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Friendly Enemy / Video Games

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Friendly Enemies in video games.

  • Queen of Deltarune is an Affably Evil Psychopathic Womanchild, and is friendly to Noelle, and Kris during their truce. She expresses genuine concern for Noelle's welfare and has numerous Pet the Dog moments like making her a pie, and enjoys spending time with Kris and playing a video game with them. Justified, as she turns out to be an Anti-Villain who just wants to make everyone under her rule happy. She has no idea her actions are harmful, and immediately does a Heel–Face Turn when she finds out, ceasing to be an enemy and instead upgrading herself to "wacky roommate".
  • The level bosses of Diddy Kong Racing are some of the nicest bosses in any video game you'll encounter, they congratulate you when you win and happily give you a piece of the amulet, and if you lose they wish you good luck for the rematch in a genuine manner; the only unfriendly competitor is Wizpig, and even he sees you as a Worthy Opponent when you race him the second time.
  • Dragon Age:
    • Dragon Age II:
      • The Friendship/Rivalry system allows Hawke to either support his comrades in their endeavors or become their allies by necessity.
      • Then, of course, there is Fenris and Anders. The former is a mage-hating ex-slave whilst the latter is a pro-magic radical. Most of their side conversations revolve around spitting fire at each other, and gaining friendship with one tends to create rivalry with the other. Ironically, the prejudice of both sides originates from either character being severely oppressed. However, neither of them become friends. In fact, if you choose to hand Fenris over to his former master at the end of his personal quest, Anders is literally the only party member who approves.
    • Flemeth can be seen as this with each of the heroes throughout the series, being Affably Evil. She saves the Warden's life in Origins, though it's for her own ends, and when you confront her about her grimoire she'll leave without incident if you agree to lie about her death to Morrigan. If she does attack you it's without any apparent maliciousness. In Dragon Age II she saves the hero once again, still for her own reasons, and gives them advice, laughs with them and even tells one character not to bow to her. In Dragon Age: Inquisition she comes back, this time seemingly with a plan to steal a child's body. Still, the conversation she has with you is surprisingly friendly and helpful. It is mentioned that Flemeth/Mythal is not above acting friendly and helpful to you in one moment, only to be leading you to your doom herself in the next...mainly for her own amusement. Indeed, the only time she ever shows true anger is when talking to the Inquisitor and Morrigan about her past and relationship with Mythal and in that case the anger isn't even directed at them. Otherwise, she remains very affable and polite, and will even be pleased when the Inquisitor returns the favor, going so far as to tell an Elven Inquisitor they do the People proud. Indeed, she's so helpful and friendly with the heroes it can be rather surprising when she actually does evil things, such as dismembering a minor character and hanging him from trees for no reason in The Stolen Throne.
  • The Amarr and Minmatar roleplaying communities on EVE Online are like this. In character, they are bitter enemies, but they recognize that the other side tends to play by the rules (as opposed to genuine pirates). Out of character, they have the utmost respect for one another. If a roleplaying reason could be found for the two communities to work together, they would be a very effective alliance.
  • Gilgamesh is a reoccurring character in Final Fantasy and usually as this trope:
  • Final Fantasy IX: Zidane and Kuja have a moment of this after Kuja saves the team from the collapsing Memoria and Iifa Tree and Zidane decides to stay to save Kuja from the depths of the Iifa Tree. Then again, they are brothers, so their kinship has a good foundation.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy and its prequel Dissidia 012 explore this dynamic further. In the 12th cycle of the war, Kuja was prepared to go for a proper Heel–Face Turn and lead Zidane and his allies to Chaos so they could defeat him together. But then Kefka found out and sabotaged his plan, forcing Kuja to make like he was tricking Zidane to save face, and he turned on him and attacked him but let him survive. Kefka wasn't impressed and arranged for Kuja to die, then rewrote his memories before he awakened in the 13th cycle so he would consider Zidane an enemy again. The 2015 game once again gives them this dynamic. Kuja pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment to save Zidane from Sephiroth and the Emperor, and along with Terra the three travel together for a time. It's clear Zidane isn't very fond of Kuja, if only because of their conflicting personalities, but they aren't strictly enemies anymore.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch tries to cozy up to the Scions and, while not pretending to be an ally, acts friendly enough to give them important informations they wouldn't otherwise know; the Scions know better and refuse to reciprocate. Later story developments reveal that this is because, before the World Sundering, he was actually good friends with Azem — the Ancient whose sundered soul resides within the Warrior of Light. After his defeat, he graciously accepts defeat, comes to their aid against fellow Ascian Elidibus, and offered aid against the Endsinger one last time when the unique nature of her domain allowed him to come back to life briefly.
