Evil Counterpart / Video Games

Clashing face-to-face since 1992 and 2000.

Evil Counterparts in Video Games.

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A-C

• From Advance Wars 2 onward, most of the Black Hole Army COs serve as Evil Counterparts to the Alliance COs:
  • Flak is the evil brute to Max's heroic muscle, as he lacks Max's few restraints or glimpses of intelligence and prefers "smashin stuff" over any strategy; even his CO powers (which are functionally identical to Max's) are edgier-named: "Brute Force" and "Barbaric Flow".
  • Adder is this to Grit, both being lanky and thin men with a fairly laid-back disposition, with the difference being Grit has empathy where Adder lacks any. He even tries a We Can Rule Together to Grit in Black Hole Rising, observing that Grit (who originally defected from Orange Star to Blue Moon) never really cared much about loyalty to a cause, and invites him to join Black Hole. Grit notes that he has a point, but refuses as he sees Black Hole's barbaric treatment of civilians.
  • Lash serves as one for Sonja. Both are intelligent, youthful, and based on terrain and defensive warfare in a manner that makes them map-dependent, but Sonja is mature and reserved while Lash is a cackling goofball. In Dual Strike, many of Sonja's abilities even seem designed to counter Lash's. For bonus points, the mission that pits both of them against each other is named "A Mirror Darkly", after which Sonja even states that Sonja also had fun in the battlefield, and that they have the same analytical mind, always looking for the victory move, and comparing war to a game of chess. Troubled by this, Sonja promises herself to never become like Lash.
  • Hawke is apperance and personality-wise a counterpart of Eagle, being a no-nonsense and competent CO with a code of honor, though his CO powers are more in line with Drake's in terms of amount of damage and even names (Drake's powers are named Tsunami and Typhoon; Hawke's are Black Wave and Black Storm). Personality and gameplay-wise, he's also one to Andy, being an all-around, talented, and very active CO with abilities based on healing; but where Andy simply heals, Hawke drains, and his units are all-around better instead of all-around good. Several times, he refers to Andy as a Worthy Opponent and Andy seems to remind him of himself.
• Your main power in After Burner Climax is the Climax Mode Limit Break, which allows you to launch Macross Missile Massacres. In the late-game you run into enemy planes who can launch Macross Missile Massacres too. And since It's Up to You... Well, thank goodness for Mercy Invincibility is all.
• In Alpha Protocol, Conrad Marburg is something of an evil counterpart to Mike; a rogue agent from a previous incarnation of Alpha Protocol called Deus Vult, who like Mike was cut loose and falsely declared rogue because it was politically convenient. Unlike Mike, who's still trying to get to the bottom of the conspiracy, Marburg lost faith in the government and now works for Leland.
• An interesting case for Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star where the counterpart isn't actually between two in-game characters. It's actually between you, the player themself who's visiting the EXA_PICO world through Interdimend, and the Other Player, another visitor using Interdimend. Unlike you, who are trying to help the cast and the world, the Other Player is actively trying to put it in peril to achieve 100% completion, and doesn't care about the people at all. This is even reflected between your relationship with Ion and their relationship with Nero; while you care and treat Ion like a partner and person, the Other Player only sees Nero as a means to an end, even placing him inside the Maternal Overseer. There's also the treatment between your vessels, with you treating them with care while the Other Player forcibly controls Prim to do things she doesn't want. Ultimately it's the conflict between a good player and an evil player.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • The Templar Order to the Assassin Brotherhood. Both are secret organizations founded in Ancient Egypt who work in the shadows to influence the course of world history to achieve their desired goal of permanent peace on Earth. However, the Assassins desire free will and will do everything to preserve it by any means, whereas the Templars want absolute control so they can establish a One World Order that would be directly overseen by them.
  • Il Lupo (aka The Prowler) in Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy was a fighter trained by the Templars after observing Ezio in action as a countermeasure to the Assassins (specifically Ezio) by equipping him with similar weaponry, right down to a hidden blade and teaching him the same skills Ezio knows. Even his attire is similar to an Assassin's. Unfortunately, he was killed before he could ever have a chance to actually face Ezio.
  • Shay Patrick Cormac from Assassin's Creed Rogue is one to Connor Kenway from Assassin's Creed III due to both having very strong morals, and becoming legends for being responsible for The Purge of each other's Orders in the Thirteen Colonies/United States, as well as possibly their roles in two of the world's biggest revolutions; the French and American, respectively. Both started out idealistic only to be exposed to the uglier side of the conflict, both were Achilles's prize students, and both were the targets of Haytham's manipulation. Connor saw through it immediately, while Shay never really figured out that Haytham was using him. Also, while both were exposed to the positives and negatives of the two ideologies, Connor stayed with the Assassins because he believed in freedom above all else; Shay cared more about protecting people, which aligned nicely with the Templars' beliefs.
  • In Assassin's Creed Origins, Bayek of Siwa has a villainous counterpart in Khaliset/The Hyena, a female member of the Order of the Ancients who like him is an expert archer and animal tamer who lost a child. However, Bayek is trying to put his child's soul to rest and move on while his counterpart is desperate to bring her child back to life, and while the experience of losing a child has spurred Bayek to help others, the counterpart losing a child drove her mad and made her willing to sacrifice people.
• Every single character in Battle Arena Toshinden 3 has an Evil Counterpart that has to be fought as a Sub-Boss. Most of them are merely carbon copies of the originals with a new coat of paint (except for Badass Longcoat Vermilion), so if you master one, you can easily play with their counterpart. Aside from that, the initial playable characters and their evil counterparts all share special themes in relation to one another. For example, the series' main protagonist Eiji and his evil counterpart Leon shares a theme of temperament; while Eiji is a hot-blooded jerk seeking to get stronger, over time, he softens up and becomes more levelheaded in his pursuits. Leon is a cruel and cocky jerk without any standards, who will do anything in his power to be the strongest and get rid of those who will stand in his way, even if it means sending them as a sacrifice to Abel's plans. He even desires to challenge Sho to achieve his goal.
• Bayonetta:
  • The titular character's magical order called the Umbra Witches are a female-only group of magic-users who have contracts with infernal demons and can slow down time. By all accounts they should be the evil counterparts to the the male-only group of magic-users who work with angels and can speed up time, the Lumen Sages, except in the first game the Lumen Sages try to exterminate the Umbran Witch order in order to steal their half of a god's power, the Eyes of the World, which would make them the evil counterparts. However, this gets subverted in the sequel when it's revealed that the Lumen Sages aren't really evil, they were led down a path of destruction by the angels lying to them in an attempt at a power-grab for the Eyes of the World, coupled with the Lumen Sage leader, Balder, being corrupted by housing the pure evil half of the soul of the former God of Chaos in his body. Additionally, despite the Umbra Witches serving demons, the demons are played straight to a certain extent, meaning some of them could deceive their conjurers into doing something bad (though there's a higher chance the ones Bayonetta has end up being completely Dark Is Not Evil especially in Bayonetta 3).
  • In Bayonetta 2, we have both halves of the aforementioned God of Chaos Aesir, Loki and Loptr. Both have the appearance of young boys (which Loptr uses to manipulate Balder into attacking Loki) who favor the use of magic cards as their weapons and are able to harness the Remembrances of Time in different capabilities: Loki having the Sovereign Power and Loptr bearing the Prophetic Power. Loki (who embodies Aesir's good nature) aims to stop Loptr, and despite having a rocky start with Bayonetta, ends up helping the witch against Loptr after her quest to save Jeanne ends; Loptr (who is the personification of Aesir's evil half) wants to acquire both Eyes of the World to remake the world, and has Balder hunt Loki under the claim that he's the responsible for the death of Balder's wife Rosa (while he was the real culprit) and, in a case of Stable Time Loop, he is The Corruption to Balder - who sacrificed himself to try to contain him-, and by extension, instigated the Witch Hunts depicted in the first game (and, by extension as well, Balder's time-bending plot and Jubileus' resurrection in order to get both Eyes).
  • Downplayed in Bayonetta 3 where the final boss and the sole villain in the game, the multiverse-wiping AI Singularity, has an attack in his final form where he conjures a clone of himself to use some of Bayonetta's signature combat skills. He can also summon Homunculi that are seemingly counterparts to the angel's units to a certain extent (including a massive unit resembling a knockoff of Jubelius), and just like the player Bayonetta, he can overwrite fate to make sure he always wins every fight he's in, although she resists that power to a significant degree.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine: Alice Angel is first introduced in a poster for a Bendy episode called "Sent from Above" in Chapter 2. She herself is a cartoon angel with a cheerful upbeat theme song, but Chapter 3 acquaints Henry with, well... a real-life version of Alice Angel, who is a manipulative, Ax-Crazy Vain Sorceress far removed from the Nice Gal her cartoon counterpart is implied to be. The evil version is implied to be what's become of one of her voice actresses, Susie Campbell.
• Bloodborne has Gehrman and Micolash, the former being the host of the Hunter's Dream, the realm of the Nameless Moon Presence, where Hunters are taught the ropes on how to combat the scourge of beasts, while the latter is the host of the Nightmare of Mensis, the realm of Mergo, the stillborn Great One, and ultimately the source of the beast scourge itself.
• BOTS:
  • The Ganda mooks are similar to a recolour of the Patch chassis, while Slappers and variants are a corruption of Surge wearing its first upgrade parts. Bubbleboy, the boss of the tutorial level and later a Degraded Boss, is based on Patch's first Transformed form, while the Heatcore-Shock minibosses are recolours of Surge's first upgraded transformation. The backstory vaguely implies these Mooks could be corrupt civilians, and/or actual evil copies.
  • With the rare, randomly occurring Special Transformations, you can invert it by temporarily assuming the form of a random boss, and using it to inflict devastation on ordinary viruses, or fight the level's boss on more equal terms.
• In Bravely Default, Ringabel at first appears the good counterpart to Alternis once his true identity as an Alternis from another world is revealed, as Alternis, being part of Eternia's council of six, was one of the seemingly evil ringleaders who tried to stop the party from saving the world by preventing the awakening of the crystals at all costs (he tried to kill Tiz, abduct Agnès and sway Edea to their side again in Chapter 2). However, by virtue of Perspective Flip, it turns out that Alternis was the good counterpart to Ringabel since the Eternians, despite their extreme measures, were trying to stop the main party from awakening the crystals as this would link their world to countless others in order to be devoured by the evil god Ouroboros, and Alternis had enough awareness of this happening in other worlds to try to stop this.
• Ryu from the Breath of Fire franchise usually has an Evil Counterpart in every game:
  • Breath of Fire III has Teepo. Both have similar starts, and while Teepo is attracted to Myria's view of his powers and the Brood and sides with her, Ryu chooses free will and confronts her.
  • Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has Bosch. He comes from a rich family with a high D-Ratio whereas Ryu has a rock-bottom D-Ratio. However, both are swordsmen and even wind up bonded to rival dragons.
• Bug Fables: The Wasp King serves as one to Vi, in the sense that both are stinging insects (or in his case, looks like one) that grew up friendless and ostracized by their peers, and eventually left for bigger and better things which led them down the path of the explorer and usurper respectively. Greed is also a defining flaw of both characters, but Vi grows as a person and comes to value her friends and the people around her, while the King is consumed by his selfishness and obsession with the Sapling to the point of throwing away the lives of his men in pursuit of it.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • The second installment introduces two computer experts: Crash's little sister Coco and Cortex's new dragon N. Gin: both of them are Ditzy Geniuses with a rather short temper, but are also heartfeltly loyal to the respective characters. In the following game, Coco fights N. Gin's new Humongous Mecha in a spaceship, in the racing game, both are acceleration-based characters, and amusingly, both of them become more and more expressive over the years.
    • Nina Cortex was recreated into one for Coco Bandicoot in the Radical Entertainment-developed games. Both act as right-hand girls and Kid Sidekicks to Cortex and Crash, respectively. However, while Coco is bubbly, altruistic, and looks up to her older brother, Nina is snide and conniving, and considers herself superior to her uncle.
  • Crash Bandicoot, Tiny Tiger and Crunch Bandicoot slightly played with this trope over the years:
    • In Cortex Strikes Back, Tiny was an evil version Crash, being another hunching back orange marsupial who wears sneakers and who's good at platforming; but while Crash has a subtle intelligence and rebelled against his creator, Tiny is only a Dumb Muscle who blindly follows whoever is giving him orders at the moment.
    • Crunch Bandicoot was made to be this for Crash in The Wrath of Cortex, being a genetically-altered bandicoot who's actually loyal to Cortex^note well, loyal-ish; he certainly has no problem with punching Cortex around in the final battle, not to mention being large and imposing in contrast to Crash's small size. At least, up until he's broken free from his brainwashing, leading him to do a Heel–Face Turn.
    • If the manual for Crash Nitro Kart is any indication, Tiny Tiger serves as the now-good Crunch's Evil Counterpart due to the two of them being the muscle for their respective teams.
  • Uka Uka is literally the evil version of Aku Aku (also counting as a Cain and Abel dynamic) from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped onwards, being mask-like divine figures who act as the Big Bad and Big Good of the series; Uka Uka being the true mastermind behind Cortex's world domination schemes and only taking center stage after being freed from his prison by the doctor, and Aku Aku being the one who drives Crash and Coco to stop them since the first game (though he was silent until the third game). Also, while Aku Aku is a Father to His Men, protecting Crash, Coco, and later Crunch, from Cortex, Uka Uka is such a Bad Boss to his subordinates (he tried to kill Cortex for his failures, replacing him with Nina) especially in later games that most of them betray him at the first opportunity. For bonus points, both Aku Aku and Uka Uka function as Invincibility Power Ups and Bottomless Pit Rescue Services for good and evil characters respectively in the racing games.

