Casting A Shadow / Video Games

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Casting a Shadow in Video Games.

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• Aragami: The titular character makes great use of sciakinesis, allowing the player to teleport to other shadows, become invisible in the shade, and create dragons out of shadows.
• Arcana Heart: Both Lieselotte Achenbach's and Yoriko Yasuzumi's default arcana's, Gier and Dieu Mort, deal with Darkness element powers.
• Battlerite: Most of Ruh Kaan's abilities have a shadow theme. Highlights include the long-ranged, high damage Shadowbolt, the enemy-pulling Claw of the Wicked, and the Ultimate Shadow Beast, where Ruh Kaan makes himself a giant body of shadows that enhances his attacks.

• BlazBlue: The elemental affinity of the main protagonist, Ragna the Bloodedge, is the Azure Grimoire, which allows him to wreath his limbs in pieces of the Black Beast, creating masses of darkness that cause concussive damage as well as drain souls to recover health. This is also the case for Hazama, who is a living Grimoire, as most of his non-chain snake attacks seem to be surrounded with dark energy. Yuuki Terumi has the same abilities as Hazama (though with the added effect of stealing Heat from his enemies, and Susano'o utilizes dark energy as well. Beyond this, there are also Kagura Mutsuki, who can generate shadowy fire and electricity, and Hibiki Kohaku, who can extend his shadow, create clones from shadow, and vanish into a fog of shadowy ravens.
• Boktai has Hell-type magic to go along with Sol and Luna, and naturally it's aligned with The Immortals and their undead servants. The only subversions are Sabata who still uses it after his Heel–Face Turn, Django when he gains the ability to become a vampire, and Red Durathor who uses Sol-based attacks because she is a plant-type Immortal (and naturally, you have to face her as a vampire).

• Chrono Trigger: The Shadow Element.
  • Magus' exclusive spell line (starting with Shadow Bomb).
  • While Robo can't use magic for the simple fact that he's a robot, his Beam Spin attack counts as Shadow-elemental.
  • Combining any two elements (Light/Lightning, Fire and Water/Ice) also results in a Shadow-element attack. The most powerful magical triple techs, such as Delta Storm and Delta Force, fall under this as well.
• City of Heroes has 'Darkness' as a stock elemental damage type and a very common powerset. Its flavour text mainly involves 'drawing power from the Netherworld' and draining souls and such, but it's equally available and used by heroes as well as villains. In game mechanics, Dark sets actually tend to be along the lines of Combo Platter Powers, but are very powerful when used right.
• In Crystalline Shadow is the fifth elemental magic after the classical four, focusing on concealment and emotional manipulation (in addition to direct attacks, which all elements in the setting can do). It was once a perfectly acceptable field of magical study but a cult called VOID tried to use Shadow magic to Take Over the World. By the time of the game, a few decades after VOID was defeated, Shadow magic has been made illegal.
• Jackie Estacado from the video game adaptation of the aforementioned The Darkness. Despite being a nice guy (erm, insofar as an enforcer for the Mafia can be considered "nice"; he's pretty cuddly compared to his boss), his powers include his ability to form a shield of darkness and somehow breathe in darkness to replenish his health, his ability to summon Darklings, his use of Combat Tentacles of darkness, and even imploding a small piece of darkness to create a freaking black hole! To top it off, light — any light — will weaken his powers, but a solar eclipse will supercharge them.
• Dark Souls has Abyss Sorcery, introduced in the Artorias of the Abyss DLC. It draws directly on the power of the Dark Soul and fires magic blasts of perfect blackness that deal physical damage as well as magic damage, unique among the game's magic attacks. You can learn some of the basic spells yourself, though Manus, its creator, uses several far more powerful spells that cannot be learned.
