Mirror Match / Video Games

As expected, this is quite common in Video Games. Click here to go back to the main page.

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Action Adventure

• Some levels of Blaster Master have mooks that look like gray versions of the player character.
• One of the recurring bosses in Castlevania is the Doppelganger, which imitates the player's appearance, moves, and (sometimes) stats and equipment. This is a bit too much dedication for the Doppelganger's own good — you can often make the fight simple by putting on weak equipment before it starts, then switching.
  • In Castlevania: Judgment, both the combatants have special comments and a (shared) unique win quote for a mirror match. Notably, Aeon, the Guardian of Time, believes his clone to be a threat to all of time.
• Darksiders does this when you get to Eden, where you're forced to fight a particularly bastard-ish version of yourself that can use some of your limited use moves as many times as he cares.
• In Legend of Mana during one of the missions you undertake you are having to chase your Doppelgänger across town as they cause mischief. This culminates with a fight against them at the edge of town.
• Various The Legend of Zelda games have the Dark Link Mini-Boss, who got various levels of character development, but is just a shadowy version of yourself.
  • Dark Link in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link serves as the game's Final Boss. Link has to fight his own dark self to prove his worth for the Triforce of Courage and the boss is no slouch. Dark Link can almost block every attack you throw at him with perfect timing and strike you when you least expect it.
  • The Superboss in the GBA remake of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is actually four Links that represent the colored Links you played as in the multiplayer game. Not only do they possess the Golden Sword and the Mirror Shield, along with basic sword slashes, but each color you fight can do everything the last one did and gains a new move. ^note In order: Green can use the Pegasus Boots, Red can use the Hurricane Spin, Blue has the Magic Cape and Roc's Cape, and Purple can shoot fireballs from the tip of his swords (doesn't quite mimic Link's energy attack from his sword when his life meter is at full, but the concept is the same) and takes twice as much damage.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time subverted the intuitive Mirror Match expectations by equipping Dark Link with absolutely none of Link's tools and weapons, except for shady counterparts to the Hylian shield and the Master Sword. As if to make up for this, it gave Dark Link a few added abilities, such as the ability to vanish and reappear behind Link when struck, and the ability to paralyze Link by hopping up to balance atop the blade of his Master Sword. This ability is only applicable when Link thrusts straight on, so it can easily be avoided. But it's worth getting caught in at least once because it's just that badass. The fight gets harder if you spent time collecting extra heart containers because Dark Link's life is set to match your own maximum life.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures Shadow Link shows up every so often to cause mayhem, such as pulling out a huge bomb that kills anyone not hiding in a building or a cave, and at a few points you have to fight dozens of them. Turns out Vaati is using a magic mirror to create an army of Links to hinder your progress.
  • Dark Link returns as a Superboss in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, at the end of the third run of the Take 'Em All On! minigame. In addition to having the usual swordplay, he also throws bombs and shoots arrows.
  • In Hyrule Warriors, there are stages in Adventure Mode where a specific character is required, and has them fight a copy of that character at some point of that stage.
• In Ōkamiden, the Big Bad is a mirror match fight.
• Shinobi for the PS2 has Moritsune.
• The Swords of Ditto has the Fallen Swords at the end of each Toy dungeon, who are former Swords who died against the witch Mormo and were corrupted by her magic. Like the Player Character, they are capable of using the Toys of Legend, but which ones they use varies from battle to battle.

Action Game

• Bayonetta uses this trope quite literally as well. And how? She fights herself at the end the "Angel Slayer" bonus Chapter.
• During the final stage's Boss Rush in Cannon Dancer, Kirin confronts a gray-colored clone of himself called Fake, who comes out of a mirror. He can do every one of Kirin's moves, but can't use any power-up/energy double.
• Devil May Cry:
  • The first game uses this trope quite literally when Nelo Angelo aka Vergil emerges from a mirror to battle you. Both brothers have similar abilities (swords and projectiles).
  • The third game featured a Doppelganger boss that mimicks Dante's default Devil Trigger form and some of his Rebellion and Beowulf attacks. Defeating it would earn you the Doppelganger Style, where you create a shadow of yourself that copies all of your moves.
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse: The third mission for the Elder Kai has you face off against a copy of your character in order to see if you've truly mastered your own power. After the clone is KO'd, they get back up and enter Villainous Mode for a second round.
• God Hand provides two examples: The first is Azel, the owner of the other God Hand who prefers to call himself Devil Hand as a contrast to the player character, Gene. Both characters use essentially the same moves on one another, and can even engage in Fist of the North Star-esque pummel duels. The second example is the final arena match, where Gene faces a carbon copy of himself (actually a reskin of Azel) with both God Hands for 99,999 gold.
• Averted in Ninja Gaiden III for the NES. The fifth boss is Ryu's doppelganger, but he has his own sprite (which is twice the size of the player's) and attack patterns. The doppelganger is revived as the boss of the next stage, who has a completely different form.
• Wildcat Gun Machine combines this with Wolfpack Boss when you battle the Remnants, who unlike previous bosses (being gigantic mecha or monsters) are a group of clones of your character, each of them taking a fraction of the boss' life and using weapons just like yours.
• Yokai Hunter Shintaro has a Ungaikyō, a yokai mirror demon who materializes into a clone of your character, leading to a Mirror Match boss battle.

Adventure Game

• In Death Gate, your path is at one point blocked by a mirror clone who duplicates your moves, so you can't move past him. The solution? Trick him into casting the "self-immolation" spell you learned earlier. Since magic is cast by forming runes in certain patterns, you can simply perform a mirrored version - which will do nothing - and the duplicate does a re-mirrored one, with fatal outcome.
• In Quest for Glory III: Wages of War, the party the Hero has assembled fight mirror duplicates of themselves (created by magic mirrors, of course). The evil duplicates blatantly cheat by being significantly more powerful than the originals. The Hero's own fight is unwinnable without assistance.
• In Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for PC, the final battle is against a duplicate of the Enterprise, but tricked out with plasma torpedoes in addition to the normal weapons and escorted by two pirate vessels. It's easily the hardest part of the entire game.

Beat Em Up

• In Captain Commando, the boss in Stage 8 is Doppel, who can transform himself into an identical copy of the Commando he's up against. If more than one player are facing him, then Doppel will split himself into the required number of clones to fight.
• Double Dragon:
  • The final boss in the NES version is Billy Lee's (the player character) twin brother Jimmy, who has all the same moves as the player and more health. This is actually a carry-over from the arcade version, in which the game forced both players to fight each other at the end if they defeat Machine Gun Willy together (Jimmy Lee was originally the Player 2 character in the arcade version).
  • The NES version also has a one-on-one Versus Mode where you could compete against the computer or another player as one of six characters (Billy Lee and five enemies from the main game). For some strange reason, the developers decided to use larger sprites for all the characters in Versus Mode (except for Abobo, who uses the same sprites from the main game and looks oddly proportioned compared to the other Versus Mode characters) and as a result, only same character matches are allowed. When Billy is chosen, the Player 2 variant will be colored like Jimmy (red clothes and blond hair).
  • In both arcade and NES versions of Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the player must fight against a clone of their character in the enemy's hideout. If there's a second player present, then there will be two clones instead of one (one for each Lee brother). The clones have almost all of the same moves as the player, along with the ability to throw projectiles and possess the player from the inside to drain their health. The clones are the final bosses in the arcade version and the penultimate bosses in the NES one.
  • Jeff, an enemy character who appeared in the first two arcade games (and the Sega Master System version of the first), narrowly averts this by being a head-swap of the Lee Brothers and not a full clone. However, when Jeff returned in Super Double Dragon for the SNES, he was made into a complete palette swap of Billy Lee with tanned skin and a green outfit. Oddly enough, Jimmy, who was a palette swap of Billy up to this point, was made into a head swap in the SNES game.
• Jitsu Squad have this happening when players using Hero, the protagonist, battles Dash Kobayashi, The Dragon and Hero's sworn enemy. Both of them are expert swordsmen, can release Sword Beams, are equal in speed and size, and even shares similar-looking special attacks.
• Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter have the Final Boss, Negative Mazinger, which is a Palette Swap of your character with the same attack patterns and moves. Both your sprites even have the same height.
• In Streets of Rage 3, the third boss is a robotic duplicate of Axel Stone named Break. He looks exactly like Axel, only with blue gloves to distinguish him.
  • In the original game, Onihime and Yasha (aka Mona and Lisa), the twin bosses at the end of Round 5, were palette swaps of Blaze. However, when they returned in the third game, they were given new sprites.
• In Undercover Cops, the player must fight against clones of all three heroes before fighting the final boss.
• In Yakuza 2 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 there is a sub-story where Kiryu-san meets a guy who pretends to be him along with a guy who doesn't know who he is, but when Kiryu finds him and he tries to dialogue peacefully with them, they decide to fight the Dragon of Dojima.

Card Battle Game

• In Hearthstone, Priests can duplicate the opponent's cards with a bit of setup, although you can't do this on turn 1. First, you need to empty your own deck. Then, play Archbishop Benedictus to shuffle in a copy of the opponent's deck into your own deck, which with an empty deck means it's identical to the opponent's. Then, play Azalina Soulthief to replace your hand with a copy of the opponent's hand.

