Moove out of the way.
A video game character has the ability to pick up his enemies and toss them as an attack towards other stuff. Common in Action and Platformer games. It can take various forms, such as the standard grab and throw or it can be a kick or other method of launching foes away.
This can be a tactic to fight bosses, particularly those who summons mooks to aid them. Some game puzzles may provide you with mooks for you to use as bombs to destroy objects or walls if they are Action Bombs. The mooks in both cases here are often Respawning Enemies, because if they don't respawn it would render the boss a Marathon Boss, a puzzle a tedious one, or make it Unwinnable at worst.
Having a Grapple Move is often obligatory (you can't throw what you can't grab), although some other ways of launching an enemy towards things can exist. Sister trope of Boss-Arena Idiocy. Compare Tennis Boss for when the boss's attacks can be thrown back at it. Also compare Equippable Ally, where it's your friends you're throwing around. For boss fights especially, this can make them a Tactical Suicide Boss, or (depending on how much doing this inconvenienced the boss) it may not.
Has nothing to do with Throw the Book at Them. See also Grievous Harm with a Body and Fastball Special.
Examples
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Action Adventure
- Early on in the final boss battle of Beyond Good & Evil, you can launch the mooks that are disguised as P'jey at it.
- EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Zophy and Power King are strong enough to grab any enemy in front of them and throw or kick them into their comrades.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Diababa is regularly invincible to anything Link does to it when in its final phase. However, Ook swings in during the action of the boss fight for you to blow Bomblings into its face. Justified in that it has no control over the Bomblings being present, and that Ook provides them in a way that benefits you.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, large mooks such as Moblins or Hinoxes/Stalnoxes can do this to smaller mooks like Lizalfos or Bokoblins. Moblins will do it if they lack a regular weapon, whereas Hinoxes/Stalnoxes will do this regularly because they lack regular weapons. Video Game Dunkey has a great clip of it.
Action Game
- In Broforce, the player can throw small and medium-sized enemies at other enemies, dead or alive. Thrown enemies kill smaller enemies instantly, along with themselves.
- Devil May Cry 4: When the Devil Buster grab is used, animations of almost all lesser demons cause some bonus damage to nearby enemies while the main "victim" is getting smashed into the pavement by Nero, but the most noteworthy are Gladii* - flying lizard swords, being forced into their sword form and tossed point-first at some other demon, dealing heavy damage to both. Frosts and Assaults are used like living cudgels for a while, thrown across the place.
- Mission 6 has The Containment Room. The "boss" is just thick glass which separates you and Agnus, and arena is flooded with Gladii. You can go ahead and attack the glass itself, but you will do very little damage. The trick here is grab the critters with Buster and aim at the glass to throw them there.
- You fight Agnus more directly at the end of Mission 9. While not the main gimmick of the fight this time around, he does still summon Gladii, and they can still be thrown at him for a good bit of damage.
- In the Special Edition, Trish, Vergil and Lady lack a dedicated grapple move like Nero's Buster. Mechanically, this suggests they would have a harder time dealing with the Gladii, but the game adjusts the rules a bit to let them send Gladii hurtling into other enemies by simply attacking the Gladii that are impaled into the scenery or performing an attack. Poor Dante is unfortunately left out.
- In God of War, some Mooks can be thrown to other Mooks for massive damage when you use your Grapple Move against them, Kratos will automatically aim at the closest other Mook in front of him, with the "targeting reticule" being a Pillar of Light.
- The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer has a special move performed in tandem with Mr. Incredible and Frozone, being controlled by two players (or one with an AI). The Frozone player will freeze an enemy robot, and the Mr. Incredible player will grab the frozen enemy and throw it at another. Usually done to inflict damage on bosses.
- No More Heroes' Bad Girl has an attack sequence where she launches gimps at you with her baseball bat. Usually, it's easy enough to just avoid them, but with a well-timed sword swing, Travis can send them flying back at her.
- Silhouette Mirage: Enemies in this game display either of the two attributes, Silhouette and Mirage. Silhouette-attribute energy is harmful to Mirage enemies and vice versa.
- You fight Delia, a Mirage boss, in a room where the two are out of reach of each other. The only thing he does is fill his mana meter by inhaling the Mirage soup in the huge pot and use a long-range special attack. And the only way to damage him is to poison the soup by chucking Silhouette cooks into the soup.
- Gargantuan gathers energy by absorbing same-attribute matter from the outside. If it absorbs matter with different attributes, it will take damage and change its attribute. The player character wonders where to find the "matter", but as soon as the battle begins, mooks of both attributes start appearing...
