Forced Transformation / Video Games

Forced Transformations in video games.

---

• Achaea: One of the ultimate punishments the gods can use on mortals is "shrubbing"—turning you into a shrubbery. For all but the most foul offenses, you will eventually get better.
• Age of Mythology includes a chapter based on Odysseus's experience at Aeaea, with Circe turning Arkantos and Ajax into boars. They must then gore villagers (the much stronger guards are apparently not hungry) to protect Odysseus and his men until such time as they can be un-piggified. Also, the cheat code "Goatunheim" turns all units into goats.
• Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse: When you find Princess Kara, she has been transformed into a monster. Fortunately, defeating the monster form reverses the spell (but she's not exactly healthy once back in human form).
• Angry Birds 2: Some pigs have a weapon that changes your bird into a random object. Sometimes it's something harmless like a teddy bear, other times it can be something potentially useful like a rock or a rocket.
• Arcana Heart: The Arcana Blaze of Gier, the Arcana of Shadow has Gier turning the opponent into a black blob thingie that can only bounce around if it hits.
• Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura's polymorph is described to turn the subject into any number of animals, but sheep were the most frequent. Few NPC's had and used this ability, and it was an effective neutralizer for any caster.
• Arunderan: The Evil Sorceror Gnarz demands a virgin from the village of Arunderan every month, to be sacrificed to the dragons who granted him his magical powers. One month, the village fails to offer a virgin, so Gnarz transforms everyone in the village into sheep. Most of the game consists of restoring the villagers to human form one at a time by breaking Soulstones that contain their original bodies.
• Baldur's Gate has Polymorph Other as a spell wizards can learn that turns the target into a squirrel. There's also the Bolt of Polymorph, an enchanted crossbow bolt that does the same thing. In both cases, the target's stats all change to that of a normal squirrel and the effect is permanent until they're killed (and they only have one hitpoint).
• Baldur's Gate III has the spell "Polymorph", which transforms a target into a sheep.
  • If Wyll is convinced to not kill Karlach, Mizora will forcibly transform him into a demon as punishment for not carrying out her mission. If the player later kills Mizora after she is captured, per Wyll's contract with her, his failure to prevent her from coming to harm results in him being condemned to Avernus and transformed into a lemure.
• Battlerite: Zander's Sheep Trick ability transforms enemies within an area of effect into... well, sheep, preventing them from using abilities for several seconds. If they take too much damage, they instantly change back.
• Bayonetta:
  • The final boss will throw spiral-galaxy shaped discs at the title character. If she is struck, she turns into a child who can't attack, dodge and can barely run.
  • Demon Resentment in the sequel has a ray that has the same effect. Once you're turned into helpless little girl, it chases you around and if you got caught — it eats you alive.
• In Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods, the player character can permanently turn groups of people into livestock with the "Verdant" miracle. Since it doesn't ping as Evil, it's effectively the Good god's answer to the fireball.
• The Famicom version of Bokosuka Wars has a slightly different plot from its earlier versions, in that King Suren's soldiers have been turned into inanimate rocks and trees by the evil King Ogereth, and Suren must touch the transformed men in order to change them back so they can fight alongside him.
• In Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, one of the card combinations turns you into a skeleton, a common Castlevania enemy. It had a weak attack and could be killed in one hit, but there was a small chance that it would throw a Big Bone, which could one-hit kill anything (even bosses).
• Chicken Feet: Cooper used to be a normal human until Eric experimented on him and was able to artificially turn him into a giant chicken, with all the horror that entails.
• In Child of Light, when you first arrive at the Cappilli Village, all of its inhabitants, except Finn, are transformed into birds until you finish the local dungeon.
• In the backstory of Dance of Death: Du Lac and Fey, Merlin transformed Morgana into a hound. She's not happy about it, but her intelligence and vast knowledge of the occult mean she can be of use to the Knights even in her cursed form.
• Chrono Trigger: In a subversion of sorts, Magus turns the knight Glenn into a frog. A frog the size of a small human, who can still wield a sword and actually seems to have better abilities in this form than as a human and later comes back for revenge. Great job!
  • This shows up in Chrono Cross; the party is volunteered for a magic show and turned into housecats. They're supposed to be turned back a few minutes after, but Sneff the magician throws his back out. You're left as cats for a while. This does end up having an effect in a few areas that barred other people from going through ... and let you grab an inventory item too.
• Darkstalkers: Demitri's "Midnight Bliss" attack can forcibly transform his opponents for a moment, changing male opponents into cute girls, and female opponents into cuter girls.
• In Death Road to Canada, there is a random event which causes some sort of vortex to appear ahead of the group's vehicle, which will alter your characters in a small variety of bizarre ways if you choose to interact with it. Any character that attempts to fight it, specifically, will turn into a dog.
• In The Desolate Hope, Bio-Beta has the "Toy Virus" attack, which transforms the enemy virus into a cartoony bug head on a spring for around one second, during which it is unable to attack.
• One of the runewords in Diablo II has a chance of turning the user into an undead pygmy skeleton.
• In Dicey Dungeons, Lady Luck turns her chosen contestants into sentient dice before trapping them in the dungeons.
• Dink Smallwood mods:
  • In Legend of the Duck a man banished from his home village for a year was turned into a duck as part of the punishment. Unfortunately the wizard who did it lost track of him, which is why the victim asks Dink for help eight years later.