Fighting Game

• Arcana Heart has fun with this trope, giving its characters unique intros with their mirror selves. Heart for instance shows surprise at seeing herself, as does her other self.
• ARMS:
  • The Grand Prix mode always has Max Brass as the penultimate fight, even for Max Brass himself (at least on Level 5 and below). Turns out you were playing as a fake Max Brass this entire time! But after completing the Grand Prix, it turns out that you were playing as the real Max Brass all along.
  • If you manage to unlock the Springtron fight while playing as Springtron yourself (done by beating all nine previous matches without losing a single round), Biff will confusingly declare it isn't part of the script. Though given that Springtron is a robot and Dr. Coyle's old research notes state that she hoped to one day mass-produce them, it isn't that much of a shock.
• All three Art of Fighting games, but in Art of Fighting 2's story mode, the characters would have some funny dialogue to exchange pre-match in story mode.
• The Black Heart has only six characters, so you'll find your copy in story mode eventually, but each of them has a special animation for when you do:
  • With Hashi's intro, it seems to be a case of accidental teleporter duplication on Bako's part, as there's only one Bako but two Hashis.
  • Noroko uses her ghostly powers to split into two, perhaps simply to have a target for her boundless rage.
  • Peketo and his doppelganger realize they're each wearing the wrong head, quickly exchange them, and then get down to the business of murdering each other.
  • Animus and his clone appear impaled in the same burning cross, one in male form and the other in female form. The cross sinks back into the ground and they land on top of each other. They proceed to laugh maniacally before assuming battle position.
  • Being a playable race of interchangeable, expendable worm monsters instead of a single character, two torrents of different-colored Shar-Makai start pouring from the middle of the screen and leaving in different directions, except for two who enlarge to full size and start to fight.
  • Ananzi and her double both simply drop from the same web, crouch briefly, then attack. Given her sheer number of alternate intro and victory poses elsewhere, this is probably fair.
• An update to Blade Strangers added in an alternate version of Umihara Kawase dubbed "Summer Kawase", who's basically Kawase in a bikini and with a different moveset. She's apparently described as an Enemy Without to the original Kawase (or something to that effect, it's complicated) and even gets to fight her original self at the end of her story.
• BlazBlue, like Guilty Gear below, has a dedicated theme for these: "Blood Pain". Later installments blur the line between this and Developer's Foresight by having at least four pairs of characters (Noel/Mu, Tsubaki/Izayoi, Hazama/Terumi and Terumi/Susano'o) who are the same person with different movesets. If they face off in versus mode, they have unique dialog, typically treating it as a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
  • Story-wise, the Hihiirokane is located in the coffin of Clavis Alucard, which is protected by a spell named Prototype Absolute Defence: Blade of Reflections. The spell protects the coffin from intruders by creating a doppelganger of them to battle. Terumi managed to defeat the doppelganger of himself however, and took Hihiirokane.
• Interestingly, most characters in Bleach: Shattered Blade do have special opening quotes for fighting themselves, although only a handful have special victory quotes where they dismiss the quality of their fake. The 2nd Player versions of the characters don't usually have any special quotes.
• Breakers (and its sequel Breakers Revenge), a Neo-Geo fighting game by third-party developer Visco, had a unique approach for justifying the presence of mirror matches in the single-player mode. The computer-controlled clone of the player's character will have a different name tag and a unique palette used exclusively by the computer, implying that the clone character is actually a different fighter who uses the same fighting style.
• Capcom vs.:
  • This is lampshaded in Capcom's Marvel fighting games. In Marvel Super Heroes, Spider-Man's win quote is even: "Just what I needed, another clone!" (As if The Clone Saga wasn't enough.)
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is a curious example, having on its roster two different versions of Wolverine: one with the bone claws (as seen in Fatal Attractions), and one with his regular adamantium claws. In fact, nothing's going to stop you from having both of them on the same team.
  • In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, several characters have unique interactions should they be pitted against themselves. Due to the way the game works, both characters will end up saying the same phrase.
    • Whoever wins in a M.O.D.O.K. vs. M.O.D.O.K. match will make a comment about needing to remember to lobotomise his clones in the future.
    • Normally if Thor is pitted against another Avenger, he will dejectedly say that he hopes that Loki is behind this encounter. This includes himself, meaning both Thors will be rather apprehensive about fighting each other at the start of the match.
    • If Super-Skrull is pitted against himself, both will say a specific boast about how the enemies of the Skrull Empire should beware him/them. This might seem unusual, until one remembers that the Skrulls are a race of shapeshifters and the concept of a mirror match might not be so foreign to them.
    • In a Zero vs. Zero matchup, the two Zeros will refer to the other as "another soulless copy", referencing the copy of him Sigma makes in Mega Man X3 as well as Nightmare Zero from X6.
    • Hsien-ko and Lei-Lei will remark how they didn't know they were quadrupulets.
    • A background character example: In the Kattelox Island stage, Tiesel usually cheers for Tron when she's fighting. When two Trons enter the fight, he looks at them in utter confusion.
  • Tatsunoko vs. Capcom:
    • Yatterman-1. To avoid players from questioning why would they be summoning the same giant sentient robot dog, the default Yatterman palette summons Yatterwan (said giant sentient robot dog) whereas the alternate color scheme calls out Yatterpelican (a giant sentient robot pelican). This has been taken down in the US version though, as it poses unfairness as Yatterpelican has a higher angle for the flame attack (in addition to the fact that Yatterman-2, a character exclusive to the US release, summons Yatterpelican for her supers).
    • Gold Lightan has a quirk when choosing his alternate palette. Aside from turning silver, his name changes to Silver Lightan, and all of his voiced attacks with "gold" are changed with "silver". Yes, that means he shouts "SILVER LIGHTAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"
  • In SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, every single possible character matchup has its own dialogue. Right down to said Mirror Matches. Kyo even references the rampant clones he had running around during the NESTS saga. There's also four pairs of characters who are technically the same person but with different movesets (Iori/Orochi Iori, Ken/Violent Ken, Akuma/Shin Akuma and Mr. Karate/Serious Mr. Karate). They also have their own dialogue with each other.
  • Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium also has four pairs who are technically the same character but with different movesets (specifically, Ryu/Evil Ryu, Iori/Orochi Iori, Akuma/Shin Akuma and Rugal/God Rugal^note Ultimate Rugal outside Japan).
  • SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium does the same thing, having alternate versions of Ryu and Iori (Evil Ryu and Orochi Iori) as playable characters and bosses. In fact, if you have said characters in your team, then the boss character is explicitly revealed to be a clone. Same goes for if you have Geese/M. Bison in your team, where the ones you fight near the end are also clones.
• Clayfighter always has you fight yourself along the way.
• Fatal Fury:
  • Fatal Fury 2: The Mirror Matches in this game are handwaved as imposters taking the real characters' names. This is more obvious in the japanese version, due to the fact that both the pre- and post-match dialogue for these matches reference the concept, but the english version's translators seemed to not get the memo and a lot of the post-fight lines became rather generic declarations of victory overseas.
  • Real Bout Fatal Fury gives special attention to Geese's doppëlganger, who also shows up in his and Billy's story modes. His name is Shadow and he's apparently Geese's body double who tried to usurp his empire during the time he was presumed dead. He is also obliquely referenced in Geese's CVS2 victory quote against himself in which he calls the losing Geese a "useless shadow of a warrior".
  • Real Bout Special has fun with this trope, adding in four alternate versions of certain characters based on their movesets from previous games. While Andy's alternate self is the typical "darkness within one's spirit" type, the others are more amusing, including a Billy trying to clean up his act and charm women (only to weird them out), Tung as a Scatterbrained Senior and Blue Mary as a sadistic dominatrix type.
• The King of Fighters games play with this trope as well. In 2003, Terry Bogard comments that "I just changed my image and I already got impersonators!" if he beats the Fatal Fury Team.
  • In '94, characters had a quote for each defeated team. When facing their own, they usually accuse the others of being frauds or so.
    Kim: I don't forgive you, fraud! (against the Korea Team)
    Takuma: You can't copy my fighting! (against the Art of Fighting team).
  • In '97, since the New Face Team is both a regular entry and a boss team they're given dialogue between them and their alter-egos that state that they're clones of the CPU characters.
  • In XI, having Kyo win a mirror match has him, much like Spidey before him, take the mickey out of this:
    Kyo: Just how many clones of me are left? I could make a baseball team out of me!
    • Not to mention that the console version has an alternate version of him based on his appearance from the NESTS arc (ported over from NeoGeo Battle Coliseum) as a secret character, meaning it's possible to put regular Kyo up against this one.
  • Also in XI, Kim has a special intro against himself, where both fighters stare at each other and then show a Twinkle Smile.
  • Maximum Impact 2 meanwhile has four characters who are different versions of previously established characters: Wild Wolf (Terry in his appearance from Garou: Mark of the Wolves), Mr. Karate (Ryo as the second Mr. Karate, as seen in games like Buriki One), Classic Kyo (Kyo during the Orochi Saga) and Armor Ralf (Ralf decked out in spiky armor; he was notably left out of the roster for Regulation A due to him being considered overly broken).
  • In XIII, Kyo, Iori and Takuma have alternative playable versions, called "NESTS Kyo" and "Flames Iori"^note in Takuma's case, his alternate version is his Mr. Karate alter ego. They have different pre-battle dialogues with the other fighters, as well as interactions with their default counterparts.
    Kyo: Look, I don't feel like talking about this, so let's just get with the brawlin' and see who's the real one, okay?
    NESTS Kyo: Sounds good to me... After all, there's no way the real thing could lose to a fake, right?
    Kyo: Exactly! So let's get going! This is the kind of messy situation I like to avoid!

