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Howard: Jack is ramming himself against Kojack!
Kreese: So, basically, Jack is ramming himself against himself. We are watching the most violent masturbation ever!
Howard: (chuckle) This is nothing...

Swallowing enemies whole. Flying around with a jetpack. Or just jumping high. Video game heroes can have a wide variety of powers; they're fun to play around with, and they'll let you conquer just about any boss battle. You just need to dodge around its attacks and Attack Its Weak Point for massive damage.

But what if those same powers were used against you?

Simply put, a Mirror Boss is a boss in a game whose abilities are the equivalent of the playable character's somehow. This doesn't have to be exact, and it's relative to what the other bosses tend to be like; if most of the game's bosses are gigantic, then just being the same size as the hero counts for a lot, but if everyone in the game is humanoid, a Mirror Boss will have a very similar fighting style. Sometimes, they may even be directly controlled by another human player, as a PvP match in a boss' clothing.

Depending on how close the boss' abilities are to the hero's, there may have to be some form of "cheating" to ensure that the boss is still a challenge. Giving them special immunities to things that would normally destroy the player, some Secret A.I. Moves to separate them from the hero, or just any general application of My Rules Are Not Your Rules to prevent the player from exploiting certain weaknesses (AI inferior to a human's intelligence being chief among them). Inversely, some abilities are likely to not be kept for a boss' version; for example, the Too Awesome to Use weapon that will One-Hit Kill anything in its massive explosion may be fun to use, but it's unlikely that it'll be nearly as fun to be on the receiving end of.

If this boss isn't an Evil Knockoff of the hero, expect him or her to be a Rival or Evil Counterpart of the hero, and thus an important character in the game.

As you might expect, this is usually a form of Duel Boss.

Compare:

Contrast:

  • Beat Them at Their Own Game, which is when the protagonist's abilities are changed from normal to match the boss.
  • Mirror Match, which is when two players (or the AI) of a multiplayer game select the same character.
  • Doppleganger Attack, where the boss summons copies of itself rather than the player.

Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Action-Adventure 
  • Played with in Axiom Verge 2, where the first plot-mandated boss is Amashilama using Indra's body fighting against drone-form Indra. The boss uses a unique melee weapon, but behaves like Indra, including respawning when killed at the respawn point in the room. The presence of the respawn point means that neither party can actually meaningfully stop the other, causing Amashilama to leave the boss room using the Nano Cloud ability - an ability that Indra later gets.
  • EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Final boss Zett is not only physically similar to hero Zophy with his muscular physique and penchant for fighting in a speedo, his attacks are all upgraded versions of what Zophy is capable of. The ground punch, in Zett's hand, dislodges rocks from the ceiling to fall onto the player. The tornadoes that Zophy can unleash with a punch are massive and fly farther when Zett does it. And Zophy's EXTRAPOWER attack that throws an explosive punch across the screen is met with a single prolonged blast that can only be ducked. Basically, Zophy has to fight a giant, extrapowered version of himself.
  • In The Force Unleashed, the Jedi Temple DLC level has Starkiller fight a Force-vision of himself on the Dark Side (much like Luke Skywalker did) as a final test to officially become a Jedi and cement his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Gargoyle's Quest II had a literal Mirror Boss, a magic mirror who could transform into a copy of your character. There was a trick to beating it: any damage you inflict while it's copying you is reflected back on you, so you can only attack it while it's in its natural mirror form.
  • In inFAMOUS, final boss Kessler is one of these. Almost all of his powers look like stronger versions of yours. And there's a very good reason for this: he's a Sadist Teacher version of Cole from a Bad Future who is here to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • The Handsome Men from Killer7 are a team of rival assassins who battle the Smith Syndicate in a Duel Boss sequence. Not only do they have one member for each of your 8 characters, but they all copy the weapons those characters use… and every single motion and shot you make, turning every battle into a war of attrition which you are destined to either win or lose. If you pay attention to this being a Mirror Boss along with the cutscene afterwards, this is ultimately Foreshadowing to Harman's status as a Decoy Protagonist to Garcian, as Handsome Red is to Handsome Pink.
  • The Legend of Zelda features Dark Link, serving this capacity in his many appearances in the franchise:
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has an early version of him called Link's Shadow as the final boss, excelling at front swordplay (though without knowing the Up- and Downthrusts). Outside a quirky trick, defeating him requires exceptional sword skills.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: The Superboss of the GBA remake is four copies of Link in different colored tunics as they are portrayed from the Four Swords game. Each Link uses different abilities that the player can use, such as the Hurricane Spin, using the Magic Cape to become invisible, and the ability to shoot sword beams.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Taken very literally during his reappearance as a miniboss, where he would perfectly mimic every movement and attack the player made, like a mirror image… except if the player performed a stab, in which case Dark Link would jump on top of Link's sword and get a free hit.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, as appropriate for a game about multiple Links, has "Shadow Link" as the primary antagonist. He appears in every level to harass Link using the same items you can collect in creative and destructive ways. He is also the boss of several levels.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Dark Link shows up once more as a Superboss at the very end of the most difficult Boss Rush challenge of the game, and not only replicates Link's sword skills but also his usage of bombs and arrows.
    • Ganondorf at the end of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fights Link in ways that are similar to him. Like Link, he can change weapons on the fly and uses the same types of weapons he uses (sword, spear, bow, and club). Should Link attempt to use his Flurry Rush on him or attack poorly, the boss will counter with a Perfect Dodge of his own with the same Bullet Time effect to boot.
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: Alice, if you pay attention, has quite a few of Travis's attacks. Too bad you don't get the "throw beam katana with such timing that it makes it nearly impossible to get up thanks to the lack of Mercy Invincibility" attack. The big thing that makes Alice stand out from other potential Mirror Bosses, such as Ryuji and Skelter Helter, is that Alice borrows a trick that most bosses in any game (save Fighting Games) don't have: canceling her own moves with a dodge-roll.
  • Ōkami: Ninetails is a canine with godlike magical power, who wields a giant sword hovering over his back, and can even interrupt Ammy's Celestial Brush with his own. The second stage of the fight with Oki has him transform into a wolf and wear his sword in the same way Amaterasu wears glaives.
  • Ōkamiden. The final boss is an evil version of Chibiterasu, and literally comes out of a mirror. He has his own brush, like Ninetails, but the brush vs brush mechanics have been fine-tuned to the point where there is no difference in your abilities bar no matter how many secret brush techniques you picked up. Drawing a technique? He can cancel out with a line. He's drawing a technique? Cancel it with your own line! He even has an evil version of Sunrise that covers the arena in pitch-black darkness.
  • Near the end of the first Tomb Raider I, Lara meets a copy of herself which does exactly what she does. Shooting it only results in Lara getting injured. You have to lure it into a deathtrap to proceed.

    Action Games 
  • Alien Hominid has the final boss, a beefed-up, macho version of the titular character. He uses larger-scaled versions of all of Alien Hominid's attacks. Oh, and he can take more than fifty times the damage that Alien Hominid can take…
  • The final boss fight of Asura's Wrath is Gohma Vlitra's Core, which looks like a bigger and meaner, but still nearly identical version of Berserker Asura, Giant Arms and all.
    • The final boss of the DLC uses quick time events, even with similar on-screen inputs.
  • The Bomberman games have a trend of including a Quirky Miniboss Squad of evil bombers as bosses. This trend started with Super Bomberman 2 and its Five Dastardly Bombers, who had both unique bombs and Humongous Mecha — including, notably, Brain Bomber's giant Bomberman mecha which could also lay bombs.
  • Nemesis in darkSector uses many of the same abilities that you do, including charging a glaive with elemental energy. Completely Justified by the fact the player received a copy of Nemesis' powers.
  • Legacy of Kain: Defiance closes its third act with a Duel Boss fight, pitting the two player characters against one another, first with Kain against Raziel, and then vice versa.
  • On and above the hard mode of Ninja Gaiden Black, certain battles are replaced with a 'Fiend Ryu'. This being Ninja Gaiden, Fiend Ryu is you, only a lot better than you.
  • In Oni, after Konoko learns her true identity, she has a trippy dream sequence that culminates in her fighting a hostile dream version of herself. The dream Konoko is faster than most enemies and has the same moveset as the player, but doesn't use the most powerful specials, so she's not as tough to beat as she could be.
  • PlatinumGames loves pitting players against Mirror Bosses:
    • The Bayonetta series has a few of these:
      • Bayonetta's rival, Jeanne. She'll gain abilities as Bayonetta does during the story, getting harder and harder but never outright overpowering Bayonetta and her abilities.
      • The Joys are a minor version of this. They're much weaker than Bayonetta, but mimic a lot of her moves.
      • Angel Slayer has Bayonetta herself as the ultimate Mirror Match, who can use the exact same techniques and weapons she can, just while dealing much higher damage.
      • Bayonetta 2 has the Masked Lumen, AKA Balder, who fights using Lumen Sage variations of Bayonetta's moves.
      • Bayonetta 3 shakes things up a bit by introducing mirror bosses rather late in the game, and they fight with weapons you can earn later to allow you to fight the same way as them. Also, unlike the previous games, these mirror bosses aren't Recurring Boss.
    • The Wonderful 101:
      • Prince Vorkken uses the Unify Morph, which functions much the same as the Wonderful Ones' Unite Morph. Vorkken, however, uses a bit of My Rules Are Not Your Rules (such as being capable of blocking any attack with Unify Guts) to increase the challenge. Like Jeanne in Bayonetta, he will also gain abilities as the game goes on, and will never use an ability that the player has no access to yet (excluding Vorkken's Boomerang and Chewgi's Naginata, their own signature morphs that they will always have access to). In the case of their special Unite Morphs where they transform into GEATHJERK enemies, they won't transform into something the group hasn't encountered yet.
      • Wonder-Jergingha will use the pieces of the shattered platforms and machinery around him to mirror the Unite Morphs of the team. He will only use the main sevennote , though.
    • Kojack, the Access Hangar boss in MadWorld, looks a lot like Jack and fights identically to him on a motorcycle. The commentators, of course, have a field day with this — "Jack must feel like he's kicking his own ass!" He's hardly a threat, though.
      • Less notable but still present is the final boss: The Black Baron, who's on much more equal terms with Jack than most of the other bosses, edging on Fearful Symmetry in their power struggle. They'd be even more similar if Jack's moveset was more like how it is in Anarchy Reigns, such as the spinning kick dive and Rampage Mode.
    • NieR: Automata has A2, fellow YoRHa android like protagonist 2B who thus fights with similar techniques. If you decide to play as 9S in some paths, he ends up running into multiple 2B clones, basically Mirror Wolfpack Boss. Taken further in Ending C and D, where 9S and A2 have one last fight before the ending; Fighting A2 will be mostly similar to her earlier fight, while fighting 9S will have you try to counter his hacking, just as how you've been using his hacking while playing as him.
  • The Final Boss of Sunset Riders, Sir Richard Rose, will fight exactly like the revolver-toting player characters do once his barrier is destroyed: erratically running, jumping, and sliding throughout the arena while firing off shots. Even his body armor trick could be interpreted as having an extra life.
  • In TAGAP, Recurring Boss Pedro has a few boss fights where he fights you on foot, using one of the same weapons as you. What makes him qualify for this trope is the final battle, where he not only has access to most of your weapons (and he'll make a point to always use the same as your current one, or the closest equivalent), but also to One-Ups.

