Reviewing Monsters - Resident Evil Chronicles

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (2007); Darkside Chronicles (2009)

Don't worry, the blog's not dead. I'm just going back fixing image links for all of the 'Reviewing Monsters' pages. Mostly the Pokemon and Digimon ones -- I'm moving the hosting of the images into the blog instead of linking them to the Wiki. And that has been going on in the background slowly, leaving me not much time to actually write new articles. I'm also busy doing a bit of research on my next big "Reviewing Monsters" series. 

But in the meantime, have this shorter review! Resident Evil VIII: Village came out earlier this month. I won't be reviewing it until I've watched a playthrough of it, but I from the screenshots I've seen it looks like a very effective horror game -- just one that I probably won't have much to talk about from a monster design standpoint. Vampires and werewolves are cool and all; they're just not giant flesh bio-weapon horrors. 

There's a whole bunch of side-games released around this time of the franchise's history, but a lot of them just feature older monsters or are retellings of older games. The two 'Chronicles' games certainly are. Umbrella Chronicles was released during the relatively long break between RE4 and RE5, and Darkside Chronicles is released alongside a bunch of other spin-offs between RE5 and RE6. 

In lieu of an actual remake, these games basically tell re-tell the story of the first batch of Resident Evil games, mostly the original three, Code Veronica and Zero, although some of them are told from other other viewpoints but with fancier graphics and a more actionized gameplay. This means that we get a lot of older enemies (and it's mostly a way for me to source higher-graphics renders for the creatures in some of the older games) but we surprisingly get a bunch of new monsters, too, particularly from Darkside Chronicles. 

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The Stories:

Umbrella Chronicles, in rough order, adapts the following events: Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil and Resident Evil 3. It also gives extra campaigns to fill in the gaps between stories, among others showing Wesker's actions after encountering Rebecca and Billy in Zero; showing Rebecca looking for Bravo Team survivors in Resident Evil; showing Wesker's survival and confrontation with Lisa Trevor slightly after Resident Evil; Ada Wong's actions and escape during Resident Evil 2... and a final campaign sequence, "Umbrella's End", showing Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine assaulting one of the last Umbrella facilities a year prior to the events of Resident Evil 4, fighting against the command of Sergei Vladimir, while Wesker uses their fight to gain information for his own purposes -- ultimately gaining all of Umbrella's resources for himself as the company crumbles. It retcons some events and basically 'canonizes' certain endings in some prior games, while expanding on just how Umbrella falls between the events of RE3 and RE4.  

Darkside Chronicles, meanwhile, has a fair amount of new original material. The first part of the game deals with Leon S. Kennedy's backstory with Jack Krauser, only very vaguely hinted at in Resident Evil 4. Leon and Krauser go through a South American jungle to investigate a particularly notorious drug-lord, Javier Hidalgo, who's implicated with Umbrella. They discover that Javier has imported not only several B.O.W.'s, but also the T-Veronica virus. They meet a mysterious young girl, Manuela, while finding a nearby village zombified. They discover that Manuela is actually the daughter of Javier, who has been feeding her the T-Veronica virus in order to contain and suppress a deadly illness plaguing her. Leon and Krauser end up fighting a giant monster that they had encountered several times in their journey, which turns out to be Javier's wife, who mutated due to a failure of keeping the T-Veronica virus in check. After killing her (at the cost of Krauser's arm), Javier merges himself with the Veronica plant, transforming into a giant monster. After defeating Javie, the two of them manage to escape with Manuela in tow. 

Darkside Chronicles also has a retelling of Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica events, albeit rather awkwardly shoehorned in-between the Operation: Javier storyline as Leon's flashbacks. It also has some chapters that retells part of the Leon campaign from Krauser's point of view, showing how he was at first horrified by these bioweapons before becoming increasingly fascinated, ultimately embracing the 'dark side' when he realizes that the military will discharge him thanks to his arm injury, ultimately being approached by Wesker and setting up for Resident Evil 4. 

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Umbrella Chronicles features a record number of returning enemies, thanks to being a retelling of a bunch of previous games and featuring a main villain obsessed with older bioweapons. The following guys show up here: Zombie, Crimson Head, Zombie Dog, Cerberus, Leech, Mimicry Marcus, Web Spinner, Eliminator, Plague Crawler, Hunter Alpha, Hunter Beta, Neptune, Lurker, Black Tiger, Chimera, Licker, Ivy, Sliding Worm, Crow, Bat, Wasp, Adder, Cockroach, Stinger, Infected Bat, T-001 Proto-Tyrant, Queen Leech, Yawn, Plant 42, T-002 Tyrant, Lisa Trevor, Grave Digger, Tyrant R and Nemesis.

Ivan

Umbrella Chronicles gives us yet another Tyrant. This one at least has a funny name, "Ivan", and between his funky J-pop glasses and his fancy office shoes, at least this one's a lot more memorable for all the wrong reasons. Ivans are modified versions of the T-103 Super Tyrant and used as bodyguards of Sergei Vladimir. Honestly, these look more like a parody than an actual serious Tyrant variant. It's those sunglasses, I can't take those seriously. 