    Iori: Is my Orochi blood playing tricks on me? If it is, then this is by far the most pathetic hallucination it's ever shown me.
    Flames Iori: If it makes you feel any better to think so, then go right ahead. This hallucination is going to burn you bad though.
    Iori: Well, it seems your mouth is real... Now die!

    Takuma: What is this!? Am I dreaming!? But this aura of bloodlust... It's piercing my very skin...
    Mr. Karate: Indeed, this world is nothing but a transient dream... So don't let that hold you back.
    Takuma: Hmm... I suppose it would be interesting to fight a dream image for a change... Very well, let's do this!
    • Meanwhile, Saiki is also playable in his human form, meaning it's possible to put him up against his One-Winged Angel self in the arcade mode.
      Boss Saiki: Well, what do we have here!? There must've been some kind of twist in time...
      Human Saiki: So it would seem... What shall we do about it? How do we untangle this thread?
      Boss Saiki: Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The stronger of us will survive, as the providence of nature dictates!
    • Furthermore, Ash's quotes against himself imply it to be a side-effect of the Yata Mirror that he had swiped from Chizuru back in 2003.
  • In XIV, Antonov will drop this gem if you put him up against himself:
    Antonov: Is this fraud trying to imitate me?! What's with that silly looking belt?!
  • XV brings back both the New Faces team and their Orochi counterparts^note the former as part of the base roster, and the latter as DLC. Having them face each other will give them a special intro where the fight is in fact a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
• Dead or Alive 2 has Kasumi facing off against her DOATEC-created clone, Kasumi Alpha. Other clones of Kasumi are visible in pods in the DOATEC lab stage.
• The story mode of Advanced Variable Geo has Yuka Takeuchi fighting a clone of herself.
• Dissidia Final Fantasy, of course, as a fighting game. The characters can have some interesting lines for their duplicates; ranging from a Mythology Gag (Cecil repeating his line before facing himself in his own game: "This is a fight for me and me alone."), to the hilarious.
  Kefka: (vs Kefka) Who's that handsome devil?!
  • Cloud Strife got a serious mood whiplash with his mirror match quotes. In the original, he had the dramatic, "If I win, will my sins be forgiven?", referencing Advent Children. In Duodecim, it got changed to "Not you again!", in a more humorous tone. The latter line also works as a reference to the original Final Fantasy VII, where a recurring motif of Cloud's hallucinations is a ghostly copy of himself.
  • Dissidia 012 introduces a new type of battle piece in the Scenario 000 story mode, which pits every member of your party against an exact duplicate of themselves with the exact same moveset, abilities, equipment, and stats. In addition, Sephiroth faces another Sephiroth as an in-game representation of him committing suicide.
  • Every character in the game has an infinite amount of Manikin doppelgangers to serve as Mooks in the story mode, many of which are mirrors of the character.
• The story mode of Dragon Ball FighterZ involves fighting clones of the game's playable characters, so mirror matches are very common depending on who's on the player team. Also, the Final Boss of the last story arc is a fight between the good and evil halves of Android 21.
  • Not to mention the absolute glut of characters who are different versions of the same one, albeit with different movesets. So far, we have five Gokus^note Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan Blue, base form, GT and Ultra Instinct, three Vegetas^note Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan Blue and base form, two Gohans^note Teen and Adult, two Buus^note Fat Buu and Kid Buu, two Gogetas^note Super Saiyan Blue and Super Saiyan 4, two Brolys^note classic and the one from DBS: Broly, two different incarnations of Zamasu^note Goku Black and Fused Zamasu and two Android 21s^note her Buu-esque form and her human form with the lab coat.
• Eternal Fighter Zero not only has standard mirror matches (complete with unique win quotes), but in Memorial, you can set up a match between Kanna and Misuzu. If you've played AIR, you know exactly what is wrong with this matchup.
• Evil Zone has a ton of fun executing this as a story element as much as a gameplay one, with each character's story mode mandating one. The reasons vary: Danzaiver is fighting a clone stealing his armor design, Kakurine is mentally fighting a manifestation of her self-doubt, Lie is being tested by the evil sword that possesses him by manifesting as a clone, etc. Perhaps the most significant canon case of this is with Ihadulca, who was trapped in the titular Evil Zone by being forced into an eternal duel with herself, keeping her in a long stalemate.
• Guilty Gear has a great deal of fun with this sort of match:
  • Not only does it have two themes to call its own ("Fatal Duel" from GGX and "Nothing Out of the Ordinary"), the after-match quote from the winner hangs a lampshade on it, as the character chastises their opponent for impersonating them. Some versions even have different voice samples for the second player in a mirror match.
  • Similar to BlazBlue above, there's also Holy Order Sol, an alternate version of main hero Sol Badguy based on his days in the Holy Order, and with a different moveset too, meaning it's possible to have a Sol vs. Order Sol match-up, complete with a unique intro where they both give each other the thumbs-down gesture. In fact, Sol ends up being forced to fight his past self in one story path in Accent Core Plus, courtesy of I-No.
  • An interesting Mirror Match happens in Guilty Gear X2 in Axl Low's story mode. He fights a version of himself from the future. The interesting thing is that unlike most fighting game mirror matches, both combatants look exactly the same, including colour scheme (sometimes making it hard to tell who is who) yet future Axl is using Axl's EX moveset and is invulnerable to normal attacks. Turns out future Axl traveled back in time just to give his past self a pep talk...and a beating apparently.
• Granblue Fantasy Versus has a soundtrack called "Mirror Match: Face Yourself". And yes, it plays in Mirror Matches if music selection is set on Automatic.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us has several of these during the story mode. It's justified since the story is about DC Comics superheroes going to an Alternate Universe. The final battle is Superman vs. Superman.
  • Regime Solomon Grundy lampshades this and the main Solomon Grundy actually hates it.
    Regime Solomon Grundy: Like looking in mirror!
    Solomon Grundy: Grundy hate mirrors!
• Injustice 2 has a few notable cases of playing with this:
  • It's justified in the case of Brainiac in the Multiverse mode, where it turns out that the Brainiac you play is actually Brainiac-5, who went back in time to defeat his predecessor and redeem his race.
  • The Scarecrow is a playable fighter by way of a hallucinated Humanoid Abomination, usually by releasing his fear gas near his opponent at the start of each match. Putting two Scarecrows in a battle will prompt them to question the nature of the fight, suggesting it's from a side-effect of one Scarecrow's own fear gas, Crane having a nightmare of fighting himself, or a battle between his Id and Ego. Whichever way, it's implied there's only one actual Johnathan Crane.
  • Eobard Thawne is present in the game using the "Reverse-Flash" moniker, but in one mirror match interaction, his opposite version refers to himself with his also-historically-used alias "Professor Zoom".
  • Pit two Atoms (specifically, Ryan Choi) together, and both versions of him will give lampshade the circumstance and give out equally nerdy (if surprisingly valid) assumptions.
    The Atom 2: What's causing this Mirror Match?
    The Atom 1: Fresnel diffraction? The Zeno effect?
    The Atom 2: Palmer said, "Investigate before you instigate."
• Everyone's got unique dialogue for this trope in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle. In particular, Johnny and Gyro's special dialogues have them wonder if their mirror matches are a result of Valentine's Stand. There's also special dialogues for when past characters match off against their future selves, with special mention going to Kosaku!Kira wondering if meeting his past self was an effect of Bites the Dust.
  • The trend continues in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven. Reactions vary heavily, including utter confusion, speculating whether it's the result of an enemy Stand, proclaiming that There Can Be Only One, complimenting or insulting their own appearance... and then there's Kakyoin.
    Kakyoin: My name is Noriaki Kakyoin.
    Kakyoin: No sense repeating it.
• In Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash, the loser of a Mirror Match was shown to actually be a Kitsune (if you're playing a female character) or a Tanuki (if male) imitating the winner on the victory screen. (Where they usually slump over or kneel in defeat, a puff of smoke reveals a little kitsune/tanuki instead.)
• Naturally, this can occur in Kart Fighter's two-player mode, but it also happens with the final boss.
• The makers of Magical Battle Arena seem to think that normal Mirror Matches are too wimpy. After all, why else would they sic five duplicates of your character at you for the obligatory Mirror Match stage?
  • The fact is somewhat mitigated by the application of Conservation of Ninjutsu. The clones have about half your defense, and hitting them builds up your Charge Meter faster than hitting a non-clone.
  • The sequel also has an instance of this in the story mode, where Nowel Diastasis fights a copy of herself at the end.
• Justified in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable, where the corrupted defence program of the Book of Darkness creates "Memories", copies of the nine playable characters.
• Referenced by champions in Story Mode of Marvel: Contest of Champions when they mention that they may end up fighting themselves. The colors of the champions do not change, unlike in most Mirror Matches, but because the camera is fixed but the side of the screen they're on and how they face during special attacks stays the same. It's also justified and explained in story by the fact that the champions are summoned by the player character, with the original kept in a crystal by The Collector after being abducted.
• Melty Blood characters fighting themselves will generally comment on it after the match ("Geez, you're just a fake, but your hair is so pretty...!"). There are also many Doppelgänger characters in the series. Also lampshaded in Melty Blood Re-Act by Ciel and Arcueid in Arcueid's story mode amongst others.
  Arcueid: Look who it is. Are you the real one?
  Ciel: That is understandable. I had to kick around many of my fake selves before I came here.
  Arcueid: If you're involved in something that troublesome, you're the real one. So, how are you doing Ciel?
  • The most recent game to be released, Type Lumina, dials back the doppelgangers to about four pairs: Hisui & Kohaku/Hisui and Kohaku by themselves^note Hisui and Kohaku working together as a tag-team, Red Arcueid/Arcueid^note Arcueid giving in to her darker impulses as seen in one route in the Tsukihime remake, as opposed to the original Melty Blood games where she was an Ax-Crazy berserker, Dead Apostle Noel/Noel^note Noel as a Dead Apostle, also from a route in the Tsukihime remake and Powered Ciel/Ciel^note Ciel swapping her black keys out for more heavier ordinance. Some even get special intro and victory quotes with each other.