    Action RPGs 
  • Bloodborne, much like its spiritual predecessors, regularly pits you against computer-controlled player characters, all of them using weapons and gear available to the player. Notable examples include Yurie, the Last Scholar and the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, both of whom have the maximum stat total and are infamous for oneshotting players with their arcane spells and Repeating Pistol respectively. Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, one of the last bosses in the game, is also a souped up player character. In addition there are several bosses that are Hunters like the player, but have unique models and attack animations. Several of them are even capable of using ripostes, which is usually reserved for the player.
    • Father Gascoigne is a hunter driven mad by bloodlust who fights using a Hunter's Axe and a Blunderbuss, weaponry available to the player at the start of the game, which means that due to his status as the second boss in the game you're not unlikely to fight him with the exact same setup. While he has a couple of unique moves and the ability to fire his Blunderbuss while using the transformed version of the Hunter's Axe, his fighting style stays very close to the player character until the last part of the fight where the plague mutates him into a massive wolf-like beast.
    • Gehrman, the player's enigmatic mentor figure, the first hunter and the last (or second to last) boss of the game, fights like a stronger, more mobile version of the player character which is only natural since he invented the style of fighting to begin with. He dashes around the boss arena at great speed, can break out of being stunlocked by the player using a charged heavy attack, and powers up at two different points in the fight, the last of which grants him a very dramatic and very powerful Razor Wind attack that covers most of the arena. He can also riposte the player and perform visceral attacks, one of the only two bosses to do so, and uses a unique Trick Weapon that is only available to the player after they defeat him, at which point the game is basically over.
    • The DLC, The Old Hunters, has several examples:
      • Lady Maria shares many similarities with the above mentioned Gehrman, having massively increased mobility and damage compared to the player and powers up twice during the fight, can do ripostes and visceral attacks and has a unique weapon that can only be acquired after defeating her (though getting hers involved dealing with tough foes instead of just buying it) all of which is only fitting since Maria was Gehrman's first and only pupil.
      • The final boss of The Old Hunters, the Orphan of Kos, fights like the player with their unique traits exaggerated to ridiculous degrees, having unparalleled mobility that lets them leap across huge distances in a flash while having extremely fast, far-reaching attacks with their Transforming Weapon on top of having access to a slew of potent ranged attacks. And all of it is cranked Up to Eleven during the second phase of the fight, where its ranged attacks are amplified even further and the camera has trouble keeping up with the boss due to the Orphan of Kos being so mobile that every attack sends it careening across the arena. Fittingly for a boss that takes some of the player's strengths to ludicrous degrees, their biggest weakness is the one tool the player has that the boss doesn't: Ripostes.
  • Sabata from Boktai. While Django wields the Gun Del Sol, a weapon which stores and fires beams of sunlight, Sabata uses the Gun Del Hell, which uses the power of darkness to achieve the same effect.
  • Kojiro in Brave Fencer Musashi, a child swordsboy summoned by Princess Fillet using the same Hero Summon spell that called Musashi… but instead of rescuing her, he decides to kidnap her to goad Musashi into a duel. Also, the final boss, Dark Lumina fused with Kojiro, uses elemental attacks from the same five elements as Musashi's scrolls as well as a sword combo.
    • President Gandrake from Musashi: Samurai Legend actually transforms into a copy of Musashi after stealing the five elemental swords for his boss fight.
  • Dark Souls:
    • The Black Phantoms are basically AI-controlled Invaders.
    • To a lesser extent, Lord Gwyn, the final boss. He operates very differently than the player character, but he is a swordsman of roughly the same size as the PC, whereas most of the game's bosses are giant monstrosities.
  • Dark Souls II has Looking Glass Knight, a literal Mirror Boss; while he doesn't copy your moves, the player summoned by him is a technical Mirror Boss.
  • In Dark Souls III, the Soul of Cinder is a composite of Gwyn and every Lord of Cinder who followed him, including the protagonists of the first two games. So it's only natural that he fights just like a player character in his first phase, using spells, miracles, pyromancies, abilities, and even tactics that veteran players will instantly recognize. In fact, the Soul of Cinder does very little that the player cannot do themselves, if they have the proper equipment and spells attuned, although some of the Soul's variants of the techniques are more powerful versions of what the player has access to. In his second phase, he trades this out for a more powerful version of Gwyn's moveset.
    • In The Ringed City, Halflight is the last recorded Spear of the Church member who chooses to stay at the Ringed City as its protector. What makes him a Mirror Boss is that he is controlled by another player. Whenever a player challenges the Halflight boss fight, the game summons another player to serve as the boss.
  • Demon's Souls has a unique example. The Old Monk is not only a Mirror Boss, he is controlled by another player, making it a PvP match in a boss' clothing.
  • Dungeon Siege III contains several fights with Archons, who have the same powers as Anjali, though they get to use the full set in both forms instead of needing to alternate to use them.
  • Elden Ring: the Mimic Tear boss fights feature a Silver Tear enemy that transforms into an exact copy of the player, down to weapons, equipment, and even held items. Ironically, it's often considered one of the easier bosses, since the player is usually a Glass Cannon in comparison to many of their foes, and the Mimic Tear's health isn't scaled up to compensate. Another weakness is the Tear copies the player as they are when the battle starts, so by removing all of your equipment, starting the battle, and then re-equipping it, the Tear is forced to fight as a half-naked human reduced to weak punching attacks.
  • Eternal Radiance: Quinn has most of the same physical skills as Celeste, but also has a version of Dash Charge that doesn't require him to initiate a perfect dodge and the ability to summon an energy orb ally. Justified because he trained under the same instructors.
  • The Traitor's Keep DLC in Fable III ends with a fight against a doppelganger of your Hero. The copy utilizes all your abilities while talking you down and telling you why you need to die.note 
  • In the Flash game Ginormo Sword, the Temple of the Moon contains an Optional Boss called Doppelgänger who looks identical to you and has a sword exactly as big as yours. And, as the game's name implies, that's pretty freaking big. Unless, of course, you have your sword reforged to its minimum size before fighting him…
  • In Gravity Rush, Raven serves as this. She even counters Kat's finishing move by mimicking it.
  • Implemented with in-universe justification in .hack//G.U.: The Doppelgangers are designed to be a copy of the player that appears if they hang around too long in a field-type area. The thing is that they are always 8 levels higher than you are (but not above the level cap of the game; 50 in the first game, 100 in the second, and 150 in the third), always has +50% speed, constant HP/MP regen, damage reduction, healing spell, has weapon effects that mirror yours if your weapon is fully customized, and can change weapons at will (mirroring what you use). The difficulty spike reaches to Nintendo Hard levels for unprepared players in Volume 3, although the rewards (provided the player played the two volumes before it) are phenomenal.
  • Dark Hype, in Hype: The Time Quest, is Hype's evil mirror image fought in the Lost City to obtain the Jewel of Virtue. He can use all the techniques Hype can get in the game, even the magics Hype cannot possibly have obtained at that point of the game without cheats. He is considered by many to be one of the hardest bosses in the game.
  • Jade Empire uses this quite successfully. While many boss encounters deal with 20 foot tall Golems, spirits gone bad, or groups of Elite Mooks, the final boss encounter is a one-on-one fight against someone who uses abilities very similar to your own. Which makes sense; he taught them to you. This works as a strong display of the strategic depth that the game creates: that the final boss can be a character just like yourself, while still giving an entertaining, difficult-but-fair final confrontation. No weak points to aim at, nothing like that. The final boss blocks, attacks, dodges, heals, etc., all exactly like your character can. You must display mastery of your combat forms to stand a chance.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The first game has Shadow Sora, a Heartless copy of Sora, and a boss version of it called AntiSora. The boss can also use Doppelgänger Spin and Doppelgänger Attack to mix things up.
    • Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has the Riku Replica (but only during Reverse/Rebirth in which you play as the real Riku).
    • In a minor example, Kingdom Hearts II has Roxas fight a shadowy version of himself.
    • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days has Xion, who not only fights a lot like Sora from the first game, but also has several of his special attacks, including Sonic Blade, Ragnarok, and Ars Arcanum. Her final form even has an attack that resembles Trinity Limit. Which makes sense, considering she's built out of Sora's memories.
    • Terra's final boss in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep exclusively uses Terra's own moves against him. His best moves, like Quake and Meteor, Chaos Blade, and the like, and his two best Shotlocks: Dark Salvo and Ultima Cannon. He can even go into Command Styles that Terra is able to use — specifically, Dark Impulse. He can even do things that normally only the player characters can do, like dash, block, counterattack, and heal himself with Cure spells (he even chuckles when he whips that one out). This is all handily explained by the fact that Terra's final boss is Terra himself. Specifically, it's Master Xehanort after having taken over Terra's body. You play as Terra's cast-off armor, which has risen up to fight under the influence of Terra's memories.
    • Also from Birth By Sleep is the last section of Ventus' final boss fight with Vanitas. The twist this time is that Ven's the one doing the mirroring, attacking Vanitas with light-based versions of his own dark attacks.
    • The Mirage Arena boss Dead Ringer can summon copies of the player characters. In single player mode, this is just an annoyance, but in a multiplayer match it can be confusing as the copies are indistinguishable from the real one. The copies use the same attacks as the original, including whatever commands the original has in the deck at the time.
    • The Climax Boss of Kingdom Hearts Re:coded is Sora's Heartless, which transforms into a shadowy version of Sora (known as "True Form") for the second, third and fourth phases of the fight. In the third and fourth phase, it can also summon clones of itself, essentially creating multiple shadow Soras.
    • In Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], the Armored Ventus Nightmare fights just like its playable namesake from the aforementioned game, right down to finishing the match with a Shotlock, albeit mixing darkness into many of its attacks and having a few new ones of its own. It even uses Payback Raid as a counterattack whenever you knock it back and is the only boss to have such an ability.
    • Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- gives us Phantom Aqua, who fights exactly like the real Aqua (albeit with Teleport Spam, Doppelgänger Spin, and Doppelgänger Attack), complete with a Dark Reprise of Aqua's Leitmotif. Bonus points for Phantom Aqua being fought inside the Magic Mirror, making this a literal example.
  • Luminous Plume: The Black Blade has many of the same techs as Raven, along with similar looking techs with different names. This is because he's actually Victor, who taught Raven swordplay.
  • In Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Kisuke acts as this for Momohime, and Momohime for Kisuke. And at the end of Total Pandemonium/Night of Absolute Chaos, you face both of them together.
  • Quest for Glory III has a literal (and particularly unpleasant) Mirror Boss fight near the end of the game. The hero and four of his friends arrive in a room with five mirrors, each character walks up to a mirror, and then the reflections mutate into demonic versions of themselves and attack. Hitting your own reflection causes you to take damage, on top of the damage he's already doing to you. There's no way to win on your own... you just have to try not to die until another buddy shows up and stabs your reflection in the back.
  • The final boss of Rogue Legacy at first fights similarly to player but with beefed-up spells between which he can switch, something only an archmage or a savant player character can otherwise do.
  • In Secret of Mana your quest to find Sage Yoch culminates in the three heroes fighting shadowy twins of themselves that use the weapons when they were first encountered in the story.
  • In Transistor, the final boss Royce uses a Transistor just like Red, meaning that not only does he use Functions as well as Turns, he also has Second Chances as well.
  • Letho in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. As a Witcher himself, he can use Signs as well as use traps and bombs like Geralt does.
  • In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, one of the Witcher Contracts involves hunting down a Doppler who takes on Geralt's form at one point and even uses the Signs Quen and Igni against him.
  • In The World Ends with You:
    • Certain varieties of Fox Noise can pull this trick on you. When they have enough tails, they can transform into masked copies of Neku and attack with versions of your own Psychs. One of them is an optional boss, the other is a non-boss enemy.
    • Kariya and Uzuki are a better example. The pair has a light puck, are a pair (sharing the game's two screen combat), and attack with a few common Psychs. The final battle with them (after they have been possessed by the O-Pins) even has them with a Fusion of their own.
  • In Ys: The Oath in Felghana, a game full of battles with monsters, Chester is the only other complete human and the only non-Mook swordsman you will fight... and he knows what he's doing.