D-F

• Danganronpa:
  • The Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc characters Makoto and Junko. Excusing their cleverness, insane willpower, and speech-making abilities, both of them are extremely good at bringing allies over to their side by understanding the things that make them tick. The difference is that Makoto does this through simple listening, by allowing himself to be relied on, and unpretentiously helping people move past their pain and insecurity and instead towards a hope-filled path. By contrast, she exploits that emotional vulnerability and then psychologically manipulates her victims into becoming someone willing (or even eager) to commit evil (and if all that fails she's got more forceful and invasive forms of making her victims comply). Hence their status as Ultimate Hope and Ultimate Despair.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Nagito Komaeda is this to Makoto Naegi. They're both Ultimate Lucky Students with a strong belief in hope, and share the same voice actor in both dubs. However, Makoto is a Badass Pacifist who never once thinks of murdering anyone, in contrast to Nagito, who starts out acting normal but quickly proves to be an unstable Well-Intentioned Extremist who's willing to do anything as long as Hope Justifies The Means. Hell, he's even been described by Word of God as "if Naegi went down the wrong path."
  • Izuru Kamukura is also one to Makoto, as both are described as the 'Ultimate Hope'. However, while Makoto is a normal kid who earned his title through The Power of Friendship, Izuru was an attempt to artificially create the Ultimate Hope through methods that proved his creators didn't really understand what hope was. He was given every talent Hope's Peak had ever studied, but the process eliminated his humanity, making him good at everything but being a Hope Bringer. Makoto eventually took his place because, unlike Izuru, he could feel emotions, empathize with others, and draw motivation from those, while Izuru was an Empty Shell who couldn't find a reason to do anything. His old self, Hajime Hinata, is able to turn it right back around to become a Hope Bringer like Makoto despite not having any talent, even Makoto's luck, because he befriended his fellow students and was willing to stand up for them.
• Deltarune:
  • Chapter 1's Arc Villain, the King of Spades, is one to Asgore. Asgore had a legitimate excuse to be angry at humans, and despite his hostility towards humans is a caring dad and The Good King. And he doesn't really hate humans at all; he just doesn't have the heart to take away the monsters' one chance at escaping the Underground. King is a tyrant with an excuse lacking any strong roots, a bad father, and has no standards or remorse for his evil whatsoever.
  • Berdly can be considered this to Lancer: both are silly characters who are The Heavy to their respective chapters' antagonists (who both use them to threaten the heroes during their boss fights), are far less intelligent than they want to show, depend on a far more competent female character in their respective fields (Susie for Lancer and Noelle for Berdly), and help the heroes at the last second during the final boss battle. However, while Lancer actually is a Friendly Enemy and helps Susie have a Heel Realization, Berdly, despite his silliness, is a serious antagonist during physical battles and has to be given a lesson by Kris.
  • Spamton is an evil version of Swatch, the head butler in the Queen's mansion. Both are shopkeepers dressed in monochrome with a dash of color, and offer you "Big Shot" clothing, but Swatch offers the "Butler Juice" healing item and is willing to buy your junk, while Spamton offers poison that harms you and refuses to be sold to. Swatch even implies that Spamton has been impersonating him to gain access to the basement.
• The Devil May Cry series:
  • A Greater-Scope Villain and Greater-Scope Paragon example would be Mundus The Prince of Darkness and Sparda The Legendary Dark Knight. Both are super powerful demons who are each worshiped as deities and have a giant statue dedicated to them with extra bonus points in that the two of them are Living Statues for different reasons. However, Mundus seems almost ashamed by his Eldritch Abomination nature and pretends to be more holy than he is while Sparda, a threatening, bug-looking demon, "woke up to justice" and spent his life protecting humanity from the Demon World, gaining idolization that Mundus clearly values but lost.
  • Vergil, being Dante's Evil Twin, of course invokes this, though the reason of why Vergil is such a beloved Breakout Villain is directly because of the juxtaposition with Dante. Both brothers are demon Half-Human Hybrid, Badass Longcoat-wearing Master Swordsmen who love a good fight and have tendency to mock their foes. However, while Dante is a lovable goofball who will use any kind of weapon that he gets his hands on, Vergil is the complete opposite, being very serious and dressing regally (unlike the rock surfer-looking Dante). Also, instead of using guns, Vergil utilizes a combination of his katana, armored gauntlet, and boots, preferring to honor warrior traditions instead of the crazy Gun Fu Dante loves. Vergil even expresses his disgust over his younger brother's choice of weaponry, citing that Guns Are Worthless. Personality-wise, both Dante and Vergil believe in protecting loved ones, though Vergil equates it to gaining strength, while Dante believes his strength lies in his human side and therefore he surpasses Vergil, who ironically shunned his humanity, seeing it as a weakness, and greatly suffered for it.
    
    In Devil May Cry 5, we see how Dante and Vergil converge when it comes to how they treat Nero, who is Vergil's son and Dante's nephew. Despite being his father, Vergil is largely indifferent to Nero, and while he does want Nero to stay off the battlefield (like Dante), he still has no qualms about beating Nero for the sake of getting some kind of victory over Dante, though in an ironic twist, Nero defeats Vergil instead. It's very noticeable near the end of the game as Dante gives his nephew a friendly pat on the shoulder, stating that he and Vergil need to finish the mission in the Underworld while Vergil, being Vergil, just swears that he won't lose to Nero a second time before flying off. Overall, Dante genuinely loves his nephew and is personally outraged that Vergil ripped off Nero's arm for the sake of getting his power back and is further angered that Vergil himself didn't even know or care very much that he had a son in the first place.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening:
    • Big Bad Arkham is just as much a ruthless No-Nonsense Nemesis as Vergil is and both are willing to kill/hurt loved ones just to gain power. However, Vergil has flair, charisma, and honor, while Arkham is pathetic, scheming, and manipulative.
    • Jester (Arkham's alter ego) is clearly Dante's goofy aspects dialed up with Dante's fun being contrasted with Jester's outright annoying (even Dante is irritated) behavior. However, both goofballs are secretly very threatening and dangerous.
    • Arkham is also the evil counterpart to Lady (aka Mary, his daughter). Both are "normal" humans with differently coloured eyes and violent goals, though while Arkham seeks power, Lady seeks revenge.
  • Urizen from Devil May Cry 5 is another "eviler" counterpart for Vergil, being his "demon side" Soul Jar, i.e. amoral, power-hungry, Chaotic Evil Big Bad.
• In Dicey Dungeons, The Witch, who's competing in order to earn a ton of social media followers, has the counterpart of the Sorceress, one of her enemies who's always seen with her mobile phone.
• Doom Eternal:
  • The Doom Slayer was a member of an army called the Night Sentinels. While he and a few others were not tempted by the forces of Hell, a few were and defected to the demons. These traitors gained power by being transformed into demons called Marauders. The Marauders wear similar armor to the Doom Slayer and fight in a similar way, even wielding copies of his Super Shotgun.
  • The DLC The Ancient Gods: Part One reveals that the Dark Lord, the leader of Hell's armies, is an alternate universe version of the Doom Slayer who decided to conquer Hell instead of fight it.
• Dragon Age: Origins: Arl Howe to Bryce Cousland. Both fought the Orlesians in the service of King Maeric, and were good friends at one time, then the Green-Eyed Monster caught up to Arl Howe and drove him stark raving mad.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest: In terms of abilities, the Dragonlord (in his initial form) becomes the Hero's Evil Counterpart. In subsequent releases, he boasts Sizzle, Midheal, and Snooze — the three bases of the Hero's magic, apart from overworld abilities and different grades of the same spells.
  • Dragon Quest VIII: High Priest Rolo and Abbot Francisco are two high-ranking members of the Church. However, Francisco is a genuinely good and kind-hearted person devoted to helping people, whereas Rolo is ambitious and completely corrupt, at least until he undergoes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Dragon Quest IX:
    • Barbarus and Greygnarl are this to each other. Both are dragons that have a history with the Gittish Empire (Greygnarl fighting against them while Barbarus aids them in Taking Over the Protectorate), and both aid Celestrains in their quests (Guardian Nine and Corvus). The Bestiary entries for the two dragons suggest that Greygnarl and Barbarus formed a balance of Light and Darkness, but that Barbarus forgot the use and need of the balance.
    • Corvus is the Hero's Evil Counterpart. Both are Celestrians that fell to a major region of the Protectorate they were the Guardians of (Angel Falls and Wormwood Creek), once had a connection with Aquila (The Hero being Aquila's student while Corvus was his mentor), were nursed back to health by a female human that became close to them (Erinn and Serena), ally themselves with a dragon that had a history with the Gittish Empire (Greygnarl with the Hero, Barbarus with Corvus), and at the end of the game, renounce their Celestrian nature. However, while the Hero was loved for their duties by Angel Falls, Wormwood Creek was so unwelcoming to Corvus that Serena's father sold him out to protect his hometown from the Gittish Empire, causing him to believe that Serena betrayed him and hates humanity. And while the Hero renounced their Celestrain nature to gain an edge against Corvus since Celestrains cannot act above their superiors, Corvus renounced his Celestrain nature to become a full on demon. Hell, his initial hairstyle is long blonde hair to contrast with the Hero's brown hair.
  • Dragon Quest XI: While not a party member, Mia is Milly's Evil Counterpart. Both are the sisters of their siblings (Terry and Erik) who were put in danger motivating said siblings to go on a quest to save them. (Milly being captured by bandits from Felonia, Mia putting on a cursed necklace, turning everything to gold, including herself) However, Milly eventually joins the Hero's party before the quest to fight Murdaw and later Mortamor, while Mia is left behind and recruited by Mordegon to become Gyldygga, one of the Spectral Sentinels. They even fight their siblings later in the game, though while Milly fights Terry to save him from the Deal With Dhuran, Mia, as Gyldygga, fights Erik and his friends to protect Mordegon's dominance over Erdrea.
  • Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime: Slival's Schwarzman Tank is a dark version of your own Schleiman Tank with lots of spikes.
• Inverted somewhat in the Dungeon Keeper series, as most of your minions are evil counterparts to the forces of good, with the biggest example being Black Knight and Knight. Other examples include Warlock/Wizard, Dark Elf/Elf and Vampire/Monk.
• Dynasty Warriors: Sima Yi can be seen as the evil counterpart to Zhuge Liang. Both are powerful officials, but while the latter serves his liege faithfully and does not empower his clan despite exercising great power, the former, while not exactly evil, is manipulative and scheming.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Clyde is an esper like Runi and also specializes in the psychic element. However, Runi fears that she could hurt others with her powers after she accidentally killed her mom while Clyde believes his powers entitle him to torment and control others. Additionally, while Runi wants to overcome her flaw of paranoia by learning to trust her friends, Clyde is incapable of Character Development because he relies on brainwashing himself in order to get along with others.
  • Morgalia serves as this to Crow and Dr. Sando in terms of being a parent. While she does love Chase, she's also very controlling and believes the two of them will be happier at the top of a banana republic, regardless of Chase's feelings. She also expects Chase to unconditionally forgive her for executing the latter's friends and lover. In contrast, Crow wants to defeat Zetacorp so that his estranged daughter Emile can live peacefully and Dr. Sando left the Smog Empire to protect Kiyota from the country's brutal patriarchy. Additionally, Morgalia constantly tries to justify her actions to herself while Crow and Sando accept that their actions, no matter how well-intentioned, have consequences.
  • Akari turns out to be a victim of the Smog Empire's misogynistic policies like Kiyota and both defect to other countries in order to escape the patriarchy. While Kiyota eventually found people who accept her and supports Akira's cause, Akari is so bitter about her abuse that she wants to make everyone else in the world suffer under an apartheid state.
  • Robun serves as this to Akira's resistance movement, since he claims to believe in egalitarianism too, yet he's secretly filled with a lot of resentment and self-hate, turning him into a Boomerang Bigot who believes non-humans are incapable of creating true equality. While he has a point about the cruelties of the current world, he has somehow twisted his logic into pretzels to believe that an apartheid state for the sake of humanity would be more egalitarian than the world's current state. In contrast, Akira's team wants to reform Zeta, Vulcanite, and later the Smog Empire into egalitarian societies instead of giving up on the non-human population. This is only revealed in the scenario where Edgar escapes from Morgalia early and kills Clyde early, causing Robun to take the spotlight as the top Hunter.
• In EarthBound, Ness is approached by a time traveler, Buzz Buzz, and learns that he's the hero who saves Earth from an alien invasion. Unbeknownst to him (and the player, until the end of the game), Porky — your initial guest character who is totally narcissistic and useless — has been approached by the alien leader, Giygas, to be his right-hand man.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, at least for the average denizens of Tamriel, the Daedric Princes are seen as this toward the Aedric Divines. Anyone who worships a Daedric Prince is typically seen as evil, or at the very least, as dangerous lunatics. Ultimately played with significantly, as the Daedra are not inherently evil (and the Aedra are not inherently good), and even within the different cultures of Tamriel, some that are seen as good by certain groups are seen as evil by others.
  • Morrowind:
    • The Thieves Guild and the Camonna Tong. While the Thieves' Guild is, by nature, rather shady and amoral, they do have elements of Gentleman Thief and Just Like Robin Hood, and resort to murder only as a last resort. The Camonna Tong is a xenophobic Dunmer nationalist crime syndicate with Mafia elements who despises the Empire and has no code of honor. Dealing with the Camonna Tong is a major part of the Thieves Guild questline.