T-A.L.O.S. (Tyrant-Armored Lethal Organic System)

Apparently the ultimate result in Umbrella weaponry until Chris and Jill (and Wesker, although they don't know it) brings Umbrella down is the T-A.L.O.S., short for Tyrant-Armored Lethal Organic System. Because I'm too lazy to make sure all the punctuation marks go in the right places, this dude will just be known as "Talos" for the rest of this review. And Talos here is... it's a cyborg tyrant. I mean, it sure is a cool and actually sensible 'evolution' for a bio-weapon. Clearly if the Tyrant is the pinnacle of what a humanoid bioweapon can be, the clear way to improve on it is to graft some big-ass guns on it, yeah? It's just that... at this point, it's just a cool sci-fi monster that wouldn't be out of place in Final Fantasy or Star Wars or something. As a Resident Evil boss, it just feels out of place.

One of the things that I do like about the Talos is that it's actually operated by the sentient software known as the Red Queen, the best thing (some would say the only good thing) to come out of the live-action adaptations. Again, it sure is a cool cyborg man with giant cannon arms, but it just kind of feels out of place in this world. 

Sergei Vladimir

Sergei Vladimir is one of the remaining Umbrella bosses at this point in the game's history, and one of the remaining people still loyal to Oswell E. Spencer. Vladimir is, pretty interestingly, kind of obsessed with bioweapons that others have deemed as 'failures', which is mostly a way for the game to have a bunch of older monsters show up in Umbrella Chronicles. Vladimir himself is also one of the people genetically compatible with the T-Virus, and I think the implication was that he apparently was one of the bases of the people that were cloned to make Tyrants. 

That is why when Sergei Vladimir mutates with the virus, he doesn't become a flesh-glob like msot Resident Evil bosses. He still gets a hideous monster form, and it's interesting that his two arms basically fused together at the elbow to form a giant ten-fingered tentacle-claw. He's also got like a giant weird sphere with a spike on his chest, four thorny tentacles, and the lower parts of his legs have degenerated into a tentacly mess. not really my favourite monster design, I have to admit, but at least it's a different one. I really have no opinions on this one, though, it's quite all right, but it's not quite scary or unique enough for me to say too much. And, hey, at least it's not another Tyrant!

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Darkside Chronicles

Darkside Chronicles features a bunch of returning enemies, too. We get Zombie, Zombie Dog, Lurker, Licker, Evolved Licker, Giant Spider, Ivy, Giant Moth, Bandersnatch, Black Widow, Moth, Hunter II, Sweeper, Alexia Pod, Hunter Gamma, Plague Crawler, Crow, Cockroach, Bat, Ant, Veronica Plant, G-Adult, William Birkin/G, Giant Alligator, T-103 Super Tyrant/"Mr. X", Gulp Worm, T-078 Prototype Super Tyrant, Nosferatu, Steve Burnside and Alexia Ashford

In addition, the wiki talks about the "Javier Zombie" and "G-Zombie", which are apparently zombie variants. Javier Zombies seem to be identical to regular zombies, while G-Zombies are just flayed corpses reanimated by the G-Virus.

Jumping Maneater

I can't find a good image of this one's in-game model, so have this cute artwork! As you can probably tell, the Jumping Maneater is this game's giant zombie spider, but one that's based on a jumping spider. It can jump at you, it has cute eyes and it eats men. What more could you ask from a bioweapon? As a biology enthusiast, I can appreciate the variety of spiders in this franchise, even if as video game enemies or as monsters they're kind of simple. 

Piranha

Okay, this game takes place in South America, so I guess they needed to have Piranhas, Like the Jumping Maneater, I can't find good images of this one's CGI model, so have this artwork. It sure is a zombie piranha, that's pretty cool even if, like the Jumping Maneater, I don't have much to really say here. 

Ivy+YX

The Ivy+YX, or, as I'm choosing to call it, just Ivy YX, is apparently a more advanced version of good old Ivy from Resident Evil 2. It doesn't look that terrible with updated graphics, right, Resident Evil 2 remake? This one has a more humanoid lower body, which I like a lot less than the original Ivy and its chunky plant-matter legs, but it apparently is an adaptation that allows it to run faster. Its mouth is now a three-part set of jaws that look like some kind of hideous crocodile, and I like that even the long leaves at the end of Ivy YX's arms look like 'jaws'.  

Anubis

Wooooah, what the hell? The Anubis here is apparently designed by Umbrella as a replacement for the Hunters, probably because no one can innovate past Alpha, and... what the hell, this thing is cool. Look at this lanky motherfucker, with those super-long arms and legs. And that cool monstrous skull-head! Anubis here is basically just a walking skeleton monster, and it apparently has these weird bone-whips that it can thwip out from its wrists, Spider-Man style. 

Bizarrely, despite its name, the Anubis doesn't have anything to do with zombie dogs, but instead is made out of a bat who was genetically engineered with insect and t-Virus DNA. I'm not sure what part of this is "insect", but the bat inspiration certainly explains the anatomy of this thing, particularly the super-long upper limbs... even if those fingers are definitely wrong for a bat. Apparently, despite being mostly just bone, the Anubis is super-duper fast, can move on walls and ceilings like a Licker! The lack of most of its organs makes its ribcage and the heart within it vulnerable. I like this one. It doesn't really make too much sense as far as the idea of these mutations being made by bioweapons go (doesn't explain how those legs or arms work without muscles) but who cares it's a cool skeleton monster with long arms. 

Jabberwock S3

So the Jabberwock S3 is yet another bioweapon, and I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. It's this large, shambling monster with a neck that droops down to have a face set around its chest, and a whole lot of talons -- two on each arm, and three that jut out of its back. Because they're borrow their name from Lewis Carroll's work, you can guess that the Jabberwock is an improved version of the Bandersnatch... although why one would pick the Bandersnatch of all things (lest we forget, the Bandersnatch is the failed mass-production Tyrant prototype with the hideously mutated arm) as an inspiration. But it sure is a monstrous sickle monster, and apparently is smart enough to obey orders. Not a whole ton to say here, it is actually a pretty cool bio-weapon. 