• The trope name comes from the Mortal Kombat series of video games. In the original Mortal Kombat (1992), you fought a clone of the character you selected before going on to the two-on-one Endurance Matches.
  • And, of course, Shang Tsung could turn the fight into a Mirror Match by transforming.
  • The Konquest mode of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance always ends with the selected character facing themselves in a 3-out-of-5 battle. Usually the battle is divorced from the backstory that previous Konquest missions had been giving.
  • In Mortal Kombat X, the pre-fight dialogue is different for each matchup, and in the cases of Mirror Matches, it seems that the fighters do find this bizarre. One such dialogue is known, for when Cassie Cage faces herself in a match:
    Cassie Cage 1: Funny.
    Cassie Cage 2: You know what's funny? Your face.
    Cassie Cage 1: Dude, you've just insulted yourself...
  • It is implied in some fights to be the result of time travel shenanigans (improbable, but not impossible), the two timelines converging, Shang Tsung's cloning experiments, Shang Tsung himself experiencing some kind of Shapeshifter Mode Lock, or any combination thereof.
    Raiden 1: Who are you?
    Raiden 2: Raiden, protector of Chaosrealm.
    Raiden 1: The flow of time has indeed changed.
  • Sometimes, you don't even need dialogue to justify a match between yourself. One example is in Guest Fighter Jason Voorhees - one of the two will have blue accents on his hockey mask, hinting that he's actually Roy Burns.
  • Mortal Kombat 1 justifies Mirror Matches by revealing that these duplicates are actually from other timelines, usually the original ones. Other examples include Shang Tsung's magic, Reptile mimicking Shang Tsung and Johnny Cage perfectly mimicking Kung Lao.
• All over the place in M.U.G.E.N, given the many variations of certain characters. Some fighters have custom intros or winquotes that reflect on this, such as Retro Suika calling her opponent a "Faker!", or Kung-Fu Girl expressing shock over her clone, complete with a "?" speech bubble.
• The same applies to One Must Fall: 2097, in Story mode for all playable characters (in Tournament mode, you create your own pilot, who has no doubles in the tournaments which come with the game). All characters notice what's happened (it isn't played as impersonation) and seem to consider meeting themselves normal. Example from Milano: "When I think about you.../ ...I kick myself..."
  • The best part? Angel vs. Angel is a plot point if you know her backstory.
• Persona 4: Arena has special theme songs that play for mirror matches; specifically, the battle themes from previous Persona games (Reach Out To The Truth for P4 characters, and Mass Destruction for P3 characters).
  • Humorously, if you choose Akihiko for this kind of match you get a unique intro where the two exchange a quick fist-bump before jumping back into fighting stances.
  • Persona 4: Arena Ultimax introduces Shadow characters, versions of the same character with similar moves but different mechanics. If a character faces their Shadow, both have unique intro, mid-battle, and outro dialogue, and the music defaults to I'll Face Myself (Battle) (the boss theme for this exact scenario in Persona 4).
• Primal Rage. No matter who you choose to play as, you'll always fight yourself along the way.
• In Samurai Shodown, some characters have special pre-battle dialogue when entered in a Mirror Match; for example, Ukyo Tachibana remarks "Hey! That's my face. You're meat, beanhead."
  • Since the very first game, Nakoruru's 2P color was hinted at being an alternate personality of her by giving her win-portrait (and sometimes, official art of it) a malicious smile. This was used in her Bust/Rasetsu versions since the third game, but while those would eventually spawn a different character named Rera, the "purple" Nakoruru would still survive as Nakoruru's alter ego, who would be made into a secret character for Samurai Shodown 6.
  • The third game in the series created alternate versions of each character, giving them different special moves to expand the gameplay, as well as a shape-shifting mid-boss who would transform into you for a mirror-match. However, mirror matches against the CPU were handled very poorly: Not only would the mid-boss transform into the exact same version of the character you were using; you were required to also beat your actual alter ego...who would be the same version as you and the mid-boss. Then, in the fourth game, each character has a fixed set of enemies he/she can fight, so it actually averts CPU mirror matches; unless you were using Amakusa, who returns as a boss and in fact uses the opposite style you picked for your character.
• Skullgirls: Some characters have to fight a clone of themselves as part of their Story Mode. This is actually justified; the clone is Eldritch Abomination Double impersonating your player character by shapeshifting into them.
• Sonic the Fighters deals with this situation in an interesting way: If two players chose the same character, a special cutscene is shown at the beginning of the battle where Dr. Eggman flies in and shoots a ray at the first player, creating a black and white clone which is the second player. This cutscene is also shown in single player mode, due to the game having only eight playable fighters and the player will eventually go up against a copy of him/herself.
  • In Sonic Battle, if more than one of the same character is selected in battle mode, each character except the original will become a version of Emerl with that character's moves and voices.
• Several examples in the Soul Series:
  • The first chapter in Cervantes' Edge Master Mode from Soul Blade has him facing a younger version of himself, an illusion he suffered while under the sword's influence.
  • One of the many optional battles featured in the SoulCalibur 3 story mode "Tales of Souls" has the player facing a "Doppelganger" NPC, a shadowy version of the same character. The catch is that the Doppelganger slowly "consumes" the real character during battle, slowly draining his/her health and shadowing him/her until the (now fully visible) Doppelganger wins. Since this is an optional battle, however, they are not referenced in any character's plot and the result has no effect on the story's course.
  • If you play as Zasalamel in 3 and manage to face off against his mirror self, the other self of him will say, "There is no need for two of us on this earth!", before the match begins.
  • There are two exceptions to the above: Kilik's "cursed" path has him facing a Doppelganger of himself representing the evil that resides in his heart taking over when he's exhausted and with fever; the second is in Maxi's story, where he fights a Doppelganger representing his past, carefree self in a nightmare, hating him because he blames himself for his men's death during Astaroth's raid.
  • SoulCalibur 4 has a single account of in-story mirror match in Maxi's story path, where he faces a Doppelganger of himself using the second costume with a darkened palette.
• Street Fighter II: Champion Edition was produced largely to allow this sort of match - the original Street Fighter II didn't allow for mirror matches (except for the SNES version shown above, which featured a code that could be inputted when the game started).
  • The Street Fighter II manga by Masaomi Kanzaki had a story arc where the four main Street Fighters (Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Guile) had to team up with the Four Shadaloo Devas (Bison, Sagat, Vega, and Balrog) in order to defeat their evil clones.
  • Gouki/Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo actually had an alternate ending if he defeated himself as the True Final Boss. Unfortunately, the text that explained the ending was cut from the American version - basically he fought his own darkness and won.
  • There's also Evil Ryu, a Superpowered Evil Side version of Ryu introduced in the Alpha games, meaning it's possible to have a Ryu vs. Evil Ryu matchup. Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition also added in Oni (basically Akuma if he ended up being completely consumed by the Satsui no Hado), making Akuma vs. Oni matches possible.
  • Later games gave some characters special intro animations when this happens, usually interacting with their clone before getting into fight position.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Lampshaded in Super Smash Bros. Brawl when Solid Snake calls Colonel Campbell on his codec during one of these, and both Snake and Campbell are puzzled about where the other Snake came from. Snake being a clone, Campbell brings up the possibility of the other Snake also being a clone, but ultimately decide not to let it bug them too much.
  • Also used in the last level of the Subspace Emissary, where Tabuu takes the pieces of the world the bombs detonated in and puts them together to make a maze, which includes boss characters already fought and rainbow colored versions of all the playable characters available at that point.
  • In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Master Core's Master Shadow form (which is its penultimate form in the 3DS version in all circumstances and in the Wii U version in most circumstances... except in single-player from Difficulty 8.0 onwards) has it assume a shadowy copy of the player's character (in the Wii U version on 2-player mode, its form is based on Player 1).
  • In the same game, Pit lampshades this in a similar way than Snake: if he calls for Palutena while fighting himself, she compares the situation with Pit's actual clone, Dark Pit. This makes Pit question why the other Pit doesn't mirror his moves like Dark Pit, which Palutena can't answer.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters:
  • In the NES version of this feature is available for every fighter except Hothead (a humanoid dragon based on the Warrior Dragon from the comics). The game claims that "The Dragon Spirit [inhabiting Hothead] would never allow such a thing," but in reality, the console's graphics chip won't allow such a thing. If you use a Game Mod to do it anyway, it will cause massive flickering in the sprites.^note This is not so much of a game bug than pushing the NES' sprite generator past its limits. Remember that a NES sprite tile is 8x8 or 8x16 in size and the GPU lays multiple tiles to construct one sprite. Hothead probably contains way more sprite tiles than the other characters, and having two on the screen at the same time probably requires more tiles than the GPU can handle smoothly.
  • However, The Cowabunga Collection, no longer bound by the NES hardware's limitations, adds a setting that enables Hothead mirror matches without the flickering.
  • The Mirror Matches are explained in the SNES and Genesis versions - the bad guys are making evil clones of the good guys, and getting rid of them is the player's goal.
• Some characters in Them's Fightin' Herds will have unique things to say if they happen to fight against a mirrored (if recolored) version of themselves.
• In Waku Waku 7, the penultimate fight for every character is a shadowy clone of themselves.

