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Corrupted Character Copy / Video Games

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Corrupted Character Copies in Video Games.

The following have their own pages:

  • Amanda the Adventurer is clearly based on Dora the Explorer, with the protagonists being cheerful girls from pre-school aged cartoons who go on adventures with their animal sidekick and ask the viewers at home what to do next on their journey. However, Dora is kind-hearted and patient, whereas Amanda gets annoyed or even angry if the player answers her quesions wrong. Even if they answer her correctly, she still treats her best friend Wooly like dirt, and even tries to kill him in one of the video tapes the player watches. As it turn out, she is actually possessed by the spirit of the daughter of the Amanda TV show's creator, who mysteriously disappeared...
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt Series: Copen is the Mega Man equivalent for the game given that he can copy the abilities of the bosses he fights. Unlike the many incarnations of Mega Man, however, he's a fantastic racist who aims to hunt down and exterminate all Adepts. This doesn't apply to his iX version, as here he doesn't display any forms of racism and is much more heroic.
  • Milo from Buddy Simulator 1984 is one to the Annoying Dog from Undertale. Both are white, perpetually-smiling dogs that would pass through walls, appear out of nowhere, and annoy a friend of the Player. But while the Annoying Dog was purely a comic-relief character, Milo's Fourth Wall-breaking behavior is played for horror and drama, as is the Buddy's irritation over his existence.
  • Bayonetta, being made by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, has a few of these pertaining to DMC:
  • Beastieball: Redd is this to... Red, being a once highly capable Beastie coach, except over the years, he lost his joy for the craft, and grew complacent, not caring for victory anymore if that meant not having any fun. Bonus points for all members of his team, the Rutile All-Stars, referencing various games in the Pokémon franchise with both their names and their team numbers.
  • Bondee's Barnyard: Safety Violation: In Five Nights at Freddy's the Security Guard is a Properly Paranoid protagonist who is defending themselves from the Hostile Animatronics, yet despite being attacked only defends themselves by preventing the animatronics from accessing their office. In Bondee's Barnyard the Security Guard is hostile to the player, a child trapped in Kou, shocking them for closing the doors or even opening up Kou's jaws to breath. Even their status as The Faceless makes them menacing as opposed to defenseless.
  • Bully:
    • Earnest Jones is this to Lewis Sholnick from Revenge of the Nerds, who he closely resembles. In the movie, Lewis' antics are portrayed as charming to the audience and karmic to the jocks, and he gets the girl in the end despite his many wrongdoings. In the game, Earnest is also a sex-obsessed nerd, but it's made clear from the get-go that he is an entitled, envious pervert who thinks women are "bimbos" for being attracted to the jocks while he himself does nothing to make himself attractive to them. In a homage to the scene where Lewis and the nerds print naked pictures of the girls and sell them to everyone on campus as revenge for bullying them, Earnest gets Jimmy to take illicit pictures of Mandy and the nerds post them across Bullworth without Jimmy's knowledge. Unlike the movie, the game shows the real consequences of revenge porn. Mandy is horrified by what happened and while she agrees she had it coming for being a bully, she says she didn't deserve this sort of punishment since it ruined her life and gave her an unwanted reputation as a slut. Jimmy feels guilty for the part he played in this and is so disgusted with what the nerds did that he leaves to take the posters down (even having the option of beating up Thad so he'd stop posting them). The jocks also assault the nerds while calling them creeps and sickos, showing that even they have limits on bullying. When confronted with the consequences of his actions, Earnest denies all responsibility by playing the victim card and blaming Jimmy for taking those pictures in the first place.
    • Gary Smith appears to be corruption of Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as both have similar face shapes, brown hair, and both are known to be the leader of their friend groups. While Ferris was at least well-intentioned, only manipulated others so he can have fun with his friends, stands up for the little guy, and only targeted people who did something to him to deserve it, Gary is what happens when you take away Ferris's sense of loyalty to his friends and focused solely on Cameron Frye and Edward R. Rooney. Gary is shown from the start to be mean to his friends, he bullies Pete for being one of the weaker kids, and his idea of fun is dragging his friends away to bully the homeless man on campus for being helpless and unfortunate. He does this after being offended by the notion of being called boring, and he bullies Algie after convincing Jimmy to help him save Bucky from the bullies in order to send a message to Russell and his boys. When Jimmy tries to tell him to dial back their trouble-making so they don't get expelled, Gary becomes offended and drags him to The Hole so Russell can beat him up in a staged fight in front of the other cliques. Throughout the game, Gary poses as an ally of one of the school's cliques and stirs up trouble for Jimmy to fix, and he succeeds in getting Jimmy expelled and turning all the cliques against him. Once Jimmy is away, Gary manages to turn all the cliques against each other, take over the school, and tie up the headmaster. When Jimmy demands to know why Gary betrayed him so many months ago, Gary simply says that he enjoys that feeling of power, likes manipulating others, and enjoys getting a reaction out of people. The game ultimately shows that these sorts of characters would be psychopaths in real life if they had this level of charisma.
  • Cassette Beasts: Archangel Aleph is a villainous take on King Arthur from Arthurian Legend. Arthur is one of the names Aleph claims to have been referred to; his Angelic Attack, Deus Ex Calibur, is named after Excalibur, King Arthur's legendary sword; Aleph's troupe is referred to as the "Round Table", King Arthur's famed table where he and his knights congregate; according to Aleph Null's bestiary entry, legends are written about Aleph's 6th-century stint as British monarch. In addition, Aleph has a mentor, The Mer-Line, who is named after Merlin, who is also from the Arthurian mythos. However, instead of being portrayed as a good king, Aleph is instead a conqueror who causes misery across reality.
  • Choo-Choo Charles: Confirmed by the creator to be the case with the game's titular character, who acts as a riff on Thomas the Tank Engine if he were an Eldritch Abomination. His design in particular is incredibly similar to Thomas's, except with large, horrifying Spider Limbs and a red paint job instead of a blue one.