Hilda Hidalgo

So yeah, the named characters get to transform into a hideous monster. The monstrously mutated parent stalking a child is a trope Resident Evil as a franchise loves to play with after the whole Sherry Birkin thing from Resident Evil 2, but Hilda Hidalgo is, as far as I know, an actually kind mother (other than being married to a drug lord thing) who simply got a "cure" for her incurable disease from her desperate husband. But the cure turned out to be the T-Virus, and she transformed out of control... but still retained enough of her original self to restrain herself from attacking her daughter or her husband. 

A pretty interesting monster. The wiki describes her as 'amphibious', and she does chase you across the rivers for a good chunk of the game, I feel, and look at her weird anatomy! Two legs, a vaguely dinosaur-like main body, four tentacle arms... and that face! It took a while for me to realize what's going on, but she basically has a gigantic underbite with four extra tusks, and she's still got a human skull wrapped around those two long blue or red dorsal armour. Click here to see that absolutely wretched-looking face, with the lopsided upper skull. 

Apparently, her body's colour transforms from blue when she's calm and red when she's enraged... which is actually a transformation that made her more vulnerable, exposing parts of her brain. An actually very sympathetic monster, and probably one of the first truly sympathetic monsters that you have to put down (William Birkin was still a bioterrorist even with his more redeeming parts; and they screwed us over with making Eveline not the least bit sympathetic). Pretty all right monster design, actually, and an appropriately sad backstory to go with it. 

Javier Hidalgo / V-Complex

In contrast, Javier Hidalgo is something more akin to William Birkin. As a drug lord and someone who gleefully purchased bioweapons, he's kind of a monster! But he's also doing a lot of it in order to finance his daughter and wife's incurable disease. Apparently Javier has the Veronica Plant in his possession, which flourished thanks to the humid atmosphere in South America and not the frigid temperatures of Antarctica. The Veronica Plant merged with Javier and turned him into tis giant spider-teratoma called the V-Complex. It sure is a Resident Evil final glob-boss fight, although I can appreciate the amount of thought here, with a whole lot of focus on bony parts. That one little attempt at an angry lizard-skull head is a bit pathetic, though, and I probably would've liked it better if it was just this mass of pulsating flesh with bone spikes and giant bone spider legs and that's it. He's got a scythe arm, a massive bone-mouth arm thing. Apparently these bizarre bits of anatomy is because during his mutation, V-Complex basically spread across the facility and consumed and merged with the enemies killed by Leon and Krauser, meaning that parts of its anatomy came from eating things like the Jabberwock and Anubis. Okay, that's... that's more interesting and somewhat similar to Nyx from Outbreak 2. Not my favourite thing on this page, but a pretty appropriate Resident Evil final boss fight. 

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I trawled through the Wiki to look at other games -- we've got Mercenaries 3D, Umbrella Corps, the three CGI movies, plus around 18 mobile games, but pretty much the only one with a somewhat-interesting bestiary with unique monsters is Operation Raccoon City, abbreviated into "ORC". The story is simple, you play in an alternate universe as one of the cool gas-masked Umbrella operatives and you kill monsters in Raccoon City; in basically an alternate-universe where Umbrella successfully wipes out all witnesses, destroys all evidence and even battles notable RE2/RE3 enemies.

Elite Hunter; Nemesis T-02; Tyrant T-103

We get a bunch of extra 'unique' enemies here, like the Elite Hunter -- not to be confused with Hunter Elite -- which is bigger and redder. ORC's version of Nemesis is the Nemesis T-02, which was explicitly based on the live-action movie Nemesis, which is most obvious from the head design. Neat! There are also multiple T-103's, which is actually to be expected. All of them can go into the cool magma-claw form that Mr. X can. The T-103 we know and love as "Mr. X" was, of course, originally shown being one of many body-canisters to be airdropped into Raccoon City. Now we know where the other T-103's went... at least in this universe!

NE-Beta Type / Parasite Zombie

The "Nemesis Alpha" originally just referred to the tentacle-parasite that gave birth to good ol' Nemesis, but in ORC, we get a version of the Nemesis parasite that basically replaced the head of its hosts, similar to the Las Plagas, called "Nemesis Beta". This is more obviously just a giant bug for a head, though, with a bunch of spider legs just waving around. The 'canon' games would steal this for the Resident Evil 3 remake with Nemesis Alpha Zombies, although they don't quite go as over-the-top as Nemesis Beta. This feels a lot more like a Plagas mutation anyway, which was always more arthropod themed. 

More interestingly, though, is that the Nemesis Beta just runs around as a giant spider, before slicing off a zombie's head and taking control of it, unlike all other head-replacing creatures in the Resident Evil universe. 

Parasite Super Tyrant

One of the unique boss of ORC is the Parasite Super Tyrant, serving as a DLC boss. It's what happens when a Nemesis Beta takes over a T-103 body. It... it sure is a pretty decent-looking mutant Tyrant. It's a bit of a messy design, but one that feels at home among the many different final boss monsters. At least this one looks like a swarm of pillbugs and assorted giant mantis claw parts are piling themselves all over this monster's body! It kinda looks like one of those defensive J'Avo mutations from Resident Evil 6, actually, at least as far as the legs and upper bodies go. I actually like this, it's a combination of a different creature with a Tyrant instead of just making it bigger and spikier. Not a whole ton to say here. 