- Geluve has the ability to possess mooks and use them as her "arms". The only way to do damage to her is to blast her arms. The game has a Game-Breaking Bug in which she will not summon new mooks.
- Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy allows you to grab and throw enemies at each other for inflicting extra damage, whether you're piloting a robot or you're on foot. You're just that strong.
- Wild 9 has Man Eating Plants in the Quagmire level in the background, which cannot be harmed by Wex's electrical whip. The solution? Control the whip to ensnare enemy mooks, throw those mooks to be chomped by the plants, which will spend several minutes gobbling down the mook allowing Wex to run past them.
Action RPG
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War: The Olog-hai war trolls have the ability to pick up grunt orcs and chuck them at enemies.
- Solatorobo: The main gameplay mechanic is to damage enemies by hurling them into each other.
- The giant shade spawns mooks that are easily stunned and thrown back.
- When fighting the sacred bird boss, it will fly out of reach laying eggs, which can be thrown at it once it comes back down.
Beat 'em Up
- Fairy Bloom series: Doing this is one way of making the Combos counter increase.
- Fairy Bloom: Enemies can be kicked into other enemies.
- Fairy Bloom Freesia: Enemies can be melee-d into other enemies, but magical attacks can do it too.
- The SNES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time features a boss battle like this, against Shredder, at the end of the Technodrome level. Shredder sits safely in the cockpit of a crab cannon in the foreground, where the turtles can't reach him. So they chuck his own soldiers at him into the foreground, literally reducing them to cannon fodder.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge has a Mythology Gag to Turtles in Time with the boss Chrome Dome, who's normally completely invincible until he jumps into the foreground. You can then use the exact same foreground throw from Turtles in Time to throw the mooks into him, which causes him to short circuit in the middle of the arena and become vulnerable to damage.
- The Super Nintendo game The Ninja Warriors Again had the Final Boss behind glass like the Turtles in Time Shredder Boss, except in the background rather than the foreground. The outer shell was impervious to attacks aside from mook tosses.
Eastern RPG
- Recettear features several bosses that end up having mooks as their main downfall. Volcanicrab will literally take no damage from any of your attacks initially. Bomb mooks appear eventually, however, which can flip him over to strike his underside for massive damage.
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door features a mini-Yoshi who can eat enemies and spit them at other enemies. At one point in Chapter 3, there are two enemies who have to be defeated to proceed, and who can only be hurt by hitting them with each other.
Fighting Game
- Frank West in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 can misdirect and toss Zombies that are attacking him to instead go after his opponent. Jill Valentine in her MvC2 incarnation also did this to a degree, but she primarily just dodged zombies coming her way rather than throw them.
- Guilty Gear -STRIVE-: Jack-O's new moveset heavily involves tossing and kicking around her Servants to launch them at her opponent.
- King Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Brawl inverts this by throwing his own minions at enemies. He can throw Waddle Dees as a projectile with his Side+Special, or occasionally a Waddle Doo, and more rarely throwing a highly-damaging Gordo. This was simplified in the fourth game, where he exclusively throws Gordos.
- One of the items in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is a throwable Sackbot, which can then run through the stage latching onto enemies as a means of slowing them down.
First-Person Shooter
- In Dino D-Day, the Dilophosaurus can do this with goats and downed enemies.
MMORPG
- Very common in World of Warcraft. For example, Tortos, a giant turtle, uses a powerful breath attack every once in a while, which can only be interrupted by killing smaller turtles and then kicking their shells into the boss.
- In Toontown Online, this is done in the main C.F.O. round, where you use a crane on Goons and safes to hurt the boss. Sometimes, this is more frustrating as the C.F.O. might wear the safes to protect himself.
MOBA
- Dota 2: All of the following abilities have common denominators in that they affect player-controlled Heroes (which may or may not count as mooks in reader's eyes), can be just as well used with allies and that Friendly Fireproof is in full effect, at worst interrupting that ally's actions for a short while. In practice they're used on enemies most of the time anyway, it's simply safer to mess around with enemies. Unless you know exactly what you're doing — calculate that the comparative power of both teams in the fight is skewed in your favor, your teammate can survive being in the thick of the fight and will be appreciative of the lift, etc. — or have other plans, it's better to abstain from tossing your teammates around.
- Earth Spirit's "Boulder Smash" is more potent when used with his Earth Remnants, but when the target is an unit then they'll be punched away a fair distance while taking damage and damaging other enemies in their path.
- The main part of Rubick's "Telekinesis" is holding up an enemy in the air for a couple of precious seconds while they flail helplessly, but when this effect ends, Rubick throws them with massive force into the ground, stunning (and, with an appropriate talent, damaging) any other enemies in vicinity.