  • In Prophecy of the Ancients an entire village was transformed into farm animals. They change back automatically once Dink beats the relevant boss.
  • In Quel the locals were transformed into pigs—and vice versa.
• The whole point of Disgaea 2 is to dispel a region-wide version of this at the source by defeating the Evil Overlord. Future games in the series reveal that it didn't actually work.
  • A gameplay example can happen as a result of one of the Dark Sun's effects, which will transform one of your humanoid or unique monster characters into a specific species of monster or a random one, depending on the map. It replaces the character's weapon skills with the skills of the species they transform into, but the special skills the main characters and cameo characters possess are retained, which can result in some hilarity.
• In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the Kong POW move turns all onscreen enemies into either Extra Life Balloons, Gold Hearts, or Banana Coins (depending on which partner Donkey Kong has).
• In Dota 2, the this is the effect of the spell "Hex". The heroes Lion and Shadow Shaman have it, with the former's turning people into frogs and the latter's turning them into chickens. The item "Scythe of Vyse" turns people into pigs (Sheep in the original DoTA, leading to the nickname "Sheepstick").
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest II sees the Princess of Moonbrooke transformed into a dog by Hargon's forces when they attack her home. The two princes must find a Magic Mirror that can change her back.
  • Dragon Quest VII
    • The curse on L'Arca transforms all people into animals, and all animals into people. The formerly-human animals can't talk, not even to The Woodcutter. Once you lift the curse, the people don't seem to remember being transformed, or believe they were dreaming.
    • A lesser example in Providence. All the villagers' souls are stolen until you defeat the monsters, but a farmer and his cow are restored to the wrong body. For some reason, he can still talk as a cow, despite the above example. If you return to his house in the future, you'll find that his descendants can talk to cows.
  • In Dragon Quest VIII, the main plot is about the heroes chasing after a rogue magician/jester who turned King Trode into a troll like creature, and his daughter Princess Media into a horse. Also... a man transformed into a short green creature chasing after a magic user with long silvery hair as well as being designed by Akira Toriyama. Sound familiar?
  • Dragon Quest XI:
    • A woodcutter living in the Manglegrove gets turned into a dog by a Tricky Devil. Eleven and Erik have to defeat the Tricky Devil so that the woodcutter can change back and fix a Broken Bridge for them.
    • In the second act of the game after the Time Skip, a large number of Octagonia's inhabitants, including Vince and most of the other fighters, get turned into monsters by the Spectral Sentinel Booga. The heroes have to defeat Booga to break the curse on both them and a Brainwashed and Crazy Jade.
• In Dungeon Keeper a spell is available that turns a creature into a chicken. It's only temporary, but still a good way to take a powerful enemy out of the fight for a while. Or to be a Mean Boss to your minions.
• Elves could use the "Polymorph Other" spells in Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons arcade games. It basically functioned as a Smart Bomb since the cute bunnies and frogs couldn't do anything to you and bounced off the screen.
• In the Sega Master System version of Dynamite Dux, the human Michael is turned into the duck Bin by Achacha.
• In the Eggerland games (Adventures of Lolo trilogy inclusive), Lolo can use Magic Shots acquired from Heart Framers to transform his enemies into eggs.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The series features the Daedric artifact Wabbajack. A nifty staff that changes an enemy into something else. Problem is, it's Sheogorath's artifact, so the change is random. You could turn a bandit into a sheep, or a Daedroth... It's more fun than anything else.
  • In the Action-Adventure spin-off game The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, the hero Cyrus is transformed into a Scamp for a short part of the game.
• In Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall the ruling class of an island kingdom are transforming commoners into giant insects to make them better workers and soldiers and more obedient. The hero fighting them ends up transforming himself too, because his human body is too weak. The ultimate reveal is that the source of the transformative "juice" is the queen, transformed by a cursed scarab, planted by an agent of the setting's Biggest Bad. She will help the hero to kill herself and neutralize the scarab, but still will fight him ferociously.
• Available in both pig and frog forms in Eternal Card Game. Amusingly enough, units keep any weapons they had equipped after being polymorphed, meaning that that frog can still beat you down with a sword.
• Fantasy Quest: A dog turns out to be a man stricken with a curse, which makes you feel bad for having tried to play fetch with him before.
• Final Fantasy games have a few examples:
  • In Final Fantasy the group of bats found in the Chaos Shrine are actually cursed warriors from Lufenia, who explain to the heroes how to travel back into the past and end the time loop once the Four Fiends are defeated.
  • The Toad status ailment, introduced in Final Fantasy II and returning in multiple other games onwards. Of note is that casting Toad on your own party is needed to pass a couple of obstacles in Final Fantasy III.
  • Final Fantasy IV adds Pig as a transformation ailment. Additionally, since the story begins with Cecil attacking the village of Mysidia, slaughtering townspeople, and taking their Crystal, certain villagers will try to get their revenge later on by casting Pig, Toad, or Mini on the party. (The way transformations work in the game means that you can just talk to them again to return to normal.)