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With that, I've wrapped up most of the Resident Evil spinoffs that have unique monsters. Next up will be the two final games in this series of reviewing Resident Evil monsters... the two Revelations games, which many people do count among the 'main' series, and actually having played at least one of them, I am reasonably excited to talk about them!

Reviewing Monsters - Kingdom Hearts 1

Kingdom Hearts [2002]

It's been nearly two decades and around two dozen games since 2002 gave us the world's most bizarre and unexpected crossover. Final Fantasy over-the-top anime goodness with... Walt Disney's movies? All of the movies, too? All of the movies and Final Fantasy world is ruled by King Mickey Mouse and they are a literal multiverse where a Final Fantasy anime villain is trying to kidnap all the princesses and steal everyone's hearts and cause a multiversal apocalypse? "Huhhh?" was my reaction back in 2002 when my friends told me about this utterly crazy concept of a game, and brought me over to see all the madness happen in his Playstation 2. It was probably the one single game that really impressed to me just how much story you can pack into a single game -- a very quaint thing to be impressed about since nowadays a good story is the barest minimum we can expect from a video game, but back then it was surprising for me. 

And... to be honest, Kingdom Hearts is one of those gaming franchises I really wish I could get a bit more into, but the sheer volume and amount of games, and the fact that they all tie into each other into this increasingly complex continuity, as well as the fact that a lot of their games are console-exclusive made my appreciation for the game be reduced to just watching Let's Plays on Youtube and reading wiki summaries. 

Still, I am familiar enough with the very first game (and I know just a bit about Chain of Memories and KHII to maybe talk about them in the future) that I decided to give reviewing its monsters a bit of a shot. Again, a little disclaimer -- I know Kingdom Hearts' basic story and lore, but I don't know everything, and I've never actually played it personally, so I'm going to eschew any sort of talk on game mechanics or whatever. 

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'Common' Heartless

Shadow

The main villains of the first Kingdom Hearts game are 'Heartless', which are the soulless creatures 'born out of the darkness in people's hearts', and when someone is super-duper evil, so much that their heart is so dark and stuff, they can themselves become a Heartless. Yeah, it's that sort of setting, but the game actually does a pretty great job showing how these Heartless are formed -- something that's actually extra terrifying when we see this happening to fun happy Disney animation people. The most basic version is called the 'Shadow'... and hoo boy, it's basically one of those monster designs that are just simply top-notch iconic and easily one of the biggest draws for me into playing this game. 

Look at this guy! A gremlin-like body, completely black, little jagged antennae, and two glowing eyes? It's spooky, yet still cute enough for them to exist in a setting where you go around from Final Fantasy style anime cities to, like, the setting of Pinocchio or something. I don't think I've ever been quite as enamoured with the most basic enemy in a setting until I saw the basic Heartless enemy in this game. It does a great job at looking weak if you're a badass Key-Blade wielding anime protagonist, yet its glowing eyes and claws also make it look pretty threatening if you're just one of those background characters who can't shoot or stab people. A great design that blends creepiness and cuteness together, and... and I never quite appreciated it before since I really didn't know too much about art styles or whatever when I was a kid, but the Shadow is practically the perfect blend of American cartoons and Japanese anime style, huh? A very cool gremlin friend. In some remakes, like the 'Final Mix', you get the 'Gigas Shadow', which are elite enemies but they are basically larger versions of the Shadow. Hey, if it ain't broke!

Darkside

I'm not going to go too deep into the story of Kingdom Hearts or we'll be here all day, but let's just say that the protagonist, original-to-Kingdom-Hearts Sora, turns out to be the chosen one, but his world is one of the few that is set to be destroyed by the Heartless. When the Heartless swarm his world, one of the bosses is the 'Darkside', which is a giant and far more threatening version of the weak Shadows. Again, the theme of this game tends to be that everyone's 'heart' has a shadow, or something like that, but we're only talking about the baddies here. Darkside is a reasonable big boss version of the basic Shadow Heartless, with beadier eyes, little spiky shadow-tentacles and tendrils around his head, little skeletal wings on his shoulders, and a huge heart-shaped hole because, again, these are Heartless. They have no heart. I also really do like that its face is just a mass of shadowy vines or whatever, giving the appearance of like a mummy or something.

Soldier

The first variant you meet after the regular 'Shadow' is the far more detailed 'Soldier', and... and it still shares a lot of the same features with the Shadow while also looking a lot more 'whole'. Its got a metal helmet and metal bangles that really make it look like it's part of something more organized, and its shadowy body has been molded into... well, sort of the fantasy fashion style that wouldn't look out of place if Mickey Mouse wore it. Although I think all of the body other than the metal bits are just part of the Heartless' body, just with some extra markings painted on. Again, just like the normal Shadow, I really do like these guys as well, with their little hunched-over shadow gremlin look, their large claws, their glowing eyes... heck, even their helmets have markings that resemble an extra set of eyes made out of spirals or something, with the 'sides' of the helmet giving it the impression of a beaked, fanged creature.. It's a pretty cool creature! 

The Soldier is also the first of the 'Emblem' Heartless, which are created artificially by the baddies. When the basic Heartless go around and steal the hearts of the destroyed worlds, these hearts of people that normally are nice people that wouldn't turn into Heartless are turned into these 'Emblem' Heartless. They're like sort of mind-controlled undead horde or something, then, which is cool! 