  • Implied in The Curse of Monkey Island with a member of LeChuck's skeleton horde whose physical appearance resembles Manny, from Grim Fandango. As he is a Posthumous Character when you meet him, it is unknown how corrupted he was, but the real Manny would never work for someone like LeChuck.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Adam Smasher is a dead ringer for the titular RoboCop (who himself is a Virtuous Character Copy of the Terminator), being a Full-Conversion Cyborg who is also an enforcer in a cyberpunk Crapsack World and even has a human face superimposed over a robotic head, but this is where his similarities to RoboCop end, as everything else is virtually the opposite. RoboCop is by-and-large very much a By-the-Book Cop with a very strong moral code (both before and after being turned into a cyborg) and whose Heroic Willpower from when he was Alex J. Murphy was what allowed him to keep on going after being turned into a cyborg as opposed to going off the deep end. Meanwhile, Adam is an unrepentant sadist who terrorizes people for his amusement and more-or-less avoids experiencing the debilitating effects of cyberpyschosis because he was so violent and bloodthirsty before chroming up that cybernetic implants could not drive him any further insane than he already is. Also while RoboCop got programmed into following orders by his employers, Adam willingly joins his companies to cause as much carnage as he can.
  • The Darkest Tales: Lighty is a far more antagonistic and belittling version of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Furthermore, while Navi may have gained infamy among players as an Annoying Video Game Helper, she was still a benevolent fairy genuinely trying to save the world alongside Link, whereas Lighty is the true villain of the story, using Teddy to attack Alicia's mental defences and parasitically grow in strength, all so she can spitefully destroy Alicia's mind, becoming the irredeemable, Final Boss of the game.
  • Dead Rising 3: Hilde Schmittendorf is heavily based on the titular Villain Protagonist from Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, as shown by her skimpy outfit, perverted personality, and German origins (Ilsa is Kommandant of a Nazi prison camp and Hilde is given Nazi connotations as part of the story). In She Wolf of the SS, Ilsa's crimes were overshadowed by her sex scenes and sex appeal. Hilde, on the other hand, shows how horrifying it would really be to be a victim of a hypersexual sociopath who kills people for nothing more than sexual pleasure. While Ilsa's strength, dominance, aggressive nature, and active role in the story made her a feminist Anti-Hero, Hilde's sexuality instead emphasizes her sadism and depravity. Unlike the men in She Wolf of the SS, Nick is extremely uncomfortable with Hilde's advances.
  • Darkstalkers has Baby Bonnie Hood, who is a malevolent riff on Red Riding Hood. While the fairy tale Red Riding Hood is an innocent girl tormented by a wolf, Baby Bonnie Hood is a Ax-Crazy Fake Cutie who kills Darkstalkers for money and is by far the most despicable member of the cast, being there to highlight that Humans Are the Real Monsters according to the creators.
  • Spamton from Deltarune is a dead ringer for Pinocchio, being a long-nosed puppet/animatronic who wants to become “real”, but falls for a false benefactor. Unlike Pinocchio, Spamton alienated his friends while facing the consequences of his actions, which denied him the chance for redeeming himself, leaving him an abandoned wreck who’s left reconsidering what it means to be “real” and settled on becoming a "BIG SHOT" by any means necessary. Ironically, this has Spamton taking cues from "Honest" John when dealing with Kris.
  • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: The Warriors of Hope are dead ringers for Sector V, with both being teams of five kids (with the same gender ratio no less) who battle against evil adults in order to protect children. That, however, is where the similarities end, as Sector V means it when they say they only fight evil adults and consider cruelty towards good or innocent adults to be just as bad to as cruelty to kids. The Warriors of Hope, on the other hand, happily consider any adult to be evil simply because they are an adult and they had to deal with a couple bad ones in the past. In addition, while Sector V are considered to be heroes by the other kids around them, the Warriors of Hope had to resort to brainwashing to get the kids around them to fall in line with their way of thinking, making it clear that, unlike Sector V, their "adult free paradise" is moreso meant for them then anyone else. Furthermore, while the members of Sector V genuinely care about each other, the Warriors of Hope are strung along by Monaca through various kinds of emotional abuse.
  • Fear & Hunger:
    • Pocketcat shares a lot of similarities with Zacharie from OFF, with both being friendly, well-spoken merchants with a mysterious air to them who seem to be aware of their status as characters in a video game. Pocketcat's eerie smiling cat mask even resembles the Paper-Thin Disguise Zacharie wears when posing as The Judge. The difference is that while Zacharie is portrayed as a heroic figure loved and respected by the people of his world, Pocketcat is a Humanoid Abomination created by a malicious Trickster God who trades his wares not for money, but for human children or severed heads.
    • August from Termina is a darker take on Julius Belmont, with both characters being middle-aged men with auburn Manly Facial Hair, wielding an unusual and enchanted weapon, sired from a long lineage of monster hunters and raised to fight a family enemy (Dracula and the Kaiser, respectively), who can potentially end up confronting the player character in combat. Unlike Julius, August is much more unwilling to cooperate with others, is more ineffective in combat (as while Julius successfully manages to kill Dracula off for good, August only manages to wound the Kaiser before the latter outright kills him), and while Julius attempts to kill Soma out of understandable fear of him being Dracula's reincarnation and is convinced to stand down and make a Mercy Kill Arrangement, August's attempt to kill you is motivated by him selfishly deciding to take part in Termina, which will inevitably result in either you or him dying.
  • Fire Emblem has a lot of recurring character archetypes, some of them falling into this trope:
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: With the game taking place in a pizza restraunt with animatronic animals, it's a dead ringer for Chuck E. Cheese. With the original release, Freddy, like Chuck E., is the mascot; Bonnie is a purple goof, like Mr. Munch; Chica is a bird who happens to be the sole female of the group, like Helen Henny (but like Mr. Munch, has a humongous appetite and a love for pizza), leaving Foxy as the only character with no direct counterpart. However, while kids adore them during the day, they hunt the player down at night. In the first game, they're actually possessed by the ghosts of dead children who were killed at the restaunt, and they've confused the player character for their actual murderer in their plans for revenge.