- Tiny's "Toss" ability has him grab the nearest unit and throw it at the select target. If the target for Toss turns out to be one to be tossed themselves then they'll just be tossed in place. Infamous for its griefing potential, which is euphemistically nicknamed "Tiny Airlines".
- Heroes of Newerth:
- Kinesis' Telekinetic Control lifts nearby creeps or trees to toss them at enemies.
- King Klout can throw one of his goblin minions at enemies and has a chance to gain enhanced goblins. Blue goblins just deal damage, red goblins add an AoE DoT/slow, and green goblins have the red goblin's effects but also bounces twice.
- Syndra from League of Legends can use her Force of Will ability to pick up minions and throw them back at enemy champions.
Platform Game
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario Bros. 2 has grabbing and throwing things at enemies as a core mechanic. If you don't have vegetables, mushroom blocks or eggs, you can always employ mooks at other mooks (note that some of them, like Pansers and Porcupos, cannot be grabbed). If you're lucky, the defeated mooks can also hit other mooks as they fall away from the screen, creating a nice combo.
- In Super Mario World, you can pick up and throw Galoombas, Mechakoopas, Bob-Ombs, Buzzy Beetles and previously-emptied Koopa Troopa shellsnote at any other regular Mook to kill them. Notably, the only way to hurt Bowser in the final battle is to kick the Mechakoopas he sends out up so they land on his head. Up until the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023, this was the only game in the Mario series where enemies and objects could be thrown upward (allowing you to defeat the high-placed Lakitu whenever it is pestering you), to the point that Super Mario Maker and Super Mario Maker 2 restricted this technique to the Super Mario World style.
- Super Mario 64 DS has only Yoshi as a playable character at the start. As such, he cannot punch enemies, but he can swallow them to stock up on eggs to throw. Neither Big Bob-omb nor Goomboss could be beaten if they did not have their respective mooks to fuel Yoshi for eggs. If anyone other than Yoshi fights Goomboss, the fight will be slightly different in that you have to punch Goombas into Goomboss in order to hurt him.
- Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 feature the Bouldergeist, a ghost that encases itself within stone. Normally it would be invincible to Mario's attacks. However, during the fight it will occasionally throw a black rock at Mario, which will become a Bomb Boo, which in turn Mario can use against the Bouldergeist to break apart his stone casing. When it reaches its vulnerable phase, guess what it still intentionally spawns? Kamella (in the first game) is similarly defeated by Koopa shells, and King Lakitu (second game) throws Spinies that can be spit at him with Yoshi.
- Super Mario Maker 2 introduces the Goombud, a relative of Galoomba that can accordingly be seized and thrown at other enemies or certain objects, but turns back when reaching a ledge (similar to Goombrats). A post-release update also adds a powerup (modeled after the mushrooms from Super Mario Bros. 2) that allows Mario and his friends to grab and throw enemies, though it's exclusive to the style of the first Super Mario Bros.
- In the Yoshi's Island series, enemies can be grabbed with Yoshi's tongue and then spit our or eaten to make eggs, which can then be thrown (thus mixing this trope with Edible Ammunition).
- Wario World: The Angler Mangler miniboss is completely invulnerable save for its lure, which dangles out of reach. The trick is to wait for it to summon a Barrel Buster mook, stun it, and do a Spinning Piledriver under the lure, which sends it flying up, hitting the lure.
- Super Princess Peach: Scooping up enemies and throwing them are just another tactic for Peach to use to defeat enemies. Doing this is actually required in the final boss battle.
- Grapple Force Rena: Rena's grappler allows her the ability to pick up enemies and throw them at other enemies.
- The eponymous protagonist of the Kirby series can inhale an enemy and spit it to another (when he doesn't copy that enemy). The games also frequently feature bosses that spawn mooks for the player to hurl back at them using Kirby's default powers, most notably Kracko. Some of the games where Kirby steals enemies' abilities use a variant in which some bosses that spawn enemies with especially suitable powers. However, there are plenty of subversions featuring bosses who spawn mooks that give the player useless powers like Sleep or powers that are utterly ineffective in that particular battle.
- In Mega Man 7's Wily Stages, one method for defeating the turtle tank boss involves using the Danger Wrap weapon to bounce its mini-turtle mooks into its beak for massive damage. However, most players find it more practical to defeat the boss more conventionally.
- Mega Man ZX Advent: A partial example - Hedgeshock can summon robot mouse flunkies. She can normally be hurt by anything, but there's an achievement for using nothing but the mouse flunkies to hurt her - by knocking them at her with the right powerup.