  • The Moogle status in Final Fantasy Adventure works similarly and also appears in the sequel, Secret of Mana. This status disables most actions and reduces defense to 0, which means you can easily be killed in one hit by late-game enemies in both games. In the remake of Adventure, Sword of Mana, the Moogle transformation is instead used as a buff which can be used to become invisible to certain enemies, although it still stops you from attacking.
  • Final Fantasy VI had Imp form, which while it didn't reduce your hitpoints or the strength of conventional attacks, it did make it impossible for you to use magic or special character powers. It was more of an annoyance than threat as by the time in the game when enemies start throwing it around you will have many ways to undo the transformation but need a full turn to do it after which you might get Imped again. And you might not even want to undo the transformation, since there is a series of Imp-specific equipment that can actually allow an Imped character to administer a beatdown.
  • Cid in Final Fantasy IX is transformed into an oglop (a type of verminous insect) as a punishment for being unfaithful to his wife. Dr Tot claims to have discovered a cure for his condition in an old book... which, when administered, turns Cid into a frog instead.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics:
    • A character whose Bravery goes below 10 becomes a literal chicken. The best way to do this is with Beowulf's aptly named Chicken attack, which reduces a target's bravery by 50. Chickens automatically run away from the action each turn, gaining 1 bravery point until they become human again, and their defense drops drastically. This is useful in the Bonus Dungeon, where treasures are controlled by a Randomly Drops statistic which isn't actually random but rather linked to your Brave stat. The unit that has the highest chance of finding the treasure? Someone who's been chicken'd.
    • Reis, a young woman who was transformed into a dragon after Taking the Bullet for her beloved Beowulf. You can recruit her and change her back, though. And when reverted to human form she keeps all her dragon powers like lots of HP, above-average strength and multiple Breath Weapon attacks.
  • A good chunk of time in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is spent dealing with this. First, Aire gets turned into a cat by some cursed treasure and has to go through several misadventures, teaming up with Brandt and going to Arbor in search of a cure... only for Brandt to be turned into a human topiary because The Fair Folk don't like humans, and to save him from this, they have to turn him into a dog. And the mouse sage you meet in Arbor who helps? He is also one—the Fairy Queen made him a mouse as punishment for accidentally releasing Belephegor. Oh, and that parrot in Brandt's house is actually the real King Horne.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has "Cie'th", shambling crystalline monsters who were once human but transformed into their current state when they failed to complete their "Focus" (a task given to them by the l'Cie). Even worse, a Cie'th who lives long enough will eventually be consumed by depair, transforming into an immobile Cie'th Stone, a living statue, indestructible and unable to die, whose only thoughts are regret at failing their Focus.
• In Fire Emblem Fates, this happens to Anthony in the Revelation path. After failing to ambush Corrin properly, Anankos turns him into a Faceless as punishment. Anthony is then fought as that level's boss.
• The Ghosts 'n Goblins series traditionally includes enemies that can transform you into something helpless for several seconds. Over the years the forms have included frogs, babies, bees, old men, and young women.
• Gnarled Hag: The children who are caught trespassing by the witch are turned into giant slugs. One of them rests in the dining table, while two others are trapped in the basement, crying.
• In God Hand, one of Shannon's more annoying moves in the first encounter with her is the ability to temporarily turn you into a defenseless chihuahua. She usually follows this move up by running toward you and punting you across the circus tent.
• Golden Sun:
  • Happens in Golden Sun when trying to cut down the guardian of the forest got the people of Kolima (and all non-Adepts who went to rescue them) cursed into trees.
  • In the last dungeon in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, you encounter and battle two Flame Dragons. Surprise, they were your Fire Clan antagonists, and being transformed against their will like this has drained so much energy that they're freezing to death (averting the Never Say "Die" variant of this trope). And then you learn the hard way that the Wise One's "miracle" to stop you was turning your parents into a dragon and forcing you to fight it. The party finds out that even if they refused to fight the dragon or had lost the battle, their transformed parents would have died anyway because they used up so much energy maintaining their dragon form.
• In Guild Wars 2, there is the elite Mesmer spell Moa Morph, which turns the target enemy into a Chocobo-like Moa for ten seconds. While not entirely defenseless (the pecks and kicks deal moderate amounts of damage), it greatly reduces the threat the target presents.
• Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft continues this usage with the "Polymorph" and "Hex" cards. They instantly and permanently convert one of your enemy's minions into a 1/1 sheep or 0/1 frog with Taunt, respectively. In The Grand Tournament set, Mage also got Polymorph: Boar, which turns a minion into a 4/2 boar with Charge. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan gave them Potion of Polymorph, a Polymorph that triggers as a Secret. They also got an arena-exclusive Polymorph: ???, which turns the target into... something else.
• In Heartof Darkness the natural alien life appears to reproduce organically but the same cannot be said about the shadow-based "spectre" creatures. Early in the game both natural and spectral versions of several enemies such as carnivorous plants are shown and later into the game it's revealed the flying spectres are the forced shadow transformations of the alien friends that help Andy throughout the story, now devoid of free will.
• Each game in the Heretic / Hexen series has a polymorph item. In Heretic, using the 'morph ovum' (an egg) would temporarily turn an enemy into a chicken. The chicken would then attack you, ineffectively. In multiplayer, being hit with this item would reduce your health to 30 and render armor useless. Your only defense is to run; you are harder to hit due to your small size as a chicken, and the effect will wear off in 40 seconds.
