Mechanical Monster

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"The master of the Goblin blacksmiths offered to build the king a golden mechanical army. Seventy times seventy soldiers that would never know hunger, and could not be stopped."

— Tale of the Golden Army, Hellboy II: The Golden Army

So your Mecha-Mooks aren't cutting it? What's the next logical step up from taking the already impressive stamina, loyalty, and destructive power of a mechanical henchman?

Simply, you go absolutely off the wall with them. Where the mecha-mook will be a dime a thousand, you'll see only a few, or only one, Mechanical Monster. This may be due to limited resources or simply because everyone involved in making it is no longer amongst the living. They are always improbably hard to stop, incredibly persistent, never needs to recharge and always, always terrifying to look at. Very likely to be the big bad's Dragon, and often times much tougher to kill.

While mecha-mooks are often fragile, incompetent, and generally gentle at their jobs, expect the Mechanical Monster to be far less kind to its prey. Slashing, stabbing, soul-stealing to fuel their infernal engines, and loud noises are all par for the course. Lastly, in extreme cases, it may also be much bigger size-wise than a standard mecha-mook, with some even doubling as Humongous Mecha opponents.

Mechanical Abomination is when it goes to Eldritch Abomination levels.

See also Homicide Machines, Our Monsters Are Different, Robeast, Cybernetic Mythical Beast, Clockwork Creature, Mechanical Animals.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Daitarn 3: The Megaborgs, although they start out as less-monstrous Meganoids before mutating themselves.
• Getter Robo:
  • Shin Getter Robot is a rare heroic example, at least in the original manga arcs (its more monsterish aspects get severely toned down in other appearances such as Super Robot Wars or the getter OVAs).
  • Mechasauruses and Mecha Oni play it straight, though: the former ones are robotic dinosaurs, and the seconds are horned, demonic-looking mechanical beasts.
• Kakurenbo: The "oni", which resemble giant animatronic puppets.
• Kotetsu Jeeg: The Haniwa Phantom Gods, mechanical monsters animated through magic means and resembling mythological creatures or evil spirits.
• Mazinger:
  • The Monster of the Week Mecha-Mooks in Mazinger Z are called "Kikaijuu", which is made of the words for "machine" and "monster" in Japanese.
  • Then you have the Mykene War Beasts ("Sentoujuu") in Great Mazinger, Mykene soldiers grafted into gigantic mechanical bodies. The're shaped like humanoid warriors, evil spirits, mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes or insects.
  • The Saucer Beasts and Vega Monsters from UFO Robo Grendizer. They are animalistic mechanical monsters resemble flying saucers pre-transformation.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans has the Hashmal, one of the Mobile Armors responsible for the Calamity War that saw a quarter of humanity decimated. As opposed to the humanoid-shaped piloted Mobile Suits (which were originally built to fight Mobile Armors), Hashmal is a completely autonomous machine with a monstrous appearance designed with only one purpose: to kill all humans. It is accompanied by its own army of insectoid machines known as Plumas that can Zerg Rush any opposition in addition to keeping the Hashmal itself functional. Further adding to its monstrous nature is its name, which is taken from an angel as opposed to the Gundam Frames, which are named after demons. To further emphasize how dangerous it is, the Hashmal also has a beam cannon, a rarity in a series where Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: while the beam cannon won't necessarily destroy a Mobile Suit thanks to its nanolaminate armor, it's plenty useful for vaporizing humans and destroying cities.
• One Piece: The Pacifistas. These guys are made of an incredibly hard material, making them nigh-invulnerable to typical physical attacks, possess Frickin' Laser Beams in a story that presumably takes place in the 15th century, and share the appearance and physical strength of Bartholomew Kuma, one of the most feared men in the One Piece world. It's said that one of these things is the equivalent of a battleship, and it took all of the main characters working together with everything they had to beat a single one pre-Time Skip. Double subverted after said Time Skip. Two Pacifistas fall victim to The Worf Effect to demonstrate how powerful the Straw Hats are now, proving to be absolutely no challenge for them anymore. However, immediately after that, it's been stated that there are far more powerful Pacifista out there now, although they haven't been shown nor has it been stated exactly what's improved over the originals.
• Reborn! (2004): Gola Mosca. It is powered by the Life Energy of the Ninth Vongola Boss.