• Abyss Sorcery returns in Dark Souls II though they are called Hexes now. Instead of dealing physical+magic damage, they deal Dark elemental damage. Hexes require a hefty investment in Faith and Intelligence, and certain Hexes can only be cast with sorcery catalysts or chimes. The more powerful Hexes also consume souls when cast. Despite these drawbacks, Hexes are for the most part the most powerful spells in the game.
• The Denpa Men has Dark-type Denpa Men in the second game onwards. In keeping with the Denpa Men being Color-Coded for Your Convenience, they're purple (since black was already taken by the Non-Elemental Denpa Men). They're the rarest of the nine regular Denpa Man types. They have high resistance to both Dark- and Light-type attacks (where most Denpa Men are only resistant to their own type), but are slightly weak to all the other elements. Dark-type attacks aren't super effective against anything, but only Dark-type enemies have any resistance to them.
• In Dishonored 2, the Promoted to Playable Empress Emily Kaldwin gains the ability known as "Shadow Walk," which contrary to its name is not an example of Shadow Walker, but rather transforms her into a shadowy form to sneak around stealthily along the ground or through mouseholes.
• In the Doom Game Mod Tyrant, some areas are decorated with magical torches of gray flames, which cast a cone of shadow.
• Dragon Age: Blight magic is apparently powered by darkness. In the novel The Last Flight a character sees the Archdemon casting a Blight-powered spell and notes that it's a vortex "of darkness both spiritual and physical".
• Dragon Quest:
  • In Dragon Quest VIII, Angelo, despite being otherwise very much The Paladin, can learn the Whack series of One-Hit Kill spells. Instant death spells usually fall under the domain of priests and clerics in the series.
  • The "Zam" family of spells was introduced in Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and eventually made its way to the main series in IX. It manifests in the form of dark lightning and appears to be a counterpart to the "Zap" family of spells usually only learnable by the main heroes of the series.
  • This is one of the first abilities learned by the Sage class in Dragon Quest IX. The other class of magic they learn is from the Bang element..
• Dragon's Dogma has a Mystic Knight class which has a few elemental skills revolving around imbuing your shield or weapon, including a few dark-related spells: Abyssal (Riposte/Trance) temporarily enchant your shield and weapon, respectively; Demonswrath converts blocked damage into dark, shadowy bolts to be cast at enemies; Abyssal Anguish sets an aura around your weapon which adds extra hits and range to each melee attack.
• In Epiphany City, Mischief, his father, and their minions all have shadow-based powers, given from the Dark Tree.
• Some of Exit Fate's dark-elemental characters play this trope straight, while others subvert it. They fit the character requirements, but only some of them are evil. The playable Dark-elemental characters include: among others, a Necromancer, a mercenary, a goth, a skeleton, a Mad Scientist, reclusive or enigmatic mages, a vampire, a gangster, a Ninja, a Knight in Sour Armor Atoner, and a...something. The dark status effects are poison and chaos.
• Fall from Heaven has Shadow Magic, combining elements of 2 and 3.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Gravity-elemental spells usually manifest as spells of darkness, appearing as orbs and/or vortexes of shadowy energy. The Gravity summon Diabolos is also a Big Red Devil that is sometimes fought in a dark, shadowy alternate dimension.
  • Outside of gravity-based moves, the Dark-elemental abilities you're likely to see frequently are Shadow Flare and the Dark Knight's Dark Wave/Darkside attack, which sacrifices HP to deal damage.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, Ark is the dark summon, a Transforming Mecha that deals heavy shadow-elemental damage. Vivi also has Doomsday, a Meteor-Summoning Attack that deals shadow damage.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, one of Bahamut's attacks is Umbral Vise, which has him gather orbs of dark energy in his hands and slam them together to create a burst of darkness. Like the rest of Bahamut's abilities, it deals Non-Elemental damage despite looking like an elemental attack.