    Adventure Games 
  • Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Chapter 4 ends with Pizza fighting a color-inverted manifestation of their own self-doubt. It occurs again in the finale, when the corrupted brush takes on the forms of its past wielders, yourself included.

    Beat 'Em Ups 
  • The "Shadow Boss" at the end of the NES version of Double Dragon is none other than Billy's twin brother Jimmy, who has all the same moves as the player and more health. This is actually a carryover from the arcade version, in which both players were forced to fight each other at the end (Jimmy was originally Player 2 in the arcade version, but became the Final Boss in the NES version due to the omission of the 2-Player mode).
    • Jeff, the Mission 2 boss in the arcade version, also fits this trope, being a Lee brother Head Swap with all the same moves.
    • In the arcade version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the final boss is a Lee brother clone who has all the same moves, plus an energy beam attack and the ability to possess the player's body and drain his health. If both Lee brothers are present, then there will be a second clone as well. The clones appear in the NES version as well, where they are the last enemies before the new final boss.
  • Azel from God Hand, who possesses the other God Hand and uses the same attacks and Roulette moves that Gene does. Also, the 51st battle in the fighting ring is Double God Hand Gene.
  • Mr. X from Kung Fu Master, who can attack with the same punch and kick animations as Thomas, in addition to his advantage of knowing how to block. This is more noticeable in the NES port, where Mr. X is a head-swapped black Palette Swap of Thomas.
  • Like a Dragon:
    • Generally speaking, Jo Amon and Sotaro Komaki both use a variation of Kiryu's signature Dragon of Dojima moveset whenever they're fought. Komaki, being the progenitor of Kiryu's moveset (on top of being, well, Kiryu's mentor) does have some moves unique to him, making him a somewhat downplayed example.
    • Yakuza 0:
      • Kiryu's final boss, Keiji Shibusawa, is a three stage boss that mimics the battle styles Kiryu has collected throughout the game, starting with a copy of Rush, then a copy of Beast, ending with Brawler, or, if you have it unlocked, the "Legend" Dragon of Dojima style based on his latter appearances.
      • To a lesser extent, Majima's "final boss" also ends with a boss that has somewhat comparable fighting styles.
    • Judgment: The Final Boss uses a variation of Yagami's moveset, notably not only boasting a purple Battle Aura that combines the red and blue of Yagami's fighting styles, but he can even leap off of walls just like Yagami can.
      • Lost Judgment's final boss takes this a step further: While he cannot jump off walls, he has analogues to all three of Yagami's styles 'and' their signature mechanics, one of which he actually picks up on and masters near-instantly during his first fight against Yagami.
  • Jin from Panzer Bandit uses an exact duplicate of Kou's moveset, with the exception of the visuals of his second Hyper attack (though move-wise it's the same effect). Tsubai serves as a mirror to Ein as well, mostly in techniques having the same function rather than being mirror-sprited like Jin's.
  • In a rare movie example, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the last enemy Scott Pilgrim has to face is Nega-Scott, a shadowy version of himself... but instead they talk things out and decide they have a lot of things in common, and head their separate ways.
    • In the comic, Nega-Scott is "defeated" when Scott accepts him and admits that he's partly to blame for things going wrong with his life, since fighting him just means he's fighting himself and refusing to learn anything.
    • The game plays this trope straight by including Nega-Scott as a boss, though you don't have to play as Scott to face him. He ultimately subverts it by having attacks that the real Scott can never pull off.
  • Streets of Rage:
  • Wrath from Ultraverse Prime is a clone of Prime who uses the exact same attacks. Their sprites are the same size, they both move with equal speed, and they even share identical uppercuts, grappling throws and high kicks.
  • Another Joe from Viewtiful Joe is portrayed as one of these, though he actually relies on the Doppelgänger Attack while warping around. A straighter example is the final boss, Captain Blue, who has VFX powers like Joe and can speed himself up with them, as well as having a similar moveset to Joe overall. Even more so when you reach this boss as the final unlockable character, Captain Blue, at which point it's exactly identical... minus the random lightning bolts, of course.

    Fighting Games 
  • The final stage in ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay consists of a battle against an "evil" version of your chosen character, who uses the exact same attacks as you, but uses different voice lines.
  • In the early Mortal Kombat games in the campaign mode, you would usually fight a mirror copy of your selected character using the same exact moves. Shang Tsung has his own moves, but he can also transform into a random character and potentially transform into your character.
  • One mission in Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3's story mode has Guy fighting himself. The CPU-controlled character copies the exact same moves you do. However, its chakra gauge fills up slightly slower than yours. So not only can you pull off your own special sooner than the computer, but you can even have the computer waste its own.
  • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U features this with Master Core. After cycling through a number of bizarre shapes, it forms a shadowy copy of your current character. This clone perfectly matches your custom moves, equipment, alternate costume, and even the appearance of your Mii if you're playing as one.

    First-Person Shooters 
  • Downplayed with Doom Eternal's Marauder. While these demonic knights don't have the exact capabilities of the Doom Slayer, they run pretty fast, can No-Sell anything with their shield, have a limited form of the Video Game Dashing that the Slayer has, and are very quick on the draw, making them a greater threat than anything else on the battlefield. This comparison gets further cemented by the Marauders' backstory: during the Argenta Civil War, Marauders slain in service to the Khan Maykr were brought back to life with the Divinity Machine, the same device that was originally used to imbue the Doom Slayer with his superhuman speed and strength.
  • DUSK ends with a 1-on-1 deathmatch against the cult leader Jakob, who both uses some of the players weapons and moves around just like the player, AKA constant bunnyhopping. Not only that, you end up taking his place as the cult leader after defeating the true final boss Nyarlathotep, voiced by the same person who voices Caleb from Blood, effectively making the fight a test to see whether you're "worthy" of being a badass FPS Protagonist.
  • In Hexen, you can choose to play as either the Fighter, the Mage or the Cleric. You also have to defeat all the heads of the orders to which each of the character classes belong to; they look like the player characters and have about the same abilities... including low hit points. They usually have their class's most powerful weapons, although Menelkir the Mage sometimes has to make do with the second most powerful.
  • Putrefaction 2 has Adolf Hitler, empowered by demonic forces and gaining Playing with Fire powers, as a Climax Boss (!!!). Every other boss in either games are gigantic monsters.
  • ULTRAKILL has V2, a combat robot that looks identical to V1 albeit painted red. Like V1, V2 possesses all of V1's movement techniques and uses the Piercer Revolver and Core Eject Shotgun. V2 is initially encountered at the end of the Limbo layer, where it flees after being defeated. It returns for a rematch in the Greed layer, adding the Marksman Revolver and Overheat Nailgun to its arsenal. A secret in the Violence layer also has an encounter with Big Johninator, who shares V2's movement and uses both the Malicious Railcannon and a generic version of the Rocket Launcher.