• The manga Seiketsu No Hagurama has a literal blue-blooded prince and Gadgeteer Genius construct Steampunk looking machines like a whale-shaped ship and a pilot-ridden, steam-blowing minotaur whom he thought were being used for peaceful purposes (but were actually used to eradicate the remaining red-blooded people by his father and king).
• The☆Ultraman has its share of mechanical behemoths battling Ultraman Joneus, including the cobra-like Janyur (later resurrected into the three-headed Janyur III) and the shapeshifting robot dragon Dragodos which can alternate between dragon and Flying Saucer form. In both instances, the monsters are thought to be mere malfunctioning machines until it's later revealed that they are intelligent, capable of forming strategies to counter Ultraman Joneus, and are in fact quite sentient.
• Voltron: Nearly every episode of the American translations — both for the lion-team Voltron and the vehicle-team Voltron — culminates in a fight against a giant enemy RoBeast. Once or twice on the vehicle-team Voltron show, these robotic engines of destruction are shown with normal-sized pilots inside. (Since this was a Never Say "Die" translation, the pilots were themselves android stormtroopers.)

Comic Books

• Batman has a robot dinosaur in the Trophy Room of the Batcave, a souvenir of a case called "Dinosaur Island".

• In Gotham City Garage, Lex Luthor has the giant robot Amazo which Kara Gordon, Dick Grayson and Selina Kyle bump into when they break into a Luthor's secret base.
• In Marvel Comics's toy tie-in comic The Starriors, the title characters are about evenly split between semi-humanoid robots and animal and dinosaur-shaped ones. They're all perfectly sentient.
• The Transformers (Marvel) features the Guardian Units, which are bright yellow, ridiculously huge by Cybertronian standards, and have a distressing tendency to turn against their owners. They are also incredibly over-powered and very strong, to the extent that even one of them is enough to give Optimus Prime trouble. They reappear in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye when an army of them is sent up against Overlord, who quickly ploughs through them.

Films — Animation

• 9: The villains fit the bill, being a collection of animal-like robots sent to hunt down and destroy the protagonists, and all of them are appropriately horrific. The Big Bad, the huge, multi-armed artificial brain thing, definitely fits the bill.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: The Leviathan is a Magitek version of this, somewhere in the vicinity of a couple miles long, capable of staying intact without recharging for thousands of years, immune to direct torpedo hits and equipped with shearing claws and a particle beam-like Breath Weapon. Only one of them still functions by the time the heroes arrive at the gateway to Atlantis — there used to be an entire fleet of them back in Atlantis' heyday that had the ability to fly as well— but it's more than enough to trash their sub and kill over a hundred people.
• Dragon Rider: The villianous metal Dragon-eating monster Nettlebrand.
• The Incredibles sports the Omnidroid. Developed and controlled by the Big Bad by evolving the design from pitting it against retired superheroes, the robot is extremely intelligent, fast, extremely deadly, and invulnerable to just about anything except weapons made from the robot's own tough metal.
• One of the Superman Theatrical Cartoons is actually titled "The Mechanical Monsters", featuring a Mad Scientist with a small army of robots that he built to steal for him. They have twisted, ogre-like forms, grasping claws, a stilted range of motion, and eye-mounted flamethrowers.

Films — Live-Action

• Death Machine: The Warbeast is essentially a ten-foot tall, nigh-invulnerable collection of hydraulics, claws, and teeth. Given that its creator was very much a Mad Scientist and its official role would be a "Frontline Morale Destroyer", it's intentional.
• Godzilla: The original Showa-era Mecha-Godzilla was a vicious alien robot built with the intent of first discrediting, and then killing Godzilla. Powerful enough to battle Godzilla and King Caesar at the same time, the robot proved a match for anything that the more heroic kaiju could throw at it.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: The title Golden Army. Saved from being simple Mecha-Mooks by their sheer hardiness and a self-repair function.
• In Red Sonja, the bad guys unleash a killing machine in the form of a robotic alligator. It's completely invulnerable to the heroes' weapons, except for the eyes, which they manage to carve out while it's thrashing about.
• Runaway: The small attack "bugs" may be the most realistic examples around: their compact six-legged design was based on real state-of-the-art robotic prototypes of the time. Not as formidable-looking as others on this page, but their Zerg Rush tactics and acid-injectors make up for it.
• Star Wars: The Droideka model of battle droid from the prequel trilogy. These fun bots often give the Jedi a run for their money, and amply earn their in-universe status as The Dreaded.
• The giant Harvester from Terminator Salvation most definitely counts, as would the semi-humanoid tanks from the earlier Terminator movies.