    • Likewise with the Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood. Both are assassin's guilds, but the Morag Tong is government sanctioned within Morrowind and its members are honorable Professional Killers. The Brotherhood is a fully criminal offshoot of the Morag Tong, popular elsewhere in the Empire, who are much closer to Psychopaths For Hire and worship Sithis, a borderline God of Evil. Dealing with the Dark Brotherhood is a major part of the Morag Tong questline.
  • Oblivion: Necromancers in Tamriel have always been portrayed in a "dark grey" light. The Order of the Black Worm, however, show just how evil and depraved they can be if they want to. It doesn't help that the Order's leader is an Omnicidal Maniac. Dealing with them is a major part of the Mages Guild questline.
  • Skyrim:
    • The Thalmor are one to both the Blades (militant orders with espionage responsibilities) and to the Psijic Order (Aldmeri orders who seek immense magical knowledge). Naturally, they are major enemies to both groups, with the Thalmor having hunted the Blades to near-elimination and the Psijic Order withdrawing almost entirely from Tamriellic affairs (in addition to making their entire home island disappear).
    • The Dragonborn DLC reveals that the Dragonborn, the protagonist, has one in the First Dragonborn, an undead Dragon-Priest who once ruled over Solstheim and now seeks to return to life.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code: The Final Boss serves as this for Joshwa, being a representation of what he could become if he became consumed by hatred. While Joshwa is motivated by rage and grief over losing his father to the infernos, Anat lost all hope in her people and in AHIX after the Kosmokraters manipulated the Cainites into wiping out the first Idinite-Cainite alliance, including her husband, leaving her as nothing but a bitter avenger. Both remember their loved ones, but Anat only remembers her husband as someone to avenge while Joshwa remembers his father's desire for peace and helping others, leading to him seeking peace between the Idinites and Cainites. Anat also blames all her atrocities on the Kosmokraters while Joshwa learns in the prologue that simply placing all the blame on others, no matter how justified, is just a way to dodge personal responsibilty.
• Epic Battle Fantasy: Both Epic Battle Fantasy 4 and Epic Battle Fantasy 5 have superbosses in the form of evil versions of the party members in their premium versions. In 4, they are the "Dark Players" and are all silent, gray, and look to be undead. 5 has the "Evil Players", which are more varied and have personalities that are twisted exaggerations of their counterparts':
  • Matt is a Big Eater shut-in who keeps remarking on eating his enemies. His Evil Player is Mattheus, a golem that looks like he hasn't seen sunlight in years and wants to eat the party members. When he is defeated or captured, Matt promises to stop making jokes about eating NoLegs and says the fight got "too real" for a moment.
  • Natalie is a mage with a higher moral compass than most of the party (except Anna). Her Evil Player, Natalia, is some sort of undead humanoid that instantly deems the entire party sinful and wants to purify them by wiping them all out. After the battle Natalie just wants to take her mind off the experience.
  • Lance was already the Token Evil Teammate to begin with for the first part of the game, and he tried to excuse his fascist conquering as him building up the world's defenses against the Big Bad in the most efficient way possible. His counterpart Lancelot is an emotionless robot that wants everything to be efficient or optimized. Achieving this includes killing living beings to turn them into raw materials, and dismissing their fear over this as "irrelevant". Lance is notably the only human party member that has no apparent trauma or realization after fighting his counterpart.
  • Anna is a ranger with a strong link to nature and the most childish member of the party. Her counterpart Annabelle is a Psychopathic Manchild demon that wants to hunt the party for the hell of it and treats their whole fight as a game. The battle ends with Anna worrying that Annabelle is how the animals she hunts see her.
  • NoLegs' "Evil Player" is a subversion. His counterpart is God himself, who is calm, polite, and trying to train and encourage the party to defeat the Devourer. He is the only "Evil Player" boss whose permanent status effect helps the party rather than harms them. In fact, God is nicer than his player counterpart, who is sometimes temperamental or sassy.
• Fallout: New Vegas: Caesar can be considered this to a good-aligned Courier. Both want to shape the future of New Vegas, both can potentially own Rex and befriend Arcade Gannon, and both can gather a group of followers. The similarities end there, however. A good Courier encourages rival groups such as the NCR, the Brotherhood, and the Followers to retain their identities and co-operate peacefully for the benefit of all like a Guile Hero, whereas Caesar violently crushes opposing groups and eliminates their identities, then absorbs their assets into the Legion. A good Courier's relationship with Arcade is built on mutual trust and respect and helps him overcome his internal conflicts, whereas Caesar's friendship with Arcade is one of forced compliance and causes the troubled man to eventually commit suicide. Caesar orders for the annihilation of entire communities over minor slights, whereas a good Courier can be kind and forgiving enough to come to the rescue of a man who shot them in the head.
  • Ulysses is also this to the Courier, with their actions largely mirroing each other. Ulyssess helped the White Legs, while the Courier could help the Sorrows and Dead Horses. Ulysses visited the Sierra Madres and later told Elijah about it, which eventually led to the Courier being taken there. Ulysses is the reason the war between the NCR and The Legion is happening, as he was the one who discovered Hoover Dam and told Caesar about it, while the Courier's actions is the reason the war ended, one way or another. Even Ulysses points out their similarities, describing himself as alike and unlike the Courier "in all the ways that matter".
• Final Fantasy games frequently employ this trope.
  • Final Fantasy IV has Cecil and Golbez. It's revealed that they're blood brothers and also half-lunarians; but Cecil was abandoned as a baby out of jealousy by Golbez (then Theodor) at Castle Baron's gates, being raised as the King as his son, while Theodor was mind-controlled by Zemus, wormed his way to gaining the trust of the King and turning him into his puppet (he actually killed the king) and takes over the Red Wings after Cecil defects. Cecil thinks when he finds out that it could easily be him that was mind-controlled by Zemus to act as the villain. In the sequel, they have mirror movesets, Cecil having White Magic while Golbez has Black Magic, and their Cover and Taunt abilities both draw attacks from allies in different ways.
  • Final Fantasy VI has Kefka as the Evil Counterpart to Celes, Terra, and Leo. With Celes, they were both products of the same Super-Soldier project, and were both generals of The Empire. With Terra, they both have detachment from humanity and love no one, but Terra underwent Character Development to understand and find love, while Kefka decided it wasn't worth feeling. With Leo, Kefka is a Bad Boss who harasses his troops and is generally a menace, while Leo is an honorable and beloved general.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • The story builds up Sephiroth as Cloud's, but while the link starts as fairly concrete at the start of the game, especially since they are both from the town of Nibelheim, the reveal that much of Cloud's backstory is a lie and is, in fact, the tale of his friend Zack pushes this aside. It still applies if you compare how they react to revelations about themselves though; Sephiroth thought that he was special and awesome, only to learn that he was a laboratory monster. Likewise, Cloud thought that he was an epic super-soldier, only to learn that everything he remembered about that was a lie. But while Sephiroth desperately tries to restore his pride through godly delusions, Cloud manages to (with Tifa's help) restore himself to a state free of delusions. Cloud and Sephiroth's appearances in Kingdom Hearts, though, play this totally straight, with Sephiroth sporting a black angel's wing on his right shoulder and Cloud having a black demon's wing on his left shoulder. In the same series, it is even heavily implied, if not outright stated, that the Sephiroth in that game was actually Cloud's Enemy Without, an embodiment of his inner darkness.
    • Spin-offs instead treat Sephiroth as more an Evil Counterpart to Aerith — he thinks he's the last Cetra, she actually is; both had fathers involved in the Jenova Project; Aerith has the White Materia to call Holy, Sephiroth seeks the Black Materia to call Meteor; Aerith is a benevolent protector of the planet, Sephiroth is more in line with an eco-terrorist. Word of God has said they were intended during development to be revealed as siblings, which is why they have similar hairstyles and both have green eyes. In a novella set before Advent Children, it's implied that Aerith could have created avatars of herself like Sephiroth did, but she felt it more important to let Cloud handle things on his own.
    • There's also Dyne in relation to Barret. Both are men from Corel who lost their arms in a Shinra attack and got Arm Cannons to replace them. Also, they are both violent, but Barret directs his anger at Shinra while Dyne snapped and became an Omnicidal Maniac. It shows that Barret could have followed a very similar path to him.
    • On a lesser note, there's Hojo against Gast Faremis. Both were scientists working for Shinra, but Gast was a kind man who used science to obtain wisdom while Hojo is an immoral Mad Scientist. Furthermore, Hojo is the father of Sephiroth, who is the evil counterpart to Aerith, Gast's daughter.
    • In Dirge of Cerberus, all of the Tsviets share something in common with Vincent. Shelke is immortal, Nero wields Darkness, Rosso has similar attire (red clothes, metal gauntlets) and fighting methods, Azul has the same shapeshifting powers, and Weiss is trying to attain the power of Omega, the antithesis to Chaos. Furthermore, he's the vessel for Hojo, who turns into monsters like Vincent, but has no morals or physical prowess to call his own. Oh, and they also all use a combination of guns and martial arts, leaning towards guns. Except for Shelke. Rosso and Vincent lampshade this with their discussion on each other's "humanity".
  • Final Fantasy VIII:
    • Seifer is an evil counterpart to Squall, both using gunblades and having been trained at the same Garden. Although Seifer is more ambitious than evil.
    • Ultimecia is this to Rinoa, as they are both sorceresses and their appearances contrast each other: Rinoa has black hair, blue clothing, and white wings, while her counterpart has white hair, red clothing, and black wings. Rinoa encourages Squall to open up despite the risk of loss, expressing the healthy outlook that the uncertainty of the future means that they should value what they have in the present, but her counterpart demonstrates Squall's insecurities about the future writ large, railing against the passage of time and attemping to destroy reality via time compression rather than face future loss.
  • Final Fantasy IX has Zidane to Kuja — both created by Garland to lead Gaia to war. Zidane is horrified when he thinks that if things had gone differently, he could be the one doing all the evil Kuja has been doing.
  • Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2: Tidus and Shuyin; one died while failing to protect his beloved, while the other gave his existence and succeeded. They even look alike, and fans speculate that the fayth deliberately modeled Tidus after Shuyin in their dream-Zanarkand.
  • Final Fantasy XII has the for most of the game evil Gabranth and the good Basch, who doubles as a pair with an Evil Twin. Both are disgraced Failure Knights who keep fighting, but while the latter fights by holding to honor, the former is motivated by hatred.
  • The endgame quests from the Heavensward expansion of Final Fantasy XIV has the Warriors of Darkness, a group of five warriors siding with the Ascians against the Scions and the Warrior of Light. Subverted in that the Warriors of Darkness are not evil so much as desperate to save the world they came from and are willing to do whatever it takes, even if it means destroying another world.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has Illua, the Big Bad of the game and evil counterpart to Luso. Luso and Illua both have grimoires that have blank pages and are filling up with words as they go on their adventures. If Luso fills out his book, it will give him the power to return home, but if Illua fills out her book, then she gets to summon a great evil demon from another dimension to terrorize Ivalice with. Whether Illua succeeds in defeating Luso or not doesn't matter since once she is slain, her last efforts get recorded in the book and the demon gets summoned anyway.
• In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the Reed brothers Linus and Lloyd are evil counterparts to Hector and Eliwood (who aren't actual brothers, but might as well be). Eliwood and Lloyd are agile and favour swords, while Hector and Linus are strong and prefer axes. Eliwood and Lloyd prefer to act calmly and rationally, while Hector and Linus are brash and headstrong. The brothers exaggerate the Lords' flaws however, as Lloyd remains passive until it's too late and, if fought last, is implied to be pulling a Suicide by Cop, while Linus lets his Unstoppable Rage consume him and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge if Lloyd dies. This is commented on in-game if Hector lands the killing blow on Linus in Cog of Destiny, which triggers extra dialogue where Hector gives a "Not So Different" Remark.
• Fire Emblem Engage takes this one quite literally in the Fell Xenologue DLC, which features an Alternate Universe version of Elyos that has fallen to ruin, and the Royals who have turned into twisted versions of themselves owing to their death and subsequent ressurection as Corrupted. For instance, Alternate Céline is a ruthless Blood Knight, Alternate Fogado is a blatant hedonist, and Alternate Alcryst is a Green-Eyed Monster towards Alternate Diamant, all of which are fought as antagonists through the six chapters.
• First Encounter Assault Recon:
  • F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate has the Nightcrawler Elites, who possess the Point Man's Bullet Time abilities through unknown means. They will usually "teleport" when taking damage.
  • In F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Sergeant Harold Keegan eventually becomes this to the Player Character Michael Beckett. He's a member of Dark Signal like Beckett, and matches or possibly even surpasses Beckett in terms of psychic potential, but has questionable mental stability. After Alma possesses and Mind Rapes him, he learns that Beckett is (completely unwillingly) Alma's favourite, and becomes a Crazy Jealous Guy obsessed with killing Beckett, and capable of using Beckett's Bullet Time powers.

