Shapeshifter Guilt Trips in Video Games.
- The Baldur's Gate series features doppelgangers and other shapeshifters who like to impersonate other characters, but all of them shift into their normal forms when attacking, thus disqualifying some interesting scenes from quite exemplifying this trope.
- The closest to actually qualifying are the doppelgangers that attack you in the Candlekeep catacombs that appear in the form of familiar Candlekeep inhabitants and give lame, one-sentence excuses for attacking you. The greater doppelgangers near the exit try to convince you that it's all been an illusion placed on you by Sarevok and you've actually been killing the people that the doppelgangers looked like, trying to make you feel guilty, but they stop pretending immediately if you choose to fight them. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal also has a similar scene where some wraiths have a go at breaking you by talking in the form of lost loved ones, but they too do it only before the battle is joined, not during it.
- In the backstory, the dwarf Durlag built his fortress as a safe haven for all of his kin, but unfortunately, it got infested by doppelgangers. He had to fight his way out of the fortress through monsters bearing the faces of his family and companions, which caused him to go insane. He now saw enemies everywhere and booby-trapped the whole place with more traps than you'll see again in the whole series.
- In the Final Boss fight of Beyond Good & Evil, the Big Bad's shapeshifting Mooks mimic the forms of Jade's sidekicks. They accuse her in a Creepy Monotone of causing their suffering, and beg her to join the villain to take the pain away. Considering their natural tendencies, this is especially unnerving. Worse, they do this right after the Big Bad apparently absorbs them both, leaving you to wonder just how fake it is.
- Case 03: True Cannibal Boy: The original Cannibal Boy can transform into people from their targets' memories in order to easily trick them into opening their window. After encountering Brucie, they take the form of Hans for the rest of the game.
- Chrono Trigger: One room in Magus' castle features an enemy who takes on the form of someone beloved to the character in the lead (Crono's mother, Lucca/Marle's father, Queen Leene for Frog). The first time you run into it, it doesn't attack, but the next time..."Leene": Frog! You're alive!
"Leene": That won't do at all. - Dante's Inferno: Lucifer takes the shape of Dante, along with his form massacring innocent people in his grand illusions, to break the will of Dante's wife's soul, Beatrice.
- In the Full Motion Video game Dracula Unleashed, Alexander, Helsing and Harker confront a friend turned vampire Juliet. They chase her back to her crypt where in a last ditch effort to save herself, changes into Harker and Alexander's wife and fiancee respectively. Harker sees through the guise but Alexander, apparently forgetting that that they're dealing with a supernatural force, nearly falls for it before Helsing stops him.
- Dragon Quest V: Queen Ferz, the shapeshifting High Priestress of the evil Order of ZugZwang, poses as the hero's missing mother to talk him into joining the Order.
- In Fable III, after having to leave behind your mentor Walter in the deserts of Aurora, the demonic Crawler taunts you with illusions of Walter begging for help and being brutally killed by the Crawler's shadow monster minions.
- Fate/Grand Order: Grendel reads the party's minds and shapeshifts into their friends like Jeanne, Nero, and Drake to make them hold back. Fortunately, Beowulf is used to his tricks and defeats him.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, the final totema attempts this in a cut scene. It changes from Ritz, to Doned, to Mewt (all characters with a close relation to the main character), and then finally to the main character himself, each one trying a different tactic to try to get him to stay in the world and not destroy the final crystal. None of it works, though it does succeed in briefly mind fucking the main character.
- In God of War: Ascension, Kratos starts strangling Tisiphone and then she transforms into Lysandra, his wife. He hesitates for a moment, then continues.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- You can attempt this twice in Majora's Mask, once against Igos du Ikana with his knight captain's mask (which fails completely), and once against the Gorman brothers with their brother's mask (which upsets them so much they can't fight).
- In Twilight Princess, Midna briefly transforms into the likenesses of the recently kidnapped Colin and Ilia in order to remind Link that he has a personal motivation to fight back against Zant and the Twilight. Oddly, this is the only time she displays shapeshifting powers.
- Metal Gear:
- You can briefly pull this off in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater thanks to Latex Perfection. Put on the Raikov mask and uniform when fighting his gay lover to distract him for a moment. "Ivan is that you?"
- Used a few times in a section of the first boss battle in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, with Laughing Octopus, who uses her OctoCamo and FaceCamo to disguise herself as Naomi, then as Metal Gear Mk. II, with Otacon's voice. When you approach it, it attacks you, with Otacon's voice (although obviously not him speaking) making fun of you. Of course, you can spot the flaws easily (she never changes out of her suit when in the face cameo and MK II is much bigger then its normal size. Plus Otacan doesn't flag you down with it in regular play.)