Literature

• Fahrenheit 451: The Mechanical Hound, an assassination tool used by the authorities. It's never described in full, only that it moves too silently for a truck sized machine with eight spider-like legs, and it has a proboscis meant for injecting lethal doses of morphine into its targets. The only reason it can be called a hound at all is because it's a Super-Persistent Predator that tracks through scent.
• Forges of Mars: The Tindalosi are robotic hellhounds designed to be unstoppable killing machines. They’re strong, fast, intelligent, heavily-armed, and can quickly repair any damage they take. When the Big Bad unleashes them to hunt down Kotov, they tear through a squad of Howling Banshees and give the Black Templars some serious trouble.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Galaxy of Fear: Tash and Zak Arranda are menaced by a simulation of one of these in The Nightmare Machine.
  • Razor's Edge:
    • During the Big Bad Viest's Blood Sport "test," she drops a large barrel-shaped mining droid reprogrammed for rage and insanity into the playing field. Its cutting and digging arms attack the players, killing a Red Shirt and injuring Leia, its "sampling oriface" roars at them, and it more-or-less defeats itself by getting partially caught in an ore crusher.
    • Later, Leia and the Aegis crewmembers find Viest's technician attempting to repair the droid, and they commandeer it to rampage through the Space Pirates' command center at an opportune moment. This backfires on them when it gets too close to the bomb they had rigged to blow up said command center, setting it off early.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: The Raston Warrior Robot in "The Five Doctors". Built as the ultimate killing machine, a single one is able to destroy an entire squad of Cyberman without taking a scratch in return.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Drive has Advanced Roidmudes, the forms taken by Roidmudes who've successfully evolved through use of a Viral Core, granting them a monstrous form and special powers.
  • Kamen Rider Ryuki and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight has the vicious Mirror Monsters of the supernatural variety.
• Lost: Not a straight example, but the Smoke Monster mixes mechanical noises (cranking, whirring) in with its biological noises (roaring, growling). Because it has no moving parts (being an amorphous cloud of black vapor), it is not clear where any of these noises are coming from. The most popular Fanon theory is that it generates these noises arbitrarily to frighten people.
• The Prisoner (1967): If the Smoke Monster counts, then its grandfather Rover deserves a mention too. It's a white floating plastic sphere, and acts as a security device for the Village, but it's also alive somehow; it roars and groans and has a mind of its own, even killing the wrong person once. Rover was originally a straighter robotic example of the trope, but it didn't work very well during the initial stages of filming.
• A very early example of this trope in live-action television appears in Spider-Man (Japan), where the Monsters of the Week are called the Machine BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters).
• Super Sentai: Whenever the enemy group is mechanical in nature, there is a high chance the Monsters of the Week they employ are this trope. Examples are the Machine Beasts of Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (adapted into Machine Empire monsters in Power Rangers Zeo), the Barbaric Machine Beasts of Engine Sentai Go-onger (adapted into the Venjix Attack Bots in Power Rangers RPM) and the Metaroids of Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters (adapted into the Robotrons in Power Rangers Beast Morphers).
• The Ultra Series have numerous robot-based kaiju terrorizing Earth, for the Ultra-warriors to defeat every once in a while.
  • Ultraseven: King Joe and Crazygon are robotic monsters sent by alien invaders who gives Ultraseven a hard time to defeat in their respective episodes.
  • Return of Ultraman: Builgamo is an Expy of Crazygon who goes on an unstoppable rampage, and Ultraman Jack needs to figure out a way to defeat the monster without killing his allies trapped in the monster's core.
  • Ultraman Taro concludes his run with the battle against Grand King, the mecha-behemoth monstrosity sent by Juda, who nearly defeats the Ultra Brothers until Ultraman Taro managed to unlock his Golden Super Mode.
  • Ultraman Leo has Gamelot, originally created by an alien race for peacekeeping purposes, but suddenly decide to turn against it's creators and wipe out it's home planet, before hunting the father and daughter pair of scientists who created it all the way to Earth.
  • Ultraman 80 has Mechagiras and Zatan Silver, sentient robots unleashed by alien invaders, who continues their rampage even after their alien masters are killed.
  • Ultraman Tiga gets to battle more than one of these, including Ligatron (a spaceship hit by cosmic energy and morphing into a mechanical beat), Guwam (who captures Tiga's ally Reina in it's forehead, giving Tiga a hard time in battle), Faivas (a classic A.I. Is a Crapshoot example) and Geoshark (a completely mechanical Land Shark created by a rogue scientist).
  • Ultraman Dyna: Terranoid from the last arc was originally a mechanical clone of Ultraman Dyna, who ends up being affected by the Sphires and going on an unstoppable rampage.