First Person Shooter

• The cult leader in DUSK bunny-hops around the arena and switches weapons, two techniques that are usually only done by players.
• Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II has a scene in the ‘’Mysteries of the Sith’’ expansion where Mara Jade fights a mirror Dark Side version of herself.
• Metroid:
  • The SA-X in Metroid Fusion is an almost exact copy of Samus, except very slightly stronger in that it has the Ice Beam while you don't.
  • The multiplayer of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, as described in the box art, is "Samus vs. Samus vs. Samus vs. Samus!".
  • Dark Samus (Metroid Prime, revived by the Phazon taken from Samus) mimicks many of Samus's abilities (morph ball, super missiles, etc), but also has a bunch of powers that are unique to it, such as a wide scattershot, a Deflector Shield, and the ability to fly.
  • Gandrayda in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption can transform into a copy of Samus. She transforms into copies of other characters as well throughout the fight.
• This can happen in every match in Team Fortress 2, since both teams have the same class and model. Single-class matches (for example- Scout-only, Spy-only or Heavy-only matches) takes these to ridiculous levels. Luckily, the game allows you to customize your character with hats and such, but if you and your friends decide to have single-class matches with no character customizations and only stock weapons for laughs, well, the only thing that differentiates you from the opposing team is your shirt's color. And there's the occasional case of an enemy spy disguised as one of your teammates fighting said teammate himself. Although, the spy loses his disguise if he attacks or dies. Some of the characters will lampshade it when killing or dominating their enemy selves.
  Scout: I am the Scout here!
• In Overwatch's Mystery Duel mode, two players square off each other in a series of duels, and are assigned the same random Hero in every round.
• In Paladins's Casual game modes, both teams can choose the same champion. However, this is averted in Competitive game modes, which use draft pick to prevent mirror matches.

Hack And Slash

• Dynasty Warriors 3. The battle of Fan Castle is a fight between allied forces (Wu and Wei) and Shu forces (led by Guan Yu). If you set up a custom battle on this map, choose the Wu forces, and select your character to be Guan Yu, he will comment in the opening cutscene, "I am my own opponent? This will be difficult." This was carried over, quote and all, to the recreation of the stage in 7: Xtreme Legends.
• Most of the bosses in Kabuki Z, like the Kabuki fighter, undead samurai, and undead warrior in the crypt are human-sized, and attacks with melee weapons not unlike your katana. The warrior notably have animations just like yours and can jump as well in his first phase (until he summons a set of skeleton armor on himself).
• NanoBreaker has the three boss battles against Keith, your traitorous ex-partner. Unlike the other bosses which are gigantic monsters, Keith is the same size as you, and both of you swings a Laser Blade to slice each other apart.
• In Warriors Orochi 3, all of the player characters (when they are in your party) have a comment for facing themselves in battle, since the plot of the game involves time travel.

MMORPGs

• Final Fantasy XIV has the Dark Knight level 50 quest, where you fight a manifestation of your frustrations, hurt, anger, and your darker side in general. Since they are a Dark Knight like you, their techniques are the same as yours, but they can also summon weaker clones of themselves and Dark Sprites to distract you. In the climax of the story in 3.4, you fight the Warriors of Darkness and they consist of a Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage, Bard, and Paladin. It's a mirror match if you happen to be playing one of those five roles since, unlike previous NPCs you fought that only used a fraction of the job's skill set, the party you fight will use most of those skills to the fullest.
• In Guild Wars, one of the main quest chains has you fighting a mirror copy of yourself, only all of its stats are maxed, and even if you don't equip any skills, it's got a big sword to hit you with. Or a bow if you run away. Oh, and it's max-level, while you can reach it several levels below your own max. Solution? Equip skills that require a health sacrifice, or hexes that the enemy triggers by either spellcasting or attacking. Either way, the AI is stupid enough to kill itself for you.
  • However,it must be noted that before the expansions came out, you could have only been able to change your secondary profession AFTER completing said mirror match, so unless you knew beforehand and picked necromancer as a secondary profession to gain access to health sacrifice skills? your Mirror match could have been much more difficult.How difficult your mirror match is is really dependent on what profession you chose. A warrior could have an easy time, whereas a healing monk player could tear his hair out in frustration.
• In Granblue Fantasy, Raid bosses who are Promoted to Playable can still be used in their respective Raid boss battles (i.e. using Zooey against Grand Order) without any problems. But this trope is averted for Gameplay and Story Integration purposes in story mode, where the player is prohibited from using a certain character in a chapter if that character would act as a boss fight.
• Kingdom of Loathing claims to have this in the final quest, with the Mirror Class monster. You can't hit it either, and it blocks anything you do to it.
• World of Warcraft has three instances of copying.
  • The first is a quest in howling Fjord, in order to "purge your evil." You have to meditate until it manifests as a copy of your character, unfortunately, this one has no skills other than attacking you, which leads to a rather disappointing fight.
  • The second is herald Vol'azj in the Old Kingdom, once during the fight (twice on heroic) he casts insanity on the party, causing shades of the party to spawn where they were standing and attack you, these do use abilities, but besides iconic class abilities, they generalize the images to what their class is good at (druids and priests will only heal, death knights will death grip, ect. ect.).
  • The third is in Icecrown Citadel, the Val'kyr will summons shadow reflections of various raid members who use powerful abilities and need to be killed, a few of these would later become skills useable by players.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena

• DOTA 2 has the Memetic "All mid only X". These usually involve "Who's the most hilarious when there's five of him". Good examples include most Glass Cannon types, Tiny, or most infamously, Pudge, which is popular enough to warrant its own game mode in the original Dota.
• Heroes of the Storm:
  • Mirror matches are possible in Quick Match, but only when queue times for that hero would otherwise be too long. Mirror matches are impossible in draft mode, like League. In ARAM however, there's no limit on copies of heroes, since you simply pick one of three given to you at random.
  • Before weekly Brawls were removed, there was a small chance in any game that everyone would be forced to play the same hero. While it was wacky, it coming out of nowhere was considered a Scrappy Mechanic by most players.
• Usually played straight in League of Legends, but ranked games (and custom if you want) use draft pick, effectively barring mirror matches. The game does you the favor of putting colored circles around most of the persistent AOE effects in order to differentiate the source, while some of them are virtually impossible to distinguish.
  • Occasionally exaggerated, for example with the All for One Mirror Match game mode, where the ten players of the two teams use the same character.