- In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Gandrayda pulls one of these once you defeat her. First, she changes into Ghor, then into Rundas, then into Samus which leads to the image of a Samus nearly corrupted by the Phazon standing over a normal Samus laying on the ground dying. The whole thing takes less than a minute, and the only sound that comes out of her mouth is a scream, but the message to Samus is clear: "You couldn't save them from The Corruption, you couldn't save me from it, and you're not going to be able to save yourself. Your Days Are Numbered, Samus."
- In NEO: The World Ends with You, on Week 3 Day 5, the Wicked Twisters have to take down Plague Noise that have taken the forms of those who were erased. After beating "Motoi", Beat realizes that the next Noise will resemble Kanon, which would undoubtedly affect Fret, and right before he brings it up, Nagi shuts him up and he realizes what's going on.Beat: You worried 'bout Fret? I mean, the next Noise to show up is prob'ly gonna be—
Nagi: [cutting him off] Oh, wherefore must our destination be so far away!?
Beat: Huh? ...Ohhh. Right, my legs is killin' me already, yo. - Not quite an exact use, but referenced in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, when the Shadow Queen takes over Peach's body, Goombella tells you that no matter how much it looks like your friend, you can't think of it that way and just have to fight it.
- Completely averted in [PROTOTYPE]. If Alex is discovered by the military, while shape shifted, the military will not hesitate to fire on him — even if you're in the guise of a respected commander, unarmed woman, or someone they wouldn't dare think about hurting otherwise. Hilariously, if you use the Patsy ability to accuse someone of being Alex, the poor sod gets gunned down with an equal lack of restraint.
- In Spec Ops: The Line, a heavy trooper with an automatic shotgun "transforms" into Lugo, who was killed about an hour prior. Keep in mind nobody in this game has supernatural powers; the whole scene is Captain Walker's hallucination. He's guilt-tripping himself.
- In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Anti-Hero Kerrigan faces-off against the Shapeshifting Narud/Duran. The first tactic he uses is to shapeshift into Jim Raynor, which causes Kerrigan to hesitate for a quick moment, before having her Berserk Button pushed and beats up Narud mercilessly. Near the end of the fight, Narud shapeshifts into Kerrigan before she was infested, which causes her to hesitate long enough for him to stab her.
- In Star Fox: Assault, the final boss tries to pull this, although only with voices from the various people that died (or are presumed dead) during the storyline, including Fox's father James. Which is the clincher, since Fox knows that "my father would never tell me to give up!"
- The Holoprojection droid PROXY in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed uses it to his advantage several times. Going against Vader as Obi-Wan Kenobi or against Boba Fett as his father Jango does not guarantee him victory, but does confuse his opponent for a few precious seconds.
- In the Wii/PS2/PSP version of the first game, Darth Phobos briefly adopts the appearance of Juno Eclipse to lure Galen into letting his guard down at the start of the fight. After you defeat her, she tries it again to stop you from killing her. It doesn't work.
- In the beginning of the sequel, Darth Vader orders Starkiller to destroy a droid that looks like Juno Eclipse, but he can't. The game's novelization includes a scene where Starkiller is confronted by a Juno droid again, as well as droids of his friends and father, but this time he declares that dreams and memories have no power over him anymore and destroys them all. The Dark Apprentice destroyed his Juno droid and declared that he felt nothing.
- In Suikoden II, Neclord appears to resurrect Viktor's Childhood Friend, Daisy, offering to trade her for the Star Dragon Sword. Viktor appears to be conflicted, but then says that he knows that resurrection is impossible, and decapitates the doppleganger.
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis: when you enter the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the first battle has Shaher attempt this on Alphonse and Eleanor, and who he takes the illusion of depends on the route you take. If you take Path A, he becomes Rictor, Alphonse's commander who was possessed by Shaher and subsequently killed by Alphonse. If you take Path B, he takes the form of Cybil, who felt she could no longer trust Alphonse and was later possessed by Shaher in a similar manner of Rictor in Path A. However, Alphonse doesn't buy it one bit, and simply lashes out at them and causes the illusion to break. Then again though, Shaher did actually say he would take their form to their face, but to be fair, even before he said this, Alphonse wasn't buying it.
- In Tales of the Abyss, Sync the Tempest mocks the protagonists, asking how it feels to fight against someone who resembles their deceased friend Ion. Luke counters that while he may resemble their friend, he isn't him.
- UK Sight Reading Tournament has a character in UKSRTX going by the name of Peeesh, who takes the role of several characters the protagonists know; Taro, who Ayaze has a past with, then Ayaze herself in a battle with Laer, then Laer's creator Luculent.
- Undertale: Flowey can shapeshift his face to resemble other characters. The first instance most players will see is him making his face resemble Toriel's after you kill her, then reload in order to spare her, while telling you that he knows what you did because he once had the ability to save and load himself. He also does this before his transformation into Photoshop Flowey, making his face resemble those of Asgore and even the player character themself. And if you make it to the end of a No Mercy route, after realising that he is not exempt from you killing anyone who gets in your way, he makes both his face and his voice resemble his past form of Asriel as he pleads with you not to kill him.