  • Hexen had the Porkalator, turning enemies into pigs. Certain traps in the game also could turn you into a pig, or by having this item reflected back on you. In either case, the transformation had the same effects as in Heretic (30 health, no armor, weak melee attack). Some secret passages could only be navigated while in pig form, meaning that transformation is necessary to see all parts of some levels.
  • Hexen 2 had the Seal of the Ovinomancer, which turned most monsters into sheep (incredibly tough sheep). The final boss of the game could also rarely turn you into a sheep with 25 health. Unlike in the previous games, the effect lasts a much shorter time and there was no health cap when transformed, so health potions could be still used as a sheep to get your health back to 100 or more.
  • In Heretic 2 the morph ovum is back, turning victims into incredibly weak chickens with only 1 hit point but this time has a chance of turning an enemy (in PVP at least) into a giant chicken with 999 hit points and a deadly attack. This would be a deadly problem if it weren't for the fact that you can hit him with another blast to turn him back into the less dangerous human form.
• Heroes of the Storm
  • One of Brightwing's abilities allows her to turn an enemy into a harmless critter for a little less than a second. It really is a polymorph, considering it picks between a few possible (cosmetically different) animals at random.
  • Medivh has Poly-Bomb as one of his Heroic abilities. It's basically identical to Brightwing's Polymorph, but it spreads to other enemies after it expires. It also turns enemies into flying sheep.
• In Hogwarts Legacy the late-game Transformation spell lets you turn enemies into barrels for a time, which you can then hurl at other enemies for massive damage. Invest a talent point and the barrels get upgraded to Explosive Barrels for even more damage. Additionally, Ancient Magic finishers may occasionally and irreversibly turn the target into a chicken.
• Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: The tourists that are turned into horses amidst the chaos during the festival. It was an elaborate trick. There were hired people hiding horses wearing some clothes in the nearby alleys, pushing the horses out while everybody was distracted to make them think people turned into horses.
• Again I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (the game), failing to beat the malevolent AI with the last character alive results in your character turned into an armless, immobile blob...for all eternity. Which is exactly how the original story ended.
• In Immortal Love 6: Bitter Awakening Alison and Jacob are subject to a Ladyhawke-type curse where by day Alison is human and Jacob is a bear, while at night Jacob is human and Alison is an owl.
• In Inscryption, when the player loses a run against their mysterious captive, they are photographed and turned into a "Death Card" that can be pulled and played in a later run. There's also a trio of cards that can talk to the player, one of which claims they don't remember much before "the flash", indicating that they were similar victims that have been trapped so long that they've become animals like the rest of the regular deck. These three cards were Leshy's equals before he took pictures of them, and as you continue to play, they slowly begin to revert back into their old forms (though still remaining cards).
• Zig-zagged in Iter Vehemens Ad Necem: being polymorphed can turn you into any non-unique monster or NPC (unless you use the "polymorph" command in Wizardmode, in which case you can turn into them, too), which can range from a carnivorous mutant bunny, to a dark knight veteran, to a blue light crystal golem. Subverted with the "Polymorph Control" status, which allows you to choose what you transform into (from the creatures that you've seen), but with an Intelligence requirement that increases for the more powerful ones.
• In Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy Daxter is turned from human to ottsel when Jak accidentally knocks him into a vat of Dark Eco. Over time he grows to accept, and even like his new form, because it is the same form the Precursors take, meaning Daxter has become one himself. Not only that, when given the chance to return to normal, he settles for a pair of pants instead.
• In Justice League Heroes, one of Zatanna's spells turns enemies into rabbits. They retain their status as enemies, leading to such scenes as Superman frying said rabbits with heat-vision.
• Kid Icarus:
  • Kid Icarus (1986): The fortress levels have wizards that can turn Pit into a mobile eggplant. The curse can only be reversed by visiting a hospital room.
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising, introduces Tempura. In addition to making you unable to attack, it also tires you out more easily, and if a Tempura Wizard is present, it will try to eat you for a One-Hit Kill.
• Klonoa: Leorina's transformation into a giant robotic chicken-thing is imposed on her by the Greater-Scope Villain.
• In Konami Krazy Racers, there's a power-up that acts just like the lightning power-up from Mario Kart. But instead of shrinking, it turns all racers but the user into pigs, slowing them and prevents them from using items. However, you can still get morphed into a pig if you are in the way or too close to the lightning zap.
• Lands of Lore II: The Guardians of Destiny has Luther, protagonist and son of the original game's big bad. He's cursed to have uncontrollable transformations between his human form, a hulking beast, and a tiny swift creature. Over the course of the game, he finds a means to control these transformations. However, Luther's transformations are anything but baleful. His beast form, while large and slow, grants super-strength, allowing him to push otherwise immovable objects out of the way, while his lizard form grants awesome magical abilities.
• League of Legends
  • Lulu loves to leverage her powers of legerdemain against her litigants. Alliteration aside, she turns her opponents into small woodland creatures with her "Whimsy" power.
  • Annie's teddy bear Tibbers is actually a ferocious shadow bear that's been polymorphed into a harmless toy. It proves to be not-so-harmless when Annie unleashes her ultimate ability and brings Tibbers back to life to attack her enemies.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link:
    • Link obtains a magical spell called... Spell, that turns most enemies into the blob-like Bits from very early in the adventure. These enemies retain their health and attack strength though, so caution is still advised, as Bits move somewhat randomly and can leap toward Link without warning.