Air Soldier

The Air Soldier is the first Heartless to not be inky-black, but is more of a very dark blue. And it's got more funky clothes than the regular Soldier! I love just how much is going on even though this is just 'Soldier, but with wings'. There are the bat wings, of course, but there are also those old-school flight goggles, a little propeller on the Air Soldier's head, that fanged mouth (which aren't quite as visible in the other Heartlesses we've seen) and, best of all, that Superman pose he's doing. None of these have too much lore since they're just basic enemies and all the Heartless all basically share the same lore of being created from destroyed worlds or whatever by the villains of this first game, Ansem (an original Final Fantasy style character) and Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent (who turns out to not be that important).

Large Body

Now we come to the various expected sub-types of Heartless, most of which are based on the basic Soldier. The 'Large Body' is the huge, tanky version with a lot of health and a lot of damage, but are slow. It's kind of expected, I do like the bits of whimsy involved in this guy's design like the huge laces holding his 'vest' together, as well as the little chained gauntlets. Again, a lot of the charm with these Heartless are the glowing beady eyes on their shadowy body, and that they all look kinda funny and cute. For a series that can get pretty dramatic, I do appreciate that all its minions have some degree of 'cute' to them even though they're meant to be spooky. 

Red Nocturne, Blue Rhapsody, Yellow Opera, Green Requiem

These color-song Heartless will all be grouped together here, but man, they are adorable! They fill the spellcaster niche among the Heartless, and they all have this Wizzrobe (or, since this is Final Fantasy, FFV Black Mage) look of basically being a mysterious wizard whose only features you can see are the glowing eyes. Except all the Heartless are just blobs of shadow with glowing eyes, so for Red Nocturne and his buddies, the appearance is very literal!

I absolutely love everything about these variants. The little bird feet sticking out of the bottom of their body, the fact that the rim of their hat and their cloak collar sort of make a 'fanged tooth' vibe in the same way that the Soldier's helmet do, and the fact that the hat can come off and the tip can straighten or curl... a very fun design!

White Mushroom, Pink Agaricus, Rare Truffle, Black Fungus

I legit don't really remember where and when un the game each specific enemy type shows up, so I'll just cover a lot of the more 'common' Heartless too. The Color Mushrooms are extremely adorable, their bodies look like they're wearing long-sleeved sweaters, and they have these chunky hats with the same spiral-eye pattern as the Soldiers! More interestingly, they are helpful, and they will pantomime what they want you to do, and will give you items if you give them. That sort of puts a kibosh on the 'all Heartless are born out of the evil and darkness within a person's heart!' logic behind these guys, but since it's a Final Fantasy game I guess... don't think too hard about the exact specifics and just enjoy the game and the story. I sure did, these guys are adorable. Although on a Watsonian sense of storytelling, maybe these Heartless are born out of less harmful 'darkness'? Like, maybe one of them is born out of Ariel's desire to disobey her parents or another one born out of Aladdin's thievery or something, I dunno. 

(Black Fungus is the only one that is actually extremely hostile, giving all these mushroom boys a bad name.)

Neoshadow

One of the few new enemy variants introduced in the 'Final Mix' definitive edition, I've never actually seen the Neoshadow in action. It sure looks cool, perhaps a bit too hard to look cool with proportions that are a lot more humanoid. The effort does work, though, and gives us easily the coolest looking Heartless compared to everyone but the final bosses. I do especially like the jagged antennae and the gangly arms, but the lightning tats might be just a bit too much. Interestingly, instead of being the agile, high-damage monster like I thought he would be, the Neoshadows are healers. Huh!

Darkball

Oh, these guys are cute! Another one of the 'pure' Heartless (they don't have clothes!) the Darkball is just a big, swirling veiny mass of shadowy energy. These guys are noted to be unpredictable and moves and attacks randomly. In context of Kingdom Hearts enemies, these actually look a fair bit more primal and threatening. I do really like the veiny texture on their bodies, and the huge fanged jagged-tooth mouth makes it look pretty cool. They are still 'pureblood' Heartless, though, meaning that they aren't augmented with the armour and magic powers that the Soldiers or the musical notes have, so they're weak and rely only in their teleportation. 

Wyvern

This guy sure looks impressive, but I remember you fight him pretty early on. These are huge dragons with very humanoid-looking chests, and I do like that instead of bat-like wings, their wings are... how do you describe them? They're like some sort of futuristic jet engine wings but are tattered at the end like they are moth-eaten cloth. Knowing what the Heartless are the Wyvern's entire body is likely to be made out of shadow so the discussion is kind of moot, but it's still a very cool visual. So much more cooler than if the Wyvern was just a straight-up dragon... the general silhouette, the more lizard-like head, the large legs and the bizarre wings really does make him look pretty unique. I mean, it's already a giant dragon enemy so it's going to be memorable regardless, but I definitely appreciate the effort of making him feel more unique. 

Guard Armor & Opposite Armor

The Guard Armor is sort of a recurring boss you fight several times in Transverse Town, which is the hub world that your main character Sora lands in after meeting up with the rest of his party members (Donald Duck and Goofy; plus a bunch of assorted Disney characters as NPC's) and it's basically the Final Fantasy world, with the bunch of Final Fantasy characters showing up there as your typical RPG NPC's. There's also a boss there, though, the Guard Armor! And I really like this guy's design, too. Disconnected limbs, and the central body sort of looks like a stylized chess piece? I really do like just how chunky everything is, with the giant boots being pretty large and the bulbous lower arms. It really does look like something you'll find in a cartoon, which is kind of the aesthetic they are going on here. 