Platform Game

• The Final Boss of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped has Aku Aku face off against his Evil Counterpart Uka Uka. In a subversion, neither of them is controlled by the player - their battle merely serves as an extra obstacle in the fight against Dr. Cortex.
• Exorcist Fairy ends with Xuannu fighting her Evil Counterpart, the Inner Demon, who's another hulijing who uses attacks exactly like hers. Subverted when the Inner Demon gets defeated twice, and changes to a giant form of herself.
• In Gargoyle's Quest II, the Doppelganger boss can take your form temporarily. When he does this, don't shoot — you'll damage yourself instead. (Fortunately, the NPCs will warn you about this.)
• Kirby
  • In the Meta Knightmare mode of Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Meta Knight fights a copy of himself at the end of Orange Ocean.
  • In Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, the intro cutscene shows Meta Knight facing off against his mirror self (called Dark Meta Knight in the game). He is quickly defeated. Kirby's mirror self (known as Shadow Kirby in the game) appears occasionally as an enemy - defeating him will give Kirby a random powerup.
  • Although Kirby Fighters Deluxe doesn't have something like this, both the original and its sequel feature an SNK Boss battle against Shadow Kirby (the same one from Amazing Mirror), who copies the ability you picked at the start of the Single-Handed and Story Modes. In the second game, picking any Buddy character means Shadow Kirby picks the closest ability that matches that character (e.g. Magolor > Beam, Gooey > Whip, Bandana Waddle Dee > Staff).
• Mega Man sometimes must battle an exact copy of his own schematics. Given that he is an artificial construct, this is a fully justified application.
  • Subverted in Mega Man Powered Up. If you play as a robot master, the boss of his stage will be "Mega Man?", a clone of Rock, not the master himself. However, it's played straight later on in Wily's fortress.
  • Interestingly enough, the copies of Mega Man, despite being exactly the same, are always easily defeated by the real deal. Guess there's just no counting for experience.
  • The final boss battle of Mega Man Zero 3 is one of these, although the twist is that the boss isn't the copy, the hero is...or more accurately, the boss is the original body with a new evil mind, while the hero is the original's mind in a copy body.
• The final boss of Pac-Man World is Toc-Man, and evil robot version of Pac-Man trying to take his place. Naturally, he shares Pac-Man's moveset.
• Pizza Tower has an example in the fourth floor's boss, which starts out as Peppino, but upon entering the battle, is quickly uncovered to be Fake Peppino. While sharing some moves with the real deal, Fake Peppino's versions are all distorted and wrong, making him a somewhat downplayed example.
• Prince of Persia had you face a literal mirror copy of yourself, released from a magic mirror you had leaped through earlier. He shares your health bar, mirrors every attack identically. The only way to defeat him is to sheathe your sword.
• Bad/Dark Rayman from the final level of Rayman, Mr. Dark's Dare. An evil double of Rayman, Dark Rayman would literally do everything Rayman did, essentially copying the player's progress with perfect precision, albeit lagging behind by a second or two. If he touches you, you will die instantly and lose a life. Since he's invincible to any of Rayman's attacks, you are forced to keep moving throughout the entire level without allowing him to come into contact with Rayman. Successfully reaching the end of the level kills Dark Rayman, allowing you to move on.
• Near the end of Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, Plague Knight fights the titular Plague of Shadows, a shadowy clone of himself that uses many of his moves and potion combinations from Shovel of Hope. It also mirrors the normal boss battle against Plague Knight in Shovel of Hope.
• Sonic the Hedgehog
  • In Shadow the Hedgehog, the two-player mode has each player controlling a clone of Shadow, with Player One as the most convincing copy.
  • Sonic Mania has an unlockable "& Knuckles"-mode, which gives the player a second AI-Knuckles, similar to how Tails operates in single player. What makes this fit into this trope is the fact that it still works even when you're playing as Knuckles.
  • Any time a Hero character fights their Dark counterpart (or vice versa) in Sonic Adventure 2 will feel like one of these, as they both have exactly the same movesets. The second time (or only time in the case of Knuckles vs. Rouge) gives whichever one you're not currently controlling the ability to use their two-player mode special moves, giving them a slight advantage over you, but the first battles with Sonic vs. Shadow and Tails vs. Eggman are true examples of this trope, since both characters have the exact same moves. (Though if you go back and fight Shadow again after getting all of Sonic's upgrades, Sonic will be able to use the Bound Attack, which Shadow can't as he never gets a Bounce Bracelet upgrade.)
  • The fights against Mecha Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles (two different bosses, but both have the same name, confusingly enough) are basic versions of this. They use the same moves as the real Sonic (jumping, rolling, spin-dashing, etc.) but slower and more... mechanically.
  • Stardust Speedway Future in Sonic the Hedgehog CD has Sonic race against Metal Sonic. Though it's a race rather than a fight, Metal Sonic is still identical to Sonic in terms of moves.
  • The boss of Angel Island Zone in Sonic Advance is Knuckles, who quickly turns out to be Mecha Knuckles. While you can fight him with any of the four characters, this trope comes into play when you battle him while playing as Knuckles (whose reaction to the boss is hilarious).
• "Hien Mode" in Strider 2 allows the player to use The Rival Strider Hien, and his two boss battles remain the same: he fights a version of himself wearing a black uniform and with a darker skin tone.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • All areas in Super Mario Sunshine include a mission where you have to chase Shadow Mario.
  • Super Mario Galaxy pits you in races against Cosmic Mario for a star. Not quite a fight, but a match in terms of platforming capabilities (however, Luigi's duplicate is much smarter than Mario's).
  • In certain missions in Super Mario Galaxy 2, Cosmic Clones of Mario will follow your route through a level and mimic your actions exactly until you accomplish some objective, at which point, they'll disintegrate and turn into star bits. You're usually okay if you keep moving and don't retrace your route, but if you make even the slightest slip, they'll most likely clobber you.
  • Done once more for Super Mario 3D Land in the special worlds. You will have a shadow clone chase you around as it follows your movements. Depending on the level, the clone will vanish as you make a transition to the next part of the level (which the clone will pop up again as you start to move on) or you can snag a Star and smash into it to temporarily disable it. Most of the time, you will have to clear the level to finally stop the clone. The last few levels in the special worlds give a giant version of the clone, making it harder to dodge it.
• Tomb Raider also uses Mirror Matches, but in just a few games. In the first Tomb Raider I and in the Anniversary remake, there is a skinless creature in the second-to-last Atlantis level that has the shape of Lara Croft. The clone moves the same way Lara does and firing your guns at it hurts you, as well as the creature, so if Lara dies, the creature would too. The creature was really a puzzle where you had to trick it into falling into a trapdoor with lava below in order to move on to the next area. One level in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation has a gold statue of Lara that hurts you if you fire your guns at it (why Lara actually aims at the thing is a mystery). Some enemies in the room actually attack the gold copy of Lara, causing harm to the real Lara.
• In Vexx, some of the Wraithheart missions involve playing minigames against three clones/dark versions of Vexx, referred to as Vexx's "inner demons" in the game. The clones can be attacked and even knocked out of the arena (but they reappear a few seconds later), but only truly die when the original Vexx wins the minigame.
• Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced has the battle against Fake Crash, who replicates everything you do. On top of that, he starts out with more health than you (4 hits, while you can have 3 at best). The trick is that while the arena is mostly symmetrical, some traps are out-of-sync with their counterparts; if you position yourself with the right timing, he'll get hit by the trap on his side, but you'll be safe.

Puzzle Game

• Osmos usually pit you against dozens of cells that were static and couldn't move, occasionally complemented by one special cell, like Attractor or Repulsor one. Some levels had an exact copy of you, however, one that could move itself in the same intelligent manner as your own cell.
• Puyo Puyo:
  • It's possible to make characters fight themselves in battle modes since there are no restrictions for selecting characters that were already chosen by/for another opponent.
  • In Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary, Onion Pixie ends up having a Puyo battle with another Onion Pixie.
  • In an extra chapter in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, Squares is fought by a vision of himself from the future that doesn't appreciate what he's about to do to "maintain order".
  • Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop: Meena makes Amitie fight a duplicate of herself to demonstrate the more whimsical laws of the Dream World. She later does this to Lemres when she learns he is close to finding out she's been using Sig's demon powers for her magic.

Racing Game

• Basically any race where your opponent/s and/or their vehicles are identical to yours, as long as they don't cheat. These are most exemplified (and prominent) in Sim Racing games with A.I., which emphasize the skill required to beat them.

Real Time Strategy

• In Paladog, one of the bosses you have to face is Ghost Paladog, who attacks with Paladog's own Fist of Fury projectile mace. To top it all off, Ghost Paladog can only be harmed by Paladog himself, and Paladog's troops will ignore him instead of attacking.

Roguelike

• The Binding of Isaac:
  • Doples, which are skinless copies of Isaac^note  which resemble a certain other doppelganger that appear in the Womb and its variants. They have the same 3-heart health as you do at the beginning and perfectly mirror your moves. If you start moving forward, they move towards you: if you move into one corner, they go into the opposite one. They also only shoot at the same time as you, and have to be killed in order to leave the room they're in. Killing them is easy if you have self-guiding tears or a ranged companion. If you don't, they have to be tricked into walking on a spike bed, preferably without getting damaged yourself.
  • There's also Evil Twins, which appear in Sheol and the Dark Room, as well as rarely replacing Dopels. Evil Twins trade in the skinless look for a pair of wings and a third eye. They fire a spread shot of three tears, but to compensate they can't fire as fast as Dopels can.
  • There's also multiple bosses that fit: It Lives!, which is either Isaac as a fetus or him growing out of Mom's heart, Isaac himself (or yourself?) as the final boss of the Cathredral, and ???, Isaac's corpse. The Lamb in the Dark Room might also count in a twisted way, since it copies your fetal crying postion and has attacks similar to what the player can do. Yeah, this game gets weird.
• Night of the Full Moon has a literal example of this with the Magic Mirror enemy, which copies your deck (although not your stats, your blessings, or any equipment you start equipped with). Despite these disadvantages it can be quite a difficult opponent if you run into it too early as its stats (HP and mana, actions pool and especially hand size) may potentially outstrip yours at this stage of the game, letting it use your own deck against you more effectively than you can.