    Hack-And-Slash 
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Nelo Angelo from the first game, a dark knight with the same swordfighting style as Dante, except that he hurls fireballs instead of using guns. He is also treated as a Worthy Opponent by Dante, and turns out to be his twin brother Vergil.
    • Bolverk from Devil May Cry 2 is often described as that game's equivalent of Nelo Angelo. He also has a connection to Dante (his father Sparda killed Bolverk's comrades, who were reincarnated as wolves) but it doesn't really come up in the plot.
    • Vergil, Dante's evil twin brother from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. Yes, the same one who becomes Nelo Angelo. He is one of the game's main antagonists, and is an equivalent of Dante in almost every way; not only does he have his own Devil Trigger form, he also turns Beowulf into a weapon like Dante does to the other bosses.
    • Doppelganger, also from DMC3, takes on Dante's form, initially adopting his Devil Trigger state and mimicking his attacks with the Rebellion and Beowulf Devil Arms as well as his Trickster style, but resembling his normal state when exposed to the light.
    • Dante himself fills this role in Devil May Cry 4 when he goes up against Nero. Angelo Credo counts as well.
  • In the final battle of Diablo III, Diablo summons a shadow clone of the player when in the Realm of Terror. The clone has a random selection of attack skills available to whichever class the player is using at the time, not necessarily the exact skills the player has selected.
  • In Genji, the final trial in the Golden Temple of Shukenten involves Yoshitsune and Benkei facing a mirror clone of themselves. Literally, as the clone replicates every single movement exactly like a reflection, and can't even interact with the player, but using the special attack Kamui makes them attack for real, the only way to slay them and pass the test.
  • Killer is Dead has David, usually being very different from the protagonist changes in the final battle to a form which is nigh-identical to yours, complete with clothes, sword, and attack set.
  • The game based on X-Men Origins: Wolverine had you going up against another Wolverine in order to unlock new costumes.
  • X-Kaliber 2097 have the battle against Raptor, who wields an identical blade similar to your titular weapon. He's the same size and speed as you, and have similar Sword Beam abilities he'll use on you.

    MMORPGs 
  • Issue 17 of City of Heroes introduced Doppelgangers, enemies who copy the player's look and powers. However, they are not exact duplicates — most notably, they only copy the powerset, but not the particular powers a player has picked. Every story arc introduced in Issue 17 contains, in some way, one of those. One mission gives you the option to fight eight copies of yourself at once. The badge for achieving that feat is particularly amusing.
    Army of Me: You don't understand the math behind it, but you're pretty sure you're equal to or greater than eight of yourself.
  • In Guild Wars Prophecies, the final test for Ascension is defeating an enemy with the exact skills your character has equipped. Defeating it generally involved exploiting its AI (such as a necromancer player getting it to sacrifice all of its health).
    • Guild Wars 2 features several examples. A meta event in the same area from Prophecies will spawn a boss that copies and hunts down a random player, while also creating clones of any additional players who join the fight. There's also an (optional) fight against a clone from a magic mirror in the second Living World season, and one against a manifestation of the player character's doubts and fears in the third. All of these use their own preset pool of skills, however, to avoid the aforementioned AI exploitation.
  • RuneScape has you face off against the appropriately-titled 'Me' during the quest Lunar Diplomacy.
    Me: Stop hitting yourself!
  • In Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Sith Warrior fights a Force-vision of themselves (much like Luke Skywalker did) in their class story on Tatooine. Depending on your current Force alignment, the shadow will taunt you for being either too Light or too Dark. You can bypass the fight by agreeing with it, but you get points for the alignment opposite to yours as a result.
  • World of Warcraft has 2 bosses where one must face clones of your current party. One is relatively hard, as the clones have abilities and attack patterns based on the clone's class and spec (IE clones of healers will heal) and each player must fight them off alone. Should you defeat them all, you'll join another party member who is still fighting them until all 5 groups are cleared and the actual boss fight continues. Notably, your own clone set will not have a clone of you, though everyone else will have one of you. In the other fight, they are relatively weak and just act as support for a simple boss.
    • There is also one quest where you fight against your inner turmoil which is a basically a clone of yourself, though the character only uses melee attacks despite the fact you may be a magic user character, and lacks any of your abilities and strength, making it an easy fight.
    • Not quite a mirror match, but much more formidable than the above examples, is the Faction Champions encounter in the Trial of the Crusader raid, which pits you against a group of bosses that mimic the abilities of player characters (in a simulation of a PvP Arena match). While they lack the benefit of human intellect and are fewer in number than your raid group, they are statistically far superior to a PC of the same class and spec and have a habit of dogpiling one member of your team.
    • There's also Nefarian (the old one), who while not exactly mirroring your abilities, does mirror some iconic class abilities: Druids are forced into cat form, Rogues are teleported in front of him and stunned there, he Death Grips people if there's a Death Knight around, etc.
    • And Hex Lord Malacrass, a Zul'Aman boss that steals some of your (most annoying) abilities.