- The fan game Mushroom Kingdom Fusion occasionally offers variants of its source games' bosses who veer into this, such as a version of Mouser who tosses Bob-omb enemies or a variant of King Totomesu with lots of hit points and an unusual vulnerability to the exploding Koopa variants that spawn endlessly during the battle.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- During the battle with Chaos 6 in Sonic Adventure, you have to throw Chaos' freezy-things back at him: He's only vulnerable when frozen.
- In Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the Enerbeam facilitates this function, and you will be using it a lot, whether to jam up the Driller Worm's maw, repel the Guardian at the Ocean Purification Plant, knock the Egg Walker to the ground, or even when facing Lyric himself. This last one's optional, though, and isn't quite as effective at damaging Lyric or the mook.
- Murray in Sly Cooper can pick up unconscious or juggled guards and throw them at their unlucky companions.
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: Certain enemies can be stunned after being hit, and then grabbed to be thrown at other enemies. This is further exploited in the Final Boss fight, as Lord Fredrik spends part of the final battle against him as a Background Boss. He sends his minions to attack you, but you can toss them back at him, prompting him to jump into the foreground for a proper battle.
- Enemies in Pizza Tower can be grabbed and thrown at other enemies and objects.
- Claw: If you get close, you can make Claw pick up enemies, lifting them above his head and listen to their protests before charging up a throw to toss them at someone else. Fairly unpractical because of how vulnerable it makes the player character and high risk of losing treasure to bottomless pits, but still interesting at least for the novelty.
Puzzle Game
- Mischief Makers: Your only attack is throwing. A bit different in that instead of throwing mooks at the boss... You just chuck the boss, the boss's weapons, its projectiles or its own FISTS at it . The Climax Boss has you throw nice phrases at it for some reason. You have to find the right ones, shake em to turn em nice, and chuck it.
Roguelike
- In Dead Cells, Yeeters (Yes, that is their actual name) can call a nearby smaller Jerkshroom to their side and throw them at the player.
- Metallic Child: One mechanic you can utilize in the game is grabbing enemies and throwing them at walls, into others, even at other enemies.
- The Gravihook from The Persistence lets you to telekinetically pick up enemies and launch them at others.
- Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate: The "King's Shoulders" Black card allows the Black King to (once per floor) pick up an non-King enemy and throw them at another. Both thrown enemy and target will take 3 damage unless they're Iron Maiden Queens, which can still be taken care of by throwing them off the board.
- ''Spelunky: Stunned or dead enemies of reasonable size can be picked up and thrown just as well as any other throwable. Only those hit by the tossed enemy take damage, not the one thrown, so taking care of a pair of, for example, cavemen entails changing which one you throw at which.
Shoot Em Ups
- Boogie Wings have you piloting a biplane with an underbelly grappling hook (called the "skyhook") which allows you to snatch onscreen enemies, including tanks and other aircrafts as large as your own, and fling them into each other. It works even on bosses, dealing severe damage, with a notable instance having you grab Satan Claus' severed head and flinging it onto his body.
- Space Bomber has a special move granted to players where instead of bombs, players can release a long node capturing a nearby mook (it works even on Giant Mook-variety enemies, if they're damaged enough) and by hitting the "release" button, send the mook as an improvised Action Bomb. It works really well in the boss battles, since most of the bosses are flanked by lower-tier mooks.
Stealth-Based Game
- In Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
- Puzzle mission 1 has you situated on a floating platform with several small "domino" platforms lined up in front and facing you, there are mooks on each platform. The objective is to throw a grenade to the frontmost Mook soldier in order to send hi flying backwards, hitting the soldier behind him and so on like dominoes. Failing to chain them correctly renders the mission Unwinnable and you have to restart.
- Puzzle mission 2 involves you having to play "domino" by pushing a Mook soldier off a VR ledge in order to kill the two Mooks below him who in turn fall onto another pair of mooks and so on until they're all dead. Note that failing to chain the domino effect makes the mission Unwinnable and you have to restart.
Roleplay
- Subverted in Destroy the Godmodder. Usually this kind of thing works on the godmodder at least once. It's still useful, but not in the way you'd expect. If there's a tough enemy that just won't take damage, throw him at the godmodder and he takes tons of damage.
Wide-Open Sandbox
- Destroy All Humans! has the player in the role of a warmongering psychic alien, so of course the game allows you to telekinetically grab hapless humans and chuck them wherever (including at other humans). With the right upgrades, even cars and tanks can be used as deadly projectiles.
- In The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, grabbing vehicles like jeeps and helicopters and throwing them is an essential tactic in most boss battles, since bosses tend to be immune to regular attacks and are too dangerous to sit still long enough for a charged attack.
Other Works