G-L

• Azel in God Hand has the left God Hand, while the main character, Gene, has the right. It is said that he who possesses a God Hand may be either god or devil; Azel chose the latter route, dubbing himself "the Devil Hand". He wiped out his entire clan (protectors of the God Hands) to test his power, and then sided with the demons plotting to raise Angra.
• God of War (PS4): The Stranger aka Baldr is one to Kratos, as they're both gods who were cursed by their parents (though Freya's was an attempt to protect her son that went wrong) and spend their lives in a self-destructive revenge quest. It all plays into the game's overall theme of Kratos trying to move on from his past, in this case by confronting someone who is the same as he was in the original trilogy. It helps Baldr also looks like a emaciated Norse version of Kratos.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Big Smoke is this to CJ. Both men are gangsters who want power and money, but while CJ is loyal and completely refuses to sell crack, Smoke sees it as a good deal. In other words, he represents what CJ would be if he had opted for hard drugs and corruption.
• In Guild Wars, to progress beyond a certain point in the plot you have to defeat your own character's evil twin in single combat. The doppelganger has the same skills as your character and higher stats, so you can't defeat it by simple brute force; you have to win by outsmarting the AI.
• Halo 4 introduces The Didact for Master Chief, a heavily armored Forerunner commander who was the lover and protector of "the Librarian" similar to Chief's relationship with Cortana. The Librarian also imprisons The Didact for his crimes like how Cortana freezes Chief for his protection, and Chief wants to protect humanity while the Didact seeks to destroy it in revenge.
• In Hitman: Blood Money, Mark Parchezzi III is this to Agent 47. Even though 47 can be viewed as a villain, he is shown to have a set of values and morality, while what little is seen of Parchezzi shows him to be completely without scruples. Plus, while 47 performs rather indiscriminate hits, Parchezzi works for the Franchise, a clandestine government group with the goal of keeping human cloning illegal so that nobody else may benefit from it.
• Jitsu Squad: Several of the villains are counterpart to the titular squad.
  • Hero The Hero, against Dash Kobayashi The Dragon (fittingly enough, Hero's sworn enemy is Dash instead of the main villain), both highly-competent swordfighters using identical weapons and special moves, but on different sides.
  • Baby O'Hara the Action Girl against Shade the Dark Action Girl, both who Dual Wield weapons in their fights, and Fragile Speedsters who specializes in using speed and long-ranged projectile attacks, unlike their male compatriots.
  • Jazz Amun the Warrior Monk and Raven the Necromancer, two magic-users who used to be from the Black Lotus Order, before the latter defected in search of more power.
  • Aros Helgason The Big Guy and Balthazar The Brute, being marine bucaneers by trade (the former is a Viking, the latter a Pirate Captain) and the largest of their respective teams, who wields a weapon almost as large as themselves (Aros swings a BFS while Balthazar uses an anchor).
• In JumpJet Rex, the First Dinonaut appears to be this to Rex. They look identical aside from being different colors, and both were sent on the same mission to destroy the asteroid, but the First Dinonaut turned against the dinosaurs.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Initially, Sora and Riku, before they patch up their troubles at the end of Kingdom Hearts II. Both came from Destiny Islands and wished to leave and explore other worlds, but while Sora was motivated by a love of adventures, Riku hated the islands and saw it as a prison. Once they leave the islands, Sora teams up with Donald and Goofy to find King Mickey and save the worlds while Riku joins Maleficent and helps her with her plans to kidnap the princesses just so he can save Kairi. This is the reason why Riku's Keyblade went to Sora in the first place, as Riku had given into the darkness, which in turn made him unworthy to wield one.
  • Donald and Goofy have entire races of Heartless counterparts in the first game — the shield-using Defender for Goofy, and the sorcerous Wizard for Donald. On the very rare occasions one drops its weapon (each has a 0.2% chance), the corresponding hero can pick it up and use it immediately.
  • Master Xehanort is this to the entire Destiny Islands Trio.
    • Looking at the backstory revealed in Birth By Sleep, he is one to Sora. They both grew up at Destiny Islands, they both became Keyblade wielders, they both became a sort of composite being (Xehanort steals the bodies and hearts of others to extend his life, Sora lets others share his body and heart to extend their lives), they both became a Heartless and a Nobody. Sora is a Naive Hero and increasingly portrayed as a Messianic Archetype, while Xehanort is The Chessmaster who shows some Fallen Angel symbolism. Also, like Sora, Xehanort came from a humbler background. Sora was an ordinary boy while Riku was chosen by the Keyblade. Xehanort was an islander while Eraqus is descended from the survivors of the Keyblade War. But while Sora comes about as a result of his selfless altruism and trying to help those he meets, Xehanort works to create new incarnations to further his goals and corrupts others to darkness.
    • This also makes him Riku's Evil Counterpart, as they share very similar backgrounds of being dissatisfied with life on their tiny world and wanting to see the outside, even if it meant delving into darkness. Both use darkness as their main weapon after losing themselves in darkness in pursuit of his ambitions. Riku however pulled himself back and reformed, while Xehanort kept going deeper into the darkness and was lost for it. They also both invade Sora's subconscious during the events of Dream Drop Distance, but for differing reasons. Ansem shifting to being Riku's Arch-Enemy/Enemy Within exemplifies this.
    • After the finale of Union Cross, he can be considered one to Kairi. Both of them were born on different worlds before getting sent to Destiny Islands, they both wanted to leave Destiny Islands to explore more worlds, and both are wielders of the keyblade, but while Kairi uses the power of light, Xehanort uses the power of Darkness. Kairi is also an inexperienced Keyblade Wielder while Xehanort is an expert Keyblade Master.
  • Xemnas is one to Roxas. Both are Nobodies of shocking power, born from Keyblade Wielders. Both are dual wielders of their signature weapons. Both tend to have anger issues: Roxas is bent on revenge towards Xemnas at the end of Days and throws several tantrums in II, while Xemnas is a firm believer in The Power of Hate. However, Roxas is also kind to his friends and loyal to them, and his anger is genuine. Xemnas is a sociopathic tyrant who sees the other Organization members as mere pawns and cares about no one save for himself.
  • Vanitas is one to a few characters.
    • His closest counterpart is Ventus. Vanitas is literally the darkness to Ventus's light, (or so we thought). It's subverted in Re:Mind however, as Vanitas reveals that he isn't actually Ventus's dark half, but rather he is a being that existed inside of him for a long time before being extracted by Master Xehanort.
    • He is also one to Sora, having Sora's versatility (he uses all three major elements in Birth by Sleep) and energetic nature. He's enjoying most of what he's doing, but unlike Sora, his joy is manic and sadistic.
    • He can be considered as one to Roxas as well. They were both born after being ripped out of someone (Ventus and Sora respectively), yet they end up looking different than the person they originated from (Roxas looks exactly like Ventus, while Vanitas looks like a black haired, yellow-eyed Sora). Their character development also differs, as while Roxas has friends, grows vengeful against the Organization for what they put him and his friends through, rebels, and is ultimately a good guy, Vanitas became a monster underneath Xehanort's tutelage and is ultimately alone. They both also end up getting new Keyblades at the climax of their stories, but whereas Roxas gets Oblivion and Oathkeeper and becomes a hell of a badass, Vanitas gets the singular χ-blade, which is not even properly forged and, as III shows, can be beaten by a strong enough Keyblade wielder and his two friends.
    • Lastly, he is one to Aqua. They are both loyal students of their masters and seek to uphold their legacy, but Vanitas relishes in chaos while Aqua pursues order. Also, despite Vanitas sharing a physical connection with Ventus, it's Aqua whom he ends up having to fight over and over again throughout Birth by Sleep and III, to the point that they can be considered archenemies.
  • In the endgame of III, Xemnas, Ansem, and Young Xehanort take up this trope in regards to Sora, Riku, and Mickey, as they have been the primary enforcers of the darkness and light on behalf of their true leaders, Master Xehanort and Yen Sid, respectively. The final fight before the final boss is Sora, Riku, and Mickey facing off with the three chief Xehanort incarnations.
• The King of Fighters:
  • Iori Yagami is Kyo Kusanagi's Evil Counterpart, the two of them both being fire-wielding heirs to two of the three clans that defeated and sealed Orochi away. While Kyo is known to be an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who also personally cares and loves both his family and friends, Iori is known for his anti-social behavior and being somewhat an Anti-Hero Jerkass who wouldn't hesitate to attack his own teammates if he was in a really foul mood (as seen in his own teams' endings for both KOF '95 and KOF 2001).
  • The New Faces Team uses the powers of the malevolent god Orochi to become evil counterparts of Team Japan in KOF '97
    • Chris is this to Kyo, getting fire powers plus his own version of Kyo's Orochinagi. He basically ramps up Iori's pre-existing anti-social behaviour into nihilistic hatred of humanity.
    • Shermie is this to Benimaru, having electrical moves plus her own version of Benimaru's Raikouken - with her exaggerating Benimaru's flamboyance into outright sexual sadism.
    • Yashiro is this to Daimon. He gets the powerful grapple moves plus his own version of Daimon's Jigoku Gokuraku Otoshi DM, but executes them in a far more cruder and violent manner than Daimon's graceful judo.
  • Krizalid is this for K' in KOF '99 - while the latter turned against NESTS and is dedicated to tearing the corrupt organization down, Krizalid, his clone, is one of their high-ranking executives.
  • K9999 from The King of Fighters 2001 got his Good Counterpart in Nameless from The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimted Match: both have more or less the same moves and positions as a 9999th clone (K9999 of Kyo and Nameless of K', respectively). But while K9999 is prone to childishly insulting everyone around him even as Krohnen in The King of Fighters XV and was perfectly willing to attempt to murder his own teammate Foxy on behalf of NESTS, Nameless had a genuine, loving relationship with the late Isolde and only goes along with NESTS's agenda for her sake.
• Kirby:
  • Kirby has Shadow Kirby in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, although he goes through a Heel–Face Turn once Kirby realizes that he wants his world to be saved just as much as Kirby wants his own world to be saved, which results in them becoming allies. Shadow Kirby also appears in Kirby Fighters and Kirby Fighters 2 as the final boss of Single-Handed Mode. One could argue Shadow Kirby is not necessarily a 'dark' counterpart of Kirby, as the only thing that separates the two is their color.
  • Meta Knight has Galacta Knight, although not directly a dark counterpart. When referring to Meta Knightmare, Meta Knight himself considers Galacta Knight to be a powerful rival, nothing more. Both have very similar appearance, attacks, and movesets. The primary differences between the two are that Galacta Knight lacks Meta Knight's sense of chivalry, and Galacta has a more angelic appearance compared to Meta Knight (white feathered wings and brighter colors compared to Meta's bat wings and dark colors).
  • Meta Knight has not encountered Morpho Knight, the other winged counterpart within Star Allies nor in The Forgotten Land. Aside from their similar build, Morpho Knight usually appears as a normal butterfly in the 3D games and needs to forcibly possess other powerful beings -such as Galacta Knight (ironically) and Fecto Forgo- to gain his true form, while taking them out of their would-be boss battles, even using some of their abilities; while Meta Knight was possessed/controlled against his will by the villains while attempting to fight them and gained more abilities as a byproduct (and only managed to keep his duplication technique from Star Allies). Interestingly, he acted as an antagonist (either main or under King Dedede) out of his free will in two instances, while Morpho Knight was the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere in both of his apperances.
  • Meta Knight himself sometimes acts as an evil counterpart to Kirby (though as of recent he falls more on his tendencies for battle rather than antagonize Kirby directly), their relationship is quite unpredictable, at times being steadfast allies or bitter rivals, though Meta Knight is more stoic and has Blood Knight tendencies while keeping his code of honor; plus he looks very similar to Kirby beneath the mask. Often in a Story Mode, he is frequently seen being controlled by a another larger force that manipulates him to attack Kirby (see Kirby Epic Yarn, Kirby Planet Robobot, and Kirby Star Allies), should his Blood Knight tendencies not be in play.
  • Meta Knight's first dark counterpart is Dark Meta Knight, who first appears in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror and later appears as the final boss of Dededetour mode in Kirby: Triple Deluxe. Dark Meta Knight is the last boss fought before Dark Mind and, under his orders, poses as the normal Meta Knight for most of the former game, as he splits Kirby in four, traps the normal Meta Knight in the Dimensional Mirror, and in his first boss batttle he is refered as "???". He also lacks his sense of honor, as he never leaves a sword for Kirby to pick (which is a giveaway of his real identity).
• Knight Bewitched: Typhus, despite seeming like a generic Evil Overlord at first, has a lot of the same vices as some of the main characters and not a whole lot of virtues to compensate.
  • He has a lover, Bjalla, just like how Gwen has Ruth. However, he brainwashed Bjalla into loving him and when she's released, she's just glad to be free from his control, showing that there's no mutual love between them. Gwen does put a curse on Ruth to make the latter more compliant, but the curse doesn't overwrite Ruth's feelings and she apologizes doing so, leading to the two forming a true relationship.
  • He's racist against humans while Alduin is a Boomerang Bigot against witches, and both seek the genocide of those groups. Typhus is willing to start a war against humanity, even if it means getting his brethren killed. In contrast, Alduin has a Heel–Face Turn when he realizes his vengeful crusade will lead him to kill the sister he wanted to save.
  • Like Uno, Typhus believes in taking justice into his own hands and is willing to kill others for a perceived greater good, regardless of society's opinion. Uno is at least self-aware that his vigilante assassinations are still evil in their own way, and he doesn't want Stray to go down the same path. Unfortunately, Typhus is very self-righteous about wiping out humanity for the sake of dragons and is unable to comprehend why his fellow dragons oppose him.
• The Legend of Spyro: Malefor is this to Spyro. Both are Purple Dragons, both were, according to Chief Prowlus and the statues of him all over the place, heroic in their youth, and both were trained freely by their elders in the Dragon Elements. The difference is Malefor let his power go to his head and went mad with power while Spyro remained good hearted (though Spyro was raised by dragonflies, which may have had something to do with it). Malefor is aware of this and works it into his "Not So Different" Remark combined with a Hannibal Lecture.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Dark Link, the shadow version of our hero Link first seen in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. In some games, Dark Link is just a mid-level boss, while in other games, he's a full-fledged villain. Dark Link uses a sword and shield in exactly the same way as Link and frequently mirrors Link's attacks to block them.
  • It's not grasping at straws to point out how similar Link and Big Bad Ganondorf are, especially in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Both Link and Ganon are unique in their respective homes, with Link being the only Hylian among Kokiri and Ganondorf being the only male among the Gerudo. Also, both Link and Ganondorf win favour with the Hyrule Royalty, though Link had no secret agenda of taking over. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess adds even more as Ganon is sealed away in time just like Ocarina Link was; also in the same game, both Link and Ganondorf are Master Swordsmen who both respectively have a beast mode which they use against each other.
  • In addition to this, Ganon can be considered the evil counterpart to both Link and Zelda, since they possess the Triforce of Courage and Wisdom, respectively, while Ganon himself possesses the Triforce of Power, representing the negative elements of creation. Going much further into this is the fact that Ganon is the incarnation of a demon's hatred much like Link is the descendant of the original hero and Zelda herself is the human descendant/incarnation of the creation goddess.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's Ghirahim as Demise's sword to Fi as Link's sword. His persona was carefully crafted to be Fi's polar opposite. Fi is fairly emotionless and speaks in percentages. Ghirahim is flamboyant to the extreme, and very open and dramatic. Once his true form is revealed, his text boxes look similar to Fi's, albeit black. Demise's weapon even looks like a dark version of the Master Sword — even down to an upside-down Triforce on the blade.
  • Vaati from The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is a selfish, power-hungry evil to Link's selfless, altruistic good, a powerful wizard to Link's master swordsman, and they even have a very similar appearance, though the colors are suitably different.
  • Zig-zagged with Princess Hilda from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. She looks like an evil version of Princess Zelda, what with her red eyes to Zelda's Innocent Blue Eyes, her purple attire to Zelda's pink attire, and her dark hair color to Zelda's blonde hair. Still, she is at worst morally ambiguous and even helpful towards Link. Until the final boss that is, where it's revealed that she is working with Yuga. Then it's triple subverted when it turns out that she isn't evil, but a Well-Intentioned Extremist who would risk another kingdom for her own. Ultimately, Hilda is merely being used by Yuga and after the final battle, she makes up with Zelda.
  • In Hyrule Warriors, every character has a "dark" palette that makes his or her skin, clothes, and equipment completely black and gives him or her glowing red eyes, but only Link's is freely useable, and in the Wii U version only if you buy the Hero of Hyrule DLC combo pack. In Ganon's Fury, this palette also doubles as a Superpowered Evil Side of sorts for the giant bosses: their dark versions can't be stunned with properly-used subweapons and you can't use Weak Point Smashes against them, but they take much more damage from any attack by default, meaning you can fight them like any other enemy, though there's no way to interrupt any of their attacks.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, its sequel Tears of the Kingdom, and by extension Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, have the Yiga Clan as the evil counterpart to the Sheikah. Whereas the Sheikah had long dedicated themselves to protecting the Hylian royal family and working with them to defeat Ganon, the Yiga are Sheikah traitors who have dedicated themselves to Ganon's return and the deaths of both Link and Princess Zelda, their preferred M.O. being to attack without warning, either with sudden ambushes or disguising themselves as civilians and luring their marks in for an easy kill. The distinction also extends towards their appearances: while Sheikah have white hair and tend to dress in light colors, Yiga dye their hair black and lean towards a red and black ensemble with face-concealing masks adorned with the clan's emblem, a red inverted Sheikah emblem. Age of Calamity goes further to show they can also go back into their old Sheikah professions for infiltration and disguise, similar to what Zelda did as Sheik in Ocarina of Time.
    • Tears of the Kingdom goes even further with their use of ancient technology in the present time of Hyrule, though while the Sheikah used their ancient Guardian technology to help Hyrule until it got hijacked by Ganon's Calamity Ganon incarnation, the Yiga used Zonai technology to attack Link and expand their offensive capabilities.
• Lie of Caelum: Kenzo Vanguard is a pugilist like Kyou and his Enemy Scan entry implies that he's also of the Speed discipline. Both have a tendency to snark at their friends and are obsessed with training their skills to perfection, but Kenzo is much more malicious and openly takes pleasure in humiliating others while Kyou is more honorable but can be wrathful when Miyu is hurt.
• Like a Dragon: Kiryu has had many enemies who reflect darker aspects of himself, but Ryuji Goda from Yakuza 2 is frequently pointed to as his main Evil Counterpart. Like Kiryu, Ryuji is a powerful man with a dragon tattoo and a nickname to go with it ("The Dragon of Kansai"), and like Kiryu he has a deep code of honor that he follows to the letter. Unlike Kiryu, Ryuji lacks loyalty and kindness towards others and is mainly driven by his ambition to get to the top, and his code of honor is more reflective of his self-image than anything else. Also, while Kiryu has a high amount of respect and love for his adoptive father Shintaro Kazama, Ryuji hates his adoptive father Jin Goda and wants nothing more than to surpass him in every way imaginable.
• In Lollipop Chainsaw, Swan is this trope to Juliet Starling. Both were motivated by "love" to pervert the natural order of life and death: He raised an undead army to punish Juliet for not requiting his feelings, she crippled her boyfriend as part of a magic ritual to prevent his death. Notably, Juliet can only defeat Swan by allowing Nick to pass on (rather than forcing him to continue living in his extremely dependent, painful state) — essentially acknowledging that "life is about more than what we want", something Swan was too angry to do.
• Lost Judgment: Takayuki Yagami finds his Evil Counterpart in Jin Kuwana; both men were burned by the legal system in events that caused harm to innocents (Yagami getting a murderer acquitted only for the man to seemingly kill again, while Kuwana ignored a severe case of bullying until it was too late and was torn apart by the public while most of the culprits got off scot free), and both believe the system is flawed and allows good people to be unjustly wronged. But while Yagami became a private detective to fix the system from within, Kuwana became a Serial Killing Bully Hunter who would rather tear the system down if it brings his vision of justice to fruition.
• Many of the Guilds of Lusternia have counterparts in the form of foils, but only the Celestine priesthood have a straight-up Evil Counterpart in the form of the Nihilists: The former are white-winged priests granted angelic companions by extradimensional incarnations of virtues, while the latter are bat-winged priests granted demonic companions by extradimensional incarnations of sins.