  • Almost all of the characters you get in the Fire Emblem games used to be enemies. In dialogues before entering battles, you'll usually see a single character with a face and a name, saying "I can't possibly fight against these people!", and you can recruit him or her by talking to them.
  • God Hand: Gene and Elvis, despite being enemies, have some friendly banter. After he kills Elvis, Gene goes into a bit of Antagonist in Mourning and is more than a little pissed off at Shannon for badmouthing him.
  • Halo 5: Guardians: Cortana, despite the Face–Heel Turn, still views John and Blue Team as their family. Unfortunately, she also thinks that means she should lock them up until she's completed her galactic takeover.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic IV: Emilia Nighthaven (the Academy campaign's main protagonist) and Solmyr ibn Wali Barad (a genie who is honor-bound to serve the campaign's Big Bad).
  • Played for Laughs, as these are Bizarrro's exact words to John Stewart in Injustice 2 when facing him.
    John Stewart: Enemy or friend?
    Bizarro: Me friendly enemy!
    John Stewart: I don't like the sound of that.
  • Harman Smith and Kun Lan are frequently seen playing chess in Killer7. Harman makes the nature of their relationship clear when he says to Kun, "You're a good friend, but unfortunately, our interest is not mutual." It kind of helps that both of them are impossible to kill. Maybe...
  • In the Kingdom Hearts games, there are several examples.
    • There is Axel towards Sora in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, but it's mostly to manipulate him. It's lessened somewhat in Kingdom Hearts II, mostly because Axel's been Demoted to Extra and is also slightly less evil because of his friendship with Roxas and Xion, but there are still shades of it in his interactions with Kairi and Sora, and once again, it's to manipulate them as he schemes to have Sora lose his heart to darkness again so that Roxas will be brought back. Ultimately Axel sacrifices himself in a desperate moment to save Sora and protect the complete being of his best friend. When he is restored as Lea in subsequent games and regains his heart, he ceases to be an enemy at all and joins the heroes outright as a true friend and ally now that they're working with him on restoring Roxas. Axel's original self Lea is shown in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep to be a friendly and personable kid who makes friends with Ven after lightly teasing and fighting him, and is Vitriolic Best Buds with Isa, so it seems that Axel has a basis in being this.
    • Half the Organization XIII members Sora meets in Kingdom Hearts II act like this, in part because Sora's Literal Split Personality Roxas was once their comrade and they'd been on good terms with him. Xigbar is doing it because he's a huge Troll and goes out of his way to mess with Sora, and Demyx is just too incompetent and lazy to be more aggressive until his second boss fight. Luxord is a standout example, professing his admiration for enemies of the Organization such as The Hero Sora and turncoat Axel who "play the game well", and his final words when Sora destroys him make it clear like Luxord feels betrayed by Roxas. He continues being this trope when he returns in Kingdom Hearts III, to the point that he ultimately parts ways with Sora as genuine friends and gives Sora a special card that may help him on his quest as he fades back into darkness.
    • Also from II, Sora seems to start viewing former Big Bad Maleficent this way because he is downright concerned for her when she twice intervenes to protect them from Nobodies and Heartless, even though she tells him the only reason she's doing it is so that they'll find a way to get rid of Organization XIII for her. Not a big surprise because it is Sora, after all, but then in Kingdom Hearts III she still isn't quite willing to go with Pete's suggestion of destroying Sora when they notice he's weakened. Could still be Pragmatic Villainy with the Keyblade War on the rise, but you never know.
    • Kingdom Hearts III introduces the Flantastic Seven, seven fruit-based Heartless in the form of Flan that are friendly towards Sora and play mini-games with him in return for rewards like their name-sake fruits and other cool things.