  • The Frontier: Wyatt has things in common with New Vegas Bounties' Steven Randall. Like Randall, he's a former bounty hunter that now runs a bounty office with a chip on his shoulder when it comes to ghouls. He's also named named after a legendary Western hero, befitting NVB's numerous references to the genre. However, while Randall is depicted as an overall decent guy, Wyatt is both implicitly and explicitly described as someone living in the past and not acknowledging the darker side of his business. He also killed at least one man based on flimsy evidence, and ends up targeted by his son.
  • God of War: Kratos is a unique example of being simultaneously this trope and Virtuous Character Copy at the same time in certain regards. An acknowledged inspiration for him is Derek Vinyard from American History X. Derek is a young man who at the start of that film is a Neo-Nazi who is driven by his anger against enemies or perceived enemies (in his case primarily Black Americans) who kills a would-be robber even though the perp is disarmed and detained simply because he is a Black man. In the process of his jail sentence for his voluntary manslaughter of the attempted carjacker, he eventually comes to encounter challenges to his White supremacist beliefs that lead him to eventually rejecting that ideology. While Kratos is not depicted holding any such kind of racial or ethnic supremacist views, he certainly shares Vinyard's unquenching wrath towards anyone he sees as a threat to his favored in-group, which in Kratos' case is his home city-state of Sparta. This unfortunately was used against him by Ares when he put him under a hallucination of destroying a temple to Athena built in Sparta when it was actually his own home and the "worshippers" he kills were Kratos' wife and daughter. While Derek doesn't always have good relations with his own family, the worst misdeed he committed against his family members was a moment in which he attempted to choke his sister via forcing a piece of ham larger than she could chew or swallow during a heated argument. However, whereas Derek spent a significant amount of time with his anger misguided against Black people and other minorities, Kratos spent his time seeking to directly destroy the individual who drove him to murder his family in the first place, Ares. Though Kratos also ends up being worse than Derek when upon learning that the gods of Olympus would not erase his memories of the killing of his family, he eventually decides to take out his wrath out on Olympus itself which brings about an apocalyptic end of life in ancient Greece. It takes until the Norse era of games for Kratos to achieve a full redemption of his wrathful and destructive ways (set a millenium after the Greek era) whereas Derek took a prison sentence of three years to be redeemed.
  • Guilty Gear
    • In his debut, Sol Badguy was a more anti-heroic take on Terry Bogard. His fighting style, all American aesthetic and revenge focused backstory were all inspired by Terry, but with a harder edge befitting of the post-apocalyptic setting. Somewhat justified by the fact that the original Guilty Gear team would go on to incorporate numerous former SNK employees, and Terry himself even makes a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo on Axl's stage. As the series progressed, Sol would qualify less for this trope, as he'd lose the "corrupt" part with character development and the "character copy" part as he developed his own unique style.
    • Baiken is a much darker take on Himura Kenshin. The designers even stated that Baiken was based on him, and it shows, most notably having a very similar design to him, but that's where the similarities end. While Kenshin strives to be as much of a pacifist as possible and sought a path of redemption for his actions as the infamous Battousai the Manslayer, Baiken was focused solely on revenge and didn't care all that much who got in her way, and some of her non-canon endings in Accent Core+ had her go off the deep end and become villainous. That said, starting from Xrd onwards she gets significant Character Development into a much more heroic character, putting her on a somewhat similar path to Kenshin.
  • Heroes of the Seasons:
    • King Frinch is obviously based on the Grinch, but while most adaptations of the Grinch are thieves who use subterfuge and stealth instead of direct violence, Frinch declares war on Utania Village because he hates their Christmas festivities and finds them annoying.
    • Gobi turns out to be a darker take on the Grinch's 2000 film incarnation, since his race was not only ostracized by Vyena's worshipers, they outright slaughtered his people on Christmas day. As a result, he is much more vengeful than that version of the Grinch.
  • Inscryption: The four Scrybes are meant to parallel the Gym Leaders and Elite Four from the Pokémon franchise, as boss characters who each have mastery over a certain type of Mon and must be defeated in your journey To Be a Master. In particular, they most closely resemble the four Grand Masters from Pokémon Trading Card Game, who have the same purpose. But while the Pokémon characters are Hero Antagonists who only want to test your skills and are friendly otherwise, the Scrybes are the power-hungry villains who do not want to be replaced and spend the story competing with each other to hijack the game and prevent that from happening.
  • Killer Instinct:
    • Black Orchid, as of Killer Instinct (2013), is essentially who Cammy White (another acrobatic and attractive woman wearing a green Leotard of Power who works for a government agency to bring justice upon a corrupt organization) would've become if she was never able to let go of her vendetta against Shadaloo and instead continued pursuing it at the expense of those she cared about, with Orchid's single-minded obsession with Ultratech resulting in her being relieved from duty and thus becoming a paranoid vigilante and potential global terrorist leader.
    • Eyedol is a vicious take off of Blanka with Eyedol's ending in the first game being a direct (and cruel) parody of Blanka's SFII ending where he hugs his ma crying Tears of Joy, as Eyedol instead brutally murders the innocent woman claiming to be his mother.