M-O

• Mass Effect:
  • In Mass Effect, Saren Arterius is Shepard's Evil Counterpart, being a Spectre agent turned rogue. He can be seen as a version of Shepard who's willing to do horrible things in order to achieve "greater good". This is specially made clear in the Paragon ending of Mass Effect 2.
  • The Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker takes it even further with Tela Vasir, an asari Spectre and agent of the Shadow Broker. She even delivers a "Not So Different" Remark to Shepard, who, for all intents and purpose, is working for the equally shady Illusive Man.
  • Mass Effect 3:
    • Shepard is being targeted by Cerberus assassin Kai Leng, who's first introduced in Mass Effect: Retribution. Before Kai Leng worked with Cerberus, he was an Alliance N7 operative (like Shepard) who was imprisoned for murdering a krogan in a bar while on leave (with nothing but a knife). Also, after Shepard was killed, s/he was given many cybernetic implants to help rebuild him/her, and Kai Leng now also has cybernetic enhancements. Finally, they're both the best and most skilled fighters of their specific sides, Shepard for the Alliance and Council and Kai Leng for Cerberus.
    • Another evil counterpart to Shepard in Mass Effect 3 is the Illusive Man. While Shepard is willing to sacrifice himself/herself for the greater good and reluctantly sacrifices others for the same, TIM forcibly sacrifices others to achieve his goals and acquire power. While Shepard's sacrifices bring humanity closer to victory, TIM's sacrifices brings it closer to destruction.
    • The main villain of the Citadel DLC is a Cerberus-created clone of Shepard, who intends to Kill and Replace the original. Taken further when they explicitly refer to Maya Brooks, their Number Two, as being their "Miranda".
    • Achieved in the Multiplayer, with the Phoenix classes, biotic Cerberus defectors, and the Dragoons, which is what would have happened if the Phoenixes had stayed loyal. Same suit? Check. Same attack, different only in color? Check. The Phoenix gets it better, since at least it gets shields.
• The Master of Orion reboot gives us the aggressive and xenophobic Terran Khanate, a stark contrast to the far more peaceful and diplomatic Human Republic. Their ship designs are virtually identical (human ships are gleaming white, while Terran ships are dark-gray), but their bonuses are different. According to their backstory, the Terrans are Transplanted Humans, taken from Earth long ago by the Antarans during their war with the Orions to be used as battle thralls, only to be abandoned on a barely-habitable world in the Alpha Ceti system. Only draconian policies allowed the Terrans to survive, thrive, and claw their way back to the stars, determined not to be enslaved by anyone else ever again.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man Powered Up has "Mega Man ?". This guy is basically what Mega Man would be like if he was a jerk and wore a purple scarf. Oddly enough, Mega Man never gets to fight him — he always shows up if you're playing as a Robot Master and you play that Robot Master's level.
  • Zero's evil counterpart is Ax-Crazy Omega Zero, considering that Omega possesses Zero's original body and uses the same attacks Zero himself uses in Mega Man X. Plus, Omega is what Zero himself would have become if he had followed Wily's plans for him and the programming flaw that caused his placeholder personality never happened.
  • Copy X is... well a copy of X that was created to run Neo Arcadia in the real X's stead. Only Copy X lacks the decades of ethics testing that gave X his strong moral convictions, causing him to do what the real X would never do and choose a side in the conflict between humans and reploids, turning Neo Arcadia into a paradise for humans propped up by the brutal oppression of Reploids.
  • Baryl and Colonel is this to Chaud and ProtoMan in Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan. They each star in one version, and both are leaders who think more logically. Baryl, however, is adopted by Wily, and in the sixth game he becomes one of the main villains.
  • Bass (AKA Forte in the original Japanese versions) is this to Mega Man. This is made more explicit in 9 (his outline appears in Dr. Wily's monitor in the ending) and 10, where his sprites closely resemble Mega Man's. Indeed, he was actually created by Wily based in Mega Man's blueprints in order to surpass his power, and in 7, he purposely wounds himself in battle with Shade Man in order to infiltrate Light Labs and steal the Super Adapter meant for Mega Man. From there, even if he no longer works for Wily, Bass tries to prove himself stronger than Mega Man, even using the Evil Energy in 8. The reason he ends losing, according to Duo (who does sense goodness in him), is that, unlike Mega Man, he has "no one to fight for" despite his superior power.
  • Mega Man has Quint, who is a Mega Man from the future who was captured and reprogramed by Dr. Wily to destroy Mega Man.
  • Zero has Sigma, the former leader of the Maverick Hunters. In the backstory, Sigma encounters and fights Zero, who was the carrier of the original form of the Maverick Virus, and who was uncontrollable due to a flaw on his programming. However, during that time Sigma ended up infected by the Virus, becoming a Maverick and his mind fused with the virus, mutating into the even more dangerous Sigma Virus, who ends causing an abnormal surge of Mavericks; while Zero becomes the new leader of the Maverick Hunters and, alongside X, the greatest opposition to Sigma's plans, especially because he attempts to sacrifice himself in X5, and he possesses an antibody to counter the Sigma Virus in the form of the Mother Elf which ends up kicking up the conflict in the Zero series.
  • Dr. Wily himself is Dr. Light's Evil Counterpart. Both were fellow students and friends who wanted to improve the standing of robots in society, until the Robot University decided to support Light's research of robots with independent thought while halting Wily's Double Gear System project, which caused him to end their friendship (though Light decided to keep the discarded prototype as a symbol of their friendship). More prominently, whereas Light creates a number of Robot Masters (like Mega Man) to help humanity, Wily builds Robot Masters (or reprograms those from others, like Dr. Light's) like Bass, and sets other threats in a bid for world domination. Finally, Dr. Light creates the first Reploid, X, to save the future world, while Dr. Wily creates Zero based on X's blueprints, and —as the carrier of the Maverick Virus— sets him to be the greatest threat to the world (though, as above stated, he ends being one of the saviors of the world).
• Messiah: In the final boss fight, Bob the cherub meets Satan's imps, who too can possess people and who look like babies, though demonic ones.
• Metal Gear:
  • Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid is one of the few literal examples. He and his twin Solid Snake were cloned from the same man, and although Liquid was (supposedly) genetically superior than his brother Solid, Liquid grew up believing the opposite and wanted to kill his father Big Boss to prove his worth. When Solid takes away that chance from him by defeating Big Boss first, Liquid decides to take his aggression to Solid instead.
  • Big Boss himself counts. Both he and Snake have been put through the wringer and seen just how horribly soldiers are treated by their governments that claim to respect them. Big Boss crosses lines that Snake refuses to. Right before his death, after finally realizing how far he had fallen, Big Boss commends Snake for not going down the same path that he did.
  • Every single one of the Winds of Destruction bosses of the Desperado Enforcement LLC in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is this to Raiden. They all darkly reflect some trait of his personality and character with the addition of all of them being some kind of Cyborg/Blood Knight like Raiden.
    • Mistral echoes Raiden's mixed heritage, as neither resemble ethnicity of their country of origin, with Raiden a Liberian who's white as snow and Mistral a redheaded French woman. Both have a Dark and Troubled Past which turned them into a Combat Sadomasochist and both Mistral and Raiden avenged their parents's murder and didn't regret it. However, Mistral is selfish and never sought to help others, unlike Raiden, who suppressed his Ax-Crazy persona, and this is one of the reasons why the attraction is purely one sided on Mistral's part. Also, both Mistral and Raiden mock Blade Wolf for being a soulless machine; however, Raiden grows to care for him, while Mistral just treats him like crap.
    • Monsoon, apart from having a similar appearance to Raiden, has a similar past as well, being a survivor who developed sociopathic tendencies after being victimized by war; Raiden by the First Liberian Civil War and Monsoon by the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. Both characters are cynical towards peace, with Monsoon leaning towards Straw Nihilist while Raiden is more simply jaded. Ironically, despite Monsoon being the one who turned Raiden back into his "Ripper" persona through crushing his moral codes by making Raiden accept the killer inside him, when Raiden actually goes nuts because of it even Monsoon laments that he went too far; so fittingly Monsoon's own beliefs ensured he'd get massacred. Also, both Monsoon and Raiden take influences from Japanese culture.
    • Sundowner reflects both Raiden's thirst for battle and realist ideals, though both traits are exaggerated on Sundowner's part. Sundowner at one point even claims that he is in touch with his inner-child, saying Kids Are Cruel as an excuse for the atrocities he commits; for reference, Raiden is also in touch with his inner child, given that his Superpowered Evil Side was born during his Training from Hell as a child in Liberia where Solidus gave Raiden a knife and told him to "go nuts". However, Raiden even at his worst still is more noble than Sundowner, who reveals himself a Dirty Coward during his fight with Raiden.
    • Sam is the closest parallel with Raiden, as both take their characterizations from Japanese traits, Sam with samurai culture and Raiden with ninjutsu, despite both characters being far from oriental. Character-wise, Jetstream Sam represents what Raiden would truly be if he accepted the murderous side of himself and didn't treat his Cool Sword like a "tool of justice" instead of as an object made to kill people, which is its purpose. Raiden also has a goal and drive, while Sam gave up on justice after Armstrong kicked his ass and became embittered, so when Sam sees Raiden resolute in conquering Desperado, he accepts that Raiden will beat him this time as he has motivation and Sam simply doesn't. To put the cherry on top, Raiden takes Sam's motorcycle at one point in the game, gets Sam's katana, and copies Sam's stance and even his "Let's Dance" Pre-Asskicking One-Liner before fighting the Big Bad.
    • Armstrong is an interesting example of this trope, as while he does seem to enjoy a good duel like Raiden, there isn't much comparison on the surface, with Armstrong being ridiculously patriotic while Raiden considers himself without a country. Where the protagonist and antagonist do become similar is in their refusal to conform to society's standards and fight their own wars, with Armstrong even calling Raiden a "kindred spirit", claiming that they've both lived their lives in accordance with their own free will, and while it's true that Raiden himself doesn't believe in a Might Makes Right philosophy like Armstrong does, the former makes it personally clear that he completely agrees with the latter's freedom philosophy in the ending after ripping Armstrong's heart out.
• Metroid:
  • The SA-X from Metroid Fusion is stated by Samus herself to be the embodiment of her potential for evil. It has all of her exact abilities, but no heart or conscience, which makes sense, as it is a clone of her created from X-Parasite infection.
  • Dark Samus from the Metroid Prime Trilogy also fills the role of evil counterpart to Samus. She even has Phazon-based variants of Samus's abilities and moves in addition to her own abilities. The games' scan logs state that Dark Samus is quite intelligent and can manipulate other races to benefit her own agenda, which is to spread the corruptible Phazon across the galaxy. Ironically enough, chronologically, Samus ends up becoming Dark Samus's own Good Counterpart; in Fusion Samus has Metroid DNA integrated with her body to save her from the X, and Dark Samus is born when the Metroid Prime integrates Samus's Phazon Suit and DNA into itself at the end of the titular game.
• In Millennia: Altered Destinies, McDonald's Evil Counterpart is an alternate timeline version of himself who was recruited by the evil Microids instead of the benevolent Hoods. He flies an identical XTM but uses the ship to undermine the player's actions. Unlike the other examples, there is no way to get rid of the other him.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • The Sub-Zero brothers Bi-Han and Kuai Liang. The former is a stone cold assassin who happily slaughters innocents in the name of his clan the Lin Kuei, and willingly serves Quan Chi and other villains as the wraith Noob Saibot after getting killed by Scorpion during the events of the first game. The latter is a Nice Guy who laments the crimes of his clan and makes amends by helping and defending Earthrealm alongside with the other protagonists. Even when he has become a Cyborg in MK9, Kuai Liang himself says that he still has more humanity than Bi-Han ever did.
  • Sektor is also an evil counterpart to the second Sub-Zero. Both are proud members of the Lin Kuei, but the difference between the two of them is that Sektor embraced his cybernetic makeover (even personally volunteering to be one of the first earlier prototypes for the project itself) while Sub-Zero himself was horrified with the experience. Sub-Zero personally defected to Earthrealm as soon as he got his free will back while Sektor continued to turn the remaining members of the Lin Kuei into cyborgs long after Evil Overlord Shao Kahn bit the dust. Ironically, both Sektor and Sub-Zero are trying to rebuild their clan, though Sektor himself is just doing it in a bad way.
  • Frost, Kuai Liang's apprentice, eventually becomes this to her former master. While Sub-Zero forgoes the cruelty of his clan, Frost remains a Hot-Blooded bigoted bitch who wants the recognition that she is denied. MK11 takes it further, as Frost gets a cyborg upgrade like Kuai Liang once got.
  • Kano is the evil counterpart to Jax (though the former is usually Sonya's Arch-Enemy), being on opposing militaristic factions (Special Forces and Black Dragon respectively). Also, both Kano and Jax have cybernetic parts, and in their respective MK9 endings, they both enter into Cyberspace to kill each other. In addition to this, Jax and Kano have their own children as well, but while Jax loves and cherishes his daughter, Kano tortures and abuses his unnamed son.
  • Kitana has an evil counterpart in her Ax-Crazy Evil Knockoff Mileena, created by Shang Tsung. However, in an interesting twist on the concept itself, it becomes quite clear that Kitana and Mileena are really not that different from each other. Both women are extremely arrogant and haughty, both love The Hero Liu Kang, both become rulers of Outworld, and the both of them deep down just want to be adored and worshipped. This proves to be an impossible task for Kitana and Mileena in MKX, as the former was an undead minion while the latter is despised for her abysmal rule in Outworld. Ironically, while Mileena is seen as an evil Butter Face freak compared to Kitana because of her Tarkatan DNA, when Kitana gets the chance to go back to her homeworld of Edenia in her ending in MK11, she realizes that living in Outworld has made her a freak the same as Mileena by Edenia's own standards. So Kitana settles with being the Empress of Outworld and does do a better job than Mileena.
  • Shinnok serves as an Evil Counterpart to Raiden and later his sister Cetrion. While Raiden uses his God powers to help the Earthrealm fighters and spread hope, Shinnok is a fallen Elder God Manipulative Bastard who spreads fear and death, and they also both have a special powerful amulet. MKX really hammers the similarities home, as while Raiden takes care of Jinsei Chamber, Shinnok corrupts it with just his touch. Cetrion also differs from her brother as she seeks life and peace; however, she does ultimately become as dark as Shinnok in the end.
  • Kronika is another Evil Counterpart to Raiden, as both are Gods who, in trying to safeguard the future and get the best possible outcome, cause more harm than good. The difference is that Kronika has gone mad after hitting the reset button so many times and has become evil, while Raiden (especially in his ending) truly understands The Power of Love and only wants a world where Everyone Lives.
  • Raiden is the Big Good to Shang Tsung's Big Bad, and both of them lead the opposing ensembles in Mortal Kombat while having a special power over an element (Electricity for Raiden, Fire for Shang Tsung). While Raiden is well respected and admired among the heroes while caring greatly for humanity, Shang Tsung is considered a failure among the Rogues Gallery and his own personal motivations lean towards For the Evulz.
  • Shang Tsung is also this to Liu Kang, having Playing with Fire and Shapeshifting powers just like him. However, while Liu Kang is honorable and heroic, Shang Tsung is an embittered and self-centered Jerkass who snakes his way into power while Liu Kang earns it. By the end of MK11's Aftermath DLC, Liu Kang and Shang Tsung have both become the strongest kombatants in The 'Verse thanks being brought Back from the Dead.
  • Both Kenshi and Shang Tsung wield blades, wear red, and have badass beards. They both also use Soul Power, though Kenshi uses it positively through his Cool Sword Sento while Shang Tsung violently sucks the souls out of people to keep his youth.
  • Raiden and Shao Kahn are two of the strongest individuals in the franchise and respectively are the key figures for both good and evil, with Raiden protecting Earthrealm and Shao Khan ruling Outworld. Mortal Kombat: Deception also implies that Shao Kahn had once held a similar position as Raiden did for the Elder Gods, but Shao Kahn grew weary of order and control and started conquering other realms for shits and giggles. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation went the extra step of making Raiden and Shao Kahn brothers.
  • Shao Kahn is also this to Kotal Kahn, with both of them serving as the Emperor of Outworld. While the former is a Blood Knight who believes in Might Makes Right by ruling with an iron fist, Kotal cares deeply for his people and understands when sacrifices and hard choices need to be made in order to ensure his subjects' survival. Furthermore, the both of them dress in tribal clothing, wield massive melee weapons, and will readily execute those who break the rules, but Kotal only does so for the betterment of Outworld while Shao Kahn is Ax-Crazy. In addition to this, Kotal achieved and attained leadership without murdering his predecessor, while Shao Kahn poisoned Onaga and took over at first opportunity. Adding to this is the fact that Kotal had willingly gave up his position to Kitana, while Shao Kahn wants to remain as the Emperor of Outworld forever and kills anyone who dares to disagree with him. Bonus points in that they both have Edenian lovers, though Jade genuinely loves Kotal, while Sindel only loves Shao Kahn because she's Brainwashed and Crazy^note  at least this was the case before the controversial retcon in MK11 that Sindel was actually Not Brainwashed and Evil All Along.
  • Johnny Cage and Shao Kahn are both Attention Whores with staggering amounts of Awesome Ego. They also respectively have a wife and daughter: Sonya and Cassie to the former and Sindel and Kitana (who gets replaced with Mileena) to the latter. The MKX comic even lampshades it with artwork of Johnny sitting on a chair eerily similar to how Shao Khan sits on his throne◊. Hell, they even share a fatality where they rip a person apart by digging their fingers through their opponents' chests and pulling them apart. However, the aforementioned wife and daughter of Shao Kahn are actually enslaved and brainwashed (in Kitana's case at least) while Johnny has a normal and healthy relationship with his family.
  • The future undead Revenant versions of Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana, and Jade serve as their evil counterparts in MK11, being chilling reminders of what they nearly became.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe:
  • Sergey Taboritsky of the Holy Russian Empire is the evil to Rurik II of Kemerovo. Both are Despotic warlords with the most unique and radical unifying forces for Russia, modelling new societies on the country's pre-communist past (medieval Kiev and Muscovy for Rurik, the Russian Empire for Taboritsky). The difference is that Rurik is a pragmatic and wise ruler in spite of his insanity, while Taboritsky is a horrible ruler precisely because he is batshit crazy. Rurik takes steps to democratise his country that can continue after his death provided his good son Yuriy takes over, while Taboritsky abandons monarchy to "purify" Russia with the Burgandian model of government. Rurik leaves a united and powerful Russia (albeit one that looks very different from any other that came before it) for his successors to inherit, Taboritsky leaves a collapsed, devastated, and anarchic Russia that nobody else will ever be able to reunify again. Rurik's final victory is one of the better endings for Russia, Taboritsky's victory is one of the worst. Even how they die contrasts: Rurik dies peacefully in a bed, surrounded by his kids; Taboritsky dies alone in his office from a Villainous BSoD-induced aneurysm when he finally realizes that Alexei Romanov is dead and everything he has done is All for Nothing.
  • Taboritsky may also be seen as the evil counterpart of Alexander Men. Two leaders at the opposite ends of Russia with spoiler-ridden paths that were heavily teased during production. Both of them take cues from Orthodox Christianity, but their execution can't be any more different. Taboritsky is an Ax-Crazy Nazi Nobleman trying to make a long-dead kid Tsar again and forcing his insane view of Christianity on Russia, to eventually plunge it into chaos. Alexander Men is a Bait-and-Switch Tyrant Messianic Archetype bringing about an egalitarian Russia that combines Christian ethics with mutualist/borderline social anarchist economics to leave Russia a peaceful place. Men tolerates other faiths and even LGBTQ+ people and walks the path of Christian forgiveness; Tabby is a vindictive lunatic who believes that anyone who slightly crosses him deserves divine punishment, mandates chemical weapons use on any villages who defy him, and orders workers executed for dropping their tools. Men actually has a special event against Taboritsky where he compares the Burgundian madman's esoteric nightmare to the work of The Antichrist.
• NieR: Automata has A2, an android similar to 2B who is wanted by YoRHa for subverting humanity's attempts to retake Earth from the machine lifeforms.
• Onmyōji (2016): Seimei has one in the form of Kuro Seimei, who plans to wreak havoc on the city. All of the latter's victims mistake the former for the perpetrator, even though the players can easily tell the two apart. To be fair, that last part is sort of justified, since the two are not clones, but two halves of the same person.
• Overwatch:
  • Two of the game's healers, Mercy and Moira. Mercy is a kind doctor who champions peace and has multiple voice lines like "Must violence always be the solution?". Moira is an Evilutionary Biologist and Professor Guinea Pig whose single-minded drive towards improving humanity through genetic modification is, unfortunately, not tempered by things like ethics. The game draws subtle parallels between these two women, including giving Moira a Red and Black and Evil All Over version of Mercy's suit◊, and giving players a spray that shows them standing back-to-back◊.
  • Cassidy and Ashe. Both were Born in the Wrong Century by being The Gunslinger in a futuristic setting, both are generally Badass Normals in a cast full of enhanced individuals, both use hand-thrown explosives in battle (Cassidy uses a flashbang grenade, Ashe uses a stick of dynamite), and both were founding members of the Deadlock Gang. However, Cassidy turned his back on the gang and became a part of Blackwatch in order to atone for his crimes, and disowned the criminal alias he once used as a cover, in contrast to Ashe, who continues leading the gang in the present day, embraces her status as an outlaw, and openly flaunts her real name even during her criminal activities.
  • Symmetra and Sombra both use Hard Light, the former for mostly good reasons, the latter for bad reasons.
  • Widowmaker and Ana. Widowmaker is a sniper whose ability set focuses entirely on killing and who gets off from the people she kills, but her scantily-clad appearance would be impractical for real-life combat. Ana is a Support sniper who heals allies with each shot, dresses up primarily for stealth, and is a weary Shell-Shocked Veteran whose victims weigh heavily on her conscience.