Later on the Guard Armor fights you with a different configuration, with everything flipped around. It's a bit weird -- the claws forming the legs works well, but the giant boots pretending to be arms is a bit less cohesive. This form has a different head, too, although both Guard and Opposite Armor has a knight-themed helmet head, they look very different. I'm not sure if I like the Heartless-eyes-with-jagged-mouthguard look or the full-face-helmet-with-holes face better. 

Wizard

These ones show up a bit later on, but they are far more based on Final Fantasy's iconic 'Black Mage' look than the musical notes... without the eyes. Okay? Sure? I do like the witch's hat they have here, as do the bizarre cloth-flesh arms that start off short and taper off into petal-like fingers. They sure are wizard enemies!

We still have a handful of extra Heartless to talk about, but we'll save them after the Disneyland versions!

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Disney Worlds Enemies

In an interesting decision, each of the worlds that Sora and company visits to has a Disney villain boss and a Heartless boss. But none of the Disney villain bosses ever really actually transform or fuse with the Heartless to fight Sora. They team up with the Heartless, sure, but all of the Heartless enemies are merely themed after the location as opposed to being some sort of Persona-style 'true form of this character's evil' thing going on. That's kind of interesting, I suppose, and preserves the oomph and threat of the Disney villains... and sort of shows that the Disney villains are merely being manipulated by the true villain, Ansem.

That said, though, a lot of the Disney villains are just... people. So I'm going to briefly rattle off the Disney bosses you fight in the game -- Mickey Mouse's rival Pete; Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts; Hercules's Hades, Cerberus, plus the Ice and Rock Titans; Tarzan's Clayton and Sabor; Aladdin's Jafar and the Cave of Wonders; Pinocchio's Monstro; Little Mermaid's Ursula, the shark, Flotsam and Jetsam; Nightmare Before Christmas's Oogie Boogie, Lock, Stock and Barrel; Peter Pan's Captain Hook; Fantasia's Chernagbog; Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent. I could, I suppose, talk a bit about the Titans from Hercules or Oogie Boogie, but for the most part none of these really count as monsters per se. Oh, and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII makes a surprise cameo as a bonus boss!

Trickmaster

The first Disney world Sora and company bugger off into is Wonderland, a place that's ripe to be a videogame in and of itself. It doesn't actually have any unique common enemies as far as I can tell, although you do fight the Queen of Hearts' Card Soldiers. And it's hard to really describe Trickmaster through a still image, so I'll link you this video. Done? Got an idea of what Trickmaster is now, don't you? Accordion flat arms that spring back and forth, those bizarre double-helix legs that end in jester boots, and a series of head arranged in a tower... yeah, that sure is a Wonderland monster if I've ever seen one! And it just dances around and tosses its maracas around. Honestly, I can't emphasize just how much I really do like this thing, it would probably be my favourite KH1 enemy if the regular Shadow and another boss down the line doesn't exist. As it is, though, the Trickmaster is just such a bizarre, wacky-looking funny friend that ends up feeling so much more creepy because of the dream-like Wonderland aesthetic. 

Powerwild & Bouncywild

The next Disney world Sora and company travel to is Tarzan's jungles, a world that no future Kingdom Hearts game can get into because of legal troubles involving the original Tarzan licensing. The enemies here are... monkeys with the same 'fangs around a Heartless glowing-eyed face' vibe. A neat effort, but all of the other basic Heartless up above look so much cooler here. Powerwild is the strong melee fighter and Bouncywild is the slinghsot-wielding ranged attackers. Eh. 

Stealth Sneak

Oookay? I never really thought about it, but it really is very weird, huh? Scroll up and down this page, and no other Heartless doesn't have either the black void body or glowing eyes. Stealth Sneak is cool for what he is, a chameleon lizard-man, and he acts as the final boss of the Tarzan stage, but he looks so out of place as a Heartless, I feel. This one is explicitly noted to be born out of Clayton's heart and you fight him alongside Clayton. So maybe there's something there that made Stealth Sneak just be born different? Eh.

Bandit, Fat Bandit

The next world we go to is Agrabah from Aladdin, and we get the regular Soldier and Large Body themed after the Middle-Eastern aesthetic and they've got turbans, vests and scimitars. Apparently, the smaller Bandits also can travel from under the sand. Not a whole ton to say here, I suppose as one of the more 'real-world'-themed areas, all the Heartless did was shop for local clothes. 

Pot Spider & Barrel Spider

We do have a couple of these fun fun enemies, though! The Pot Spider first appears in Agrabah and the Barrel Spider in other areas, but they're sort of similar in design. I absolutely love that these are basically Mimics, but instead of the classic fangs of a Mimic, these sprout massive spider legs while their real body lie hidden within the pot. The Barrel Spider has a single eye glowing in the darkness, and being a gunpowder barrel, it is highly explosive and fragile. A pretty fun little enemy!

Pot Centipede

Sora gets to fight Jafar, who is a sorcerer and a genie and therefore pretty powerful even against anime protagonist man, but Agrabah's got its own Heartless boss in the Pot Centipede! Which is more of a reference to the video game Centipede than anything, but I have always loved the trope of a multi-segmented insectoid boss. And the Pot Centipede's entire body is made up of smaller single-legged Pot Spiders. The head and the tail are unique entities and are certainly far chompier-looking with that adorable jagged-Pac-Man Heartless face. It's pretty fun, and your characters basically have to keep breaking the pots (all of which can, of course, split up and scuttle around on their own) and at one point the Pot Centipede even recruits a bunch of random pots as part of its body to regenerate. Very neat concept for an enemy, I approve! 