  • The Ivalice titles work Dark into the standard Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors set-up:
    • Final Fantasy XII is the first game to give the dark element proper Spell Levels under Arcane Magic. Zodiark is the dark-elemental Esper, with Banishing Ray as a standard attack and Darkja as his Desperation Attack, though his Limit Break when summoned is a Non-Elemental Fixed Damage Attack.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance mostly has the player deal dark damage with weapons. The only dark-elemental spells are the Blue Mage's Level ? S-Flare and the Elementalist's Evil Gaze.
    • While Final Fantasy Tactics A2 brings the Dark spell line back, it's only as enemy abilities wielded by ghostly undead. Arcanists, now one of many classes that can wield the powers of darkness, instead use Level 3 Dark and Level ? Shadowflare. Tactics A2 also has Zalera as the dark-elemental Scion, who inflicts status effects in addition to dark damage.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The Shaman/Druid and Dark Mage/Sorcerer classes, whose arcane sorcery resemble shadows leaping from the ground or flames of dark energy.
  • Despite the fact that dark magic is usually used by villains, this series is big on Dark Is Not Evil portrayals as well:
    • Canas from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the current trope image, seems to have been deliberately designed to subvert the typical personality attributes by being a genuinely good person who studies elder magic out of scholarly passion rather than wishing harm to others.
    • Despite being the villain, Lyon and his royal mages (including Knoll) from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones practiced dark magic in order to help Grado citizens and show that the magic feared by many can have good uses.
    • Pelleas from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn gained enhanced magical abilities by allowing his soul to be possessed by spirits, but only wants to be a good ruler worthy of his people.
    • Fire Emblem: Awakening is a bit more black and white, at least on the surface; not only is the Big Bad a powerful Sorcerer, but of the two playable Dark Mages, Tharja is a Yandere with a marked cruel streak and Henry is a rather unhinged Stepford Smiler. That said, both Tharja and Henry are capable of genuine kindness (the latter in particular is quite sweet to his friends), even if Tharja's heart is hidden under multiple layers of genuine cruelty.
    • In Fire Emblem Fates, all of the playable Dark Mages are genuinely good people, although one is The Atoner (for reasons stated below).
  • The series as a whole associates dark magic as being extraordinarily powerful, which is what makes it so dangerous. Dark magic is depicted as being able to allow people to communicate with the dead, absorb life energy, negate attacks entirely, or just outright Fantastic Nuke people. Because it's so powerful, it seems that those with weak hearts become corrupted by it (something that's actually a major plot point in The Blazing Blade). The side-effects of failing to control the darkness range from becoming an Empty Shell to a full-on Face–Heel Turn. On the other hand, those with strong wills are capable of maintaining their sense of self — but it takes a great deal of self-control.
• Jak II: Renegade: Dark Jak can funnel Dark Eco through his body as a result of two years worth of experiments that pumped it directly into him. The Dark Eco takes the form of lightning, and all of his powers are somewhat electricity based with a purple hue.
• Kingdom Hearts: Darkness and the powers derived from it are central to the universe. The Big Bad Xehanort and his various incarnations mostly utilize darkness as their magic of choice (except for Xemnas). The Heartless are Made of Darkness and thus of course use it in many of their attacks. But though many villains utilize it, the heroes agree that Dark Is Not Always Evil; past deuteragonist Terra and present deuteragonist Riku have the ability to use dark attacks like Dark Firaga, Dark Aura and Dark Volley, to name a few. Riku, in fact, is the only Keyblade wielder thus far who has managed to completely tame the darkness (since Xehanort is, after all, evil).
• Legend of Dragoon: Rose is the Dark-elemental dragoon and the black monster. Of course there are also Darkness-elemental spells that can be purchased and are most effective against light-elemental monsters (which, unfortunately, are not very common).
• The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: Shadow is one of Cynder's elemental powers, and manifests in two ways: she can breathe out a stream of flame-like darkness against her foes, stunning them, and dive into her own shadow to cross certain gates and to deliver sudden rising attacks to groups of enemies.
