Bastard Class Enemies Explained

Better, stronger, faster…

No, we don’t mean Lee Majors. We’re talking about Bastard Class Enemies. You’ve seen them. And you’ve been killed by them.

Most enemies in video games are simply fodder for your hungry angry machine gun. Sure, they may present a threat in great numbers, but overall they’re slow, stupid, and – let’s face it – more than a little underqualified for the job. You plow through them like so many marshmallows in the hands of an overweight toddler.

But every now and again, a special type of enemy rears its ugly head and spews forth wholesale tear-inducing hurt. Maybe they’re faster than their counterparts, or take a lot more damage, or simply have a method of attack that can bring you to your knees in mere seconds. They’re not boss characters; they’re not even sub-bosses. They’re in the fight with everyone else.

They are bastards.

They have been among us since the dawn of gaming. You remember that spider in Centipede, right? You just have a few more sections left to destroy, and if you could just get that centipede to line up between some mushrooms, you could take it out. But what’s this? From the side of the screen, a spider appears, announcing its presence with a cacophony of sound and an erratic movement pattern. He is there to shut you down. Or what about those pterodactyls in Joust? Or enemies that come up from the left side of the screen in your favorite horizontal shmup?

Bastards, all of them. They are in a class all their own... The Bastard Class, as we have dubbed them here on 8 Bit Horse. And they were put here to destroy you.