P-R

• In Palworld, the Final Boss Victor Ashford acts as this to the (already morally dubious) Player Character. Both were stranded on the archipelago and forced to harness the power of its mons to survive; inventing new weapons, discovering new processes, abusing Pals, condensing them and breeding them, studying every detail about them. But while your actions are Played for Laughs and done for the sake of survival, Victor was the dark reflection of this as an Evilutionary Biologist seeking to create Bioweapon Beasts, Playing with Syringes in generally horrifying ways.
• PaRappa the Rapper:
  • In Um Jammer Lammy, Lammy has Rammy, who is essentially a monochrome, less friendly version of Lammy. However, it's something of a parody, as Rammy has no real relationship with Lammy at all, and Lammy seems to have very little idea who Rammy even is. She can also be quite helpful in certain game modes.
  • Colonel Noodle to PaRappa in PaRappa the Rapper 2 — both are obsessed with avoiding a certain food that has become boring (burgers for the former and noodles for the latter), both have eccentric scientist fathers and missing mothers, and both use their rapping talent to deal with life's troubles. Colonel Noodle even uses PaRappa's "I gotta believe!" before his stage. However, while PaRappa is a cheerful, charismatic kid who is loved and supported by all his friends and family and is always trying to mature and improve himself, Colonel Noodle is a grumpy nerd whose "followers" are mostly robot dummies, was hated by all his friends, never moved on from his terrible childhood, and now wants to impose it on everyone else.
• Because of the Jungian craziness, Persona has this in spades:
  • The original Persona:
    • Ideal Maki/Mary and Mai/Mae vs. Pandora and Aki/Maggie, with the former two representing Maki Sonomura's ideal self and ego and the latter two representing Maki's nihilism and id.
    • Kei/Nate (good, if a bit of a jerk) vs. Kandori/Guido (definitely evil), being wealthy businessmen who took different paths, which becomes even more apparent if you have them meet each other again in Persona 2.
  • Persona 2:
    • The main cast actually have to fight their Shadows, manifestations of their dark sides created by Nyarlathotep.
    • Before they fight their Shadows, the cast of Persona 2: Innocent Sin also have to face the Masked Four, who are leaders of the Masked Circle chosen by the Joker (whether intentionally or only subconsciously) because of their parallels with the main four party members. Of the three fought during the game, two of them even wield modified versions of their counterpart's initial Personas.
  • Strega of Persona 3 are the Evil Counterparts to SEES; whereas SEES seeks to save the world because they and their loved ones all have something to live for, Strega seeks to destroy the world because they believe all life is pointless. Specifically, Strega's leader Takaya is the Protagonist's Evil Counterpart, though he's more against your team in general than you specifically.
  • Persona 4:
    • The Shadow tradition continues in this game, where fighting the Shadows of your soon-to-be party members is a major part of the game, generally after the original screams "You're not me!", causing the Shadow to go berserk.
    • The true killer, Adachi, serves this role for the protagonist. While the protagonist embraces his bonds and encourages his friends to face life head-on, the killer rejects his bonds and embraces selfish and nihilistic hedonism. In fact, he even has the same US voice actor and a modified version of the main character's first Persona.
  • In Persona 5, the traitor, Goro Akechi, is this to the protagonist. In fact, the deity manipulating everything specifically choose the two to be rivals in its twisted game; Akechi and the protagonist even have the same "Wild Card" power that allows them to use multiple Personas.
• Pokémon:
  • The Gengar line has been set up as this for the Alakazam line. Both are powerful squishy wizards who must be traded to reach their final forms, who share similar stats, and who are capable of Mega Evolving. While the stoic Alakazam is described as being intelligent but benign, Gengar is a malicious Slasher Smile-sporting curser who steals the life force of humans.
  • The Mandibuzz line is this to the Braviary line — the latter consists of Always Male warrior eagles who are said to be powerful and honorable fighters, while the former consists of Always Female vultures with an appetite for bones, including human ones (in fact, Vullaby, Mandibuzz's baby form, wears a human skull as a diaper). To drive the point home, the Mandibuzz line is outfitted with the Dark-type, meaning that they fight dirty.
  • Zig-Zagged by Anti-Villain N in Pokémon Black and White who serves as this to the Player Character. Both cared deeply for Pokémon, but while Hilbert/Hilda fought to protect the status quo, N was a Well-Intentioned Extremist who sought to upheave it. His hat is the same design as Red's classic cap, but in black, and he captures the opposite title legendary to yours while becoming Champion.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team games have Gengar to the main character. While the main character is selfless and rescues another Pokémon all while trying to get back to their homeworld, Gengar is a jerkass and conniving bully who only works for money and world domination. More importantly, though, both were humans who became Pokémon, but the main character was brought to save the world from a meteorite, and is not the true cause of the natural disasters, while Gengar is the true human of the Ninetales legend, who became a Pokémon because he ran and abandoned Gardevoir when he enraged Ninetales. Gengar tries to use the legend to turn everyone against the main character by convincing that their arrival caused the natural disasters. However, upon learning that Gardevoir no longer resents him and brought the main character to save the world, he has a Heel Realization and assists the heroes from behind the scenes; and in the post-game, with help from the player, he manages to break the curse and save Gardevoir's physical body, indicating that all he needed to break it was a sense of gratitude.
  • In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Volo was this to his Identical Granddaughter Cynthia. Both have an interest in the myths and Legendaries of the Hisui/Sinnoh region, but while Cynthia is a benevolent woman whose interest in myths is largely restricted to studying ancient ruins and texts, Volo had Gone Mad from the Revelation and became so obsessed with the Top God Arceus that he's willing to destroy the entire universe to capture it. He even has almost the same team as Cynthia in Platinum when battled, save for Milotic being replaced by Hisuian Arcanine. The two also have contrasting Signature Mons—Cynthia having the monstrous-looking Dragon/Ground-type Garchomp while Volo has the angelic-looking Fairy/Flying-type Togekiss—which also ties into their differing visual aesthetics, Cynthia's being Dark Is Not Evil while Volo's is Light Is Not Good.
• Radiant Arc: Seperus turns out to be a Foil to Linky. Linky is the son of the good deity Irin's human avatar while Seperus is a Morian created from the evil deity Zardon's very being. Both are meant to be the primary agents of their deities, but while Linky loves Irin as a mother and isn't afraid to criticize her, Seperus is completely deferential to Zardon because he is merely a piece of his creator rather than his own person.
• Red Dead Redemption II's Micah Bell is this to two characters:
  • He and Sadie Adler share almost equal levels of bloodthirst, but their core values are what separates them. Both tend to not listen to orders and gun down anyone in their way, especially if they're O'Driscolls in Sadie's case. They also share similar levels of recklessness. However, unlike Micah, who is disloyal, Sadie is loyal to those who trust and respect her and is quite moral whenever she's in a good head-space.
  • Arthur Morgan and Micah are two of the Van der Linde gang's primary gunmen, serve as Dutch's right-hand men, are capable of dual-wielding sidearms, and, in Micah's words, "always get the job done". Additionally, both men have a propensity for violence, even if Micah's far exceeds Arthur's. However, Arthur still has plenty of standards and will go out of his way to help those he cares about (such as the gang and Mary Linton) or even the many strangers he encounters... unlike Micah, who is a deranged sociopath that's more than willing to massacre half a town's worth of people and puts himself before everyone else (including the gang). Arthur having Low honor will result in the two being deeply similar, but even then he'll still be at least somewhat more principled than Micah. Both men even have the same default outfit, but with totally opposite colors: Arthur's default outfit is his tan coat, blue shirt, black pants and a black hat, Micah's default outfit is his black trench coat, red shirt, white pants and a white hat. In other words, Micah represents the kind of man that Arthur would be if he had zero honor, morals or conscience.
• Resident Evil:
  • Resident Evil – Code: Veronica has the two corresponding siblings Chris and Claire Redfield on the good side while Alfred and Alexia Ashford are on the bad side. Both brothers and sisters care for each other, but while Chris and Claire are orphans, Alfred and Alexia are Self Made Orphans. Funnily, it's switched up as Claire fights Alfred, who's less of a threat than Alexia, the final boss whom Chris kills.
  • Resident Evil 2:
    • Chief Irons to Leon Kennedy. Both are police officers caught up in the Zombie Apocalypse, and from within the story itself, Irons is revealed to be a corrupt chief who's secretly working for Umbrella, while Leon is a good-natured innocent rookie who's simply trying to survive and escape the zombie threat. Also, whilst Leon is a Chick Magnet who tends to Always Save the Girl, Irons abuses and preys on women.
    • Claire and Annette Birkin: both are against Umbrella, both care for Sherry Birkin, and ironically, both Claire and Annette have their significant other (William for Annette and Steve for Claire) turn into a giant monster before dying. Though Annette and her husband William, being amoral Umbrella scientists, kinda had it coming.
  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis gives S.T.A.R.S^*Special Tactics and Rescue Service an Evil Counterpart faction in U.B.S.C^*Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service . While S.T.A.R.S are hand-picked peace-keeping officers who are sent out on rescue missions, U.B.S.C are ex-convicts and mercenaries whom Umbrella use as a Clean Up Crew to deal with outbreaks and evidence removal. They both function as Red Shirt Armies being wilted down to only a few members. However, in a bit of a subversion, the U.B.S.C members that Jill encounters; Carlos, Mikhail, and Tyrell (in the remake); are quite heroic, and only Nikolai plays it straight, being psychotic and Only in It for the Money — unlike Jill or Chris, who actively help people.
  • Jack Krauser is another evil counterpart to Leon in Resident Evil 4, with the former being the latter's partner in Resident Evil The Dark Side Chronicles. Krauser was both a military soldier and government agent who did a Face–Heel Turn in aligning himself with Albert Wesker. Despite being on opposite factions, Krauser still sees Leon as a Worthy Opponent, and it's clear during their Knife Fight that they're both having a whale of a time. Even after beating him, Leon laments how Krauser went down such a dark path.
  • Jill Valentine gets an evil counterpart in the form of Jessica Sherawat from Resident Evil: Revelations, who briefly takes Jill's place as Chris's partner, but turns out to actually be a double agent for TRICELL. Additionally, both Jill and Jessica have sexy scuba gear and have an interest in Chris. Though Jill's attraction seems to be somewhat in Platonic Life-Partners territory, she and Chris still get plenty of Ship Tease throughout the Resident Evil series, while Jessica blatantly wants to jump Chris's bones and gets jealous of his unwavering care for his "partner" Jill.
• Robopon: Sun-Zero is a version of Sunny gone bad, with a black aesthetic.