• The Legend of Zelda.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: In the final phase of the fight against Ganon, he uses a "secret technique of darkness" to make himself invisible and darken the room.
  • Starting in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Shadow has been associated with Impa and the Sheikah, a secretive Ninja tribe dedicated to protecting the royalty of Hyrule and whose home, Kakariko Village, has a Shadow Temple that once functioned as both a crypt and a torture chamber.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Midna, being a Twili and the true rule of the Twilight Realm, is capable of literally hiding within Link's shadow when he's in his standard Hylian form. She can also use her powers to teleport herself and Link to Twilight Portals, a process that begins with them turning into shadowy particles.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Darkness is featured as one of the main weapon elements, which features the effect of raising a warrior's power when focusing attacks a single enemy. It's the to-go element for most of the playable villains such as Ganondorf, Girahim, Zant, Cia and Wizzro, but also used by the hero Midna in both of her forms, Young Link with his Fierce Deity Mask, and even Princess Zelda can wield darkness with her Dominion Rod weapon. Furthermore, many of the Level 4+ weapons feature darkness as their secondary element, including Link's Darkmagic Sword or Darunia's Darkfire Hammer.
• LiEat: Brett can manipulate shadows, pulling them out of the ground as jagged dark shapes and using them to hold swords and attack. He can also use shadows as a Hammerspace and use them to teleport.
• Little Nightmares: The Lady can blend in amongst shadows, disappear and reappear in a puff of black smoke, cast entire rooms into complete darkness, and turn shadows into malevolent faux children able to suck the life from any living thing they come in contact with. She's also implied to be able to suck the souls out of anyone via a dark mist.
• The Logomancer: From the description for Malebaldur's shadow: "Malebaldur's more esoteric spells allow him to draw strength from his own shadow."

• Mega Man X: Dark Necrobat/Dark Dizzy from X5 and Dark Mantis from X8''. The former uses darkness to stop time, the latter's a ninja who incorporates dark energy into his attacks. Naturally, both of them are weak to light-elemental attacks.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes:
  • The Dark Beam is a shot of dark energy which, when charged, freezes things.
  • The Ing are a weird subversion. Aside from their attempted Demonic Possession attacks, their only energy-based attacks (or at least the only ones you have to deal with) are light beams.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter (2004): There's a unique elemental attribute called Dragon which, similar to Fire, Water and Thunder^note Ice wasn't present until the second generation, can be inflicted by some of the hunter's weapons onto monsters that are particularly weak against it; Dragon is effective against the likes of Rathian, Rathalos (not anymore in games past the second generation), and most notably Elder Dragons. This element manifests like a dark energy colored red and black (though the icon representing it is colored dark purple), and is known to weaken the victim's attack power (the exact way it does so varies depending on the game, though in the earlier games as well as Portable 3rd it simply deals extra damage). Interestingly, in the very first game only two monsters are known to have this same dark energy: Lao-Shan Lung and Fatalis. And the former only has it stored in its body and doesn't use it in combat, so it's more of an Informed Ability in its case (this also applies to its Ashen subspecies, introduced in Monster Hunter G).
  • Monster Hunter 2 (dos): Chameleos, Teostra and Kushala Daora are known to have Dragon energy stored in their bodies, but only the latter one uses it explicitly during combat, as it allows it to empower its physical blows; this combined with the monster's exceptional control of wind, makes it a formidable opponent. For Teostra and Chameleos, the Dragon element plays a more implicit role, as it's what's strengthening their physical attacks and the game uses the player's Dragon Element defense to calculate how much damage those physical attacks is inflicted to the player. For all three monsters, due to them being Elder Dragons, this same element is also their weakness and, in the second-generation games, some of their parts will only break when you inflict enough damage with the Dragon element to them (and in Monster Hunter: World, this is also how their aura abilities can be nullified or at least reduced).