    • In some towns, the "Eyes of Ganon" are about. That means that, from time to time, if Link interacts with any of the townsfolk, there is a chance that they will transform into an Ache (a bat-like enemy) and attack him.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past:
    • Touching a certain dungeon enemy will turn Link into a giant pink bunny —still wearing Link's clothes, but unable to use any weapons or items. (Wears off after a minute, but all you can do is run, until then.) Link is turned into the same form when he goes into the Dark World without the Moon Pearl.
    • The missing Dwarven Swordsmith who works near Kakariko ended up in the Dark World trapped as a frog within a wall of heavy stones. Link can escort him back to his partner in the Light World to be rewarded with the Tempered Sword.
    • You can find a Cucco under a pot inside one of Kakariko's houses. Using Magic Powder on it will turn it into a human woman, who instantly regrets the change and longs to be a Cucco again.
    • The Magic Powder item can do this, depending on what enemy you use it on.
    • Use of the Quake Medallion will turn all enemies on screen into blobs.
    • The Triforce of Power transforms people into creatures reflecting what is in their hearts, for example, the evil and greedy Ganon(dorf) was turned into a anthropomorphic wild boar.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Tarin is turned into an anthropomorphic raccoon, though it seemed to have affected him mentally as well, since in that form he tricks Link (and gloats about it) while Link tries to enter the woods.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there is a family in Kakariko Village who got transformed into Skulltulas. There is a sidequest where you must collect tokens from defeated Gold Skulltulas in order to change the family back into Hylians.
  • Majora's Mask:
    • The game begins with Link transformed into a Deku Scrub (essentially a walking plant) by the Skull Kid. One of the first tasks you are given is to find some way to reverse this (and once you do, you can freely transform by donning a mask, though this causes Link to scream in apparent pain).
    • Kafei is transformed into a child.
  • Twilight Princess has several cases:
    • Link spends a large portion of the game trapped in the form of a wolf. In his wolf form, he has no access whatsoever to any of his rather sizable inventory, including health potions, however he gains several new abilities he can only use in wolf form, and eventually becomes able to switch forms at will.
    • Pretty much anything touched by the Twilight becomes polymorphed into a monstrous version of itself. Then there's the Shadow Beasts, which are actually the peaceful Twili people, changed by Zant, and of course Midna, the namesake princess, who was cursed with her implike form also by Zant.
    • Implied by one line in Kakariko: "Those two shadow beasts came and carried her off! And when we went to rescue her, there were three!!"
  • Oracle of Ages:
    • A mini-boss called the Blue Stalfos has the ability to temporarily turn Link into a baby, which greatly slows him down and leaves him unable to use weapons.
    • Also in the Oracle games, you can get rings that turn you into monsters, such as a Like-Like and an Octorok.
  • Phantom Hourglass has an inversion, as the Ocean King, normally a great whale, has his power sapped by Bellum and spends most of the game as old man Oshus.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap gives you a talking hat◊ as your Exposition Fairy. It turns out he's a Minish wizard and craftsman cursed by the Big Bad.
• Let It Die: The gambleshroom has a 50% chance of restoring your health and Limit Break meter, and a 50% chance of turning you into a frog for 30 seconds.^note This occasionally can be used to your benefit, since frogs are immune to fall damage.
• In Lords of Magic, the Chaos Mage had the spell Polymorph Self, which turned units (not necessarily the Mage herself) into an elephant or a lion. And then there was Polymorph Other, which would turn the target into a goat, chicken, or goose. Being Chaos magic, if luck is against you you might end up turning your own men into pigs and the enemy into a dragon.
• Lusternia's Wiccan class has Toadcurse, transforming players into an ineffectual (and easily stomped) toad for a period of time. Gods can also reduce players to maggots if sufficiently irked.
• In Mad Dash Racing, after beating the game, the villain Hex gets turned into a pig.
• In MapleStory, magicians get a skill called Doom, which temporarily turns monsters into snails. They retain the power level of normal snails, but in this game, small is deadly.
• Sonson in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 can turn her opponents into fruit, and then she eats them.
• The witch from Mendel Palace uses her powers of transformation to morph you into one of the dolls from her houses. This turns against her in the Sumo level, as any attempt to try and flip you over will lead your character to counterattack with a sumo stomp and send her flying into the wall.
• The Crow People of Monument Valley are this. Ida too, as a result of stealing the Sacred Geometry.
• Moria had a polymorph monster effect, which transforms a monster into another random type - either more powerful or weaker.
• In NetHack it is possible to transform into almost any monster in the game, usually unexpectedly due to walking into a trap, getting hit by a Wand of Polymorph, or obliviously drinking a Potion of Polymorph. Your armor/clothes may not fit on your new form; if you're too small or don't have the necessary limbs, they fall off, and if you're too big they're ripped to shreds. Generally, the monster you turn into is completely random—you could wind up a rat (with about five hit points), a dragon with high stats, flight, and Breath Weapons, or anything in between. The good news is that a Ring of Polymorph Control lets you choose your new form, and "magic resistance" blocks polymorph attacks entirely; if you do get morphed into something undesirable, it usually isn't permanent (you'll return to normal after a while, or if you run out of HP, though the latter can be dangerous if you're left standing naked next to whatever killed your newt body). Wearing dragon-scale armor will cause any attempted random-polymorph to make you a dragon, making it a good pseudo-protection from polymorphs.