    Platform Games 
  • Cannon Dancer brings forth Fake, a dark-skinned clone of main character Kirin who can do everything he can except create energy clones of itself.
  • The Castlevania series has a recurring enemy, Doppelganger, who is a duplicate of whoever the hero of the game is. It first appeared in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, where it would switch forms whenever you switched characters. The easiest way to beat him was to switch characters when right next to'em, hit'em once and repeat until he's dead: he'd be too busy changing forms to actually attack you. The Symphony version is interesting in it that it's the only boss that's susceptible to status effects and can thus be made harmless via using several normally useless swords that curse the enemy they hit.
    • Soleil Belmont from Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge is the son of the main character, and was kidnapped and brainwashed by Dracula. He is the penultimate boss, wielding a whip like yours, and throwing swords that home in on you.
    • Richter Belmont in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night counts as well, since he uses a melee weapon and several of the same subweapons as Alucard, and avoids attacks by jumping and sliding. You can even unlock him as an alternate character to play through the game with.
    • Hugh Baldwin from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon wields a sword instead of a whip, but he uses your subweapons as well. He also has a variety of special sword techniques which are roughly similar to the DSS enhancements used by your character Nathan Graves.
    • Maxim from Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a bit less similar, since he uses a katana and a giant shuriken instead of your whip and subweapons, but overall he's close enough to count.
    • Dmitrii Blinov from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a much closer match, since he has the power to duplicate any attack you use against him. And if that doesn't work, he'll just stab you with a knife. Since he'll stick to what he copies and then spams it liberally afterwards, he can either be That One Boss or a Breather Boss: for example, using any high-powered, MP-expensive, hard-to-avoid attack on him isn't too smart, as he has no MP to worry about, but since he only uses the souls at their level 1 strength, some of them are hilariously ineffective. The most notable of them is probably the Cave Troll soul, which causes the user to attack with an elongated tongue: however, since the level 1 version of it only has a range of a few pixels, he'll spend most of his time hopping around harmlessly sticking out his tongue at you.
      • If you never use a soul attack on him (for example, because you never caught on to the mimicry thing), he sticks exclusively to Malachi's soul — which makes the fight quite a bit harder, since that attack is very hard to dodge.
      • Some souls are of course much funnier when you use them in practice. Yorick is one of the most hilarious primarily because Dmitri can't slide kick. So you can throw that soul at him (hitting him with it while he has Malachi active is the hard part). Once you got him though, he now has an attack that is puny, hard to hit with, and slow as hell. Have fun beating him up. And in this case, since Yorick's damage goes up to the triple digits if you kick it, you can kill him in a few hits while he is busy chucking skulls at you. However, giving him stuff like Amalaric Sniper or Abaddon is just asking for it.
      • Of course he WILL activate any secondary soul you have active if you activate one.
    • Whip's Memory (Richter Belmont) from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, an Optional Boss who is fought by Jonathan alone and has almost exactly the same style.
      • Portrait of Ruin also has a Mirror Boss in the form of the Doppelganger at the bottom of the Nest of Evil Bonus Dungeon
    • Albus fills this role in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. His guns are functionally similar to Shanoa's magic attacks, and he even has his own Glyph attack. On higher difficulty levels, he gains extra attacks which mirror Shanoa's elemental Glyphs exactly. In the unlockable Albus Mode, you still fight him, turning the fight into a Mirror Match.
    • Julius Belmont from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. He doesn't fight exactly like the player character, but he is human, and he fights exactly like a Belmont (duh), up to and including the classic subweapons.
    • Spiritual Successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night also features a Doppelgänger boss, in one of the Alchemy laboratories that the castle has absorbed. She uses a few abilities you yourself use, and use several katana techniques you can learn. And it's not the only one; you'll fight several more bosses who use shards abilities you can obtain.
  • Copy Kitty:
    • Inverted with the fight with Arikan. The player is mirroring him. Even better, when Arikan decides to get serious and Turns Red, the player copies that too, and gets the same power enhancement.
    • Version 2.00 of the game altered the mechanics of many boss fights such that they now drop unique powers that let Boki use attacks similar to the boss's, carrying the inversion further.
    • Version 3.00 introduces a pair of True Final Bosses that each mirror one of the playable characters: Boki fights Isotope, a kitera Cat Girl just like her, albeit turned into a Cyber, who uses the same jumps and kicks that she can. Savant, on the other hand, fights Lymia, an extremely powerful entanma who can also fly and uses electromagnetic powers to fire lightning and lasers. Each of these bosses also trades out the standard boss health bar in favor of one that more closely resembles the player's.
  • The third boss in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced is Fake Crash, who mimics the player's movements. Like the Tomb Raider example, the only way to beat him is to move him so he stands where you shouldn't. If you collide into him, you'll die and he'll produce a cheering animation.
  • In Darkwing Duck Advance, a hack of the Darkwing Duck Licensed Game for the NES, Negaduck serves as this to Darkwing, having his abilities to shoot and deflect enemy fire with his cape.
  • The final stage of Depict1 pits you against your Enemy Without. He copies all your moves flawlessly and can't be killed unless you throw yourself into the deadly gems, killing him as well. Actually, no. There's one thing you can do that he can't. If you managed to clear the cliff using only one spike, you can jump over the gems and fire the other one to freeze yourself in midair for a moment, allowing you to land safely while he falls to his doom. DECEPTION->POETICEND.
  • Exorcist Fairy has the Inner Demon, whose first phase of the boss fight is a duplicate of the player's, including identical jumping, slashing, and Slide Attack moves. But after being defeated once she gets upgraded with a new Sword Beam attack and Teleport Spam abilities.
  • The final boss of Gamer 2 is 'Player 2', who has the exact same abilities and equipment as you do. The only difference is that he can shoot diagonally!
  • Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins fame was finally graced with a similarly-sized Black Knight boss battle in the iOS Gold Knights duology.
  • Gravity Circuit: Nega, the original Gravity Circuit, faces off against Kai in the first finale stage and uses the same basic moves as he does. As the fight progresses, he'll give himself buffs identical to three of Kai's equipment chips, and in the final phase of the fight he starts using the four starter Burst Techniques.
  • Raksasha, the cyborg samurai from Hagane, is the only boss without a One-Winged Angel true form to fight Hagane on even grounds as a normal-sized warrior.
  • Broken Vessel from Hollow Knight is a zombie version of the player's character with a similar style as the Knight: very mobile, mostly attacks with their nail, and sometimes uses spells/special attacks as opportunities present themselves. Hornet and the original Hollow Knight fight in the same way, which makes sense considering all of them are children of the Pale King, raised to be strong fighters.
  • Almost every boss in Iji shares weapons with the titular protagonist, but the closest mirror to her is General Tor, whose nanogun Iji's is derived from. He uses most of the same weapons that Iji does, except scaled up to fit on his building-sized mech suit, and he's the only boss to use the Shotgun (albeit an explosive variant), Iji's starting weapon. Tor also fulfills the narrative role of being a foil to Iji, as both characters don't particularly want to fight.
  • The Guy from I Wanna Be the Guy looks mainly like a larger version of The Kid, right down to the blue jumpsuit and red cape. And the gun.
  • The Kirby series's King Dedede can swallow and spit out enemies, as well as float/fly, just like Kirby can. He isn't able to copy any abilities, though. It's worth pointing out that Dedede actually learned how to do those things by observing Kirby just so that he could use them against him.
    • While Meta Knight can't do what Kirby usually does, he fights just like a better version of Kirby with the sword... And often makes Kirby use a sword against him. In some games, this is optional.
    • In the Meta Knightmare mode in Nightmare in Dream Land, one of the bosses Meta Knight must face is another Meta Knight. He fights almost exactly like the playable Meta Knight does, in addition to being able to block the player's attacks.
    • Shadow Kirby in the Kirby Fighters games copies the exact ability you yourself select. If you pick a Buddy to take him on, however, Shadow Kirby cannot copy them exactly so he instead picks the closest Copy Ability to counteract the character in question (e.g. select Bandana Waddle Dee and Shadow Kirby uses the Staff ability).
  • In La-Mulana, the Mini-Boss Shu (or Chi You in the remake) somehow can use all the player's sub-weapons.
  • La-Mulana 2 has a literal example in the Mini-Boss/Puzzle Boss Ajisukitakahikone, a Doppelgänger who takes Lumisa's form and copies all of her actions, meaning that if you kill her, she also kills you. The solution is to use Thor's hammer Mjolnir to strike her with lightning, an action she can't copy.
  • Bass, introduced in Mega Man 7. An evil robot created by Dr. Wily to be Mega Man's equivalent in every way, he even has a robot dog, Treble, that he can combine with much like Mega Man can combine with Rush.
    • Much earlier than him is Proto Man in Mega Man 3, under his guise of Break Man.
    • In Operate: Shooting Star, Rockman.EXE and Ryuusei no Rockman end up fighting due to a misunderstanding. Ryuusei uses a similar fighting style to EXE with a few negligible differences.
    • The dark versions of the navis in Mega Man Battle Network 4 and 5 all use the battle chips and program advances that you've been using the most frequently in addition to their own attacks. This can end up making them very difficult if you favor the use of unavoidable attacks, and was particularly nasty in 4, where they put you up against one of them early enough in the story that they could One-Hit Kill you with a program advance if you had used one prior to the fight.
    • Preceded in the original Mega Man by the second fortress boss, a Mega Man clone who had all of the original's weapons.
    • Mega Man Zero 3 has its own mirror boss, Omega, with a twist being that The Hero is in a cloned body, while the Final Boss is the original body of Zero reprogrammed. To drive it home, all of Omega Zero's moves are either lifted directly from or are slightly modified versions of Zero's techniques from the X series.
    • Averted in Mega Man X6. In order to unlock Zero as a playable character, X must first destroy the Nightmare Zero, a mysterious duplicate of the original. Because of this, it is impossible to fight Nightmare Zero while playing as the real Zero (though hacking the game can get around this).
    • The Mega Man clone makes a reappearance in Rockman 4 Minus ∞. This time he is monochrome. After beating him once, he steals 4 of Mega Man's weapons with Dr. Wily's Stealing System and gains some color. Fortunately, he does not know how to use the weapons well.
  • The final boss of Pac-Man World uses one of Pac-Man's moves for each of its phases.
  • Prince of Persia has a literal version: Early on in the game, the player is forced to leap through a mirror. Though the player passes through, a duplicate appears from the other side of the mirror and runs away. This doppelganger reappears at a few points throughout the game to grief the player, and then for a final showdown near the end, where the doppelganger will mimic the player's attacks and defenses, making it impossible to defeat him in combat. The only way to beat him is to put away your sword. The doppelganger will follow suit, allowing you to walk into him and absorb him back into yourself
  • Pulseman featured as the boss of Stage 5 a dark Pulseman who attacked using a similar 'Voltecker' dash as Pulseman's own (e.g. this video).
  • In Purple, all but one of the mini-bosses you encounter on the map wield the exact same weapons you do. The final boss also uses these weapons, but they're bigger and some have extra effects.
  • The Illusion Alius series of bosses in Rabi-Ribi, who are copies of Erina and Ribbon and have access to all their abilities (whether the real ones have them or not.) Notably, they play completely unlike all the other bosses in the game, who rely primarily on Bullet Hell patterns, while Illusion Alius mostly just rushes Erina to hit her with melee attacks.
  • The final boss in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is another Lombax, complete with the agility and absurd arsenal that Ratchet has.
  • Ratchet & Clank (2016) turns Captain Qwark from a spaceship duel to one of these. He uses all the same weapons you have access to, though some function differently for him. This includes the Groovitron.
  • The final levels in Rayman feature Dark Rayman, an evil copy of Rayman created by Big Bad Mr. Dark. Dark Rayman copies everything Rayman does exactly, and touching him causes Rayman to instantly lose a life, no matter his current health. The only way to defeat him is to complete the level, which causes him to collapse and die with exactly the same death animation as Rayman.
  • Axle Gear from Rocket Knight Adventures, a member of the Black Knights who oppose the Rocket Knights which Sparkster is a member of. Like Sparkster, Axle Gear uses a rocket pack and a sword to battle. He also has the honor of being the only enemy to appear in all three games in the series (and That One Boss in all three of them).
  • Played With in Shantae: Risky's Revenge. The final boss is Shantae's genie half, which uses against you the same animal transformations that you've been using during the whole game. However, being now fully human, Shantae doesn't have access to these transformations during the battle, and has to rely on her normal, shop-bought magic, that Nega-Shantae doesn't have.
  • Shovel Knight has Black Knight, who looks and fights similar to the eponymous Shovel Knight, though he gains more unique moves each time you fight him.
    • In Plague of Shadows, the boss of the Explodatorium is Shovel Knight himself, who fights even more like the player would; moving erratically, reflecting projectile, and using Relics. The penultimate boss fight against the Plague of Shadows, which fights the same as Plague Knight does in Shovel Knight's story, also counts.
  • Zohar from Silhouette Mirage. Like Shyna, Zohar can switch between the Silhouette and Mirage attributes — and while Shyna's attribute depends on which way she faces, Zohar can change at will. Plus, Zohar's move arsenal contains several attacks which are counterparts to Shyna's — namely, the homing shot and sword attack.
  • Moon Snail, the final boss of Snailiad. Aside from changing his own gravity, he uses Devastator-style boomerangs and dark-colored waves in his first form. As Giga-Snail, he uses bigger Rainbow Waves, as well as using the Devastator-peashooter bullets. He even uses the idle animation as an attack; the Z's fly off in your general direction.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Metal Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, as well as many other Sonic robots built by Robotnik which may or may not be the same one remodeled. The first one appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and was also the first boss in the series who wasn't Robotnik.
    • Sonic Adventure 2: The whole game was replete with mirror bosses, having each of the characters fight their alternates on the other team. You basically have to fight each mirror boss twice, since they are the exact same regardless of which team you are playing on and both teams have to be completed in order to get the Golden Ending.
    • Knuckles in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, if you're not playing as him. He's ridiculously easy to beat, but Hidden Palace Zone is a Breather Level anyway. He is pretty much the same Knuckles you can play as, only with some HP instead of rings, a punch attack, and the ability to block by ducking. He even takes collision damage, though trying to walk into him will just get you punched. But you can stand in front of him and get Tails to walk into him from behind if playing as Sonic and Tails. Tails takes damage too, but he's invincible (in 2P mode). If Knuckles drops from a glide on your head, only he will take collision damage.
      • The fake Knuckles in Sonic Advance works the same way... until you hit it four times, at which point its skin explodes to reveal it as a robot capable of firing huge frickin' missiles.
    • In Sonic Rush, Sonic fights Blaze, although some of the moves used by the AI character aren't available for the player, even when playing as that character. The 2006 game also has Silver fight Sonic and Shadow. And the various fights against Sonic/Knuckles/Gamma (depending on who you're playing as) in the story modes of the first Sonic Adventure.
    • Half of the bosses in both Sonic Rivals games are battles with another playable character. Doubly so as every character plays exactly alike.
    • Also, in Sonic Generations, Shadow has all of the moves that Modern Sonic has, including Boost.
    • In Sonic Heroes the bosses of the City and Jungle areas are other Moveset Clone playable characters as well, though they vary depending on who you're playing as (Team Sonic vs. Team Rose/Team Dark vs. Team Chaotix in the former and Team Sonic vs. Team Dark/Team Rose vs. Team Chaotix in the latter).
  • Samantha from Stretch Panic is set up to be an Evil Counterpart to Linda even in her backstory: they were born less than a year apart, and Samantha's transformation revolves around an object which is important to her, a toy fish she was given by her mother. This toy fish is connected to her by a prehensile chain and acts like an extra limb, being used to grab and throw objects much like Linda's scarf hand.
  • Strider Hien in Strider 2 has all of Hiryu's techniques and movement, jumping and climbing included. The only difference is that he fights with ranged attacks instead of Hiryu's close-and-personal approach.
  • Most bosses in Super Catboy, including the Mole, Rottweiler, and Bull are huge, towering over your feline protagonist. And then there's the Cat Ninja, an agile henchwoman of the villains who's the same size as you and uses the same kind of attacks. Somehow this makes her the game's hardest boss.
  • Wario from Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is basically a giant evil Mario. He starts out trying to jump on Mario's head, then uses a black carrot to copy Mario's rabbit form, then finally copies Mario's fireball power with a black fire flower.
  • Shadow Mario from Super Mario Sunshine uses many of Mario's jumping abilities to escape him whenever he shows up to kidnap Princess Peach. His Magic Paintbrush matches F.L.U.D.D. insofar as that they were both made by Professor E. Gadd. He's actually Bowser Jr.
  • Cosmic Mario from Super Mario Galaxy uses the same moves as Mario, but to race him rather than fight him. In Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land meanwhile, Cosmic Clones take it a step further by spawning a few steps behind him and mimicking Mario's movements to the letter so that if he stops for too long they'll inflict Collision Damage.
  • The final boss of Super Mario 3D World uses the Double Cherry and Super Bell during the fight.
  • Super Paper Mario:
    • The boss of World 4, Mr. L. He jumps and moves around like the player, and he can even use items to heal himself.
    • The boss of the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials, Shadoo, transforms into Dark versions of the four playable characters that use their special abilities to attack (except for Dark Mario, who uses Cudge), each with 100 HP and 10 Attack (20 for Dark Bowser, mirroring Bowser's Attack being double Mario, Peach and Luigi's). His Dark Luigi form even resembles Mr. L.
  • Mecha-Turtle in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989).
  • In Tevi, Illusion Alius from Rabi-Ribi returns as the Mini-Boss of Dreamer's Keep, complete with a remix of "Sudden Death". It makes use of the moves which Tevi and her Orbitars have at their disposal, even mimicking the Core Expansions during its final phase.