  • The King of Fighters: Nameless is a dead ringer for Lars Alexandersson, with both being spiky-haired protagonists of an Updated Re-release, with prominent facial scars, a close relationship with a dead girl reborn through tech (Isolde and Alisa, respectively), and positions as the Token Good Teammate of a corrupt organization (NESTS and Tekken Force). Unlike Lars, who stands up against his side's atrocities to the extent that he outright becomes a Rebel Leader inciting thousands to join La Résistance, Nameless is too spineless and desperate to stop assassinating people on behalf of NESTS, and when he finally gets the courage to do so in The King of Fighters All Star, without Lars's charisma and connections to benefit him, it's all but stated to end with his death.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Fecto Forgo, the Ultimate Life Form in stasis at the top of Lab Discovera, seems to be an evil version of Mewtwo. Both are legendary creatures known for their Psychic Powers, associated with the dark side of human experimentation, and are antagonistic toward their smaller and cuter "other half". They're even visually similar, as shown when Fecto assimilates Elfilin to return to its true form, the alien humanoid Fecto Elfilis. But while Mewtwo's acts of villainy stem from understandable motives, he wants the best for his fellow Pokémon, and resents Mew for being "the original", Fecto Forgo is "the original" and wants nothing more than to become one with Elfilin, no matter what. They also seem to be cruel for cruelty's sake, as shown when they subjugate the Waddle Dees as their slaves and assimilate the Beast Pack, who were trying to help them fuse back together with Elfilin. To add insult to injury, they were only doing so because Forgo had brainwashed their king.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
  • Nitrome's Mega Mash: Fluffykins, the Villain Protagonist of "Carrot Story", appears to be an obvious stand-in for Mario, with both being player characters of a platform game, wearing a red shirt and cap, and travelling through a land of wonder to overthrow a fire-breathing animalistic dictator (Bowser for Mario, and the Moo King for Fluffykins). Mario is a Humble Hero who fights Bowser to save Peach and keep her as the rightful ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom. Fluffykins, on the other hand, turns out to be a Hair-Raising Hare who sought to usurp the Moo King from his throne so that he could rule the Land of Carrots himself, and is said to have been an even more tyrannical ruler than the Moo King.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance also has a corruption of Dante in the form of Jetstream Sam. A snarky and witty swordsman with red color motifs who mocks his enemies, is a One-Man Army, rides a motorcycle at one point, and isn't completely human (Sam being a Cyborg, while Dante is a human/demon hybrid). They even have silver-haired swordsmen with blue color motifs as their rivals (Vergil for Dante, Raiden for Sam), with said swordsman wielding a katana for their weapon of choice.
  • Mortal Kombat:
  • No More Heroes:
    • No More Heroes
      • Helter Skelter is a jab at Devil May Cry's Dante, particularly his earlier incarnations (prior to the third game) as an overly-edgy broody Bishōnen hero, being an albino with two guns that shoot bullets and missiles and have retractable bayonets. The trailer initially builds him up as the protagonist until Travis kills him, and in the game proper Travis muses that he can't decide whether Helter was "the shit or just plain shit".
      • Travis Touchdown has the red coat, the cool sword, the motorbike, and the brother for a rival, but Dante's love of conventionally "cool" things like rock music replaced by nerdier interests like anime and video games, and his roguish attitude is more aggressive and vulgar than Dante's.
      • Destroyman, who is a scummy take off of Superman with the noble aspects of Clark replaced with cowardice and cruelty, and he even fights with a powered suit and weapons rather than having superpowers of his own. He returns in the sequel and is even worse, making lewd and sexist comments to Shinobu.
    • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: Helter Skelter's brother Skelter Helter is one to Cloud Strife. His main weapon highly resembles the buster sword and he even sports spiky anime hair and they both try to avenge the loss of a loved one, Helter for Skelter and Aerith for Cloud. However, Skelter's angst is much more hammy and noticeable compared to Cloud's genuine sorrow and he has none of the latter's more positive traits.
    • No More Heroes III Big Bad Jess Baptiste VI a.k.a. Fu is a Darker and Edgier riff on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The start of the game is a direct reference to Elliot and E.T's bond, with Damon Riccitiello fufilling Elliot role as the boy who looks after the cuddly alien and helps him get home. Except, while E.T was a genuinely nice alien, it's revealed Fu wanted to conquer Earth from the beginning, and upon returning to Damon is a massive frat boy alien douchebag who belittles his childhood friend, only seeing him as a tool to get what he wants. Ultimately, Damon proves to also be one for Elliot when he was also using him as a tool for his own ends, with Fu's defeat by Travis prompting Damon to finish him off for his failure, with Damon becoming the final boss.
  • Palworld:
    • Lily Everhart is a Darker and Edgier interepretation of N from Pokémon Black and White. While N treats his underlings in Team Plasma with respect, Lily is all too willing to sacrifice her underlings for the Pals. Additionally, while N values Pokémon greatly due to growing up around them and his beliefs that humans abuse Pokémon stem from an abusive and manipulative father figure, Lily takes this to the extreme and independently came to the conclusion that humans are a danger to Pals, and thus values human life less than those of Pals. Finally, N seeks to achieve his goals non-violently, while Lily decides that be best way to achieve her goals is with liberal use of violence.
    • Axel Traverse is a corrupted copy of Dutch van der Linde. While Dutch had a strong bond with his gang before breaking out due to his instability alienating his fellow gang members, Axel doesn't have any ties with his gang, who instead create a Cult of Personality around him and feed his need for more violence without question.. He also has corrupted elements of Team Skull's Guzma as well. Guzma is a legitimately nice guy under his gruff exterior, and is only really being evil because the true villain made him feel like he was worth something after failing his journey and making something of his life. As such, all his goons are actually loyal to him. Axel by contrast, is a violent Blood Knight with no loyalty to anyone but himself. His "team" is little more than a Cult of Personality used to fulfill his need for violence, and it's implied his goons are only loyal because they just want free rein to indulge in their desire for wanton violence.