  • Monster Hunter Freedom 2: While described as a Playing with Fire monster due to its volcanic habitat and the ability to create eruptions around it with its roar, Akantor's strongest attack is a Dragon-powered torrent of wind it exhales after positioning itself away from the hunter.
  • Monster Hunter 3 (Tri):
    • Deviljho is an enormous Brute Wyvern that looks similar to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. When it gets angry, its blood begins boiling (which is reflected in several parts of its skin glowing red) and proceeds to expel a wide Dragon-elemental breath that reduces the victim's attack affinity, which leads to a lower chance of giving critical damage (or even the side effect of inflicting less damage if their attacks had no affinity to begin with); from 3 Ultimate onwards, this breath nullifies elemental powers instead, as do all other Dragonblight-inflicting attacks. 3 Ultimate itself also introduces Savage Deviljho, a variant that is permanently enraged and can expel its breath anytime, but also has an additional rage mode that makes the breath stronger and wider.
    • Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate introduces Stygian Zinogre, a subspecies of Zinogre which trades the Shock and Awe attributes of its cousin for Dragon-powered dark energy, thanks to its diet of Dracophage bugs. The energy balls it throws from its chest double as a Homing Projectile, hovering for a couple seconds before aiming at the hunter(s). A unique trait is that Stygian Zinogre is actually immune to the negative effects of the Dragon element, unlike the majority of monsters (including Deviljho and Elder Dragons) that have it but are also paradoxically weak against it.
  • Monster Hunter Generations:
    • Nakarkos is a cephalopod-like Elder Dragon that feeds on numerous monsters, allowing it to perform attacks based on various elements and special ailments. However, its most devastating attack is a Dragon-powered energy beam it shoots from the mouths of the skulls that hide its tentacles. When it's close to being defeated, it expels an even bigger version of this beam from its own mouth.
    • Generations Ultimate introduces Valstrax, an Elder Dragon that uses its Dragon energy to fly at sound speed. Said energy glows red-and-white instead of red-and-black, but it's still very powerful. During battle, it can shoot large beams from its wings, run over the hunter like a torpedo, and fly rapidly through the skies before performing a deadly dive bomb that causes a Dragon-powered explosion.
  • Monster Hunter: World Iceborne: Ebony Odogaron is a subspecies of Odogaron that is capable of inflicting Dragonblight from its breath, similar to Deviljho and its Savage variant (though it's obviously less powerful than either of those). It can also spit or vomit the flesh it recently ate from a previous prey, and said flesh will also be contaminated with the dragon element.
  • Monster Hunter: Rise:
    • Wind Serpent Ibushi is a slender, hovering Elder Dragon and the male partner of Thunder Serpent Narwa. He is predominantly a Blow You Away combatant, but is also capable of shooting blasts of draconic wind at its foes (including hunters), which not only can nullify the elemental powers of their attacks as usual for this dark element, but also generate an updraft that is powerful enough to launch the aforementioned foes away.
    • Crimson Glow Valstrax is a variant of Valstrax which, in a rare case of the Dragon element showcasing an unambiguous example of malice instead of merely an instinctive aggression, has been negatively influenced by it (the exact cause is due to the monster's inability to cope with the pain that is caused by the surplus amount of draconic energy) and now attacks any living being indiscriminately (be it a hunter, a weak or strong standard monster, or even another Elder Dragon like Amatsu in Sunbreak). Its attacks are also wider and more explosive than those of the standard Valstrax.
    • Malzeno, the flagship monster of the Sunbreak expansion, is an Elder Dragon that has control of the Qurio to use them in order to steal the life force of its victims. But it can also inflict damage by either exhaling draconic energy or shooting beams imbued with it, and can also use it in conjunction with the guidance of the Qurio to perform extremely fast motion similar to teleportation. A post-release update added Primordial Malzeno, a variant whose dragon attacks, upon reaching a Super Mode known as Bloodlust, are much stronger and include new moves like a spread of several projectiles that is followed by a explosion so powerful that the monster itself ends up briefly knocked down in the floor.