Pirate & Air Pirate

Technically more inspired by Captain Hook's crew from Peter Pan, you meet these guys in the 'Monstro' level from Pinocchio. Which... makes sense, I suppose. Air Pirate is honestly kind of whatever (and feels like it probably should've been 'Air Bandit'), but regular Pirate is great! Look at that shark-themed sword with the swirly-eyed Heartless decal, and that face! Look at that happy face with an eyepatch with an X on it, and that swirly eye, and look at this happy Pirate Shadow man. He's just so jazzed. I like it. 

Parasite Cage

See, this is my favourite enemy from the game. I went 'whoaaaa' when I first saw it show up at the end of the Pinocchio level, and until now I still am not sure what it exactly is. The Parasite Cage appears within Monstro, the giant whale that ate Pinocchio, so I guess it's sort of meant to kind of be a parasite of some kind? Those long, tendril-like arms sure look like stylized depictions of some nematodes' petal-like mouth. But the rest of this guy! That main mouth has an absolutely great looking set of teeth that looks like they're drooping like little tentacle limbs, and that mouth just looks like a sad, goopy play-doh Jack-o-Lantern. What a face! I would've been happy with just a simple pumpkin monster with that face. The Final Mix even gives it an orange and green colouration, to make the jack-o-lantern vibe a lot more consistent. 

But that's not it at all, no. There's a second head that is merged on the bottom face, and that face has four eyes, two on top of the mouth and two below it. And the two worm arms extend out of it. The small head has a little stem jutting out of it, and the bottom head has a set of root-like legs. I'm genuinely not sure what this thing is supposed to be, and that's okay! That's awesome. This is one hell of a bizarro of a monster, and despite looking so different you can totally see that it has all the weird 'creepy-but-cute' cues of the Heartless. 

You find this guy having trapped Pinocchio within its mouth, so those creepy droopy teeth aren't even just a fancy part of its design, but they are functional prison bars. A very cool monster!

Sheltering Zone & Sea Neon

We're going to Atlantica now, the underwater world of The Little Mermaid. I didn't know it even had a name! We get a bunch of water-themed enemy, although no boss -- local villain Ursula is fought twice instead, and the second time she becomes a giant. So let's talk about the Heartless and hoo look at this adorable jellyfish babies! It's got the glowing eyes of the regular Heartless, and I absolutely love that the central head is sheltered within the bubble of the jellyfish dome. I'm not sure why it's got two huge club-like tentacle arms, but I suppose Heartlesses don't follow regular jellyfish anatomy. These aren't very tough, but the 'Sheltering Zone' enemy will split into multiple 'Sea Neons' when you damage them. Just like Zelda jellyfishes! A very pleasant looking design for sure, and, again, like Parasite Cage above, one that fits into the Heartless aesthetic seamlessly. 

Screwdiver

No, not 'screwdriver'. Screwdiver. Okay, so unlike the Bandits and Pirates that are just regular Heartless mooks who got a change of clothes, the Screwdiver is so much more awesome. Not only do they get a diving bodysuit and a trident, their helmet gets changed into the shape of a spiral-eyed fish nom-nom-noming on the shadow head. Absolutely brilliant. Can I just say just how much I love the spiral-eye design on these Heartless's helmets? Because I do. 

Aquatank

Oh these are cool. These are giant whale-sized anglerfish that act as 'motherships' for the Screwdivers, while not really attacking otherwise. Its massive mouth looks pretty damn awesome, and I just love just how round this thing is. It's a huge anglerfish and I love that its 'lure' is arranged in the same jagged spiral pattern that the rest of the Heartless have on their helmets. Absolutely funky, and, again, I'm just a fan of the general whimsical vibe of all of these Heartless. 

Search Ghost

You actually meet the Search Ghost in the Monstro and Atlantica level first, but hey, welcome to Halloween Town, setting of Nightmare Before Christmas! Hilariously, Jack Skellington is trying to use the Heartless in their fun fun scare-everyone modus operandi, but they also want to give the Heartless their hearts... through Frankenstein (sorry, Finklestein) mad science. You don't fight a huge Heartless enemy here since it's not part of Maleficent's plans, but hey, at least you fight a bunch of Halloweeny ghosts enemies. (A bunch of the common enemies get some Halloween-themed skins, too)

I love these guys. Their faces look like weird burlap sacs, sort of, and they've got weird spiral-patterned glowing eyeballs that combines both of the eyes seen in the Soldier Heartless... and one is dangling by its chain! These are searchlights, as their names imply, and the Search Ghosts go around searching for you. I absolutely love their oversized arms and the fact that the fingers trail off like ghost tails. The face is really where the creature looks most charming. I guess they are meant to be drowned sailors, considering they're found in two sea-themed areas?

Wight Knight

Ohh what a gangly-looking mummy enemy. This one fits exactly with the gangly Tim Burton puppets. In fact, remove the Heartless brand on his chest and I'd believe that this is just some random background character in Nightmare Before Christmas proper. Those noodle arms, that single glowing eye peeking out from the mummy wrappings, those little ribcages, those tiny stick legs that end in super-long feet... of course they move in a jerky, weird fashion. A fan of this one for sure. 