Role Playing Game

• Battle Chasers: Nightwar: The party meet Shadow versions of themselves as the final boss of The Manarifts.
• In Chrono Trigger DS, the Dimensional Vortex contains the Steel Shade, Crimson Shade and Alabaster Shade, mirror opposites of Crono, Lucca and Marle, respectively. They use the same basic skills, boosted to twice their power. Interestingly enough, the doppelgangers' moves are renamed. (Luminaire becomes Scintillation, Cleave becomes Rend, Ice II becomes Icefall, Cure 2 becomes Recuperate, Flare becomes Explosion, etc.)
• In Dragon Age: Origins there's a test during the Gauntlet in The Urn of Sacred Ashes Quest that has each party member, including the player character, face an invisible version of themselves, complete with names hovering above them and matching voices (for shouting as you kill them)
• Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening also had your party face against the Architect's Test Subjects after being captured by him. They even have an advantage, because they possess the exact same equipment you had before capture, while your party is forced to fight with whatever you've looted from clones beforehand.
• Elden Ring: The Mimic Tear boss fight has the boss transform into an exact copy of the player character, right down to stats, equipment, and spells. Given the player's usual nature as a Glass Cannon against much stronger and tougher bosses, the Mimic Tear is not generally considered very difficult to defeat... especially because it copies the player character as they are when they enter the arena, meaning a player can remove all their equipment, enter the arena, and then swiftly put it back on to make themselves much stronger than the resulting equipment-less Mimic.
• The main quest of The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles features one of these. You fight a (literal) shadow copy of yourself, which has all your items, powers, and skills — oh, and a big, scary sword.
  • With a bit of messing around with AI and status effects, the player can make someone clone them. The only downside is that it only lasts for around a minute before disappearing.
  • This was an engine feature implemented for Morrowind. Because of a game-crashing bug when modders tried to use it, it was forgotten until it was used again in Shivering, and now appears to be fixed.
• In DragonFable, during the Water Orb saga, the Hero gets mind-controlled by the squid-like Boss monster Kathool Atchoo. They eventually end up in a dream-state where they have to battle their doppelganger six times in a Mirror Match... They fail of course.
• Final Fantasy:
  • As a trial to become a Paladin, Cecil in Final Fantasy IV has to face a doppelganger of himself as a Dark Knight. In the Bonus Dungeon, Kain has to face a dark form of himself before it transforms into Lunar Bahamut. Revisited in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years when Kain's repressed dark urges manifest as an Enemy Without and they duel for dominance.
  • In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, one of the Digital Mind Wave cutscenes shows Zack battling a simulation of his recorded data from last month's training, which appears as a clone of himself. The two are evenly matched - which is a bad sign, as it shows that Zack hasn't improved at all since last month.
  • Played somewhat straight in Final Fantasy IX, where one dungeon in the latter half of the game features actual mirrors that must be confronted, each one producing a duplicate of one of the playable characters, though not necessarily one that's actually in the active party. If the mirror character actually is duplicating someone in the party at the time, that party member receives a one-hit kill before the party can take any action (unfortunately, resurrecting that character during the fight will only cause another immediate one-hit kill from the mirror monster).
  • On the bright side, each mirror-monster will spawn up to three doppelgangers per battle. Defeating them grants lots of experience - you may find yourself enjoying the company for a while.
• Graal The Adventure used to have a quest where the final boss was a mirror. The boss within would mirror your moves exactly. It didn't LEAVE the mirror, making it rather difficult to hit; but bombs could be thrown over the line between worlds...
• .hack//G.U. has this in the form of a Boss in Mook Clothing, the Doppelganger. He appears whenever you've stayed on an overworld map for too long, and is always 8 levels above you until you hit the level cap of the game (of which doing so turns him into a straight up mook), and has a unique weapon that mimics, you guessed it, protagonist Haseo's weapon that's out at the time. This means that if you have the scythe out and he finds you... Oh, Crap!. The fact that the game has a driving, terrifying synth theme for him that gets louder as he gets closer, does not help things any.
• Fail to answer a sphinx' riddle correctly in Heroes of Might and Magic 5, and this will be your penalty — i.e. you have to fight an army structured EXACTLY as yours with the same creatures and led by the same hero with the same level, skills and items.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts II has, at one point, a cutscene version of one of these, featuring a Nobody versus their major-character counterpart. It could've played out like a Duel Boss, except...well...it is a cutscene. At the end, said Nobody said he had a good Somebody, and he was glad to get to meet him. The fight actually is a Duel Boss in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+.
  • Then, in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Terra's final boss is against his own body, with several identical moves. This is best overcome by blocking and countering all attacks directed at you. Also, Ven's final boss is Vanitas - the other half of his heart. This trope only really comes into play during the second half of the fight, though; up until then, Vanitas doesn't fight like Ven at all. And interestingly, it's Ven copying Vanitas' technique in the second half, not the other way around as you'd expect.
  • This happened in the first game, too, with the Anti-Sora boss fight in Neverland. Shadow Sora Heartless also appear as normal enemies in the same world. Though not strictly a mirror match, the fight against possessed Riku in Hollow Bastion feels like this, due to his similar fighting style and using dark versions of Sora's moves (such as Strike Raid).
  • Kingdom Hearts Re:coded features a battle against the data version of Sora's Heartless, which has transformed into an incredibly powerful Darkside thanks to absorbing the data of the other Heartless in the journal. During the fight (which is a Sequential Boss), the second, third and fourth stages have it take the form of Anti-Sora, which fights almost identically to Data-Sora.
  • In the prologue of Kingdom Hearts II, one of the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town has Roxas battle a shadowy version of himself, which comes out of his reflection in the waterfall.
  • In the Reverse/Rebirth mode of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Riku battles the Riku Replica multiple times.
  • In the Mission Mode of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, it is possible to make Xion, Saïx and Riku battle "Anti-" versions of themselves, which appear as shadow versions of the character with glowing yellow eyes (like Heartless). (Incidentally, you fight the "Anti-" version of the character no matter which character you choose for the mission, with the exception of Xion, though the Xion fight doesn't really feel like a Mirror Match since the boss is in a different form to the player character).
• This is possible in Marvel Ultimate Alliance given that several bosses can be unlocked as playable characters or vice versa and can usually be pitted against themselves on repeat playthroughs. In particular, Doctor Doom, Nanite Nick Fury, and Thanos are all playable characters, meaning that the Big Bads/Final Bosses can be pitted against themselves.
• Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC has the Mirror Match option in the Armax Arsenal Arena, where your opponents are clones of Commander Shepard using each of the game's six player classes. Not to mention the main antagonist of the DLC storyline, a clone of Commander Shepard using the same class and powers as the player.
• The Mega Man Battle Network series has Recurring Boss Dark MegaMan, also known as MegaMan DS, a dark version of MegaMan created from the Dark Chips. Interestingly, the game actually takes note of what kind of chips and combination attacks you use in battle during the game, and has Dark MegaMan use the same kind of attack patterns that you tend to, making it really feel like you're fighting a copy of yourself. The battle against him is often considered one of the best boss fights in Mega Man Battle Network 4.
• Namco × Capcom brings back Doppel from Captain Commando, cloning each and every character in the playable cast, several times during the game's length.
• In the second expansion of the game Neverwinter Nights, Hordes of the Underdark, the player experiences a Mirror Match after looking in an actual magic mirror. However, the player also has henchmen, which tips the odds significantly in his or her favor.
• A rather interesting take is down in an early PS2 game and adaptation of Orphen called Scion Of Sorcery where Orphen, Majic and Zeus are forced to fight against one. While its default form is that of a grayed out and dusty-looking version of Orphen with yellow boots, it can freely change into either of the party members. While it barely ever attacks, attacking it while it impersonates any one of you will result a significant amount of mirror damage dealt to your party but the person being imitated will receive the brunt of it and when it assumes its default form, it'll put up a barrier before launching a projectile. Reflecting the projectile with the right spell (Armor of Purity) will cause it to transform into a lizard man where it can safely be whacked on.
• Persona 3 FES has an interesting twist on the trope with the fight against ???, a Shadow version of the protagonist fought in The Answer. The boss itself isn't a true Mirror Match, since the actual protagonist is no longer around, but it can mimic the unique Personas of all the party members (except Psyche and Juno), including using the same attacks.
• The fight against Adachi in Persona 4 is certainly supposed to be one of these, given that he uses a dark version of Izanagi, the protagonist's default Persona, named Magatsu-Izanagi, but the fact that he can't change Personas and you can, plus there's four of you and only one of him means that it's not usually as "identical" a match as the game producers might have hoped.
• In Pokémon:
  • Ditto and Mew have the move Transform, which will allow them to turn into an exact copy of the enemy Pokémon, and have all the same moves and type. However, it doesn't get any stronger, meaning the original will usually win. A true exercise in futility is Ditto vs Ditto. They will continually be transforming into...a Ditto with 5 PP (Power Points) in Transform. Like pitting two Metapod against each other, but it can never end. (The aforementioned Metapod fight would, because they would eventually run out of PP and struggle each other/themselves to a knockout.) The mechanics of the move Transform were changed in Pokémon Gold and Silver (from Generation II onwards, it is not possible to Transform into a Pokémon that is the transformation of another Pokémon), specifically to prevent such an endless battle from occuring.
  • It's also not unusual for simply the same species to be fighting on each side. However, true mirror matches (with the exact same stats and moveset) are generally only happening in the multiplayer environment. And the IV system (which means the chance of two Pokémon having exactly equal stats one in hundreds of millions) actually makes it almost impossible to have a perfect mirror match, especially since a Pokémon's statistics are also determined by natures and Effort Values. Further variation of each Pokémon comes in the form of differing movesets, form variations, abilities, and held items.
  • In Pokémon X and Y, after you defeat Korrina in a gym battle, she takes you to the Tower of Mastery and gives you a Mega Ring containing the Mega Stone known as Lucarionite. One of the Lucario that accompanies her then joins you for a battle against her and her other Lucario. What ensues is a battle between two Mega Lucario that have the same level (32), the same ability (Steadfast), and the same moves (Swords Dance, Power-Up Punch, Metal Sound, and Bone Rush).
• If a player visits Umbra in SaGa Frontier, their trip ends with a Mirror Match between their first party and their first party's shadows.
• Secret of Evermore uses this several times throughout the game. Firstly the player fights 3 different copies of himself, after which another character confusedly remarks "Wow, according to my calculations, you're at least three times stronger than yourself!". Secondly, as part of the final boss battle you must fight another clone of yourself and the computer-controlled dog that has been following you throughout the game. However, what makes it interesting is that while the clone of the player can be taken out in one shot (he's no stronger than the clones from before), the clone of the Dog has roughly 10,000 HP.
• As part of a test, one of the boss fights in Secret of Mana is against the Shadow Xs, dark-colored versions of the three main characters.
• Star Control II had the Super Battle mode where you could have any ship type in the game (with obvious exceptions of the story-only Vindicator flagship and final boss) face off against each other, whether individually or in teams. It was entirely possible to have two of the same ships fighting each other. It was even possible to have them both AI-controlled and let them duke it out.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Belome, a Recurring Boss in Super Mario RPG, is an odd-looking statue come to life. Turns out being petrified builds up quite an appetite. The second time you fight him, he will periodically swallow one of your characters and spit them out, commenting on their taste and releasing a clone. The copies have their own stats, but use "evil" versions of your techs —while Mario can toss fireballs, his copy can cause a flaming meteor to drop from the sky.
  • Paper Mario has enemies that can imitate Mario or his current partner.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door even goes as far as a boss called Doopliss fooling his partners, and the player, into thinking that he's the real Mario. The third time you fight him, in the second battle with the Shadow Sirens, he can turn into Mario or his partner at any point in the battle.
  • Super Paper Mario: The Superboss and one of the hardest bosses in the game which comes after a Bonus Level AND a Marathon Level is Shadoo, who is the dark form of every playable character in the game. Also apparently he can hurt you by walking into you while you can't despite being just a copy of you
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story has the Bowser Memory ML boss, blocky clones of Mario and Luigi fought inside Bowser's brain, which are based on Bowser's memory of the Bros (hence the name) and function as a sort of "security system" for Bowser's brain. They use more or less the same moves as the real Bros, including jumping and hammer attacks, and can even heal each other with Mushrooms and revive each other if one gets knocked out.
    • Bowser himself gets one of these too in the form of the Final Boss, Dark Bowser, which is the Dark Star after having absorbed Bowser's DNA and taken on his form and abilities. He can do everything Bowser can do, including growing giant, though on a much smaller scale than the real one.
  • One early boss fight in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is against Dreamy Mario, a clone of Mario created by Big Bad Antasma.
• Although different characters, the duels between Luke and Asch in Tales of the Abyss otherwise fit this. Although Asch knows several spells Luke doesn't, they otherwise fight exactly the same, as they learned to fight from the same teacher. Not to mention that Luke is a clone of Asch.
• Tales of Xillia 2 is a story that revolves entirely around fractured dimensions, so this trope was bound to come up sooner or later. The biggest example of this comes in the form of Ludger fighting Victor, who is an alternate older version of Ludger. Another example comes in chapter 4 of Alvin's character quest, when a younger version of him accidentally shoots and kills that universe's version of Presa and then gets into a fight with him. And yet another example is the final chapter of Milla's character quest. If you have Muzét in your party, it can count as you fight an alternate Muzét.
  • The trope goes back a good ways in gaming; 1985's Ultima IV had the player's party fight evil opposite selves near the end of the game.
• Touhou Puppet Dance Performance features Shard of Dreams' Satori fight. She will precisely copy your team's levels, stats, and items... somehow. She doesn't do this in the original, though.
• Wild ARMs: Alter Code F features enemies called Doppelgangers who imitate a party member. They're just normal Mooks though. They also appear in Wild ARMs XF and will have all of the special abilities of the copied character's special class.
  • Wild Arms 2 has these. First as a Duel Boss then as rare mooks (three on one makes them sane as Random Encounters).
• In The World Ends with You, the kitsune-style noise (Psychedelifox, Ambiefox, and the like) can shape-shift into other forms, usually other Noise. If they get enough tails, they can shapeshift into Neku wearing a kitsune mask, and attack you with a set pool of psychs Neku is able to equip (though not necessarily what he currently has equipped).