  • Ultraman Gaia has a trio of ancient machines, Enzan, Tenkai and Shinryoku, who upon reactivation is dedicated to reset all life on earth, and the mecha Σ-Zuigul who captures Ultraman Gaia's human host Gamu, stripping him from his transformation powers necessitating Ultraman Agul to save him.
  • Ultraman Cosmos has Hellzking (an Expy based on King Joe listed above), Sidebackter (an Expy based on Gamerot) but there's also Igomas, a non-violent, peaceful toy kaiju which only goes on a rampage due to a malfunction in it's design.
  • Ultraman Mebius have multiple episode story arc featuring the nigh-unstoppable juggernaut monster, Imperializers, sentient humanoid machines which can absorb plenty of hits from Ultraman Mebius, and even reassemble itself after being blown up. Even with the assistance of Ultraman Taro, it still takes three episodes to finally defeat Imperializer.
  • Ultraman Zero Gaiden: Killer the Beatstar has it's Big Bad, the titular Beatstar, who commands an entire army of Mecha-monsters, including numerous units of the aforementioned King Joe and Imperializers.
  • Ultraman Orb introduces Galactron, a mechanical dragon-beast originally used for peacekeeping purposes, but upon gaining sentience, ultimately decides the best course to preserve peace is to wipe out all life in the universe. The following installment, Ultraman Geed, would conclude with a revelation that the Galactrons are mass-produced under their master, Gilbaris.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: There are several "constructs" that fit this category, most notably the Hellfire Engine, a Giant Mecha made out of cold iron and powered by (as well as shooting) hellfire and the Anaxim, basically the twisted mechanical abortion produced by a god of the forge getting a little too crazy.
• Exalted has its fair share of these, such as the Thousand-Forged Dragons and the Brass Leviathan.
• Fabula Ultima: The Razorbird is a large Magitek construct resembling an enormous bird of prey. It has razor-sharp feathers with which to make melee attacks and an arsenal comparable to that of a real-world fighter jet, complete with missiles and gatling guns. Militant empires often make use of these machines in their air forces.
• Gamma World: Whenever you want to tell your players to go screw themselves in your game, you use the Death Machine, the setting's mechanical equivalent to the Tarrasque.
• Iron Kingdoms: Warjacks are large (seven to twelve feet tall) steam-powered robots used to protect and assist the setting's Not-So-Squishy Wizards. 'Jacking is a form of capital punishment in some countries and, if that wasn't bad enough, the WARMACHINE wargame introduced Deathjack, a semi-autonomous Orgoth warjack powered by souls.
• Magic: The Gathering: Some of the more impressive artifact creatures easily qualify as this rather than the standard Mecha-Mooks of dragon engines and myr. The main villains of the series, the Phyrexians, have the purpose in life of turning all living things in existence into this, and are themselves a collection of nightmarish, twisted biomechanical monstrosities.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Dark Eldar Talos is a heavily armored floating mechanical scorpion acting as their version of a tank that grabs people off the battlefield and pulls them inside itself to slowly torture them to death, which powers its systems and weapons with their agony and souls. On the outside it has various torture implements acting as claws to restrain other victims, then torture and kill them to remove their souls. It also has a cannon in the shape of a tail that fires incredibly corrosive bio-acid.
  • The Necrons have the Tomb Stalker, a giant metal centipede with two guns that fire beams of energy that flay you molecule by molecule. If that wasn't enough, it can become incorporeal in order to pursue its targets directly through the labyrinthine halls of the Necron crypts it guards. It can also sense you coming from literal miles away.
  • Chaos has a variety of these as well.
    • Chaos Daemons employ hulking brutes fused to a Spider Tank chassis called Defilers, that have cannons both mechanical and organic in nature. They can also use a form of monstrous Mecha which teleports. As well, Juggernauts are basically half-mechanical half-organic demonic Rhinos. The forces of Khorne additionally have the Lord of Skulls and the Kytan Daemon Engine, the former marrying a humanoid body with a huge tank-like mechanism and the latter being more like a small Titan.
    • Chaos Space Marines have similar bipedal Mecha monsters that were formerly entirely mechanical. They have mechanical dinosaurs with More Dakka called Forgefiends that are armed with Gatling Good or plasma cannons, or a close combat variety. Last but not least a robotic dragon flyer called Heldrakes that have a gatling cannon or a flamer for a Breath Weapon and adamantium claws which can swoop down and slice tanks in half.
  • When they were still a legion and had their primarch Lion running around, the Dark Angels had the Ironwing company which specialized in war engines. If things got ugly, sometimes they'd bring out the Excindio-class Battle Automata which are powerful and vicious robots. Being a mechanical monster is a step down for these machines as they were previously part of the Silica Animus that nearly destroyed humanity.