S

• Samurai Shodown has Rasetsumaru, who is the evil counterpart of Haohmaru. Aside from being an Evil Knockoff of Haohmaru himself, Rasetsumaru is the dark representation of Haohmaru being an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight instead of being a Boisterous Bruiser Blood Knight.
• The Secret World:
  • It's observed that the Filth is the direct opposite of Anima, and often referred to as "Anti-Anima" and "corrupted Anima" for this very reason. Both are powerful forms of supernatural energy; both can be used to infuse individuals with weird and eldritch powers; both can induce immortality of a sort; both are under the control of immensely powerful beings that the players never meet in person — Gaia for Anima, the Dreamers for the Filth; and both are used in order to provide these beings with servants. However, where Anima brings healing and enlightenment, the Filth brings hideous mutations and insanity.
  • Later, the Buzzing receives its own counterpart in the form of the Black Signal, AKA John. Both are speakers for eldritch beings with no means of communicating on their own — again, Gaia and the Dreamers; both remain outside of the conflict except in dire circumstances; and both provide information to the players in the form of the Lore entries. But where the Buzzing merely tries to inform the players, the Black Signal tries to convert them to his cause; also, while the Bees merely warn you that telling you too much could do serious damage to your brain, John can and will Mind Rape you if you don't comply with his orders. For good measure, John communicates primarily by hijacking the Buzzing's lore signal to the players.
• In Shovel Knight Dig, everyone's favorite shovel-wielding hero must contend with his Evil Counterpart, a drill-wielding Gentleman Thief named Drill Knight. Aside from using different digging tools, Drill Knight is also a Villain with Good Publicity, in stark contrast to Shovel Knight's No-Respect Guy status. They even have contrasting color schemes!
• Silent Hill also invokes this a few times, often overlapping Shadow Archetype:
  • Dahlia in many ways serves as this to Harry in Silent Hill; both are parents obsessed with finding their children (child) and both are attacked by Alessa. However, Harry for his part genuinely adores his daughter Heather/Cheryl even if she is a Soul Jar, while Dahlia is an abusive, insane bitch who wants to birth a Eldritch Abomination out of her daughter, while Harry even from beyond the grave makes sure that never happens by making Heather keep Aglaophotis with her at all times so she can "abort God".
  • Silent Hill 2:
    • Pyramid Head is the metaphorical Evil Counterpart to James in that he is all James's inner demons, denial, aggression, lust, and guilt brought to life. Pyramid Head represents and embodies James's guilt and desire for punishment over killing his wife Mary, with Pyramid Head's sexual violence to other monsters symbolising James inner sexual frustration at not being able to have sex with Mary due to her illness. Furthermore, both James and Pyramid Head wield the Great Knife (i.e carrying a great burden, which echoes caring for Mary) and both are seen on the other side of jail bars (in essence Pyramid Head is caged in James's mind as well). Pyramid Head's namesake also alludes towards James being "blind" to the truth of killing Mary, and yet James still has purpose and can't be stopped, just like Pyramid Head. It's only when James accepts the truth that Pyramid Head and James (in one ending) kill themselves.
    • Eddie is James's literal, more traditional Evil Counterpart. Both are blonde, introverted, selfish, gun-toting losers who have been dealt a cruel fate in life and have killed someone. As the game reveals James and Eddie's misdeeds, it's clear that both of them are guilt-ridden and disgusted with their actions and both actively deny their culpability to each other with Blatant Lies. Where James and Eddie diverge is in their attitudes, as Eddie soon becomes more and more apathetic to murder and turns Ax-Crazy. While James was driven to complete mental breakdown over euthanizing his agonized wife, Eddie simply no longer cares who kills while James despairs over everything he did wrong. Ironically, James even laments killing Eddie too, even if it was in self-defense.
    • Maria is this for Mary herself. Both have the same face, voice, personality quirks, and deep love for James. However, Silent Hill being what is, Mary's flaws are exaggerated and weaponised against James through Maria as she echoes all of Mary's anger, clinginess, flippantness, and even her sickness. However, the real Mary wanted James to be happy and move on with his life after her death, while Maria refuses to let James go and would rather kill him than let him get over her. Not to mention that Maria dresses very sultrily and often speaks in a flirtatious, sexual manner while Mary dresses modestly and speaks in a sweet tone.
  • Silent Hill 3:
    • Claudia was raised in the same nightmarish cult as Alessa AKA Heather by a similarly abusive parent and may also possess the ability to summon the series's iconic Dark World. However, she embraced the cult's teachings and their plans of resurrecting "God" while Alessa AKA Heather rejected them.
    • Memory of Alessa is a disfigured, dark-haired, murderous Evil Twin of Heather and, much like Pyramid Head with James, symbolises Heather quite literally battling her inner demons reflected back at her. Though interestingly, Heather disregards her twin after defeating her despite them being one and the same. Heather barely remembers the suffering Alessa went through and favours her new life as Cheryl Mason.
• The Simon the Sorcerer games play with this. At the end of the third game, a second Simon appears who is different in two aspects: a) he's corporeal (long story) and b) he has a goatee. Wait, Simon's not a nice guy either, right? Well it turns out that the counterpart is actually the ''lawful'' counterpart to Simon. He even shaves his beard to get rid of the stigma.
• Sly Cooper:
  • Neyla from Sly 2: Band of Thieves starts off as a friendlier version of Carmelita, but come the end of "The Predator Awakes", she's revealed to actually be a much dirtier Interpol inspector who frames Carmelita for conspiring with criminals, leading to her being fired by Interpol. She also has the same athletic skills as Sly, and is also gunning for the Clockwerk parts, making her come across as this to him, too.
  • Dr. M, the Big Bad of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, considers himself one to Bentley. Both are The Smart Guy of their generations, but Dr. M grew to hate Sly's father for not being appreciated, and decided to get at the Cooper Vault as payback. Although Bentley did have the occasional doubts, he knows that Sly cares for him, and Sly himself even tells Dr. M that he'd do anything for Bentley. This leads to Dr. M committing suicide by staying in the collapsing vault in a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time:
    • Cyrille Le Paradox, like Sly, descends from a line of thieves and the two even share several skills. What sets him up is that while Sly has morals and treats his friends like family, Le Paradox has a huge ego and treats his minions like disposable seed packages.
    • Penelope also ends up becoming Bentley's Evil Counterpart for similar reasons as Dr. M. Both are geniuses and have moments where they think they can't live down Sly's accomplishments. But while Bentley pulled out of that, Penelope allowed her jealousy to consume her, causing her to become a power-hungry sociopath.
• Sonic the Hedgehog definitely loves this trope within its own series:
  • Metal Sonic did not only start as an Evil Knockoff of Sonic, but also as a mirror to him: he can go fast, has an equivalent to the spin dash in the form of an electric energy shield, and he even mimics Sonic's iconic Finger Wag. However, while Sonic is a free spirit, Metal is programmed to serve Eggman, and while the blue blur goes on his quest to save harmless animals, his robot doppelganger is shown harrassing them for his own amusement.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog was introduced as Sonic's Evil Counterpart in Sonic Adventure 2. Both hedgehogs are confident and short-tempered, but Sonic is more laidback while Shadow takes himself far more seriously. Since then, Shadow has become more of an anti-heroic foil instead. In fact, Sonic Adventure 2 as a whole is built around this trope, with Team Sonic up against Eggman and his two subordinates, Shadow and Rouge. Notably, since Shadow serves as Sonic's counterpart, Tails was made into Eggman's Good Counterpart to compensate and Rouge was introduced as Knuckles's counterpart.
  • Shadow got his own evil counterpart in the form of Mephiles the Dark, the main villain from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), whose form is a copy of Shadow's own shadow.
  • In a somewhat rare example, the villainous Dr. Eggman has an Evil Counterpart as well, in the form of his dimensional counterpart/descendant Eggman Nega. Where Eggman is Affably Evil with a skewed but nonetheless present sense of morals and heroism, Nega unabashedly loves fear, chaos, and suffering — essentially, he's what Eggman would be without his human qualities.
  • In Sonic Forces, Infinite is depicted as the Evil Counterpart to the Avatar. Both characters are motivated to better themselves after their teammates are killed by a more powerful being that dismissed them as a weakling. And while Infinite wants to increase his power for his own sake, the Avatar wants to become stronger to protect their friends and save the world.
• Soul Nomad & the World Eaters: Shauna for Endorph. They start out as members of the same band of thieves but have differences on how to run it. He has converted it into more of a Robin Hood kind of business, but she hates his altruistic ways and wants to go back to pure banditry.
• There are a couple present in the Soul Series. The most direct example is Lizardman to Sophitia; both are Greek warriors chosen by Hephaestus, but while Sophitia succeeded (sort of) in her mission and returned home, Aeon Calcos failed, was transformed into a horrible lizard monster, and swore revenge on the god that had abandoned him.
• Dark Angel Red to Angel Wendy in South Park: Phone Destroyer. Both are female angels who fight from a distance, have the ability to restore other units' health, and whose card art depicts them flying over a cloudy background. However, while Angel Wendy is a benevolent angel with a white and gold colour scheme who heals units the standard way, Dark Angel Red is a Fallen Angel with a red and black colour scheme who "heals" units by killing them and then bringing them back to life.
  Angel Wendy: [when summoned] By my grace.
  Dark Angel Red: [when idle] Disgrace is the only grace I know!
• The Splatoon series technically has L'il Judd, who is this to Judd in a meta sense. On the results screen from Splatoon 2 onwards, he judges the "Bad Guys" team and raises the flag if the player's team is defeated, causing Judd to trip over. Supplemental material also reveals that he has some negative feelings about Judd as well, with his Sunken Scroll in Splatoon 3 implying that he's been been outright trying to eliminate his predecessor. Indeed, the third game in general takes a straighter approach to this trope; when playing against them in Tableturf, Judd is friendly and encouraging, while L'il Judd is ruthlessly competitive to the point of being a borderline Social Darwinist. Also, unlike Judd, L'il Judd no longer gives the player any advice in 3.
• Star Wars:
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
    • The Jedi Exile possibly has an Evil Counterpart in the form of Darth Nihilus; both were presumably present at Malachor V during that final battle there, and where the Exile survived all the death and destruction there by cutting themselves off from the Force entirely — thus becoming sort of a Force black-hole — Nihilus instead chose to sustain himself by feeding on the energy of other beings, essentially becoming a Force vampire. This is more or less the (in-story) trick to beating him when you confront him near the end of the game, convincing him to try to feed off of the Exile and instead weakening him severely.
    • Hanharr is Mira's evil counterpart. Both are bounty hunters with intrinsically different reasons and methods of going about their business — whereas Mira is more about the credits and prefers bringing people in alive, Hanharr does it simply for the thrill of the hunt and will kill his targets regardless of what he's paid for it. This is most prominently reflected in that, when the two end up pitted against each other on Nar Shaddaa, which one of them you play as for that fight and incorporate into your party afterwards depends on the player's alignment, with light-side players playing as Mira and dark-siders as Hanharr.
    • Visas Marr is another one of these, to the Handmaiden. They're both disciples of essentially the biggest names on either side, the Handmaiden to Atris and Visas to the aforementioned Darth Nihilus. Interestingly, however, is their different approaches to combat — the Handmaiden is entirely melee-focused, not even having been trained in the use of the Force by Atris, while Visas is a more traditional dark Jedi — and that both have doubts about their masters that make it rather easy to convince them away from that cause — the Handmaiden can be trained as a Jedi mostly by sparring with her, Visas turns primarily because you chose to spare her after the initial fight against her. The two were even originally meant to join the party based on the player's alignment as with the above, Handmaiden joining light-siders and Visas dark-siders.
    • Kreia acts as this and a Contrasting Replacement Character to Jolee Bindo from the previous game. Both are Neutral in Name Only Jedi who act as The Mentor to the Player Character. While Jolee is fundamentally a Jedi Knight who is only gray because he's unaffiliated with the Order and disagrees with some of their teachings, Kreia's philosophy is much closer to The Dark Side, only staying gray because she doesn't approve of violence or cruelty for its own sake. Furthermore, her true identity is Arren Kae, who like Jolee had an affair while being a Jedi — Jolee's wife fell to the Dark Side and went on to slay several other Jedi when Jolee couldn't bring himself to strike her down. Arren Kae, on the other hand, fell to the Dark Side herself, and her former lover, the Echani general Yusanis, was slain in a duel by Kae's pupil, Darth Revan.
  • In Star Wars: The Old Republic all of the playable classes function as a Shadow Archetype to one another (Jedi Knight vs Sith Warrior, for instance) both in story and gameplay terms, with each story canonically having happened within the game's overall lore. The non-Force-using classes split the roles up slightly; for instance, the Trooper (Republic) fights like a Bounty Hunter (Imperial) but their storyline and personality draw more comparisons to the Imperial Agent.
  • "Starkiller" from The Force Unleashed has been described as the "photo negative" of Luke Skywalker, and is what Luke may have become had he been trained by Vader instead of Obi-Wan. Starkiller falls more in line with Luke's story after turning to the light, ultimately engaging in a self-sacrificing battle against Vader and the Emperor aboard the half-completed Death Star. For bonus points, in George Lucas's original draft, Luke's original name was "Luke Starkiller".
  • In Jedi: Fallen Order, Trilla Suduri aka Second Sister is an Evil Counterpart to Cal, as she was once a Padawan the same as him, but was left behind by her Master Cere Junda. Captured and subjected to torture, she allowed the dark side of the Force to transform her into the Second Sister. She forgoes her past as a Jedi and cruelly mocks Cal for his naive inexperience, despite being not all that different from him, except for the fact that Cal's master Jaro Tapal saved him from Order 66 while Junda gave up Trilla to Vader. In the Final Battle Cal is able to bring Trilla out of the darkness with the help of Junda.
• In Stellaris, the two dev-created human star nations available to play as are the United Nations of Earth and the Commonwealth of Man, the latter of which is this to the former.
  • The UNE's governing ethics are Xenophile and Fanatic Egalitarian. It must be governed as a democracy, it has access to utopian living standards, it cannot use the "no refugees" policy or displace aliens on conquered worlds, and it gets boosts to faction influence, specialist output, diplomatic influence, trade value, and other nations' opinion of you. Its starting civics are Beacon of Liberty, which boosts Unity output, and Idealistic Foundation, which boosts the happiness of your people. Playing as the UNE, you will likely be forming The Federation with your neighbors and seeking to maintain friendly relationships with them while avoiding war — and when you do go to war, it will be to stop the conquests of violent imperialists.
  • The CoM, on the other hand, is governed under the Xenophobe and Fanatic Militarist ethics. It can enslave, displace, or purge aliens on conquered worlds, and cannot grant them full citizenship or full military service rights. It also gets bonuses to population growth and the fire rate of ships' weapons and a discount on the influence cost of building starbases (used to colonize and defend unclaimed systems) and claiming other nations' star systems, while other nations' opinion of them is penalized. Finally, it gets access to the No Retreat combat doctrine, meaning that ships engaged in combat will never attempt to disengage and will get a further improved fire rate as a result. Furthermore, the CoM starts out governed as a dictatorship, though this can be changed later on, and their starting civics are Nationalistic Zeal, which reduces war weariness and further reduces the cost of claiming other nations' systems, and Distinguished Admiralty, which further increases ship fire rate while boosting the maximum size of your fleets and allowing admirals to gain an extra skill level. Playing as the CoM, you will be expanding quickly in the early game and then conquering or vassalizing numerous worlds and neighboring nations, settling into a role as The Empire. The lore for the CoM even states that they began as a Lost Colony of the UNE born from a seemingly failed wormhole experiment, and sure enough, if you are playing as the CoM, the UNE will always spawn somewhere in the galaxy.
• Street Fighter:
  • Akuma is Ryu's Blue counterpart in various Street Fighter games and their adaptations. The brother of Ryu's master, Akuma was a student of the same martial art and was also driven by the desire to be the most powerful martial artist, deciding that he was willing to kill those he defeated in the pursuit of true strength, while Ryu ultimately rejects killing (the exception being in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3, where there's an Evil Ryu Secret Character. There, he turns out even worse than Akuma. Whereas Akuma has a sort of moral code, even if it falls heavily under Blue-and-Orange Morality, Evil Ryu is just a cold-blooded killer who ends up slaughtering the entire cast).
  • It can argued that Ken has similarities with Vega, as both men are extremely strong, rich, blond, handsome (to point of Bishounen) fighters who value flair above strength. Vega, however, is an Ax-Crazy narcissist who preys on beautiful women while Ken is a Handsome Lech who became a Family Man. In Street Fighter II V, Ken and Vega end up having a Cock Fight over Chun-Li.
  • Another example would be Rose and M. Bison, as both are wielders of Soul Power. Whereas Bison uses his corrupted Soul Power (which he calls Psycho Power) for pure evil, Rose is very heroic, kind, and uses her Soul Power to aid the other heroes, going as far as offering her life to Bison in order to spare them. The fact that she was created from Bison's discarded goodness further cements the connection the two ultimately share.
  • Balrog is the Evil Counterpart to Dudley. Both are boxers, with the difference being that Dudley is a polite and refined gentleman while Balrog is a cruel and vicious Jerkass who cheats like crazy.
  • Seth is the Evil Counterpart to Abel. Both are revealed to be replacement bodies for M. Bison and the two decide to rebel against him in their own personal ways, with Abel being the good counterpart in that he vows to help bring down both M. Bison and Shadaloo so that the world can truly be safe from them while Seth is the evil counterpart in that he vows to overthrow M. Bison and seize control of Shadaloo so that he can Take Over the World himself.
  • Street Fighter IV:
    • In Super Street Fighter IV, Juri is the evil counterpart to Chun-Li, both whose parents were murdered by Shadaloo. While Chun-Li decided to join Interpol in order to help bring down Shadaloo by using the full extent of the law itself, Juri decided to join Shadaloo so that she could destroy the organization from the inside out, though Juri's personal obsession for revenge against M. Bison ended up causing her to fall into He Who Fights Monsters territory.
    • Ultra Street Fighter IV gives us Decapre for Cammy. Aside from being the her twin, the former also represents what the latter could have become had she not broken free from her brainwashing.
  • Street Fighter V:
    • Kage is a Living Shadow who literally represents what Ryu would be if he gave into power-lust.
    • The story mode, "A Shadow Falls" effectively plays F.A.N.G as Rashid's Evil Counterpart: They're both very silly, have a flair for technology, use some kind of element in combat, get little respect from everyone, and aren't even taken seriously among the heroes/villains. However, the difference between the two of them is that F.A.N.G is genuinely psychopathic beneath his silly demeanor, taking and enjoying a personal sadistic pleasure in murdering a defenseless woman and threatening to do the same thing to a little girl; while Rashid, beneath his goofiness, is truly heroic, and when he eventually learns that F.A.N.G had killed the aforementioned woman (who was Rashid's friend), he flies into an Unstoppable Rage in stark contrast to his previous behavior. In addition to this, Rashid's wind powers perfectly counter F.A.N.G's poison abilities.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Wario was once an evil rival of Mario, complete with evil versions of Mario's powerups. Then he shifted to a greedy Anti-Hero who stole from other villains, soon replacing his dark powerups with the gimmick of Nigh-Invulnerability and bizarre transformations based on how he is injured. On a couple of occasions, Wario has actually even helped Mario, both with and without selfish motives. Some time after Wario's creation, Nintendo gave Luigi his own Evil Counterpart in the form of Waluigi. It's interesting to note that the prefix "wa" originated from the word "warui", meaning plenty of things, including "evil", in Japanese. Hence, Wario and Waluigi are, literally, "Bad Mario" and "Bad Luigi". However, their names can also mean, based on the meanings of the word "Warui", "Wrong Mario/Luigi", "Poor Mario/Luigi", "Hateful Mario/Luigi", "Abominable Mario/Luigi", or "Inferior Mario/Luigi". Furthermore, Waluigi´s name in Japanese is an anagram of the word "Ijiwaru", which means that his name has extra meanings, such as "Ill-tempered Luigi" or "Sadistic Luigi".
    • While the opposition between them is not a major plot point in Mario Kart games, you can see it in their respective weight classes (Mario and Luigi always are balanced characters while Wario focuses on power and Waluigi's class depends on the game), but also in their respective stages: Mario and Luigi often have classic circuits while Wario and Waluigi have more technical and mature-looking tracks in the forms of cross stadiums, a colosseum and a pinball machine. In Mario Kart 7, Wario's Shipyard/Galleon can also be seen as a more submerged and hostile environment than Piranha Plant Slide/Pipeway.
  • Wario got one himself in Wario Land: Shake It! The Shake King is essentially a bigger, greedier Wario (while he holds the infinite sack of coins which is the only reason for Wario's adventure, he also took over the Shake Dimension and kidnapped the Merfles and Queen Merelda, which is not why Wario gets into this), with most of his abilities mirroring those of Wario. While Wario isn't exactly a good guy to begin with, the Shake King has none of his few redeemable traits and is what Wario would be like if he went back to being a straight villain again.
  • Wario had previously got another in Wario: Master of Disguise in the form of said game's Final Boss: Terrormisu. In true Wario fasion, we have the firmly evil character in a game running in Black-and-Gray Morality as Terrormisu is a greedy demon who deceived Poobah the Pharaoh to have his wish granted if he starved his people and ruined his kingdom, only to double-cross him and steal his riches, so Cannoli the First sealed her in the Wishstone and tried to find the one who would finally defeat her and save the world. She posed as an ally of Wario and waited until he gathered the whole Wishstone in order to devour the souls of the world. Gameplay-wise, similar to Wario's ability to gain powers from his disguises, Terrormisu changes each phase of the fight by putting on a different mask representing sadness, happiness, and anger.
  • Bowser eventually evolved into one to Mario as well. Both are associated with fire and wield numerous powerups, both are Acrofatic badasses that use their weight to injure their enemies (Mario through jumping, Bowser through stomping hard enough to break blocks), and both are interested in Princess Peach. However, Mario is a Humble Hero and generous soul who fights for good often without asking for anything in return, and his affections for Peach are warmly returned. Bowser is a greedy king, bully, and tyrant who chases after Peach despite her obvious rejection of him.
  • Bowser himself gets one in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story when the Dark Star becomes Dark Bowser, the final boss. While Bowser wants to rule the Mushroom Kingdom, the Dark Star wants to obliterate existence outright.
• In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, Tenzan Nakajima is the Evil Counterpart to Ryusei Date. Like Ryusei, he was a video game champion turned actual robot pilot, but unlike Ryusei, never learned the difference between a game and a life-and-death battle.
• Sword of Paladin: Nade has a counterpart in Lancelot, who also wishes to be a heroic knight. While Lancelot appears to be the perfect knight commander, he turns out to have similar confidence issues as Nade, since he feels ashamed of failing to defend Asgard and failing the Paladin trials. As a result, he became vulnerable to Berienstahl's temptation of Extra Gems and deluded himself into thinking that conquering the world is the only way to be a hero. Additionally, Lancelot's desire to do good is tainted by his belief that he's the only one who is qualified to lead the world while Nade knows that the Paladin needs to have mutual trust with their allies and the masses.

