Slimes (Dragon Quest)

'''"Thou hast done well in defeating the Slime."

- Textbox speech when defeating a Slime in Dragon Warrior I ''' Slimes are the most recurrent and notorious enemies in the Dragon Quest series of role-playing videogames, appearing in all of the main games and spin-offs. They are, not surprisingly, the mascots of the franchise.

Varieties
Slimes come in different colors, shapes and even places in hierarchy. The common and most representative Slime is blue and shaped like a gumdrop. Other notable slimes include She-Slimes, which are red and a tad stronger; Bubble slimes, which are green, bubbly and have a slimy, melted complexion; and King slimes, large, crowned, blue slimes. There are other less common varieties like the Mottled Slimes, which appear in the Dream World; the Sea Slimes, that can be found when navigating oceans; and Dark Slimes, that make their residence in the Dark World.

Usually, regular blue Slimes are usually among the weakest enemies, albeit to Goombas from Super Mario Bros or Metalls in Megaman games, but there are stronger types of slimes that make formidable foes and even bosses, like the Shogum.

Slime Stacks and King Slimes are formed when 3 or 8 slimes, respectively, merge together. The monster called Canzar is the largest Slime so far, rivaling the Liquid Metal King Slime and the Metal Star Slime.

Metal slimes
There is a certain kind of slime, the Metal Slimes and all of their varieties (except for Metal Slime Knight), that are known for the massive amount of experience they give out when defeated; but their defense and evasion parameters are ridiculously high AND they tend to run away very easily, they make up for this by having really low HP. The stronger the metal slime family member is, the more experience it gives out. Experienced players are on the lookout for these and use attacks like Parallax to finish them in one hit. Slimes with an analogical feature are Gem slimes and Gem jamborees, instead of large amounts of experience, they give out large amounts of gold. A giant Liquid Metal King Slime appears in Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 Professional. It is a 3-space monster that floats.

Non-evil slimes
Finally, there are slimes who are good natured and act as non-playable characters, party members and even protagonists of their own games (namely the Slime Morimori / Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime series). When this is the case, they normally fight their rivals, the evil Platypunks, which is another Dragon Quest monster species.