• Neverwinter Nights doesn't have it in vanilla, but the PRC as well as some custom hacks in certain servers add this spell. It's called indeed Baleful Polymorph and transforms the caster into a chicken. It's one of the cases where the victim is heavily weakened, as he's reduced to a single hit point.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2 features a 'mass fowl' spell, which can lots of enemies into chickens permanently, the verbal component sounds like chicken noises and cruel laughter. A similar 'mass frog' spell can be found in other variants of the D&D system.
• In NieR it turns out that all the Grimoire were originally humans who learned magic, and were forced into those forms to serve Project Gestalt.
• In New Yankee 7: Deer Hunters succubi transformed Queen Guenivere into a white deer. She can take human form only in Avalon, and if she hasn't made a tapestry for them by Christmas she'll remain a deer forever.
• Nobody Saves the World: Nobody's Ability Mixing is unlocked by Marty Joe, a man that's been cursed into the Form of a giant hammer by a magician named Astrolabus. By the end of the game, Marty's embraced it, and would rather help repair the world than be uncursed.
• In Noita, Creatures who touched Polymorphine will be changed to a winged sheep for awhile. They become very weak and can't attack at all. Chaotic Polymorphine randomizes the transformation, which can result in an enemy being much more dangerous.
• Odin Sphere:
  • Cornelius is transformed into a rabbit-like "Pooka" even during his opening prologue, later learning that it's (more or less) irreversible, and that the entire Pooka race share the same curse. Velvet receives the same fate during the Good Ending, and both of them manage to reverse it for the living and the dead by collecting all of the Valentine coins.
  • Mercedes encounters a talking frog early in her story, who was also once human. It's Ingway, who ticked off the Wise Men and was subsequently cursed by Urzur.
  • And of course, the "Frog" status effect, which can be cured (or caused) by a "Metamorphosis" potion. Which, ironically, comes with Collision Damage jumping attacks and poisonous touch built right in.
• Paladins:
  • Pip's Ultimate has him shoot a potion that briefly turns opposing champions into weak, harmless chickens. Perfect for turning the tide of battle.
  • Moji's Ultimate casts a spell that transforms a single enemy into a doggie treat to feed to her steed, killing them instantly without activating any special abilities that might activate on death (such as Terminus's ultimate). Amusingly, players affected by this ability can still hop around slowly to try and escape being eaten.
• Pillars of Dust: The evil wizard Almorigga transformed the survivors of Ghyrr into dogs and transformed a scholar into a scorpion with a human head.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time:
  • The Wizard Zombie from the Dark Ages can turn your plants into sheep, making them unable to do anything. Thankfully, the spell is broken when the Wizard is killed.
  • The Witch Hazel turns zombies into Puff-Shrooms, instantly killing them. If fed Plant Food, it turns them into Toadstools. Amusingly enough, it prefers to target Wizard Zombies.
• Rose from Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 has an ability named "Goatify" that temporarily turns zombies into goats, depriving them of range and powerful abilities, and it doesn't work on Z-Mechs. The Royal Hypno-Flower has a much stronger one that turns all zombies into goats, persists until the goatified zombies eat enough Poly Leaves, and even works on Z-Mechs.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes:
  • Rose returns from Garden Warfare 2, and her Signature Superpower transforms the strongest zombie teammate into a nearly-useless Goat with 1 Strength, 1 HP, and no special abilities.
  • The Great Zucchini is a teammate that, when played, transforms all zombies in play into basic zombies with 1 Strength, 1 HP, and no special abilities.
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon:
  • In each game of the series, you play as a human who's been transformed into a Pokemon. It's subverted in that their new form is far more suited to saving the world than that of a human's, though. It's revealed to have been willful in Rescue Team, and unintentional in Explorers.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team, this was also the eventual punishment of the human now better known as Gengar, who abandoned a Pokemon companion for the sake of his own safety.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, it turns out that you're actually one of an unspecified number of humans who were similarly called into the world as Pokemon, but are now the only one who remains, the others having been banished back their world after being defeated (strongly implied to have been more or less killed) by the villains.
• In Portal 2, GLaDOS becomes a non-magical variant when Wheatley converts her main core into a potato battery.
• Vertigo in Primal Rage has a Finishing Move that turns the enemy into a cow.
• Erina, the protagonist of Rabi-Ribi was originally just an ordinary rabbit until she was taken through the Stone Stele, and awoke to find herself as a Playboy Bunny.
• A mainstay of the Ratchet & Clank series are guns that transform enemies into harmless animals if targeted long enough: chickens in the first game, sheep in Going Commando, ducks in Up Your Arsenal, and cows in Size Matters.
  • Deadlocked had a weapon mod that could be attached to any weapon you had. So you could use it on your bomb launcher, and turn an entire room-full of enemies into various livestock (which includes pigs, even flying ones) all at once.
  • Fully upgraded, many of these weapons turn the resulting animals into ''living bombs''.