Shoot Em Up

• Coryoon has it's Final Boss, three silver versions of your titular character who uses exactly identical fire-breath attacks. Defeat them however and they perform a Fusion Dance so you're facing a gigantic clone of yourself.
• All the witch bosses in Hazelnut Hex. You play as a Cute Witch, and the witch enemies are the same size as you, besides using identical attacking spells.
• In the PlayStation game Silent Bomber, the fight with Benoit feels like this, as Benoit has exactly the same moves and equipment as the main character.
• Lampshaded and occasionally justified in Touhou spinoff Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, and its DLC Hisoutensoku. During arcade or vs mode, if the player wins a mirror match, the characters will say something akin to: "Mirror-image training completed". Marisa even says "I'm winning 101 matches out of 100 in image training!" Considering that this is Gensokyo, people creating clones of themselves for danmaku training shouldn't come of as much of a surprise.
  • Similarly, this is possible in the versus shooters, Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream and Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Actually part of the plot in Dim. Dream, since the bosses don't change even if you're playing as them. Apparently Chiyuri has a Gensoukyou counterpart, and Yumemi got cloned by a device on the ship.
  • This can also happen, to an extent, in Imperishable Night's practice mode. In the story mode's fourth stage, you fight either Reimu or Marisa, and if you chose one of those two as your player character, you fight the other one. In practice mode, you can fight either of them with any character, including themselves. And similarly, Spellcard Practice can be done by any character, and includes bonus spellcards by playable characters.
  • One of Eiki Shiki's spellcards in Shoot the Bullet invokes this, forcing Aya to fight her reflection/clone.
  • In Antinomy of Common Flowers, Sumireko's final boss consists of not only one duplicate of herself, but two. Because of the Perfect Possession Incident (and Yukari messing around), her dream self and waking self became active at the same time- in addition to her own Doppelganger urban legend. In the end, no one is actually sure which Sumireko even made it out alive, given all three were perfectly identical and share memories. Doremy's advice was not to worry about it.

Simulation Game

• In the first Star Trek Starfleet Command game, the player gets to fight his or her own Mirror Universe counterpart, who is flying the exact same ship. This is one of the toughest battles in the game, as tactics is the only way to win.

Sports Game

• In Arc Style: Baseball!! 3D, you can play against the same team you're playing as. To differentiate teams, one of them will wear an alternate uniform.
• After unlocking Pete in Backyard Skateboarding, you can play as him in the Boardwalk; the boss challenge involves racing Pete, so you're racing yourself.
• All of the Head Sports games permit characters to play against themselves.
• Mario Golf allows this, but the sequel does not. Mario Tennis only allows it in Special Games (e.g. short match) but not in the main game. This is problematic as every character plays differently, especially in the second Golf, where each character has their own power\accuracy mix, so the best players will probably all want the same one or two hard-hitters.

Survival Horror

• One of the bosses for Silent Hill 3 is Memory of Alessa, a carbon copy of the protagonist Heather, only decaying and bloody. The duplicate can use a handgun, knife, pipe, and a machine gun like Heather can and can also block like her.
• Part of the lead-up to the final boss in the NES game Sweet Home (1989) features a number of one-on-one fights against mirrors of your own five-member party. Since there are two or three paths to the final boss platform, which path you take indicates which party member double(s) you have to fight.

Third Person Shooter

• Joining the ranks of Nintendo Dark Doppelgangers is Dark Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising. He has all the same gameplay limitations as Pit ^note the actual boss fight has an exception, as he constantly takes to the air and starts spamming Rain of Arrows, and if you know what he's gonna bring to any given battle, you can equip Pit thusly and make it a true Mirror Match. Can't say the same for his stats, though.
• Splatoon: During Splatfest events, sometimes one side will be so overwhelmingly popular that there aren't enough members of another side available for matchmaking, so they'll be matched up with another team from the same side. Naturally, these matches don't count towards the final tally.

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