Theme Parks

• Universal Studios' Horror Make-Up Show has "Eddie", a mechanical werewolf that ends up coming to life and going rogue at the end of the show.

Video Games

• The Deimos of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim certainly fit the description, with them being aggressive kaiju-like robots with a red and black color scheme and glowing red eyes. Strangely enough, they are revealed to be construction equipment. Why they are such Unnecessarily Creepy Robots is anyone's guess.
• Agent USA: The FuzzBomb from used to be a normal television set, until an experiment Gone Horribly Wrong gave it malevolent sentience (with angry eyes!), and it's now trying to turn everyone in the entire United States into mindless, walking TV static.
• Banjo-Tooie has Weldar, the boss of Grunty Industries, and is an unconventional case. He is a giant killer welding torch who can electrify the floor and perform a wide variety of attacks during battle.
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow has a giant robot scorpion Brain in a Jar built by Doctor Frankenstein.

• Conker's Bad Fur Day:
  • Haybot serves as the first major boss in the game (the wasp army from the Windy chapter is the first overall, but they aren't challenged in a proper battle until much later in the game). Initially disguised as a large sentient pile of haystack, the boss's true form is exposed during the second phase of the fight, deep within the basement of the stable. In this form, it is capable of shooting missiles, squashing opponents with its hands, and crushing them. Its weakness is a self-destruct button located in its back, but it has to be pressed three times so the monster is defeated.
  • The Big Big Guy is a living orange boiler piloted by a duo of fire imps, and is the second major boss in the game. It can charge at Conker to cause him damage, as well as exhale fire as a flamethrower. Bathing it with fecal debris will stun it, which gives Conker the chance to crush its (literal) Brass Balls with a pair of red bricks. Conker has to do this a total of four times to disable the machine for good and claim victory.
• Crysis: The alien Hunter. It's a house-sized Humongous Mecha with a decidedly inhuman design (looking more like a deep-sea crustacean), bristling with Freeze Rays and Wave Motion Guns. It also has several moving parts on its front, which seem to be there only because they look threatening. Also, it can roar.
• Cyberpunk 2077 has the Cerberus MK-II, a maintenance robot built for extreme environments. While it is "only" armed with a terminal jack, it's impervious to conventional weapons, fast enough to outrun sprinting augmented humans and can't be hacked; it's the only enemy that can't be escaped from or killed in the whole game. One controlled by a murderous rogue AI is the last enemy V will encounter at the end of Phantom Liberty should the player betray Songbird.