• In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the witch Bégoniax can briefly transform the titular hero into a toad by splashing magic potion at him. Rayman can likewise do the same to her, which is the key to defeating her.
• Re:Kuroi: The Black Snow incident caused many people to be exposed to the Black Pearl's power. Many of them transformed into monsters while others gained magic while maintaining their human form. Since magic is based on memories and emotions, it's possible to revert transformations by removing memories from all parties involved in the transformation.
• In the Re:Zero crossover event featured in Last Cloudia, Subaru Natsuki finds himself turned into a leafy creature called a Pokkle.
• In Robopon, Princess Darcy is imprisoned in a mirror, and her sprite 'becomes' the mirror until she's rescued—though oddly, there are no mirror-based Robopon.
• In Rogue you can sometimes find a Wand of Polymorph, which turns any monster you zap into another monster of random type. Depending on the RNG, you could indeed get a baleful effect (Dragon into Bat, for instance) ... or you could be toast (Dragon into Jabberwock, which is nearly as bad and now the monster has a free chance to attack).
• Considering the subject matter, this is a staple in Sabrina the Teenage Witch games:
  • In Sabrina: Brat Attack, Sabrina herself has the ability to neutralize enemies by doing this with her magical spells by turning them into different objects. The enemies don't stay transformed for long, but the duration of their transformation depends on the spell.
  • This is the main story of Sabrina: Zapped!, Sabrina botches a magical spell at the school talent show that turned all of her audience members into wild animals, and the game is about searching out all the loose animals and turning them back to normal. Sabrina can do this by jumping on the animals and zapping them with her magic.
• Shin Megami Tensei series:
  • A boss in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has an attack called Bael's Bane, a Curse attack with 100% accuracy that turns the afflicted into a fly. All their stats are dramatically lowered, their magic spells are reduced to a quarter-strength and worst of all, they become weak to Expel attacks (which the boss uses with alarming regularity). There's no way of curing this until the battle is over. Well, outside of death which is not an option for the hero. Your only hope of survival is to field a team that is immune to Curse attacks.
  • Also in the Digital Devil Saga series there is a boss called Ba], whose Atma form is the Mayan bat god Camazotz, that from the second fight on would use a spell called Curse of Zotzilaha, which turns characters into bats. The only differences are that your characters become weak to Force, rather than Expel (and of course, Camazotz abuses Force attacks), and there's no way to avoid it (it does wear off after a few turns, though). Thankfully, in Digital Devil Saga you do NOT get an instant game over if the leader is killed...
  • In Persona 5:
    • The Mini-Boss Mot (AKA Coffin-Borne God) has the spell "Cornered Rat", which turns a character into a mouse. The effect simply acts as a stun that lasts three turns. The Degraded Boss version in the final dungeon lacks this spell.
    • Shido's Palace contains statues that also turn the Phantom Thieves into mice as long as they're in the same room, representing how the Palace's owner sees other people as nothing but vermin. This prevents them from opening doors, but lets them pass through small vents. There are also switches that toggle the statues on or off, making these areas into puzzles.
    • Morgana claims to be a human who was transformed into a cat, and wishes to become human again. Actually, he's a being created from humanity's hopes, and was never human to begin with.
• Shiren the Wanderer features this trope a few times—in that "You are what you eat" is taken quite literally. Eating enemy Meat will turn you into that particular enemy. Though your HP and strength remain the same, you will be limited to that particular enemy's attacks and will be unable to use items. You'll also take on said enemy's qualities—some good (able to fire unlimited arrows, will regenerate on death, move at double speed) and some bad (will take heavy damage if hit in the back or side, move at half speed) You can also become immune to every enemy in the game by eating meat that makes you invisible—since no enemy can detect invisible creatures, no one will hit you (though you still may die of hunger.) The enemies are the true victims of this trope, as throwing meat at them will cause them to turn into that particular enemy—without retaining any of their previous stats. Keeping Mamel Meat around to toss at a Death Angel may save your life!
• In Shounen Kininden Tsumuji has Tsumuji's younger brother Chijimi getting transformed into a bee.
• Sierra used this trope a lot in their adventure games, particularly the King's Quest and Quest for Glory series. In Quest for Glory I, for example, Baba Yaga turns the hero into a frog; in Quest for Glory IV, she turns him into a hedgehog. And the only way to get rid of the wizard Manannan in King's Quest III is by secretly putting a magic cookie in his porridge that permanently changes him into a cat.
• Gran "The Witch" in Soul At Stake has the power to temporarily turn gamblers into cats. When gamblers change back, they take damage unless they're turned back by another gambler.
• In SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, anyone who loses to Athena turns into an animal. What animal in particular depends on who she beats- Zero turns into a fox, for instance, while Earthquake turns into a pig. Similarly, anyone who loses to the Red Arremer gets turned into a Youkai, which also differs depending on who he beats.
• In Solatorobo, Nero and Blanck turn into Caninu when The Order is given. Considering they considered themselves so much better than everyone else, the transformation upsets them greatly. Red himself is also transformed into his human Trance body, but he's less upset about the transformation and more upset about the mind control that comes with it.
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has a number of mook-class enemies called "Masques" which possess the "Vegiform" and "Cutey Pie" special attacks. These attacks temporarily change the target into a vegetable or a pastry, respectively. The target of the attack is rendered immobile and helpless while in this form.