    Real-Time Strategy 
  • Pikmin:
    • Pikmin (2001): The Puffstool is a walking fungus who towers over the player, but is completely harmless on its own. When disturbed, it releases a gas which turns Pikmin to its side, much like how you whistle Pikmin to your own side. These Brainwashed and Crazy "Mushroom Pikmin" will proceed to mindlessly follow the Puffstool, and they'll latch onto and attack you if you're in the way. They will also fight against regular Pikmin if you order them to attack, which can lead to disastrous casualties from both sides.
    • Pikmin 3: The Scornet Maestro. While the other bosses are giant predators, the Maestro is a relatively small bug who commands an army of 100 tiny flying insects, mirroring how you can control up to 100 Winged Pikmin. The Maestro can't defend itself if it gets caught without any flunkies; while you have a punching attack as an Emergency Weapon, it's weaker than a single Pikmin strike, making it very impractical.
  • Star Trek:

    Roguelikes 
  • Absented Age: Squarebound: Karen Alias has many of Karen's basic skills, such as No Foot Rise, Power Move, Foxtrot, Backflip, and Blaze Blast. Unfortunately for the player, she also has exclusive skills, such as the ability to disable random skills.
  • Hades:
    • Theseus is a mix of this and serving as a Final-Exam Boss for the Elysium section of the game. When he reaches half-health, his second phase involves starting to use a random Greater Call boon that Zagreus can be given. Additionally, his spear moves are very similar to Varatha, a weapon that the player can equip.
    • The final boss, Hades himself. Like Theseus, they use a spear as their weapon and was in fact the original wielder of Varatha, and their spearwork during the first stage is similar to Zagreus using Varatha, including his normal attack and spin attack. The skulls they launches also inflict Boiling Blood upon you, the same as Zagreus's own bloodstone attack. If you upgrade him with Extreme Measures 4, he gains a Raging Rush, like the Aspect of Achilles, teleporting to Gigaros after throwing it. He can also summon Cerberus as a companion.
  • Revita has the Final Boss Acceptance, who looks like a silhouette of the player and who uses attacks based on all of the celestial weapons you can obtain, with the occasional usage of the player's main weapon as well.
  • Risk of Rain 2:
    • The Artifact of Vengeance causes a shadowy doppelganger of the player to spawn once every ten minutes. The doppelganger comes equipped with all that player's items, making it potentially very lethal.
    • Mithrix is a unique example, as in his final phase, he steals all of the player's items and starts enchancing his own attacks with them, which can make him nigh-impossible to deal with depending on what the player has. The player gradually earns their items back by damaging him.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Interestingly subverted in Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, where you face a Death Knight and have the option of activating its Mirror of Reflection (which, it is initially implied, might be used against you). Instead of conjuring a Mirror Boss, it instead conjures up weird distortions that attack everyone, as it's broken.
    • Played with in Baldur's Gate II, where your initial boss fight with Irenicus has him cast a "Summon Clones" spell which doubles your party members as hostiles, only without equipment or spells (so — harmless, really).
    • Also subverted near the end of Baldur's Gate II, where a random encounter has initially friendly NPCs turning into doubles of your party and attacking if you say the wrong thing — but gives them none of your party's powers, instead making them into a moderately challenging fight at best.
  • Bleeding Sun: In the desert, the party has to face illusionary versions of themselves as a group, except for Haruki. These enemies not only have the same actions as the party, but also their passive skills like Yori's guaranteed counterattack against melee attacks.
  • In Act 3 of Divinity: Original Sin II, the Jerkass Gods inhabiting the party's bodies decide to kill them for a Grand Theft Me and create shadowy versions of the party with all of their current stats and abilities. And to make matters worse, once there's only one left standing it goes One-Winged Angel and triggers a second phase.
  • Along the way to finding the Urn of Sacred Ashes in Dragon Age: Origins, a ghostly version of your current party attacks you, using all of their current attacks, abilities, etc.
  • Happens near the end of Drakensang 2. The clones sports the same weapon you're using, so if you disarm your character right before the cutscene where the clones are created, the clones are unarmed and helpless.
  • Ness's Nightmare from EarthBound (1994) possesses all the skills that Ness has. To make it even more apparent, this is also a Duel Boss.
    • In Mother 3, the Masked Man fights in a similar style to Lucas and his party. He hits hard with his weapon, has the ability to destroy your shields like you can with the Shield Snatcher, uses a lightning attack that is similar to PK Thunder, and also possesses PK Love Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Omega, which is the same powerful technique Lucas uses. The reason the Masked Man can use the powerful PK Love attack is due to him being Claus, brother of Lucas.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion expansion Shivering Isles has you fight a dark shadow of yourself at one point. As Oblivion uses a character creation system with stats for specific abilities, this shadow is literally your own character, copied and coloured pitch black, with your exact stats and level, right down to the equipment it carries. The computer has all your weapons and abilities without the need to press buttons to switch between them.
    • One strategy for easily defeating him is to change your default weapons and armor to something very weak, then when you finally get in the fight with him, change back to your better armor and sword and slaughter him before he can do the same.
  • Eternal Twilight has the party fight a shadow team of themselves in order to prove themselves worthy of the Soul Forge and the soul weapons.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The second and third Black Waltzes in Final Fantasy IX (the first doesn't count due to being fought with Zidane alone). They are Black Mages (in this game a species, rather than just a class) like Vivi. Black Waltz 2 even counters spells from Vivi with stronger versions of the same spells.
    • Final Fantasy X:
      • The first Seymour battle has Seymour accompanied by two Guado Guardians. Seymour himself is a summoner like Yuna and casts black magic like Lulu. His Guado Guardians can cast black magic, inflict status effects on the party or heal their allies. Both Seymour and the Guado Guardians cast buffs on themselves at the start of the battle. In short, they use a similar variety of tactics as your own party, with the only differences being that Seymour's side doesn't use any physical attacks.
      • Most of the battles against enemy aeons actually subvert this, as you can't summon the same aeon that the enemy summoner is summoning. The Dark Aeons can be examples of this trope if you choose to summon the corresponding aeons (e.g. Valefor to fight Dark Valefor).
    • The final boss of Final Fantasy X-2 is a mirror of Tidus. While you can't actually fight him with Tidus, you can have your characters be in the Warrior dressphere, causing them to copy (to varying extents) the fighting style, poses and abilities of Tidus. And if you're playing a version with the Creature Creator system, you can recruit Tidus and have him fight the final boss.
    • The Combat Synergy Battle system of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 revolves around switching between Paradigms to adapt different roles during combat. Both games also feature boss fights during which the enemy follows the same rules for much the same reason as the player does.
      • XIII has Cid Raines, a Lindzei l'Cie in opposition to the party of Pulse l'Cie. He fights with different "Shifts" that serve as analogues to the player's Commando, Sentinel, and Medic roles.
      • XIII-2 has the fight with Caius Ballad during Lightning's DLC story, with both combatants having formerly been l'Cie. His "Stances" are directly named after the usual Commando, Ravager, and Medic roles.
      • XIII-2 also has separate DLC involving a fight with (echoes of) Lightning and Amodar, who use the same two-man Paradigms that Noel and Serah can use if they eschew the Paradigm Pack. Lightning (copied from her condition in the last game as a l'Cie proper) has access to Commando, Ravager, Synergist, and Medic roles; Amodar (who uses items and grenades in lieu of magic, much like Snow did in the early stages of last game) has access to Commando, Sentinel, and Saboteur roles. They ditch the Paradigm system when one goes down.
    • Final Fantasy XIV: The vast majority of humanoid enemies fight as playable job classes, which makes them qualify as Mirror Mooks to players of each class. Most job questlines actively play this trope straight by having at least one solo instanced battle that is against someone of the same job, though there are always some Secret A.I. Moves at the opponent's disposal.
      • This becomes the high point in the level 50 Dark Knight job quest with some foreshadowing leading up to it. Fray, your companion throughout the Dark Knight job quests, isn't really Fray at all. Instead, they're a manifestation of your dark persona that is composed of your frustrations, anger, exhaustion, and just plain bitterness of always having to play the hero to the realm and getting nothing in return beyond a thank you at best, or the betrayal at Ul'dah at worst. Your darker side fights you to gain complete control over you since you refuse to give in to them and they use the same exact techniques you use as a Dark Knight while also having some unique abilities of their own.
      • The Warriors of Darkness are a party of a Warrior, a Paladin, a White Mage, a Black Mage, and a Bard, and fight with the same abilities a player of those classes would have — including the Echo's ability to come back from a Total Party Kill. In Shadowbringers, each of them (except the Warrior) is the last boss of a questline specific to their own job's role, which downplays the trope at the very least.
      • The end boss of the Reflections in Crystal patch is Elidibus imbued with the spirits of heroes across all Shards, making him take on the apprence and mannerisms of the Warrior of Light of old. As such, many of his abilities copy the playable classes' skills from both war and magic disciplines and also has his own Limit Break gauge.