• Descent 3 has the Homunculus, which looks like a mechanical version of the Rancor from Return of the Jedi.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Among the many Dwemer Animunculi you run into in throughout the series, there are always at least one type of these. In Morrowind, it's the Steam Centurions. In Skyrim there are Dwemer Centurions. These things are difficult to kill, hit hard, can end your quest in a few blows if you are careless, and their steam jet is a pretty good approximation of dragonbreath. And as if that was bad enough, Skyrim also has the Dwemer Centurion Masters. They are twice the size of their lesser brethren, as well as having double the armor and killing power. If that wasn't enough for you, try the Forgemaster on for size. This unique Centurion boss is even bigger, hits even harder, and instead of a steam breath is armed with an outright flamethrower.
  • In Morrowind's Tribunal expansion, toward the end of the main quest, you'll be forced to face the Imperfect. The Imperfect is a borderline Humongous Mecha, standing easily twice the size of the Player Character, who serves as a Mini-Boss in Sotha Sil's Clockwork City. It has some of the strongest physical attacks in the game and can also use powerful Lightning attacks against you. If you are able to kill it quickly, you can claim the Elixir of the Imperfect from its corpse. It's a potion that restores 20 points of Health, Magicka, and Fatigue every second for 15 seconds, essentially giving you god-like abilities for the duration. However, you only get one from the Imperfect, and unless you kill it quickly, it will use the Elixir, making this fight all the more difficult.
• Mechanical bosses aren't too frequent in the Etrian Odyssey series, because of the fantasy setting, but they exist:
  • Etrian Odyssey: Though the original game averts the trope, The Millenium Girl remake adds two robotic bosses in the also-added dungeon Gladsheim: The first is Gimle, which is capable of shooting powerful missiles at the player's party even before its boss battle properly begins; and the second is M.I.K.E., which by the point it's found goes haywire and must be destroyed).
  • Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: The Gatekeeper is a black robot that serves as the boss of the Molten Caves, and aims to protect the entrance to the Abyssal Shrine at all costs (it was originally build by the Abyssal King to prevent outsiders from going further). Its attack repertoire is also very varied, including laser beams and missiles, and its individual parts can be separated to attack more efficiently.
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The Cradle Guardian is the King Mook of the robotic F.O.E. that roam the Echoing Library, and is capable of switching its strengths and weaknesses at will. It's summoned by Prince Baldur, who in that moment is being corrupted by the influence of Yggdrasil, and is kidnapping the Medium to revive the Yggdrasil.
• Final Fantasy: Omega Weapon from is often depicted as this. Other times he's a bio-mechanical monster. The very first Final Fantasy has fellow Superboss in mook clothing Warmech, an extremely durable, regenerating, nuke-tossing monstrosity with a Death Ray.
• Halo: Scarabs are controlled by the same alien worms that compose the Hunters, and have an organic roaring sound.

• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has Goht, whose epithet actually is (Masked) Mechanical Monster. It's an enormous mechanical goat-like monster that constantly runs away, and the only way to make it stop after waking it up is to destroy it.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has a non-malicious example with Gohdan, an ancient machine created by the gods to challenge the new hero before their access to the biggest secret of the Great Sea.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The Guardians and the Divine Beasts. The Guardians are massive Spider Tank machines capable of firing extremely strong lasers, while the Divine Beasts are four Humongous Mecha shaped like animals. While the Guardians and the Divine Beasts had been built to protect Hyrule, all of them were literally Hijacked by Ganon 100 years before the game takes place, and have since been a very high threat for the lives of everybody living in Hyrule.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Unlike the standard Soldier Contructs which act as standard Mecha-Mooks, or even the stronger Training Construct minibosses, the Flux Constructs are boss-level threats and far more dangerous due to their increased strength and attack repertoire, as well as their ability to rearrange their cubical body parts to showcase and exploit various forms. Defeating them requires exposing their weak point and disarming it from the boss so they can inflict damage to it.
• Mass Effect: Reapers go a bit beyond this into Mechanical Abomination, but they'd have to count the few times you fight one on foot — most notably Priority: Rannoch, which famously involves syncing up a target pointer to the biggest fleet in the galaxy and having them perform Orbital Bombardment on its weak point. It takes one hell of a pounding to down it, and it's the smallest type of Reaper — a mere 160 meters tall^note the same height as all of these tower blocks, unlike its two-kilometer long siblings.
• Mega Man (Classic), being a robot-based series, has its share of these, mostly as Wily Fortress bosses, most notably The Yellow Devil and all the other Devil series robots.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: The Gekko are as much life-form as machine; they're about as smart as an animal, make appropriate sounds when they're in distress, and, of course, have organic legs. They also follow the basic use of the Mechanical Monster trope in that they are much more dangerous and intimidating than a simple robot would be.
• Metal Slug 2/X: Most players wouldn't know what the second boss (Aeshi Nero) is when they first see it. It's a gigantic excavator robot designed to look like a cobra.
• Despite its futuristic setting, the Metroid series has a bigger focus on large monsters instead of large machines when it comes to bosses and antagonists. However, some cases still exist:
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: Quadraxis, the King Mook of the Quads, is a gigantic quadrupedal automaton that serves as the boss of Ing Hive (the Dark World version of Sanctuary Fortress); it was originally a benign creation by the Luminoth, until the Ing corrupted it with the power of Dark Aether. There's also the Caretaker Class Drone, a Mini-Boss found earlier in Sanctuary Fortress itself, at the start of a path leading to the Screw Attack.
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: The Defense Drone is a big robot built by the Chozo many decades ago that protects the Boost Ball powerup in Skytown, Elysia. Due to Phazon corruption, it's now hostile and proceeds to attack Samus as soon as she attempts to grab the Boost Ball powerup. Despite its large size, it is capable of performing impressive jumps.
  • Metroid: Samus Returns: The Diggernaut is a large drilling machine built by the Chozo in SR388. Initially, it is located in Area 3, but Samus witnesses its activation before it moves away; it later tries to kill Samus in a frantic chase in Area 4. Finally, it confronts Samus in a boss battle in Area 6.
  • Metroid Dread: The E.M.M.I. are a mix of this trope and Xenomorph Xerox. They were originally research drones sent by the Galactic Federation to investigate Planet ZDR over rumors of surviving X Parasites, only to then lose contact and be reprogrammed to hunt Samus down and extract her Metroid DNA for Raven Beak's use. Unfortunately for Samus, they are invulnerable to all of her standard arsenal (and the only weapon that can destroy them deactivates after being used on each one), are incredibly mobile, have really sharp hearing, are highly intelligent, and many of the later ones have abilities that make them even more dangerous. If they catch up to Samus and she fails to counter their attacks (which is very likely, since the timing for the counter is really tight), it's a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Mini Robot Wars: The Frost Orca is a large, whale-submarine bot that spits out deadly ice balls, has a ton of health, is more tenacious than the regular mooks, and acts as a Boss in Mook Clothing. It also practices good dental hygiene.
• Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask has a large robot (only known as "mechamutt", due to its dog-like face) fought in the last regular level of the Toy Robot minigame. Unlike the smaller, weaker dog robots that appear in the other levels, the Mechamutt is large, strong and capable of moving around while covering a wide area, thus being a lot more dangerous. The main character (a small toy robot built by Emmy) has to use a windup key to ram at the monster and damage it (the process has to be done twice to defeat it).
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable, the witch Gisela is a Transforming Mecha made of motorcycle parts that can cloak itself in a whirlwind.

• Quake IV: The Harvester Spider Tanks seem to be partially organic like the aforementioned Scarabs, by the sounds they make. They're easily the most threatening Strogg faced by Kane, being a Mini-Boss when on a vehicle and when on foot, an obstacle to be evaded instead of an enemy to be fought.
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse has the Steel Maggot (Patent Pending), a giant, robotic maggot that serves as the boss of the Abandoned Factory.
• SimCity 4: The Autosaurus Wrecks is basically a T. rex (or perhaps Godzilla) made of cars, which when summoned rampages around wrecking everything it finds.

• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Bros. 2: Robirdo serves as the boss of World 3 in the Game Boy Advance version (in the original version, the boss is Mouser, who also appeared at the end of World 1; the Mouser rematch is pushed to World 6 in Advance). Robirdo is a large, robotic dinosaur who spits eggs like normal Birdos do, but these are much bigger. It is also capable of charging at the player's character as well as performing a Ground Pound that shakes the floor.
  • Super Mario 64: King Bob-Omb serves as the King Mook of Bob-Ombs (themselves being Mecha-Mooks), and attacks Mario by grabbing him to throw him; that's the same thing Mario has to do to him (three times) to win. In the Nintendo DS remake, if it's Yoshi who challenges him, then King Bob-Omb will attack by throwing smaller Bob-Ombs instead, since Yoshi cannot grab anything and instead has to throw the Bob-Ombs back at the boss by using his mouth. Bob-Omb went on to return in several Mario spin-offs since then.
  • Super Mario Sunshine: Mecha-Bowser is a large robot modeled after the Koopa King. It is piloted by Shadow Mario a.k.a. Bowser Jr., and serves as the boss of Pinna Park; it can breathe fire and shoot missiles, forcing Mario to dispel any incoming projectile with the help of FLUDD.
  • Super Mario Galaxy: There's a different version of Mecha-Bowser located in Toy Time Galaxy, and in it some Gearmos are kept captive, forcing Mario to disassemble it to rescue them. There's also Megaleg, a gargantuan robot modeled after the Snifits (a subspecies of Shy Guys) which Mario has to destroy in order to claim the Grand Star it has in its top.
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2: The Megahammer is an enormous robot whose arms are shaped like hammers; Bowser Jr. challenges Mario with it in a battle for the Grand Star of World 3, and obviously loses. There's also Digga-Leg, a smaller version of Megaleg fought in Spin-Dig Galaxy which only guards a regular Power Star.
  • Super Mario Odyssey: Mechawiggler is a large robotic specimen of Wiggler which is terrorizing New Donk City and its people, and is capable of attacking with energy spheres as well as warping from one spot to another with portals.
• The boss Fernus from Teslagrad is a mechanical dragon (it looks a lot like the Truckasaurus, actually) that lairs in the bottom of the Tower. It has the requisite fire breath, and has magnetic powers.

• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: The Mechon are all walking machines of death and mayhem, but they couldn't be called monsters, at least not individually. The faced Mechon, however, are the ones who could be called monsters, but they aren't really machines.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles X has various large, mechanoid Tyrants across the continent of Cauldros. Among them is Leva'el the Terminus, a Superboss that only appears in the Playable Epilogue.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius has a lot, including a great many built by the Heterodyne family. When the Mechanical Monsters are not available, the Heterodynes fall back on their good old-fashioned biological monsters.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Molly builds one, seemingly just for fun.

Web Original

• In Mortasheen, the genocidal villain civilization of Wreathe has nine of these called Celestial Engines, all of them named and themed after planets, as well as the model for all Wreathe's Mecha-Mooks.

Western Animation

• Challenge of the GoBots: The Renegades use Mechanical Monsters called Zods. Cy-Kill's Evil Plan in the Five-Episode Pilot is to obtain the means to build an entire army of the suckers; he succeeds, but they all get blown up by a Chekhov's Bomb introduced earlier. The Renegades continue to use Zods after this, but more sparingly. They also have one called Scales, who can transform into a racecar, but he only appears rarely.
• Samurai Jack, due to the nature of the setting and the former rating, has a lot of those. The fused assassin droids in Samurai vs Samurai really stand out in that regard.
• Star Wars: Droids features one of these in the form of the villainous Great Heep, which eats other droids to refuel and maintains a droid harem. Later on, he is revealed as a member of the Abominor, an entire species of these creatures from outside the main galaxy. They were at war with the Silentium (who are made up of Alien Geometries), which is implied to be the reason for the Yuzhaan Vong leaving that galaxy.
• Transformers has several, including the Terrorcon combiner team, the Monsterbots, the Fuzors and Trypticon.
  • The draconic Predacons of Transformers: Prime are particularly intimidating in appearance, and possess strength and durability that most normal Autobots and Decepticons couldn't dream of matching. Like Cy-Kill above, Megatron planned to mass-produce his beasts, but he scrapped this plan immediately upon finding out that the Predacons were not the simple creatures he had initially thought them to be.
  • The 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon has nearly all its Decepticons sport beastly robot modes that evoke this. The main antagonist, Steeljaw, resembles a large robot werewolf.

Real Life

• TRUCKASAURUS! A pseud-dinosauroid monster made out of car parts.◊

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