Bad Guys in the Hills

Only once Pokey recruits you to find Picky and the Onett police have left do savage beasts appear on the road to the meteorite. There are only three kinds to start, but they teach you so much of what to expect.



The Coil Snake is the single weakest enemy in the game, and gives you 1 experience point on defeat. But he can wrap himself around you, anulling your next action! A very devious tactic in the right battle, but for now it's pretty harmless: when it's coiling around you, it can't hurt you.



The Runaway Dog grants the most experience points of the first enemies (4!!! enough to level you up for the first time), but is also the only enemy that can waste it's turn by howling harmlessly into the air. Sometimes, bad guys just do what they want to do.



The Spiteful Crow is a motherfucker. It's so fast that, basically no matter how high your level is, the Crow will always get the first move. Although sometimes it does waste a turn with a big grin on its face, it can also peck at your eyes, which does quite a bit of damage at this point in the game.

Not only that, it can STEAL from you. And you don't get the item back when you defeat it - it's just gone. Fortunately, it only seems to go after food items.

Spiteful Crows give you just 3 experience points, but upon defeat they always drop a cookie. These only recover 6 HP, but until you learn Lifeup Alpha, cookies are the only way to heal yourself in the field.

What I love about these enemies is how different they all are. Even though your only attack option in battle at this point is to hit things with your bat - Pokey just wastes his turn cowering and your dog just does minimal damage - the bad guys already provide so much variety that you can never really be sure what the dialog box at the top of the battle screen will say next. And we're just gettin' started!