    • Zoe Rayne is a dark take on Ash Ketchum, both of them being friendly, naive children who left home, formed a strong bond with an Electric elemental Mon, and traveled around a series of islands having adventures. Since this is Palworld and not Pokémon though, she's a thorough deconstruction of that idea. She had to leave home not To Be a Master, but because her single father abandoned her, and the bond she formed with Grizzbolt almost got her beaten to death by the local Team Rocket expy when she tried to free Grizzbolt and escape, only to find she had to go back to them because she didn't have the knowledge or skills to survive even a day on her own. She has to keep training not to prove her skill or win competitions, but to be just enough of a threat that her own "friends" don't decide to kill or abandon her, and despite all that, or perhaps because of it, she's still the weakest boss in the game by leagues.
    • The Brothers of the Eternal Pyre are a dark counterpart to Team Skull. While Team Skull is formed from trainers who couldn't overcome the journey as a rite of passage for one reason or another, The Brothers are just a straightforward gang of asshats running around with dangerous weapons and causing trouble simply because they can. Team Skull is a Found Family who ultimately genuinely care about each other and their Pokémon. The Brothers of the Eternal Pyre are more or less only a team because they're all Blood Knight personalities.
  • Pikmin: In another rare same company example, Louie superficially takes after Luigi quite a bit, being the lanky Foil to the lead hero as well as having a similar name, just like how Olimar is in terms of apperance and name similar to Mario. Unlike Luigi however, whose cowardice and other faults are used to show how heroic he is when he overcomes them, Louie's numerous personality faults make him a selfish, unlikable hindrance and eventually a full-on villain.
  • Pizza Tower has Pizzaface, who turns out to be Pizzahead, a villainous Mario to Peppino's heroic Wario. In the fictional backstory of the Pizza Tower series, he was the mascot protagonist of a Game Boy game where Peppino was the antagonist, which makes him one to Mario, and thus he is a cheerful fellow in overalls who's in opposition to a ruder and cruder counterpart. However, whereas Mario is a cartoony, jolly everyman who's Fun Personified and happens to be the mascot of a successful real-life corporation, Pizzahead is a clownish, constantly grinning Jerkass who can't take anything seriously no matter how dire and is the mascot of a failing fictional pizza place. Also, he's the most cartoonish character in a very cartoonish game.
  • Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare's sequel features Super Brainz, an obvious send-up of Superman complete with cape and suit, Lantern Jaw of Justice, well-combed black hair(even more glaring than usual) Clark Kenting and the ability to scale vantage points In a Single Bound. However, the similarities end there. While Superman is a selfless handsome hero who's always willing to fight for the good of mankind, Super Brainz is a self-obsessed walking corpse who will pause mid-fight to admire his own reflection, and fights for the Mad Scientist Dr. Zomboss while under the delusion he's actually the star of a super hero movie (a "fact" he uses to comfort you during the single-player campaign, showing he believes it applies to everything in the game). While Superman lives as a reporter to keep himself humble and in the company of man, Super Brainz only ever uses it to slink away when outmatched. Also, SB's actual power set doesn't have much in common with the Flying Brick: other than high jumps and deadly fists, he has energy blasts in the form of beams and his Super Ultra Ball and toughness on par with a guy wearing American football armor, meaning he's almost fully offense-oriented.
  • Pocket Mirror and its prequel Little Goody Two Shoes have a fair amount of these.
    • The Big Bad of both games, Ozzy/the Strange Boy:
      • He plays a similar role to Kyubey/Incubator from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, as the Big Bad of otherworldly origin who grants wishes that backfire on the wish makers and wants to make them despair. But while Kyubey is an entity with Blue-and-Orange Morality who is at least doing this to gather the energy to save the universe, even if only to save itself, the Strange Boy is just a sadist who likes tormenting girls because he thinks it's funny, and also to eat them.
      • Also of The Wizard of Oz, a mysterious wish-granting authority over magical creatures who promises to grant the wish of the heroine in exchange for undergoing trials and turns out to be not what he seems, right down to his name Ozzy. But while the Wizard was ultimately a good, hard-working man in spite of not being a true wizard, Ozzy is a malicious, demonic Jackass Genie who enslaves the soul of anyone foolish enough to take his deal.
    • Elise Liedl, the heroine of the prequel:
      • Of Margery Meanwell, the titular main character of the children's story The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Both are poor orphans who eventually marry into wealth, but Margery is a Heartwarming Orphan who's rise into wealth is a reward for her virtue, while Elise gains her wealth through a Deal with the Devil that entails sacrificing her Love Interest, and her new life of luxury is utterly miserable and more of a punishment for letting her greed overcome her.
      • Also of Dorothy Gale, particularly the MGM film version. Like her, Elise lives in a rural environment, has Smalltown Boredom, and dreams of one day leaving her tiny land for something bigger, eventually receiving a pair of ruby slippers that begin her magical journey. But while Dorothy is kind to her family and learns to appreciate what she has, Elise is temperamental, combative, and displays outright contempt towards her fellow villagers, and her greed and desire for a more luxurious life drives her to make a Deal with the Devil that, if she goes through with it, gives her what she wants at the cost of separating her from everyone she cares about.
    • Platinum is one to Goddess Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Both are pink haired, ethereal looking figures born from the protagonist's wish, and have the ability to assimilate others into them. However, Goddess Madoka was the result of Madoka realizing the full truth of the magical system, refusing to give into despair, and using her wish to free magical girls from their fates of becoming witches. While Madoka did have enough karmic fate accumulated to be able to wish magical girls out of existence, she chose to respect the wishes of the magical girls who came before and after her, simply giving them a place to rest when their journeys came to an end. While later installments imply Madoka's wish wasn't perfect, it did allow the system to change for the better and was made out of compassion, love, and empathy. Platinum on the other hand is created due to Goldia's understanding of herself being incomplete, and Platinum's assimilation of the other characters isn't done as mercy or salvation, but as a form of control, and she is condescending to Goldia's personalities, not respecting their individuality or agency.
    • Continuing the Oz parallels, Lord Murim is the series’ version of the Scarecrow, but instead of a Book Dumb yet genius planner and overall friend to Dorothy, he is a child-eating Scary Scarecrow.
  • Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3 has the Smiling Critters, expies of the Care Bears. Out of all of them, CatNap is the corrupted character copy to Bedtime Bear, being the member associated with sleep. However, Bedtime Bear is a lazy but lovable friend and only puts people to rest at night, and is as kind and empathetic to others as the rest of the Care Bears. CatNap on the other hand seems to have no qualms with killing people if it means putting them to sleep, even his own friends, and is more openly antagonistic.
  • Persona 5 has Junya Kaneshiro. When you compare him to The Kingpin of Crime, he does check off the usual boxes. Fat Bastard, criminal mastermind, untouchable by the law, The Dreaded to civilians and underlings alike. Kaneshiro's Shadow even wears a white suit just like Kingpin's. The difference is that Wilson Fisk is the mob boss version of The Ace - a charismatic and deadly Genius Bruiser with a narrow but firmly-held code of honour - while Kaneshiro is just a pudgy, charmless, and conscience-devoid Non-Action Big Bad with nothing stylish or admirable about him.
    • The action-based sequel, Persona 5 Strikers, features Akira Konoe, who is a dead ringer for Tony Stark (particularly the Marvel Cinematic Universe version). The two have similar hair and beards, are the heads of multi-billion tech companies, have a strong sense of justice, and wear robo suits (although in Akira's case, it's just his Shadow, and it has a few features from a knock off of Featherman, an in-universe super sentai show). However, he has Black-and-White Insanity and to ensure everyone is safe from evil, he wants to steal the hearts of everyone until they are mindless followers.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Ada Wong is a more flawed take off of Nikita (whom she is a general homage to). Both are super slick Femme Fatale assassins and super spies for mysterious organizations and share one major flaw: their love for a man (Marco for Nikita and Leon for Ada), which often conflicts with certain orders they are both have a shady black-clad superior they answer to: Michael for Nikita, and Wesker for Ada. Except the whole point of Nikita was her breaking free of her sinister organisation who exploited her Broken Bird drug addiction, whereas Ada has no such Freudian Excuse or moral hangups is actually happy to be a conceited Smug Smiler Heel–Face Revolving Door who moves between multiple mysterious employeers.
    • Karl Heisenberg of Resident Evil Village is a corrupted copy character of both Victor Frankenstein and Magneto.
      • Like Victor Frankenstein he's a Jerkass Woobie who found a way of reanimating the dead through archaic electrical equipment similar to modern tellings of Frankenstein. Except while Victor had a My God, What Have I Done? over the creation of a single Humanoid Abomination, Heisenberg creates a whole army of reanimated corpses similar to the Wretch of the Universal films and intends to use them for his own nefarious purposes.
      • Like Magneto he's a mutant who has a Dark and Troubled Past, has an Enemy Mine with the heroes and even has Magnetism Manipulation. Except while Magneto at his best is a very sympathetic character who just wants his kind to prosper and survive, Heisenberg is a Smug Snake who Would Hurt a Child/weaponise a infant in order to get what he wants.
  • Episode 2 of Scooby-Doo! First Frights has an eccentric toymaker named Tim Toiler as the villain, who can best be described as an evil version of Willy Wonka who makes toys instead of candy. He even bears a notable resemblance to Willy Wonka's portrayal in Nestle's commercials for Wonka candy.
  • Shin Megami Tensei V: Nuwa and Shohei Yakumo act as corruptions of the standard neutral heroes found in the rest of the franchise. While the neutral hero usual acts as a moderate Voice of Reason among the more extreme ideologies of Law and Chaos, Nuwa and Yakumo are extremely misanthropic. Their ideals are less aligned with their desire to better humanity and are much more based in their hatred of demonkind regardless of alignment, with their disdain towards chaos based in their belief that demons are opportunistic bastards that prey on and corrupt humans, and towards angels for enforcing blind obedience to a dictatorial power that meddles with the lives of humanity. Unlike other neutral representatives that only oppose the protagonist when you go with Law or Chaos, Nuwa and Yakumo only stop trying to kill when the protagonist sides with them at the end of the game. For his part, Yakumo also has a distain towards humans that are too weak to resist the influence of these higher powers, meaning the pair lacks the compassion towards humankind as a whole that other represetatives like Isabeau have.
  • Sonic Frontiers: THE END is directly based on the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion; like them, it is a powerful entity with ambiguous origins that desires to wipe out all life on Earth so as to become the sole remaining lifeform. But while the Angels are artificial creations simply following their programming and have no real malice in their actions, THE END is an arrogant, self-righteous, and overtly malicious Control Freak that sees all life other than itself as a chaotic blight on its perfect order that must be wiped out.
  • Soul Series: Iska Farkas, introduced in Soulcalibur Legends, is basically a send-up of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. They are both adolescents who are highly knowledgeable in the field of alchemy and each have a Dark and Troubled Past in which they tragically lose a female family member (Edward's mother and Iska Farkas' sister in their respective cases) who they unsuccessfully attempted to bring back to life. Also notable is that he even has Edward's VAs in both Japanese and English to reinforce this connection. However, as per this trope, Iska Farkas is a darker take on Edward. Whereas Edward has a strong moral foundation and is also wise enough to accept what can and cannot be changed, Iska Farkas is a sociopath who covertly pits various people against each other in an effort to acquire both Soul Edge and Soulcalibur in an effort to destroy the world to both resurrect his sister, Ilona, and recreate the world as it was prior to her passing.
  • Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion: GL Labs is modeled after the SCP Foundation, being a secretive organization run by a non-human entity who seeks out and captures strange entities that could potentially pose a threat to humanity, then studies them to try and discover how they work, and sends out poor souls to be victimized by the entities as part of the experiments. But while the Foundation at least wants to protect humanity from the entities and uses convicted criminals as guinea pigs, GL Labs is a Nebulous Evil Organization that aims to weaponize the entities and use them to Take Over the World, while luring innocent people to the mansion and using them as subjects.