Gargoyle

Sort of like a miniboss of Halloween Town, the Gargoyle are... they're kind of cool, I suppose, I just don't quite like it as much as Search Ghost and Wight Knight. I definitely love that their entire upper half of the head just comes off, hovering above the lower jaw. That's always a complete impossibility in real life, of course, but a very fun and welcome addition in any fantasy monster. Pretty cool Gargoyle monsters, I love the proportions here with the huge chunky upper legs and the twig-like lower legs.

Battleship

The final Disney level is Peter Pan's Neverland, and that features a bunch of the pirate enemies up above. You also get to fight Battleships, though, which are Heartless that have fused together with pirate ships. It's hilarious, and I love the smiling Heartless pirate captain just holding the steering wheel to his ship. Love the little spear-tipped cannon and the little skull-and-ribcage figurehead.

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Hollow Bastion & The End of the World

Defender

We're entering Heartless enemies that mostly show up in Hollow Bastion, the final 'world of Heartless' dungeon that our heroes will go to, so some of these you really only fight near the end. The 'Defender' is a huge muscle-knight-man with a giant shield that has a dog head that can also breathe fire or ice. Okay, sure. I like the huge underbite on this one, as I do with most of the other Heartless. This is apparently a Final Fantasy reference because it has 'Defender' as one of the job classes? Sure. Kind of underwhelming. 

Behemoth

This big boy is one of the bosses in the Hollow Bastion, and he sure is a big beastly boy! I like the way that the claws are sort of bent inwards, although clearly the best feature about this guy is his big lower jaw and the two fangs that jut outwards. Again, there's that fun mix of comical and threatening I love so much from the Heartless. It also shares its name with an iconic recurring monster from Final Fantasy and is basically an adorable Heartless-ized version of it. Neat!

Kurt Zisa

...okay? A bit of a bonus boss in the 'Final Mix', the Kurt Zisa is released to Agrabah near the end of the game, acting as a bit of a bonus boss, one of several powerful Heartless unleashed alongside the Behemoth during the course of the story. Kurt Zisa is... he's kinda neat, I suppose, but looks more like a weird Gundam more than anything with those kinda-robotic-looking arms and a whole bunch of armour plating. He does have a snake head, which is cool, and six arms, which is neat. That's really all I can say here. I don't dislike him, he's pretty cool, but he's sort of just there and feels so off compared to the art style of everyone else here. 

Phantom

...on the other hand, this one feels kinda weird to be of the same level of power as Kurt and Behemoth. One of the three sealed Heartless, the Phantom is... he's just a huge sheet ghost. He's just a shadowy phantom. He buggers off and haunts Neverland (or, well, the London portion of Peter Pan). A shadowy cloaked ghost is cool... if it shows up in a setting or a game where you haven't been fighting a bunch of black shadows throughout the game. Final Mix recognizes this and gives it a much more imposing look with a white cloak and some nice gradient-black sleeves. I don't really say too much about Final Mix's many, many palette swaps, but for Phantom I would say that it's necessary for what is built up as a plot-relevant boss to not just look like a chump. 

Invisible

I suppose some of the enemies have to look completely serious. These next couple of enemies are found at the 'End of the World' segment of the game. Invisible is sure a demon-man, although I do like the design of the horns that are bizarrely joined together, and I like that it has bat wings on its back and angel wings on its arms. And it sure has a bizarre, scalloped sword! I don't like it as much as half of the things on this page -- Darkside up above does 'cool badass shadow demon' look a bit better in my opinion. I dunno, I guess this guy could've used something a bit extra to make him a lot less just 'cool shadow demon enemy'? Eh, I suppose not every enemy could catch my attention. 

Angel Star

O shit, but then you have these guys. I guess these are the angels to the Invisible's demons, but so much weirder and cooler. With a body that resembles a top, and a transparent, glass-like chest, the Angel Star just has a fun anatomy! Four wings that sprout from outside its jar-shaped body, and a bizarre tear-drop head with three eyes. Again, somehow, despite being Heartless-born-from-the-dark-evil-and-sin-in-people's-hearts the Angel Stars are also explicitly noted to be born out of 'holy spells'. Don't question it, just enjoy the utterly badass looking spinning-top angel, which looks simultaneously kooky and also creepy at the same time. 

Ansem (and World of Chaos)

The final boss is Ansem, and I think you fight him a couple of times through the couple of final dungeons. There are also other fights, too, against Anti-Sora as well as the 'rival' character Riku (who turns out to be good all along, just mind-controlled. Ansem is the final boss and... he sure is an anime villain. I debated whether to put him in here or not, but... yeah, sure. His first form is just the typical mysterious cool anime villain, but with his shadow extending behind him as this ghostly wraith. I don't 100% remember whether it's Ansem's own darkness or if it's something else (knowing the franchise there are probably retcons in some obscure spinoff, too) but it sure is a very cool image.

Later on Ansem turns into a full-on shadow monster himself, and... yeah, it sure is a shadow monster fused to a black shadow orb with giant demon wings. It's pretty cool, if not the sort of thing I can really find much to talk about. It's your typical video game final boss, I suppose, and I never really have too much to say about them beyond 'that sure is cool'. his final FINAL form is him fused with the World of Chaos, a giant Heartless ship, and... and it sure is a monstrous mutant final boss. At least this one is colourful, and I love the grinning devil face on the tip of the ship, and that it's got little jet-ski legs. 

Again, I don't mind any of these. It's certainly appropriate since this is sort of a Final Fantasy style game, after all, but after gushing over all of the Heartless designs I kind of feel bad that I just really don't find these sort of over-the-top designs particularly exciting beyond being used as setpieces. 

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And that's it for Kingdom Hearts!