Swap Fighter

Zelda and Sheik, the unlikeliest team. Except they really aren't.

When making a playable character, it is often just one single character alone. There are occasionally moments where two characters can fight side-by-side. However, rather than being back-to-back, you start off playing as one, and then you perform a skill to shift to the other.

In some cases, the reason could be that the two characters are one and the same in-universe, making them a limited shapeshifter of sorts. Other moments establish them as being separate characters individually but still have them function as one.

Because of this, it is like selecting two characters in one.

Sometimes, it's possible to play through without using the mechanic and going through a whole round as just one of the two characters. However, these bundled characters work better when their switch mechanic is utilized.

Related to but not quite the same as Tag Team, which involves pairing up two or more individual characters (who can otherwise act on their own) together. May overlap with Swap Teleportation. Compare and contrast Action Duo, Assist Character, Fighting Spirit, Puppet Fighter, and Two Aliases, One Character. Contrast Multi-Slot Character, which involves one character being split into multiple characters. See also Switch-Out Move. Not to be confused with a Stance System, which is where one character can switch between different fighting styles, moves, and/or abilities to adapt to different situations. The weapon-swapping counterpart to this is Real-Time Weapon Change.

Important Note: For examples to count, the characters have to be exclusively paired to one another in-game, either sharing the same character slot or at least be mechanically tied to each other where separation is not possible. A tag team mechanic that allows you to pick more than one character from the select screen doesn't count. Also note that switching between different party members in an RPG in general doesn't count by default because they're usually established as separate characters with distinct movesets/abilities from one another. They'll only count if one of the party members is designed as a collective duo/group or a two-in-one character with this specific mechanic in mind.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Evie and Jacob are twin protagonists that the player can switch between at will by pressing a button (R3 on consoles), save for specific missions. And again, save for a few specific nodes, the twins share the same skill tree and share most of their equipment.
• Drakengard: Caim can switch out between his "allies" for a limited time, who have unique summons (giant golem fists, fire and water spirits, and fairies).

Eastern RPGs

• Dragalia Lost: Ayaha & Otoha were initially introduced into the game as a Dual Boss where you fought both of them at the same time. Eventually, they were both added as a conjoined playable character, switching places whenever they use their "Nabe Nabe Sokonuke" skill.
• Granblue Fantasy: Unlike other "duo" units like Stan/Aliza or Lancelot/Vane or Arthur/Mordred who are both present on-screen at all times, battle maid duo Claudia and Dorothy can switch who is on-screen. Claudia relies on Good Old Fisticuffs and focuses damage on single targets, while Dorothy is armed with a flamethrower and attacks all enemies. They can trigger their charge attack at 100%, whereby the on-screen character unleashes her charge attack, or the player can wait till it's fully charged at 200%, where the charge attack instead becomes a Combination Attack.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Pyra and Mythra can switch back and forth between each other instantly as much as you want during battle, in contrast to the usual cooldown for switching between other Blades. This was adapted into their play style in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Endless Runners

• Cookie Run: The Cookiemals are a three-cookie team who switch between each other after using their skill, which activates on a timer. All other runners are a single character.

Fighting Games

• In Melty Blood, both Hisui and Kohaku are playable as a tag team with the two characters swapping each other out by double-tapping down and the shield button.
• Mortal Kombat: Deception: Noob Saibot and Smoke become a tag team with the two characters swapping between each other in exchange for the Stance System every other character uses.
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2: Norbert and Dagget Beaver act as a single character that tag out with their down special, taking a page from Pyra and Mythra's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate by sharing most of their standard attacks with slightly different attributes, while having entirely different special attacks. Their neutral and side specials will also call the brother that isn't currently active for an Assist Character attack, and if they tag out during this, the assisting brother will stay in his current position, functionally allowing for short-range teleportation.
• Street Fighter II: An unlicensed hack known colloquially as "Rainbow Edition" turns the entire cast into Swap Fighters via the taunt button, making one able to cycle through the roster mid-battle. Guru Larry speculates that this was the inspiration for the ability to switch between fighters in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, as Capcom was known to be aware of it.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee: Zelda and Sheik are one and the same and are essentially the Trope Codifiers. Their down B has them shift between one another.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: A large amount of these characters (along with having Zelda and Sheik return from the previous game) have been introduced. In the previous two games, Samus was a standalone fighter like everybody else. In Brawl, she becomes Zero Suit Samus after using her Final Smash with a changed moveset and can switch back to Power Suit Samus with the same method. The Pokémon Trainer invokes this trope by not actually being the fighter, but rather having you control his Pokémon, which swap with down B, cycling through Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard.
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: While Sheik, Zelda, Samus, and Zero Suit Samus remain as separate characters after ditching their swap mechanics in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the Pokémon Trainer returns with their original swap mechanic between Charizard, Squirtle, and Ivysaur intact. On top of that, Pyra and Mythra are added as part of the second fighters pass and they fight by shifting between one another.
• Super Smash Flash: Kirby became a Swap Fighter with Meta Knight due to technical limitations of the developer being unable to implement the copy ability.
• Tekken:
  • Mokujin in Tekken 3 and Combot in Tekken 4 can use character moves to each character each round.