• Mortal Kombat: Noob Saibot can create a Living Shadow copy of himself.
• Octopath Traveler: Primrose and the Dancer class can deal dark-based damage with Moonlight Waltz and Night Ode.
• Odin Sphere: Oswald can harness the power of the Belderiver he wields to transform into a vicious shadow creature with greatly enhanced speed and power, at the cost of having his POW meter rapidly eaten away at as long as he's in that form (and in story terms, being slowly weakened until his soul is destroyed and he's turned into a ghostly Revenant if he uses it too much.) He's also constantly stalked by Halja because of his power, who are always waiting for him to let his guard down so they can kill him and drag him off to the Netherworld.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has the Shadow class of Plants, who use their dark powers to defend the lawn from the zombies. All of them gain new abilities when powered up by a Moonflower, including Moonflower. For example, the Shadow Peashooter uses dark-based abilities such as shadowy peas, slowing beams of darkness, using a black-hole like power to drag zombies into the ground, and even nukes zombies with a powerful darkness-based attack.
• Pokémon: Two types utilize this Trope, although the one you'd think that would utilize it is not among them:
  • Ghost-type Pokémon follow the "Shadow Element" form and several Ghost-type attacks, such as Shadow Punch, utilize "Hard Dark".
  • Shadow Attacks^note "Dark" Attacks in Japanese are anti-light versions of otherwise normal attacks. This is due to its nature as The Corruption.
  • Although some Dark-type attacks, such as Dark Pulse and Night Daze, also utilize direct manipulation of shadows or darkness, the type itself is more based in trickery and pragmatism than anything else. On the other hand, so-called "Holy Hand Grenades"^note Which prior to Gen VI were all Fighting Type are super-effective against Dark-types but are ineffective against Ghost-types and don't have a different impact on corrupted Pokémon than other attacks do. The effectiveness is better expressed by the Japanese name for the Dark type, literally "Evil" or "Scum" type.
• The "Sorcery" and "Necromancy" schools of magic in Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song deal with spells of this nature and is mostly used by monsters and evil sorcerers who attack your party. However, it can be also be used by a character who temporarily joins your party, though it turns out said character is a minion of the Big Bad.
• Sacrifice: The god Charnel gives your wizard access to dark magic if you choose to follow him.
• Samurai Warriors: Oda Nobunaga as portrayed in the series is constantly brimming with dark, vorpal energy. Not only does he outright shoot dark orbs of shadow and emit damaging shockwaves, but his special moves often involve passing a hand over his blade while imbuing it with a dark energy, making it do more damage and even unlocking further attacks.

• Sengoku Basara: Many characters, including Demon King Nobunaga himself, his sister Oichi, and his Ax-Crazy Blood Knight retainer Mitsuhide Akechi. Others include Hanbe Takenaka, Yoshitsugu Otani, Mitsunari Ishida...and Sasuke Sarutobi. Gameplay-wise, it drains health from enemies, so most dark elementals tend towards Glass Cannon territory.
• Shadow Hearts has almost every character possessing an Element. Yuri Hyuuga has the Dark Element in his default form. While he's uncouth and rude, he means well.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Death/darkness spells, which are One-Hit Kill attacks.
  • Special notice goes to Alice, a Little Miss Badass who has the strongest version of these spells possible.
  • The Eiha line of spells in Persona 5 inflict Dark damage, whereas Mudo spells are the aforementioned instant-kill type.