  • Street Fighter:
    • Dan Hibiki, being a Take That! against SNK for Art of Fighting (which Capcom felt copied Street Fighter), is a pathetic rip on Ryo Sakazaki (right down to having the same gi, just pink instead of orange) with Dan having none of Ryo's talents, charm or respect from fellow martial artists being a Boisterous Weakling to the core. Although, ironically Dan is ultimately much more well known and liked than Ryo, the character he was supposed to be a parody of.
    • For a more serious and plot-important example, Crimson Viper (real name Maya) from IV takes a lot of inspiration from Vanessa of The King of Fighters (another of SNK’s works, set in the same universe as Art of Fighting) fame. Both are redheaded, sharp-dressed secret agents tasked with investigating the primary antagonist organization of their debut games’ (NESTS and S.I.N., respectively), leading to them entering a fighting tournament hosted by the Big Bad. Both are Action Moms to children who are entirely unaware of their mothers’ occupations, and Maya’s alias even mirrors Vanessa’s official nickname, “Crimson Agent.” Except, whereas Vanessa is a friendly, outgoing, good-humored Action Girl whose opposition of NESTS is portrayed in an unambiguously heroic fashion, C. Viper’s kinder side is reserved exclusively for her daughter, Lauren, and she is otherwise an unapproachable, snide, borderline Dark Action Girl who thinks little of directly harming Street Fighter’s heroic cast while undercover within S.I.N., such as torturously brutalizing Cammy and kidnapping Ken’s innocent wife, Eliza, to hold her for ransom in exchange for his best friend, Ryu, in IV’s prequel OVA, The Ties That Bind. Furthermore, Vanessa is a fair fighter who relies only on her skill in boxing to defeat her opponents, whereas C. Viper is a Combat Pragmatist who has no problem utilizing an array of deadly gadgets incorporated into her attire, an underhanded method of fighting that results in a number of other fighters decrying her as a cheater in their win quotes against her.
  • The Super Mario Bros. series:
    • Super Mario RPG has the Axem Rangers, based upon the Power Rangers and Super Sentai teams. Unlike the various teams in those shows, however, who are pure hearted warriors who fight to protect Earth from evil, the Axem Rangers are evil and clearly know it, as well as being some of Smithy's elite minions, seeking to subjugate the Mushroom Kingdom.
    • The Koopa Bros. from Paper Mario 64 are based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, being a quartet of Totally Radical ninja turtles with each member possessing a colorful mask. However, unlike the noble and heroic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who fight against evil, the Koopa Bros. are villains who serve as Bowser's henchmen and delight in causing harm to Mario.
    • Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: Earthwake is a humanoid mecha made of blocks of various colors who can shift said blocks around to form various shapes, much like Cubix. The difference is that Cubix is a heroic robot who fights evil, while Earthwake is an evil robot who will kill (and has killed) anyone who tries to destroy the Nightmare Chunk in Dreamy Wakeport.
  • Tekken:
    • Kazuya Mishima is what happens when you take Ryu from Street Fighter, keep his color scheme, position, eyebrows, and talent within the story while viciously extracting all the noble and compassionate traits from his character and make him a Ax-Crazy Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy whom instead of conquering his Superpowered Evil Side utterly gives into it. Even Ryu's loving relationship with his adoptive father/mentor Gouken stands in contrast with Kazuya's hateful relationship with his father Heihachi. Street Fighter X Tekken highlights the similarites and dichotomy between Ryu and Kazuya with its first trailer and general marketing.
    • Kazuya later can also look like what happens if Vegeta from Dragon Ball never had a Heel–Face Turn. Aside from having almost similar hairstyles, both are the Evil Prince of a certain influental group of people (the prince of the Saiyan Race and the inheritor of Mishima Zaibatsu) and extremely arrogant about their skills. Both also had a woman they genuinely loved: Bulma and Jun. But since Jun is absent for the majority of his life, Kazuya goes on full evil without looking back, whereas the constant presence of Bulma eventually softens Vegeta so that he becomes more heroic as time passes. Their relationships with their sons also provide a stark contrast: Vegeta may have had a rocky start with his son Trunks, but he comes to respect his son's future self and tries his best to be a good father when Trunks is actually born and grows up. On the other hand, Kazuya is all too happy to become Jin's Archnemesis Dad as long as it gets him what he wants. Kazuya actually had all it takes to be a Stock Shōnen Rival like Vegeta if he's to be considered Jin's rival (as of current, Hwoarang is his rival), but he instead takes those traits to become a full-blown villain.
    • Jin Kazama also bares multiple similarities with Ryu and his angst over his inner darkness (Satsui no Hado for Ryu, Devil Gene for Jin); but while Ryu stays on the good path, Jin becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist whose bitter personailty makes him a Nominal Hero at best. Also, while Ryu cares for his allies, Jin dislikes, or is at least uninterested in, everyone aside from his mother and Xiaoyu. Tekken 8 however managed to give Jin Character Rerailment into being the hero again, which only makes him even more similar to Ryu.
    • Paul Phoenix is a corrupted copy of Ken Masters. Both are Hot-Blooded American martial artists who wear red gi and Paul originally was the Red Oni rival to Kazuya's Blue Oni much like Ken is to Ryu and in the eariler games Paul was even pretty boy-handsome like Ken. Except, while Ken is The Ace and respected within Street Fighter, Paul is very much the No-Respect Guy who gets an endless amount of Humiliation Conga, and is also penniless and bedraggled unlike the very rich and well-groomed Ken. Although Street Fighter 6 actually makes Ken similar to Paul by stripping him of his wealth and style, his plight is instead Played for Drama unlike Paul who's almost constantly Played for Laughs.