• In Super Mario Bros. 3, the Koopa Kids are running around robbing the king of each land of their magic scepters, transforming them into various creatures as a "parting gift".
  Toad: Oh, it's terrible! The king has been transformed! Please find the magic wand so we can change him back.
  • Super Mario RPG has two such effects: Characters can be turned into scarecrows that cannot attack or use items (but can still cast spells) or into mushrooms that can take no actions but slowly recover health (albeit generally not quickly enough to compensate for the damage you take in the meantime).
• The three first Uncle Albert games have a potion that turns any animal into another animal. The result may be a fictional animal. Re-using the potion on a transformed animal turns it back to its original form.
• In Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour, an item allows the user to turn all the other racers into frogs. Morphed racers can only hop at the speed of hopping frogs and unable to use items but in water-themed courses, they can still swim at reduced speed.
• This is a tradition of the Warcraft series, with the most popular animal being the sheep.
  • Warcraft II played this trope straight; the Polymorph spell permanently and irrevocably turns the target into a sheep or other creature (based on the map tileset—a seal on an icepack, for example). These creatures do not retain any of the hit points or abilities of the original unit, and can no longer be controlled by any of the players... virtually making it a One-Hit Kill.
  • Even included in the spin-off Game Mod sensation Defense of the Ancients with certain characters' Hex spell, which can be cast by anyone who buys the Scythe of Vyse.
  • In Warcraft III, using Polymorph on a flying creature (such as a dragon) would turn it into a flying sheep with little stubby bat wings.
  • The Shadow Hunter's "Hex" ability was a hero unit version that turned the target into a randomly selected critter (with different options available for ground, air, amphibious and waterbound foes). Both are temporary and can be dispelled. The lethal variety is relegated to the Goblin Alchemist hero, whose ultimate spell turns the target into gold, thus killing it and adding its value to the player's cashier.
• Done twice in the Wario Land series. In Wario Land 3, the entire population of the Music Box world was turned into the monsters Wario beats up throughout the game by Rudy the Clown. In Wario Land 4, Princess Shokora was transformed into the Black Cat by the Golden Diva after she lost in a magic duel. In both cases, the transformations happen before the events of the games, and are undone when Wario kicks the Big Bads' asses.
• We Happy Restaurant is a game about running a restaurant where the food mutates unknowing humans into terrible monsters.
• In Wild ARMs 5, the Misery status turns your character into an adorable cat-version of themselves. Oh, and it disables all actions but Move. But it is also adorable.
• In WitchSpring, Black Joe was once a Nuuk turned into the way he is thanks to a spell from the Temple Lord Elysion. During certain endings in the first game, Elysion reveals she can't turn him back because she forgot what he looked like beforehand. In the post-game WitchSpring3 he offhandedly mentions Elysion learned the "ugly bird magic" from a fellow deity in the continent in Ürphea. WitchSpring4'' reveals that deity to be Laura, who uses the same spell on Moccamori so that she can see things from a newer perspective. In Moccamori's case the "ugly bird magic" was only temporary, wearing off if the victim calmed down. In a conversation between Elysion and Laura in that game's ending they discuss the reason for Black Joe remaining that way either chalked up to him being excited all the time or if he doesn't mind his current form. It's implied that the latter is correct given that earlier in the game Black Joe turned back to help Justice get revenge on Moccamori for causing Pieberry to sacrifice her life to save Justice.
• Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey: Per the original myth, some of Wishbone's men get turned into pigs by Circe. Even if Wishbone chooses to go ahead on his own instead of sending his men out though, everyone still acts like Circe did this, including Circe herself.
• In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Birma Bran's attempts to assassinate the other competitors for the throne of Skellige so her son can take over by spiking the Berserkers mead with a mixture that will trigger their transformation involuntarily so they massacre everyone at the feast the other competitors are attending.
• Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (and its TurboGrafx-16 variant, Dragon's Curse) revolves around the human protagonist being cursed into various animal forms for defeating the prior game's Big Bad and trying to lift the curse. Each form has its own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, resulting in a Metroidvania-style progression.
• In World of Warcraft, a standard instance tactic is to have the mage (if present) turn one of the mobs into a sheep to keep them out of battle till struck. Plus, Elite Troll mobs of the magic-using type often turn high-threat player characters into frogs for a short period.
  • Mages can also turn mobs into Pigs and Turtles, and with the new expansion, Cats, Snakes, Penguins, and Polar Bear Cubs.
  • Shamans have the spell Hex which turns the target into a frog for a short time. Unlike mages, they don't have a variety of forms to choose from but the hexxed target can also take some damage without transforming.
  • It's worth noting that these effects are all quite pointless on druids, who can break the effects by willfully polymorphing themselves into something else.
  • Probably best showcased in the TV spot—in French only—which featured Jean-Claude Van Damme explaining what he liked best about playing World of Warcraft. The French word for sheep is "mouton", in case you were curious.
  • The Satyr Zenn Foulhoof gives you a quest to kill various animals for him, which pisses the Nightelves off to no end, who in turn want you to seek redemption by punishing him, by giving him a fruit that turns him into a frog.
• At one point in Ys II, Dalles transforms Adol into a goon (different from the kind achieved by the Transform magic), and he must find a cure.

---