• Darkness is shown in multiple forms in Skylanders. In the first game, much like in the aforementioned Legend of Spyro series, Cynder can turn into shadows, but she uses it to summon ghostly allies to do her bidding, as she is of the Undead element. Indeed, in the first three games, darkness is more associated with the Undead element, as Hex's catchphrase is "Fear the Dark!" and has other quotes relating to darkness, though Trap Shadow of the Magic element uses shadows to infuse his claws with them for more damage and hide in them to sneak around opponents. Come the fourth game, though, darkness became its own element along with light. The Dark element, additionally, is associated with black holes to contrast with the Light element being associated with stars. Additionally, it is more clearly shown that the element of a character has no effect on their personality, as not only are there Skylanders of the Dark element, but there are also villains of the Light element.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Mephiles the Dark, the Big Bad of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), is a being of pure shadow that is able to take physical form by merging with someone's shadow (in this case, Shadow's). He can also spawn creatures of his dark essence, cast a pool of darkness, and fire spheres of dark energy.
  • Dark Gaia from Sonic Unleashed is a deity of darkness and destruction. Upon reaching maturity, it covers the whole world in darkness.
  • There is also Void from Sonic Shuffle.
• In Sonny, the Psychological (or Shadow Strain, depending on the version) uses dark-element psionics to do Damage Over Time and layer debuffs on the enemy. Their basic attack, Shadow Bolt, is an Armor-Piercing Attack, which makes it Boring, but Practical in that, despite being the weakest base attack of the non-physical strains, it always hits for full damage. And it can be fired every turn.
• Street Fighter:
  • Guy. During his Bushin Musou Renge, a shroud of darkness blinds his foes while he pummels them into oblivion. Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu, on other hand, while visually similar, doesn't count as he is actually dragging his opponent into hell.
  • Oni, Akuma's Superpowered Evil Side, plays this trope straight. His Hadokens, especially his Meido Gohado, are clearly composed from dark energy, and his Ultra Combos turn the screen black and white with evil energy.
  • Likewise, Evil Ryu, whose Hadokens are also composed of dark energy.
  • Juri Han, whose Ki Manipulation is granted by her Feng Shui Engine, is composed of some dark, purple energy.
  • Bison's Psycho Power is pure negative energy that only works when one purges themselves of all goodness... And Bison has done just that.
  • Street Fighter V has Necalli, whose fighting style incorporates some strange form of dark energy. Fittingly, he is titled, "The Soul Consuming Darkness".
• Tir and Ted, the known holders of the Soul Eater Rune in Suikoden, as well as the people who possess its child runes, the aptly named Darkness Runes. While heroes, they tend to be broody types, since the Soul Eater is guaranteed to bring tragedy to one's life. As well as the "Rune of Punishment" in Suikoden IV and it's child rune, the "Condemnation Rune", in Suikoden V.
• Super Paper Mario:
  • Count Bleck has the Chaos Heart. Doubles as Power of the Void.
  • Although it rarely comes up, Bowser can cast Shadow Magic — most notably, taking the form of a shadow and zipping/teleporting around the room.
  • The Shadow Queen in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, who has the ability to cast shadow lightning bolts, as well as a powerful wave of darkness.
• Darkness is an effect of some attacks in Super Smash Bros.. They're mainly Ganondorf's specialty, but Mewtwo and Giga Bowser can use them as well. (And White Pikmin, though that's considered to be poison.) Dharkon, the Embodiment of Chaos and Darkness, naturally has darkness-themed powers.
• Shadow from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia.
  • A female example from Symphonia is Pronyma. And, predictably enough, she dresses like a demonic hooker.
  • Emil and Tenebrae in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.
  • Also, Rita from Tales of Vesperia can use darkness spells such as Violent Pain, Negative Gate, and Spread Zero.
  • Elise from Tales of Xillia is an odd case, as she's one of the game's two primary healers, yet all of her offensive magic is dark element, as opposed to light (Which practically all of the other healers in the series use).
• Shadow is one of the four elements in the Telepath RPG universe that psy users can use, there is also the shadowlings race who have this as their main elements and dark spriggats who use shadow as a Breath Weapon.
• The skiakineticist class in Telepath Tactics. Interestingly, this is the only one of the Elemental Powers to have a metaphysical component, as the description for Shadow Blast mentions corrupting the target with negative emotions. In the campaign, the Ebon Riders use these as their psy fighters of choice, and Climax Boss Archos uses shadow powers himself.