    • Nina Williams started off similar to Sarah Bryant of Virtua Fighter but being a Dark Action Girl instead of a friendly Action Girl like Sarah, but in later games Nina is more of a corrupted copy of Cammy White. Both are super professional stoic blondes in Sensual Spandex who been have mind-controlled by a Big Bad and spend a good deal of time in People Jars and have Red Oni, Blue Oni dichotomy with another main female fighter (Chun-Li for Cammy, Anna for Nina), except while Cammy is The Atoner and a geuinely good person, Nina is the Ice Queen and The Sociopath who continues working for the villains without the excuse of brainwashing; the best excuse she could come up with is that she only knows what it means to be a professional assassin where she's not supposed to care about good and evil, only whoever hires her and gives her a job. Additionally, while Cammy cares for her "family" the Dolls, Nina has nothing but distain for her sister Anna and to a lesser extent her son Steve.
  • TinkerQuarry: Clint is heavily modelled after The Nutcracker, being a toy soldier who defends his friends, including a little girl, from evil rodents. However, he is later revealed to have a massive crush on the mother of the girl who owned the toys. When he learns that Adeline, the young protagonist, is not the Girl, but the Mother trapped in a young body, Clint betrays the party and attempts to murder them in a bid to keep Adeline forever.
  • ULTRAKILL has V1, who acts as a sendup to fellow demon-hunter The Doom Slayer. But unlike the Slayer, who is a human being who fought Hell to protect humanity and for killing his pet rabbit, V1 is a part of a race of robot's who have killed all of humanity, and is only clearing out Hell to find blood to sustain itself.
  • From Underparty, we are introduced to Kimiko, who is essentially an Expy of Mikako from Heaven's Lost Property. Like Mikako, Kimiko is an Ojou Mafia Princess who, in addition to having a similarly long hair, is also an heir to a prominent and powerful yakuza clan. It's also a Downplayed example as while both happen to be Ax-Crazy sadistic sociopaths with a Lack of Empathy who love to torture and kill others while maintaining their Dissonant Serenity, the only difference is that while Mikako's sadism is (mostly) Played for Laughs, Kimiko is basically what happens when the former's methods are taken in a darker light.
  • Wandersong has Audrey Redheart acting as one to Link; both are The Hero who carry a legendary sword to fight against the source of evil in their world, and who are uplifted from humble beginnings into the position of The Chosen One. What Audrey lacks in comparison to Link, however, is that Link is a Humble Hero who saves Hyrule without any expectations of praise, whereas Audrey pursues her goals for glory and admiration as she loathed being "a nobody" before becoming the hero. This makes it so that the determination that would serve Link in spades turns out to be a massive threat to the world in Audrey's hands, as the reveal that her actions were meant to Mercy Kill the world instead of save it means little to her, persuing her goals even in the face of causing the end of everything. Even Audrey's sword bears a close resemblance to the Master Sword: they both have outward facing hilts with yellow gems embedded in the center, albeit with the Master Sword's hilt being blue and Audrey's being a reddish-pink.
  • Warcraft III has Arthas Menethil, who is the fantasy counterpart to King Arthur. Not only is his name similar to the Once and Future King, but his arc is a dark reflection of Arthur's legend. Like Arthur, Arthas claims a magical sword and goes on to be crowned the ruler of a great kingdom with the aide of a wizard, only the blade is the cursed Frostmourne, the kingdom is the Undead Scourge, and the wizard is the Necromancer—turned undead lich—Kel'Thuzad.
  • The rival character of Wild ARMs 3, Janus Cascade, seems to be designed entirely on the premise of "what if Ashley Winchester was an unrepentant douchebag". He has a strong resemblance to his protagonist counterpart, wields the same weapon (in fact most of his moves are direct counterparts of Ashley's) and generally feels very familiar, but lacks any ounce of the original's moral fiber, to the point he's essentially just a wandering bandit. The similarities really come to a head when they both acquire a demonic form due to having an ancient weapon forced on them: Ashley is reluctant to use Lord Blazer's power and eventually triumphs over him thanks to The Power of Friendship, while Janus revels in his ambition, drives away everyone around him, and is ultimately killed by the demon inside him.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Joran is one based on Fiora from the first Xenoblade Chronicles. Both are the childhood friends of the main protagonist (Shulk and Noah) who get killed abruptly during an attack on their hometown (Colony 9 and Colony 14) while sacrificing themselves in an attempt to help, though die upon doing so (Fiora attacking Metal Face/Mumkhar and Joran pushing Lanz out of the way of a falling debris), and both are revived to serve as followers of the other side of the game's villains (Mechonis and Moebius). What sets them apart, however, was that Fiora was made a Face Mechon against her will and eventually rejoined Shulk and his friends, even becoming a powerful ally despite her initial concerns about being The Load, while Joran chose to become Moebius of his own free will because of his own weaknesses as a useless soldier who died time and time again.
  • Yoobiiverse:
    • Annabelle (RPG Maker): Jason Sunray is modeled after Marty Armstrong, the villain of LISA The First and the titular heroine's sexually abusive father. But while Marty eventually has a Heel–Face Turn and takes care of the child Buddy to repent for what he did, Jason only gets worse and worse as the series goes on, culminating in becoming the head of an orphanage in which he deliberately abuses the children so they will never leave and he can rake in government grants forever.
    • Annventure: Tyrannia, the Killer, is this for several villains from the games that inspired the series:
      • Tyrannia is the equivalent of Giygas, as the leader of an invasion from another world that seeks to subjugate and destroy humanity, and was once a mortal being who became an eldritch entity. However, they lack the sympathetic qualities and Almighty Idiot nature of Giygas, instead being knowingly sadistic and manipulative.
      • Tyrannia also plays a similar role to Flowey the Flower and Chara Dreemurr from Undertale, being a malicious, demonic entity who hijacks the game and possesses the player character to go on a rampage. But while Flowey is a Tragic Villain who turned evil from lacking a soul and Chara is Ambiguously Evil outside the Genocide route, Tyrannia was explicitly always evil even back when she was a mortal Wicked Witch and knowingly turned herself into a demon in the pursuit of power.

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