    • Final Fantasy XV: The final boss has many of the same abilities as Noctis, such as Armiger Arsenal or warp striking. This is because he's Noctis's ancestor's brother, made immortal and tainted by demonic powers.
  • Glory of Heracles III, through a cross of Stable Time Loop and Forced Transformation, has you relive an earlier boss fight from the opposite side, playing as the boss monster fighting your party. Though this time, the goal is not to win the fight.
  • In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, Rean, in his head, ends up fighting his Superpowered Evil Side self to see if he's ready to overcome it and become a Divine Blade. In reality however, he's fighting against Cassius who also uses the Eight Leaves One Blade style.
  • Lie of Caelum: The tutorial boss of the game is Kyou's projection, which he fights during his meditation. The projection can be fought again, but strangely, the entire party can help Kyou in this fight, despite this supposedly taking place in his own mind.
  • Helena in Lost Kingdoms has a runestone and uses cards to summon monsters, just like Katia. She also has basically the same backstory and goal.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the Mario Brothers infiltrate Bowser's brain, where his memories can become tangible. His memories of Mario and Luigi attack the real ones using moves from older Super Mario games, including other ones from the Mario & Luigi series. Bowser gets to fight his own mirror boss at the end of the game, and since Bowser is already a Villain Protagonist, it's Evil Versus Evil.
  • In the Citadel DLC pack of Mass Effect 3, the primary antagonist is an evil clone of Shepard. They originally appear in a CAT6 armor, but when you actually fight them, they've stolen some of Shepard's N7 gear and inverted the default colors to complete the look. And whatever class you're playing as, they match. "That's creepy."
    • The Superboss fight in the Armax Arsenal Arena is a Mirror Match fight against three waves of Shepard duplicates, using the six classes available to the player.
  • The True Final Boss of Megadimension Neptunia VII, with the twist being, like the Mega Man Zero 3 example above, the Big Bad is the original Uzume Tennouboshi gone insane and evil, while The Hero is the goodness left inside her having taken physical form. This is a crucial plot point, as they're engaged in a Battle in the Center of the Mind for the ownership of their body Back from the Dead post-Heroic Sacrifice.
  • The 4 Faeries in NeoQuest II. The Earth Faerie mirrors Rohane (has Critical Hits and Stunning Strikes), the Fire Faerie mirrors Mipsy (Direct Damage, Group Direct Damage), the Dark Faerie mirrors Talinia (sort of; it's the one that inflicts status effects, even if Velm gets some of them on your team) and the Water Faerie mirrors Velm (Healing, Group Healing).
  • In OFF, the Queen fights very similarly to the Batter, as she has her own Add-Ons that assist her in battle like the player does. The major difference is that she lacks support abilities like the Batter has, as all of her skills are offensive.
  • In the Persona series:
    • Persona 2:
      • In both games, the Boss fights against the Shadow Selves, which are evil versions of your party with more vicious Signature Moves. Shadow Maya is even fought twice. However, Shadow Yukino in Innocent Sin is optional, as it depends on the player making the wrong choices.
      • In Innocent Sin, the members of the Masked Circle have "Reverse" Personas, and most of them are copies of your party's Personas. Sugimoto (another optional boss) has the Reverse of Eikichi's, Ginji has the Reverse of Lisa's, and Tatsuya Sudou has the Reverse of Tatsuya's.
      • Late in Innocent Sin, you fight against the Bolontiku; a party of five aliens (It Makes Sense in Context) who wield corrupt versions of the party's Signature Moves, and have identical elemental affinities.
      • In Eternal Punishment, there's a retroactive example in the infamous fight against the Metal Trio, who are golden statues of Eikichi, Lisa and Jun from the previous game.
    • In Persona 3, Optional Boss Elizabeth (or Theodore if you play as the female protagonist in Persona 3 Portable) is a Persona user, and uses the same Personas and attacks that the player can use. Including Megidolaon, the strongest non-unique attack in the game.
    • Persona 4 has the same situation, with Optional Boss Margaret. During the story, there's also the fight with Adachi, who fights in a very similar way to the protagonist, including having a dark version of the protagonist's default Persona known as Magatsu Izanagi. Though you fight him with your whole party in the game, the anime adaptation plays up the Mirror Boss aspect even more by having Yu (the main character) fight him alone, even using his own Izanagi during the fight.
    • Persona 5 continues the trend of having the Velvet Room assistants (in this case, Caroline and Justine) be an Optional Boss who can use Personas. This time, there's two of them, meaning they can also use player tactics such as healing and even reviving each other, and they also have their own version of the All-Out Attack (which is an instant win for them, regardless of your party's health) complete with unique "victory" screen. Story-wise, there's Black Mask Akechi, who uses the same fighting style as the player characters, complete with using both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. He even has the ability to use multiple Personas, just like Joker.
  • Potentially can occur in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, as after catching Giratina you need to fight a shadowy Level 100 copy of it in order to claim its Griseous Orb. You don't necessarily have to have Giratina in your party for this, but it'd be a lot cooler if you did.
  • The final battle of Rings Of Power on Sega Genesis is this, whereas your evil rival has gathered a party of adventurers with the exact same class composition as your own to fight you.
  • Rise of the Third Power:
    • Viktoriya uses similar skills to Aden, such as Plague, Detonate, and Drain, due to practicing the same kind of magic. However, she has some skills unique to herself, such as Ruination.
    • Dimitri Noraskov uses the same storm magic as his son, Gage. However, his physical weapon is a rifle instead of a spear.
  • In SaGa Frontier, the entire purpose of Blue's quest is to prepare for a Wizard Duel with his brother Rouge. When the duel finally happens, you find out that Rouge has mastered the opposite of every school of magic that Blue learned (except for Realm magic, which they both start with).
    • Red's quest has a Recurring Boss named Metal Black, a robot warrior who remodels himself after every defeat. His final form is modeled after Red's superhero identity, Alkaiser; he even has a copy of Red's finishing move, Dark Phoenix.
  • In the Bonus Dungeon of Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, one of the boss encounters is against shadow clones of the entire party, known as "(character name)'s Anima". They fight exactly like the playable party, including having Miki's Anima heal and revive the others.
  • Darth Malak from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic uses abilities very similar to your own and blocks, attacks, dodges, heals, etc., all exactly like your character can requiring mastery of your combat forms (and a lot of stims) to stand a chance.
  • Tales Series:
    • In the PSP version of Tales of Destiny 2, if you go into the Bonus Dungeon, after a few floors you meet the first miniboss... Leon Magnus. Since the real Leon Magnus is already in your party, the fight becomes this if you use him. The fake has a few different abilities when it comes to spells, but otherwise plays almost the same as Judas.
    • The Optional Boss Abyssion Subverts this in Tales of Symphonia as he wields all the Devil Arms- weapons your party members can equip. The subversion is that he mirrors all of the party members instead of any individual one, and uses moves normally only available to the player.
    • Asch of Tales of the Abyss is this to Luke, with very good reason — Luke is his clone. Indeed, in Luke's clashes with him (which are, of course, Duel Boss Fights), he has most of the same skills that Luke does — the only major difference in ability is the fact that Asch can cast spells and his Mystic Arte is different, though functionally similar.
      • Most of the other Six God Generals count as well, though to what extent varies from general to general.
      • The cameo battle plays this brilliantly. Reid to Luke/Guy. Mint to Tear/Natalia. Philia to Jade. Nanaly to Anise/Natalia. All at once. There's a reason why it's considered by some to be the best boss battle in the series.
      • The Optional Boss Nebilim does the same thing as the Symphonia example above, but for the Abyss cast instead.
    • In the second half of Tales of Legendia, the majority of the non-monster bosses are shadow versions of your party members who can use all of their respective artes, but have the added benefits of flinch resistance, and in the case of the magic users, quick or instant casting on their spells.
    • The bonus boss of Tales of Xillia copies the fighting styles of your party members, first imitating Alvin, then duplicating himself and imitating Leia and Rowen, then duplicating himself once more to imitate Jude, Milla, and Elise.
    • Played completely straight in Tales of Xillia 2 with Victor, who's an Alternate Self of Ludger and has access to every trick in his arsenal (Including ones you might not have learned yet). You also fight shadow versions of your party members in the bonus dungeon, who despite facing you solo are extremely threatening due to their drastically increased stats.
  • The remake of Trials of Mana adds in a bonus chapter where each character has to go on a personal sidequest to get an item that lets them reach Class 4. Angela's sidequest requires her to fight a shadow duplicate of herself, one-on-one. Shadow Angela uses all the same spells Angela can; unfortunately, she can spam multiple spells in quick succession much faster than Angela herself can, making for a tough fight. Afterward, reaching Class 4 gives Angela a spell that lets her summon Shadow Angela as an assist.
  • The final battle of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is against clones of all 8 recruitable party members. Note that there is one party member of each class, and you can recruit all of them except the one who shares your class, so the clones usually end up having the exact same party makeup as you.
  • Unleash the Light:
    • The boss fight in Pyrope’s World has you fighting against Light versions of the Crystal Gems.
    • If you have Hessonite on your team in Rose's Room, the Final Boss becomes this because the room will make a simulated copy of her instead.