First-Person Shooters

• Quake Champions: This is Strogg & Peeker's schtick: the Strogg does most of the fighting, and once their ability bar is full and the ability key is pressed, he becomes invisible and the player controls Peeker, a drone with the ability to shoot at its enemies.

Metroidvania

• Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, already being a big Castlevania homage (see just below), similarly includes partner characters to swap Zangetsu with, including Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's heroine Miriam. The sequel brings in a new trio of faces to accompany Zangetsu.
• Castlevania:
  • Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse treats Trevor and his partner this way if he recruits one, with the Select button causing them to swap.
  • Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: "Julius Mode" is an intentional throwback to the above, with Julius, Yoko and Alucard trading places.
  • If you don't have Jonathan and Charlotte out simultaneously in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, they become this.

Party Games

• 100% Orange Juice!: The hoodlum duo Mimyuu and Tomato utilize this mechanic in gameplay. You start the match with Mimyuu by default, but if she gets KOed, you'll automatically switch to Tomato on revival, and the same mechanic applies vice versa to her as well. The only difference between the two stat-wise is that Tomato has +1 Attack while Mimyuu has -1 Attack and +1 Evasion, and both have different Hyper cards each.

Platformers

• Kirby Star Allies: Two Dream Friends feature this mechanic.
  • Rick, Kine, and Coo automatically switch who is active depending on the current environment, with Rick on the ground, Kine in the water, and Coo in the air.
  • The Three Mage Sisters each have full movesets, switching out manually with down B.
• Looney Tunes: Carrot Crazy: Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny act as a swap duo player character. Only Bugs Bunny can tunnel through soft earth to bypass solid walls while Lola Bunny can exploit her Heli-Critter ears to attain extra horizontal distance when jumping. There is no way to win the game with just one character exclusively.
• Trine: In single-player, Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius are merged into one body, with the ability to switch between who is active at will.
• Yeah Jam Fury: Much like a single-player Trine, only one of the titular three protagonists can be out at a time, and most puzzles involve having to shift between them.

Racing Games

• Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed:
  • In the PC version, Team Fortress is a selectable racer with the driver changing based on what mode the vehicle is in. Pyro drives a car in land mode, Heavy maneuvers a boat in water mode, and Spy pilots a plane in aerial mode.
  • AGES, the final unlockable character in all versions of the game, also switches between various Sega references depending on vehicle modes. Car mode is the Hornet from Daytona USA, plane mode is the F-14 Tomcat from After Burner, and boat mode is a Console Cameo in the form of a Sega Dreamcast controller.

Roguelike Games

• The Binding of Isaac: There are a few characters who work like this. Dying as one character will always kill the other, regardless of their health pool.
  • Lazarus' gimmick is that he starts with below average stats, but comes with his one innate Extra Life, and on death turns into Lazarus Risen with one heart container and a bonus damage multiplier. In patch 1.7.8 (post-Repentance), Lazarus received a buff and can now revive once every floor while only losing one heart container each time, reverting to regular Lazarus at the start of each floor.
  • The Forgotten is a skeleton that swings a damaging melee bone club. By pressing the drop key, he can switch to a ghost called The Soul, who can freely fly and fires normal tears, but is chained to The Forgotten's inert body. Both characters can only have six hearts at a time instead of the normal twelve.
  • Tainted Lazarus switches between himself and Dead Lazarus every time he clears a room or activates his special Flip item. Unlike The Forgotten, the two characters do not share items or stats with each other, but Flip has a passive effect to compensate that lets them collect more items than a normal character.
  • The item Esau Jr. lets any character be this. On use, it transforms you into the character Esau Jr., who starts with flight and high base damage as well as a random selection of items equal to your total items when you first used it. Like Tainted Lazarus, Esau Jr. doesn't share anything with your original character. Activating again will let you swap back to normal.

Shoot-Em-Ups

• Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night: The game has a central mechanic of Human/Youkai Teams where you control set teams of two characters at once and can switch between who's active on-screen depending on whether you're focused or not. The teams consist of the Illusionary Barrier Team (Reimu and Yukari), the Aria of Forbidden Magic Team (Marisa and Alice), the Visionary Scarlet Devil Team (Sakuya and Remilia), and the Netherworld Dwellers Team (Youmu and Yuyuko). In non-focused mode, you control the human characters of their teams by default, while in focused mode, you switch to their non-human teammates respectively. Each character of the teams has different shot attributes and bombs, adding a layer of strategy of when to bring them out for appropriate situations.

Western RPGs

• Fallout: New Vegas: In the "Dead Money" DLC, The Courier is given a companion called Dog and God, a nightkin mutant with split personality disorder, and the ability to decide which personality is in control of their body by playing recordings through their Pip-Boy. The Dog personality is Dumb Muscle and the more brutal fighter of the two, able to kill Ghost People in a way that prevents them from respawning, while God is a well-spoken Control Freak, granting a companion perk that makes The Courier stealthier and less likely to set off traps when in control.
• Kult: Heretic Kingdoms: In the sequel Shadows: Awakening^note No relation to the fanfic of the same name., Soul Eating demon named the Devourer can materialize their consumed souls as puppet bodies in gameplay, switching between them and their true form on-screen (which simultaneously switches between the Mortal Realm and the Shadowrealm).

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