• Tox of The Tenth Line is a black dracomage and so can wield the power of darkness to deal Non-Elemental damage in addition to being able to use all of the standard four Elemental Powers. This makes his powers the opposite of the princess's or rather, Anne's, since her powers of light come from a world-ending entity of pure light that the black dracomages are meant to destroy.
• Rumia of Touhou Project was made to play with this notion. Her power, the power of darkness, is meant to sound like the dark and powerful abilities of other characters on this page, but she is actually one of the weakest of all youkai in Gensokyo. Her darkness only blinds anyone within her field — which includes herself — and she is known for crashing headlong into trees. It is fortunate she is so weak, since she is a man-eater. The ribbon in her hair is supposed to be an amulet keeping her powers in check, however, so Wild Mass Guessing holds that she would be the unstoppable "EX-Rumia" if that amulet was removed.
• The Trails Series has an interesting on take on Dark magic - in that it's not actually called Dark magic, but Time. A lot of the Time Arts equally involve slowing down or speeding up time as they do attacking with dark projectiles, and is contrasted by the Light-themed Space element. Don't ask why Time allows you to summon demonic entitities to attack your enemies.
• In Trickster Online, Dragons can either obtain the Dark or Light Pact, but not both, upon the Job Change from Shaman to Magician. This can be further upgraded to Dark Lord for more Dark-based magic. Also, takes a dip into Gravity Master with the Gravity Crush spell, which causes massive damage to up to 6 targets around the caster, but takes 3 seconds to cast and guzzles a ton of MP.
• In the Real-Time Strategy Universe at War, the Masari has the ability to switch between Light and Dark at will. Dark is mainly focused on defensive capabilities, granting units weak but rapid firing weapons, faster movement speed and Dark Matter armour. The Matter Controller also charges up and fires Matterstorm, a concentrated surge of Dark Matter that immobilizes enemies caught in the storm while buffing up your own units who are exposed to it (specifically increased firepower and rapid DMA regeneration). Pursuing the Dark Matter branch further improves your army's defensive capabilities in Dark mode at the cost of losing considerable firepower. Dark seems to represent nobility and calmness, as evident by the Dark Matter branch heroine Queen Altea, the benevolent leader of the remaining Masari on Atlantea who does not use violent means but instead uses her healing powers and strong magical spells to guide and protect her troops in battle.
• Marlowe in Visions & Voices specializes in Necrotic spells.
• Baphomet's powerset in Wintermoor Tactics Club, along with Soul Power.
• Wizard101:
  • Interestingly, the Death School, while summoning up the undead and draining life from foes, is actually fueled by the casters heroics and courage. In other words, in order to cast Death spells, you need to be willing to face great danger without fear. So basically, yeah, you beat your enemies down with the fact that you have the courage to stand up to them; a trait thought of as good and heroic is the basis for summoning the Grimm Reaper to rip out souls and feed them to you. This is situational irony, that is 'results or reality being quite different from expectations.'
  • Shadow magic is said to be the magic of reforming reality. Naturally, the only way to fight someone with a skill that powerful, is to learn it yourself.
• World of Warcraft has shadow priests, warlocks, and death knights (also An Ice Person). However, Dark Is Not Evil. Pay Evil unto Evil is also very much in play for death knights and somewhat for warlocks.
• Being one of the elemental Blade types in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the player can resonate with Dark-type blades, just like with any other. The most prominent examples include Azami (a ruthless marionette/cyborg-like woman with a Magic Eye and a huge gun), Perceval (a former assassin with a desire to punish evildoers with his katana and a no-kill policy), Kasandra (a sweet girl who seems to be unaware of the misfortune that seems to follow her around, and wields a gigantic hammer) and Vale (a spear-wielding teenager with an appreciation for the occult).

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