    Shoot 'Em Ups 
  • The second-to-last boss in Bio Metal uses all three Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups that the player could use, except upgraded.
  • The final boss of Border Down, which is basically a powerful version of your fighter having been recorded by the R.A.I.N. system.
  • The unreleased Shoot 'Em Up Chimera Beast has the Final Boss, essentially an oversized and more evolved version of the player's eater.
  • In Death Smiles, Sakura is the boss of the Swamp, which means that if you're playing as her in Mega Black Label mode, you fight a mirror image of her.
  • EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance: Blue Armor, the ghost of an ancient Shakun Star warrior, uses a form of Star Yui similar to Sharkungo. Like Sharkungo, he attacks by launching his Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and projections of himself across the screen and can spin in a star shape to attack the player. But as a final boss, he attacks with greater ferocity than the player is capable of, and has additional attacks unavailable to Sharkungo in theme with the other attacks, such as launching a ring of defensive stars around him or saturating the screen in offensive projections as a desperation attack.
  • Green in Gunstar Heroes, a former ally of Red and Blue brainwashed to serve the Empire, is a Mirror Boss in the final chapter. His Boss Subtitles list his attacks as "The Gunstars' Actions", which is appropriate, since he can jump, slide, and throw just like you can. But instead of using a gun, he uses throwing stars. This is not true of the remake/sequel, Gunstar Super Heroes, where Green just reuses the Seven Force he used earlier.
  • The Elites in Hero Core. Significant in that it isn't just a random Evil Knockoff; they foreshadow that Flip Hero is also an Elite that once served in Tetron's army.
  • Tageri from Ikaruga, a boss who is capable of instantly switching between the white and black attributes just like your ship can, and intermittently using your homing laser superweapon, which you can only survive by absorbing it with the matching attribute. Of course, you're still a small fighter plane, and it's a giant sphere shooting waves of danmaku at you, but it sort of works.
  • Kamui has the bosses of Stage 4, a squad of Kamui fighters just like your ship. Just like the ship you pilot, they can use standard shots, lock-on shots, and a beam attack (although heavily modified).
  • Allen O'Neil from the Metal Slug series (including the spinoff Metal Slug Code J). Nearly every other boss is some sort of exotic military vehicle, but Allen is just a man with a gun, grenades, a knife, and a whole lot of muscles.
    • He makes a special exception in 7/XX, where you fight him piloting a Humongous Mecha. Whilst also piloting a Humongous Mecha of your own you boarded earlier in the mission.
  • Penta from Radiant Silvergun is a copy of your Airborne Aircraft Carrier base, Tetra. It attacks with two copies of the Silvergun which use all the same weapons that you can use. We hope you've "memories yourself".
  • Brad from Sin and Punishment, who wields a gun/sword weapon exactly like yours. He's first fought in a shootout where you have to dodge his aiming cursor to keep him from shooting you; once that's done, he closes in for a sword duel.
  • Star Wolf in Star Fox 64. Unlike the large bosses encountered elsewhere in the game, Star Wolf comes down to your level in an attempt to beat you at your own game, flying ultra-advanced fighter craft not unlike your own Arwings. And they seem to do a pretty good job of it, as each Star Wolf member seems to beat his Star Fox counterpart more often than not unless the player is there to save their teammates.
  • In Touhou Project 9.5, Shoot the Bullet, this is Eiki Shiki's last spellcard, "Cleansed Crystal Judgment": a magic mirror that produces a clone of the protagonist that uses her attacks.
    • The reflection fights like Aya did in the previous game, while she's using completely different mechanics here. The Aya/Hatate fights in Double Spoiler are much closer to the trope, putting you up against a boss that uses photography, although the game is inherently asymmetric.

    Simulation Games 
  • The climactic battle of Level 4 in Descent 3 is a duel with one of Dravis' Black Pyros.

    Sports Games 
  • 1080° Snowboarding: In Match Race, the opponent you face in Dragon Cave is an exact duplicate of your chosen character.

    Stealth-Based Games 
  • Assassin's Creed Rogue has a former Assassin turned Templar hunting down current Assassins, who are able to utilize some of the same methods as the prior games' playable Assassins such as taking the player by surprise from the air and hiding in foliage, although the Templar in turn has gameplay mechanics to counter those.
  • Dishonored has Daud, who like Corvo has powers granted by The Outsider and uses Sword and Gun in combat. Of course, the player doesn't have to directly fight him and can simply sneak up on him or sneak by him if they wish.
  • Echo has this as an Exaggerated Trope. You make your way through a seemingly infinite palace, which alternates between periods of light and dark, populated by alien clones of the protagonist. The clones initially have very limited moves, only being able to follow and physically attack you, but anything you do during a light period will be copied and added to all clones' repertoire during the next light period. This includes minor things like riding elevators or walking through water, potentially helpful things like activating collectibles (which adds them to your collection) or restoring health (the clones don't benefit from it and it distracts them), or potentially very dangerous things like sprinting, sneaking, shooting, or stealth takedowns. During the dark periods, you can use your abilities as much as you like, but if you're not careful during light periods, you'll end up facing a dozen highly-capable clones armed with your most dangerous abilities.
  • Metal Gear:
    • While has lots of Evil Counterpart characters, but few of them fall under this. One that does is The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. In that game, you basically have 3 specialties: guns, CQC, and camouflage. The Boss carries the Patriot machine gun, is the one who taught you CQC, and wears a white jumpsuit which provides excellent camouflage in the field of flowers where you fight.
    • Liquid Ocelot from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots engages the player in a close combat based fight at the end.
    • Gray Fox from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is limited to exactly what Snake can do — running around and punching.
    • A very interesting example in Metal Gear Ac!d 2 - Venus breaks the fourth wall to announce that she's going to use Snake's deck, even drawing the cards in the exact same order that he does. Since there's a lot of flexibility with the card-based battle system, though, it's very unlikely that she'll act anything like Snake at all once in combat - for instance, a good way of fooling her is by setting up a deck with a few strong equippable gun cards and lots of weaker guns to use as ammunition, which will often cause her to equip the weak ones and load them with the strong ones. The version of her that appears in the Boss Rush also uses whatever deck Snake has.
  • Tenchu 3: Wrath Of Heaven introduces Hyakubake, a Master of Disguise who takes on either Rikimaru or Ayame's form in the opposite's Story Mode, making use of their techniques and even a few of the player's items (like the Blowgun). This trend of pitting one of the two (or three) playable characters against the other is used in other games (Fatal Shadows and Time of the Assassins, for example), though in most of those cases it's the actual character instead of a disguised enemy.

    Survival Horror 
  • In the good ending of Cry of Fear, the real Simon fights the imaginary Face–Monster Turn version that the player has been controlling up to that point. While the gameplay is changed as the player is wheelchair-bound and shoots at Book Simon during key moments, Book Simon uses most of the weapons that the player collected throughout the game.
  • At the end of Extermination (2001), after defeating its giant monster form, the Alien Lifeform transforms into a copy of your character; basically a soldier with an assault rifle.
  • Silent Hill 3 has Memory of Alessa, who shares the same appearance as Heather, but with black hair and burned/bloodied skin. The boss attacks with a knife, a handgun, a steel pipe, and then a submachine gun, which are weapons that the player can use as well. Like the player, the boss can also block attacks.

    Third-Person Shooters 
  • In the final stage of Gungrave, Grave's first battle in the level is a boss encounter with his former apprentice, Bunji Kugashira. While he doesn't look like his mentor or have a coffin-like weapon, he too dual-wields a pair of pistols and regenerates his health the way Grave regenerates his shield. Bunji's also capable of using his own unique Graveyard Special, which is the same boss fatality move that Grave uses, except Bunji can use his any time he's close to you. His battle even starts with him sliding at Grave, trying to catch him and initiate the move.
  • When you finally fight Richard Hawk in the Las Vegas level in Metal Wolf Chaos, he has a special ops suit just like you, complete with its own Limit Break.
  • Splatoon:
  • Anubis in Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. It was built as part of the same project as Jehuty, and not only are they the only two Orbital Frames in existence that can use Zero Shift and control Aumaan, but their normal beam attacks are parallel as well.
    • In the original Zone of the Enders, Viola and her frame Neith are a Mirror Boss, mainly because all the other bosses are absolutely humongous even by Humongous Mecha standards.
  • Control has a quite literal version of this as it takes place within the dimensional confines of an anomalous mirror. When Jesse enters it, she finds herself facing an entity called esseJ that looks like her and fights with the same arsenal of her Service Weapon and other Psychic Powers. She's not a strictly necessary encounter, but killing her nets you that spiffy black Badass Longcoat she's wearing.

    Turn-Based Strategy 
  • An interesting example in Heroes of Might and Magic 5. Visiting a sphinx will trigger a riddle with three choices. A wrong answer will result in a battle against a copy of the triggering hero, with the same level, skills, abilities, artifacts, and troops. And they usually have the initiative.
  • One match in the single-player campaign of Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 pits you against Riku of Two Reflections, who uses a deck identical to yours. Note that is also the first entry in the Duels series that lets you build your own deck from scratch instead of choosing from pre-built ones.
  • In Super Robot Wars Z2, Anti-Spiral pilots a Palette Swap of the Gurren Lagann with Anti-Spiral Nia instead of the Grand Zamboa because Tengen Toppa wasn't in the game. He also pilots Chouginga Anti-Gurren Lagann.

    Visual Novels 
  • Granberia in Monster Girl Quest! fights only with a sword, unlike every other enemy but like the player character Luka. She can even use many of the same skills as him, and in her fourth and final battle she initially counters his skills with her own.

 
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esseJ

esseJ is this for Jesse, looking like her but with a black Badass Longcoat and being much more hostile. It's unknown whether or not it has some kind of true form, but based on comments from past Bureau agents who ventured into its territory, it's existed in some form for a while.

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