  • Kirby and the Affably Evil Anti-Villain, King Dedede. Outside of fighting each other over random stuff (most of which is either a misunderstanding, Dedede being possessed, or Dedede just being a greedy asshole in some of the older games), they enjoy racing and competing against each other in friendly competitions. He's outright playable in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and Kirby: Triple Deluxe, and in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, he picks up the Distress Ball and the game actually consists of rescuing him! Also, in the adventure mode of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, King Dedede glomps Kirby! After he (that is, Dedede) saves the day.
  • The Legend Of Tian Ding have the titular Just Like Robin Hood titular character and Colonel Matsumoto, the Inspector Javert tasked with catching Tian-ding's various thefts from the villains and failing at every point, but as the game goes on Matsumoto starts developing some Villain Respect for Tian-ding. Matsumoto eventually becomes one of Tian-ding's allies and an Assist Character to the man he's tasked to arrest, after Matsumoto's superior, General Shimada, orders him to massacre a village of unarmed civilians resulting in Matsumoto's Defector from Decadence.
  • This best sums up the Odd Friendship between Like a Dragon lead Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima; Majima will often needle and attack Kiryu when it strikes his fancy, but it's clear between the two of them that it's never personal and they will more often than not team up against any greater threats that arise.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny: Stern and Levi's first interaction with Nanoha and Fate immediately show that, while they're technically on opposing sides, they really like each other and treat one another like old friends. Levi even cheers Fate up after the latter had just gone through a traumatizing fight against a copy of her dead Evil Matriarch. Unsurprisingly, Stern and Levi were quick to suggest that they team up with the good guys once a bigger threat appeared, and were quicker to oppose the wishes of their leader, Lord Dearche, when she suggested that they should kill everyone in Nanoha's group.
  • In Mass Effect, Wrex mentions an old Asari commando friend of his named Aleena that he was contracted to kill. They agreed to fight it out in an abandoned space station filled with mercs and pirates. After days of hunting down one another and killing off all other mooks, Wrex managed to trap her while she's healing. However, the base was about to explode, forcing him to leave. He decided that No One Could Survive That! only to get a message from her. At that point, Wrex decided that anyone who survived all of that deserves to live a bit longer and let her go. Mass Effect 2 hints that Aleena is Aria T'Loak, ruler of Omega.
    • Aria T'Loak tends to have this with most people, but especially Shepard and her former lover, Nyreen.
    • The Illusive Man's interaction with Shepard. Even after their Faustian Rebellion at the end of the second game, he repeatedly tries to convince Shepard to join his side, which Shepard responds with by countering with the same offer.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Big Boss and Ocelot. Big Boss, at the beginning, decides not to kill Ocelot because of his youth, and slowly starts pseudo-mentoring him with each subsequent fight, while Ocelot comes to hero worship Big Boss by MGS3's conclusion. This culminates when Ocelot joins Big Boss as a member of Foxhound and having an invitation for Big Boss to join the Patriots be his condition for joining himself.
    • Gray Fox and Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid fit this, being that they're often adversaries for ideological reasons, but still regard each other as comrades. To quote Snake himself:
      Naomi: But— didn't you try to kill each other?
      Snake: That's true. We did. In Zanzibar. But it was nothing personal. We were just professionals on opposite sides, that's all.
      Naomi: And you still call yourselves friends?
      Snake: Hard to believe? War is no reason to end a friendship.
    • Senator Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It's a universal fact that the guy is bat-shit insane, but be damned if he doesn't play like the politician that he is. While he has no qualms about killing Raiden, he'd much rather have him on his side. When he thought that he finally got through to Raiden with his Breaking Speech, he helps him up, dusts him off and shakes his hand with a big smile. Raiden doesn't reciprocate. In the Jetstream DLC, he's just as sporting towards Sam, who actually ends up taking him up on his offer after being broken in body and spirit.
  • In a meta example, Minecraft and Terraria. Despite being direct competitors due to how similar people regard them, each has in-game text that encourages players to try out the other.
  • If you behave the right way in Mount & Blade, lords from rival nations will often come to regard you as a friend, greeting you respectfully but still being obliged to battle you if your nations have gone to war.
  • Subverted in Ninja Pizza Girl. When encountering her first enemy mook, Gemma seems to expect that they'll be this, treating each other with professional courtesy and respect despite working for competing pizza companies. Sadly, the enemy mooks are a bunch of Jerk Asses who go out of their way to be as awful to Gemma as possible.
