom Kingdom. Awww. Until Bowser came along with his plans to take over the country, and the treacherous Goombas switched sides and joined up with the Koopas (except some Goombas didn't). Now, let me suggest to you an alternative version of events. The Goombas are a slave caste within the Mushroom Kingdom, forced to do all the dirty work while the Toads live in luxury, close to the brutal, autocratic monarchy led by the brainless Princess Peach. Along comes Bowser, with promises of removing the corrupt monarchy and establishing some kind of worker's collective, and the downtrodden Goombas sign up. However, they are sadly unaware that the royalty have on their side some kind of super-warrior, a plumber who sure is good at jumping on things. Bowser is defeated, thousands of Goombas perish and the ones that survive are cast out of society. I personally would like to believe that is the true story of the Mushroom Kingdom. It gives you a whole new perspective on the games, that's for sure.
And finally, I happen to own this little fella:

He's a Goomba that came with a McDonalds' Happy Meal. He's got a little sucker on his chin that you stick to his feet, and after a while the sucker somes loose and the Goomba does a backflip. I looked at the base and he was made in 1989, which means I've owned him for 21 years. He still works, too, and if my house was on fire, you can be sure I'd make a real effort to rescue him.

Anyway, that's enough about Goombas. Long may they continue to waddle around in a fairly useless manner!
BONUS:
Do you want to see a stomach-churningly cute crocheted Goomba, complete with Kuribo's Shoe? Sure you do.