T-Z

• Tales Series:
  • Tales of the Abyss elevates this to an art form. Every single member of the party has an evil counterpart in the Six God-Generals, and the Big Bad, Dorian General Van Grants, is pretty much an Evil Counterpart to half the party:
    • Luke's evil counterpart is Asch, as he's Asch's clone.
    • Tear's evil counterpart is Legretta, who trained her to fight.
    • Anise's evil counterpart is Arietta, who was a Fon Master Guardian before Anise took over her job.
    • Natalia's evil counterpart is Largo, who seems to have her sense of honour and dedication, and is also her father.
    • Jade's evil counterpart is Dist, who grew up with Jade and idolized him; they created fomicry together. Well, more like Jade created fomicry and Dist was there when it happened.
    • Guy's evil counterpart is Sync; or at least, the game would have you believe that. This is a Red Herring — Sync is counterpart to Guy in terms of their Lightning Bruiser fighting style, but story-wise, he's another clone of the original Fon Master Ion, making the current Ion his Good Counterpart (and thus making him another, albeit loosely, evil counterpart to Anise).
    • Big Bad Van is personally connected to or mirrored by about half the main party. Luke is his student and the product of his fomicry experiments, and both are primarily seeking a way to avert the Score. Guy is, like Van, a survivor of the sinking of Hod; initially, they both want revenge for their painful childhoods, but Guy manages to overcome his bitterness while Van takes it... way too far. Tear is Van's sister, obviously. Jade is also a practitioner of fomicry, but while even he realizes fomicry is amoral, Van sees it as the way to recreate the world and save it from the Score. He and Anise had ulterior motives for joining the Order of Lorelei.
  • Yggdrasil aka Mithos the Hero in Tales of Symphonia could be considered as such to Lloyd, both of them starting out as well-intentioned Determinators, though while Lloyd eventually learns when to back down and think things through, Mithos remains stubborn and unwavering to the bitter end, which causes his Start of Darkness (his last words even have him calling Lloyd "my shadow" and proclaiming that he "stands at the end of the path I chose not to follow."). He also has a lot in common with Genis, both being disillusioned half-elves and having to suffer the persecution that comes from being such, though Genis eventually learns to accept the humans who persecuted him, while Mithos continues to be bitter and resentful towards them.
• In the early Tekken games (more so the first one), there are 8-10 default characters, and consequently 8-10 sub boss characters, specifically designed to match up with their corresponding default character and vice versa, as a "rival" (i.e. one will always fight the other on Round 8). Most of these are actual counterparts of the default character, and in the first game, they're literally clone characters too. Examples would be what Anna is to Nina, as well as what Armor King is to King, or what Kunimitsu is to Yoshimitsu. Their Evil Counterpart nature is due to most of their intentions and/or employers, i.e. Nina being sent as an assassin to take down the Big Bad whereas Anna is working for them, or King wanting to use the tournament winnings to fund an orphanage whereas Armor King doesn't care about King's orphanage and just wants to prove that he's better (as well as being generally quite a dark and mysterious character). Yoshimitsu is the leader of a clan who wants to steal from the rich to give to the poor, but Kunimitsu wants to steal from the poor to give to herself (and even stole from her own clan). Later Tekken games kept all these characters, but from Tekken 3 and onward, the sub-boss system associated with it was scrapped.
• Ultima: The Guardian ends up usurping the Avatar in his long absence, replacing the doctrine of the Virtues with his own propaganda, the "Fellowship".
• Rafe Adler in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is a rival treasure hunter who acts as a much more violent and sociopathic version of Drake. He is just as much a capable climber, explorer, and gunman as Drake, and even shares Drake's fondness for dry humor at times. It is revealed over the course of the game that one of his primary motivations is to outdo Drake, whom he is incredibly jealous of.
• Undertale has many characters contrasting each other:
  • In the early hours of the game, you fight Papyrus, a Campy, hammy, and narcissistic but friendly skeleton who speaks in CAPS LOCK, gives you childish puzzles, dreams of entering the royal guard, encourages his brother Sans to be more proactive, and tries to become friends with you even in your most violent playthrough. Also, befriending him is the secondary condition to engage the best ending possible. Later in the game, you fight another loud, campy, hammy, and narcissistic character, the killer entertainment robot Mettaton. More than an Evil Counterpart, he also represents what Papyrus would be if he became a legitimate threat, if his fascination for humanity implied betraying his own people, and if his narcissism and quest for glory overshadowed his positive qualities:
    • While Papyrus, despite his eccentricities, is still a reliable friend nonetheless, Mettaton started ignoring Alphys, the scientist who built him and who endures a lot of insecurities, as soon as he became famous^spoilerexcept for their little scheme during the Hotland arc, even though he also makes his own in parallel.
    • While Papyrus' puzzles are all harmless (and he gives up on his most violent one because this means he wouldn't earn his victory), Mettaton's are more deadly^SpoilerAlphys having full control over them helps a lot in this regards and his following traps are far more dangerous^SpoilerThis counts signaling the Human Child to the Royal Guards while Alphys is distracted, bribing Muffet to kill them in a place where they cannot contact Alphys, and engaging mercenaries in the CORE, as he wants to steal the protagonist's soul to leave the underground and become a celebrity on the surface, despite knowing the fact that the king needs it to break the barrier and free monsterkind.
    • In an opposite fashion to Papyrus, you are forced to harm him even in a Pacifist run, you can't befriend him, and while the former's fight starts as a scheme to fulfill his lifelong dream, but ends as a way to bond with him, the latter's is just his last scheme to increase his popularity, even if he gives up after his fans (who, amusingly, involve Papyrus) call to convince him to stay.
    • While both of them can potentially become the ruler of the Underground in Neutral endings and neither of them have political knowledge (or know how to deal a future human falling), they handle things differently. While Papyrus has Sans to do most of the work, he tries to be a moral support for the monsters, even if it essentially goes by cooking them spaghetti. Mettaton, on the other hand, tries to handle everything personally and miserably fails, all by transforming the Underground into a Police State where every non-fan of his TV show mysteriously disappears.
  • During the whole game, your protagonist has the (relative) protection of Sans the skeleton, a lazy but friendly skeleton with a taste for bad jokes, who constantly shows a big smile, has a talent for imitations, a taste for snarky remarks and pranks, knows about resets by reading your character's face, and judges your characters for their actions at the end of the game. He also subtly shows you that even the most aggressive monster can become a friend when you first meet him. Another alliterative monster shows a constant smile, mimics voices at perfection, and plays you pranks with it; however, his are more sadistic, consisting of imitating a relative to make you doubt their sincerity. His snarky comments also are harsher than Sans's, as they often revolve around what you did in the game because he actually remembers all your actions. In an opposite fashion to Sans the first time you meet him, he shows a friendly side before attacking you at your most vulnerable moment, manipulating you with the idea that Violence is the Only Option or, in his own words, "It's kill or be killed". You guessed it, Sans's contrasting character is none other than Flowey the flower.
  • If you play in a True Pacifist run, the Human Child can become a Christian messiah for monsters, reconciliating them with the human race and freeing them from the underground. On the other hand, if you decide to kill everyone, you will progressively lose control over their actions and transform them into a satanic figure. In the end, they will be replaced by/be taken over by/become an Antichristic archetype, the first Fallen Human/Chara/"however you want to call them, it is your playthrough after all, so you choose the name you want for this Adorable Abomination". They are similar to your playable character, but with a brighter sprite, opened eyes, pink cheeks, and a big smile, and obsessed with grinding and power. Also, while your character is the Abel to Flowey's Cain and their backstory is a mystery, the First Human is more acknowledged: They were the Cain to Asriel's Abel, and they're heavily implied to have had issues even before you went on your rampage.
• World of Warcraft:
  • At one point you actually get to beat up your own evil counterpart. Or technically, your "inner turmoil" (or for casters, it has often been identified by players as your inner idiot — it only uses melee attacks).
  • The Warlock class is, lore-wise, the Evil Counterpart to the Mage, as they are usually former mages fallen into the temptation of resorting to demonic energy to make them stronger.
  • Another example is the boss battle Herald Volazj, who actually drives you insane and makes you fight evil twisted versions of your party members. Though, after you beat them, you may help your real party members kill their evil selves.
  • This is a common theme among the "war-torn" forms of the artifact weapons. Many of the forms are corrupted or dark versions of normally "good" weapons, such as Ashbringer and T'uure.
• In Wrestling Mpire, some of the clauses of a wrestler's contract are these. The "good" clauses are in green while the "bad" clauses are in red.
  • CREATIVE CONTROL allows for the wrestler to refuse a booker's task at the cost of Attitude points. NO CREATIVE CONTROL is the opposite.
  • IRON CLAD means the wrestler cannot be fired even if they fail a booker's task. NO COMPETE means a wrestler cannot quit, even if offered a contract by a different promotion.
  • PART TIME means a wrestler will not be booked frequently but will lose popularity due to lack of screen time. OVERTIME means a wrestler can be booked multiple times in a single event (more noticeable in Booking Career).
• In the XCOM: Enemy Unknown expansion Enemy Within, an evil organization called EXALT is revealed to be secretly in league with the aliens, although they have their own mysterious goals. Their operatives use the same tactics as your own XCOM soldiers, and their weapons are identical in stats (but less boxy) to your own firearms and laser weapons (EXALT never develops plasma). Like your soldiers, EXALT uses Meld to enhance their operatives, although they never build MEC Troopers. Even their HQ's location is opposite to yours: The XCOM base is deep underground, while the EXALT HQ is on top of a skyscraper. When storming it, your soldiers find a hologlobe identical to yours but red in color, although their HQ is more aesthetic than functional, in stark contrast to the XCOM base. There are some subtle hints that EXALT may have evolved out of the original XCOM project in The '60s.
• Ys:
  • Ys: Memories of Celceta: Gruda is an eviler counterpart to his supposed master, Dark Eldeel. Both wish to test and improve humanity by antagonizing them with the apocalypse, but Dark Eldeel genuinely loves humanity and is willing to hold back against them to ensure their survival while Gruda despises his fellow humans for being complacent and believes they deserve to die if they can't pass his trials.
  • Ys SEVEN: Tia and Scias serve as counterparts to the Twin Goddesses and Toal Fact from Ys Origin. Like the Twin Goddesses, Tia is a blue-haired supernatural being who manages her land to ensure its prosperity, only to be faced with disaster when the land's prosperity goes too far. Like Toal, Scias is a white-haired knight who serves their supernatural maiden and does everything he can to ease their burden, even if it means acting behind the backs of his liege. The difference is that the goddesses and Toal never lose faith in their people while Tia and Scias are in despair over their land's situation, causing them to enact a cycle of death and rebirth to fix everything.

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