  • In No More Heroes, Travis can be like this with some of the assassins he fights, sometimes one sided. Death Metal offers advice before Travis finishes him, he honestly respected Holly Summers a great deal and Speed Buster was impressed with him. He also spared Shinobu after realizing how she isn't like the other assassins and this comes back with Shinobu saving his life and eventually becoming a crazed fangirl. Henry becomes pretty friendly with Travis in the sequel (even if Travis doesn't care), while there are a few more he ends up liking. He tries letting Ryoji live for his warrior spirit, lets the broken Captain Vladimir enjoy a happy death and freaks out over Alice Moonlight, who he only killed because she wanted him to. There's also Kimmy Howell, although he's more freaked out by her since she's a stalker fangirl of terrifying levels.
  • Cate Archer and Magnus Armstrong in No One Lives Forever. Armstrong spares Archer's life several times despite his criminal peers' insistence that she be executed; partially out of camaraderie (they're both Scottish) and partially out of respect for her abilities.
    • In the sequel Magnus leaves H.A.R.M. and helps out Cate.
  • Operation Darkness: James Gallant and Michael Wittman have profound respect for each other. They decide not to fight after Gallant sees Wittman leaves the battlefield, deciding not to use zombies as a distraction to defeat the Wolf Pack.
  • With his eternally cheery, unflappable personality, Jorji Costava of Papers, Please easily makes friends with the player character and the fanbase, despite never having his papers in order and frequently dealing in contraband. It probably helps that he's also friends with all the guards and can bribe his way out of prison, so he never holds a grudge against you for detaining him. During your second to last encounter, the player character apologizes on first-name basis for doing so, which Jorji happily waves off.
    Player: *(when "Detain" is selected)* Sorry, Jorji.
    Jorji: Is okay! You have hard job! I rather sell drugs!
  • Pokémon:
  • Prayer of the Faithless: Emperor Daigo treats Aeyr like a human being despite how most people treat Aeyr like a monster for being a Revenant. He's also apologetic about scapegoating Serra for giving an ominous prophecy that she has no control over. Unfortunately, he believes he has to kill Aeyr's party in order to keep Vergio from falling into anarchy, since the population is filled with paranoia.
  • Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure has the relationship between the titular protagonist, known in-universe as Phantom R, and the police chief chasing him, Inspector Vergier, evolve into this. The same can be said about Vergier's daughter, Detective Charlie. While the latter two start out rather unfriendly, they soften up towards Phantom R as they join forces to foil the world domination plans of Napoleon and presumably learn his motives for stealing art and later returning it ( his father was an art faker and Phantom R steals the fakes to then return the originals, although the reason he chooses this method is that he has fun toying with the police).
  • The protagonist of Saints Row (2022) starts out like this to their roommates Neenah and Kevin — while they're all friendly with one another, the protagonist works for Marshall, Neenah runs with Los Panteros, and Kevin runs with The Idols, and the three groups are openly antagonistic to each other. note  Eventually, the three of them and Eli leave (or get fired from, in the protagonist's case) their respective factions and co-found the Saints, dropping the "Enemy" part of this trope.
  • The titular Shantae is on surprisingly friendly terms with her assorted Rogues Gallery. She'll gleefully thwart them when they start trouble, but when they're not up to no good she'll be amicable and will even help them out if they ask. Especially with Ammo Baron and his cronies who are Affably Evil and honestly not that bad at heart, and Squid Baron who's an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain at absolute worse. Unsurprisingly, she also gets taken advantage of for this sometimes.
  • Played for Drama in Skullgirls, as the reason why Anti-Skullgirl Weapon Peacock and Skullgirl Marie are so friendly with each other is because they were both war orphans and slaves of the Medici mafia when they were younger. The reason Marie even became the Skullgirl was because she wanted revenge on those slavers for mutilating Patricia (Peacock) and leaving her for dead. It's pretty clear from their dialogue that neither one wants to kill the other and they would much rather hang out like the old days, and Peacock upon winning decides to carry on annihilating the Medici mafia to fulfill her friend's last request.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic: In the "Shadow of Revan" expansion, Lana Beniko (a rational, honest Sith) can be this for Republic characters, as can Theron Shan (a pragmatic, somewhat ruthless Republic spy) for Imperials. It can also take on a Dating Catwoman scenario. Neither one is willing to turn away from their faction, which technically makes them an enemy, but it's very hard not to like them and you are working against someone who's even worse, so Enemy Mine is in play.
