Medusa Heads suck.

Seriously, the Medusa Head and everything it represents adle me to no end. I
love gaming old school, I love the games that have "Medusa Heads" but the things
themselves are the incarnation of every definitions of FAIL. Were this a top
ten list of most hated conventions, specific enemies or cheap moves in gaming,
Medusa Heads would be half of them.

Let me explain.


So, what's a Medusa Head?

Literally, they're these little heads with snakes on them that float around in just about every Castlevania game. In the broader
sense, they're any object that comes out of freaking nowhere, damages you on
contact and, to add greater insult, usually knocks you into a bottomless pit and
takes a life from you. "Medusa Heads" appear notably in their "Stupid Swoopy Birds"
incarnation in Ninja Gaiden for NES and more recently and abstractly in Assasins
Creed, in the form of rocks. Stupid fucking rocks. More on those later.

Medusa Heads are characterized by a few key traits:

1) They have a predictable pattern of movement - The ones in Castlevania always
move up and down. The birds in Ninja Gaiden swoop. There's no juke move they're pulling here.
If you've seen one thing fly across the screen, you've seen every single one fly
across the screen.
2) They move quickly - In Castlevania, the worst you had to
deal with up to that point of first contact was the occassional flea man. Most things in that
game moved at a snail's pace, and just primarily meant you had to play the
aggressor. Not with Medusa Heads. They will catch you. Running is not an option!
3) By the time you figure out the pattern and what to do, its probably too late to react - Ok. Up, then down, cool, so if I jump hereSHHHHI-- Too. Freaking. Late. Noob.
4) They respawn notoriously. Standing still will not stay the onslaught. - Some things in games will just spawn and pass. There'll be a
stop to the flood. Maybe you'll just wait it out right? No chance. Those
guards aren't running out of rocks, and there is no shortage on swoopy birds. Handle it.
5) Once you know the pattern, where they come from, and how to avoid them, you feel like an idiot for getting caught by them. - You're better than
the Medusa Head. You know that. We all know that. It doesn't think, it doesn't
feel. Its practically a projectile. You *KNOW* its coming. The hit is
inevitable though, and it still hurts your Hit Points AND your pride.


Feeling the Hate

Its all well and good though. Any gamer worth her salt is going to figure out
what to do, put her thing down and move on to the next section. We are gamers
after all. But damned if they just don't show up again while you're trying to
workout some impossible jump or quick move to progress. They're inevitable,
incessant, and frankly, the bane of your existance when you're just trying to
save the world from great evil.

And there's where the hate comes in. For all the power one has, either as a
ninja, demon slayer, or crazy cool Assassin man, the Medusa Head is hubris. Its
smaller than you, its not more powerful than you, its less than you as a hero of
your caliber. Yet its designed in just the right way to knock you down a couple
pegs and keep you from thinking you're unstoppable. Medusa Heads show you how
vulnerable you are, and ever have been.

So that's why the rocks in Assassin's Creed are "Medusa Heads". Despite all your
amazing moves and escape abilities, it just takes one stupid little rock to
knock you off your game. They're always available, and they can't be reacted
to in realtime. All you can do is know that they're coming, shimmy around
accordingly, and have the good sense to react and recover once one of those
jerks peg you.


But surely you can overcome this?

Granted, they make you a better player, but require a disproportionate amount of mastery
for the threat they logically pose. Low kicks in Soul Calibur are a Medusa
Head. For all the slick tactics I've got worked out for Yeong Sung, some jerk
spamming Talim's low kick laughs in the face of all my efforts to play the game
in a fun, fighting type of way. I've got to learn either a quick rotating
move, successfully pull off a block counter or back up far enough to jump in on
that bugger. I've got all this compensation that I need to do, because some twat
learned how to button mash. Right, right. Learn to Play but DANGIT! how is that
even balanced?

Medusa Heads aren't about being outsmarted or bested by greatness. They're
cheap. They're insignificant. They're David to your Goliath if David decided to
teabag after his Super Effective slingshot stunt.

Screw Medusa Heads.