    • During said expansion, Darth Marr (the de-facto leader of the Empire at that point) and Satele Shan (the head of the Jedi Council) cooperate surprisingly well for the most part, to the point that in the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, Marr's force ghost accompanies Satele as she wanders the galaxy.
  • The Pirate-Poet in Sunless Sea. Sure, she'll try and sink you, but you can then hook up for drinks at Gaider's Mourn, and whenever you do sink her, she'll give you some stuff and bid you a cheerful goodbye.
  • In Super Mario Bros., Mario and Bowser became like this after the original games. They've reluctantly teamed up on a few occasions, Bowser regularly opens up his castle for Mario's go-kart races...
  • Viridi from Kid Icarus: Uprising more or less becomes this in the Super Smash Bros. series. Like in her game of origin, she's still hell-bent on destroying humanity for upsetting the natural order. This, of course, makes her an enemy of Pit and Palutena, whose jobs are to save humanity. Despite this, the Palutena's Guidance Easter Eggs in the Palutena's Temple stage show she has no issues casually speaking with her enemies or vice versa, and actually tends to give Pit advice for fighting his opponents. In fact, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate shows she's perfectly willing to let Pit use the Lightning Chariot in her possession as a Final Smash. Dark Pit also counts to some extent due to affiliating with Viridi, though he usually only does what serves his needs at any given moment.
  • Tales Series:
    • Tales of the Abyss has Van Grants, along with several of his Dragons. Most of them have a history with the protagonists, and both sides acknowledge that the other is trying to save the world in their own way. In fact, the Big Bad himself constantly states that he has no desire to kill the heroes and would happily let them join him. Before, during, and AFTER the final battle, both sides only express their respect for one another.
    • Tales of Phantasia has Dhaos, a being from another world who has been time-traveling, summoning demons, and making all kinds of trouble. Turns out he wanted to rescue mana, which they destroyed 100 years later by misusing magic. Once they defeat the terrible villain, they find out that most of his villainy was really just Poor Communication Kills.
    • Tales of Vesperia has Duke, who actually helps Yuri and the gang a few times in their quests. After the final battle, they persuade him that humanity can change, and he helps them destroy the Adephagos using Dein Nomos.
    • Tales of Xillia pulls this so frequently and to such an intense degree between Milla and Jude and Gaius as to practically qualify as Ship Tease. Scarcely an encounter between the three goes by without one or both sides praising the other's determination and purity of heart, especially when they find themselves in a temporary Enemy Mine against the forces of Elympios and Muzet.
    • Tales of Symphonia has Kratos and Yuan as enemies, but also old friends, over the course of the game. Sort of.
  • In the leadup to the "War!" update for Team Fortress 2, it was revealed that the RED Demoman and the BLU Soldier met at a gun convention and became friends. The person pulling the strings for both teams decided to sabotage this friendship by pitting the Soldier and Demoman against each other for new weapons. They are still secretly friends though, as evidenced in some of their domination lines.
    • Soldier and Merasmus alternate between this and Monster Roommate. They'll either declare each other the worst roommate and attempt to kill each other (without much success, as Merasmus is a ghost-wizard and Soldier took some of Merasmus' immortality pills thinking that he was stealing prescription heart medication) and sometimes they'll do things that suggest they do actually care for each other. In the comics, Soldier implies he's either fond of Merasmus or just fond of making Merasmus miserable. Or both.
  • In the Tekken series, King I and Armor King had a relationship like this, and so did King II and Craig Marduk.
  • Warframe features the Kuva Lich enemy, a personalized nemesis which you can create and combat. They have a small variety of personalities, and the "Jovial" one is genuinely rather entertaining and even gregarious, to the point of sarcastically calling the Tenno "Friend," and exudes a certain hilarious asshole energy in their communications with you. If you elect to convert the Lich to an ally by sparing their life, the Jovial Lich becomes your Token Evil Teammate and will continue to call you "Friend" with no change in tone.

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