I Know Youre In There / Video Games

"I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fights in video games.

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• In Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky, the final boss battle is essentially this. The party is sure that the real Flameu is in there somewhere and they're determined to save her. In the end, they do.
• Baten Kaitos has one of these for a Climax Boss fight. Notably, it's the main character they're trying to save. By beating the crap out of him.
• Batman: Arkham Knight does this with Azrael, whose masters, the Order of St. Dumas, have brainwashed him to kill Batman and take his place. Batman tries to talk him down by reminding him of his real identity and telling him that the Order has lied to him, but whether Azrael breaks free is up to the player.
  • The last fight with the Arkham Knight also becomes this after his identity is revealed as Jason Todd, whom Joker kept prisoner and tortured for a year, with Batman trying to get through to Jason and offer to help him.
• Batman: The Telltale Series Played straight with Bruce Wayne to Harvey Dent, who is taken over by his other Two-Face personality threatening to kill hostages, though he does kill one. Depending on your choices, Bruce can play this trope word for word in multiple dialogue options. Resulting in Harvey fighting the other half, letting the rest of the hostages go, and eventually trying to commit suicide so he can't hurt anyone else.
• Chapter 4 of Bendy and the Ink Machine has Henry fighting Brainwashed and Crazy Boris. In the room is a crafting machine that has an option to make a bone, which can make it seem like the fight will be this trope at first, but it's ultimately averted. Boris has no interest in the bone, and Henry is forced to kill him in self-defense. Players don't even have to attempt this trope.
• BlazBlue:
  • Any encounter between Litchi and Arakune. The fights themselves include heartbreaking pleas by Litchi for Arakune to "Wake up!"
  • Ragna's dialogue before fighting Mu-12 (a Brainwashed and Crazy Noel) seems to suggest the fight between the two at the end of Continuum Shift's story mode is this as well. The conversation between Ragna and Rachel in the previous scene regarding whether Noel's personality can be brought back reinforce the notion.
    • The anime adaption had Ragna screaming this at Noel: "I KNOW YOU'RE THERE! I'M NOT GIVING UP DAMMIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
  • A similar scenario happens in Chronophantasma. During the latter chapters of that game's story mode, Jin, Noel and Makoto devise a plan to lure and confront Tsubaki in order to break her free from the influences of Izayoi and the Imperator, Hades Izanami. Tsubaki, as the true incarnation of her weapon, confronts Jin for the last of the three-fight gauntlet, and the exchange between the two before their battle puts this whole ordeal into this territory.
• Played with in Breath of Fire IV, where, if you choose to get the Bad Ending, you join up with your Evil Half Fou-Lu to become the Infini Dragon, and must kill your former teammates in an unwinnable (for them) boss fight. If during the fight you heal them with an item, Nina will say "that was you Ryu, right?". In the end, though, it's a fake hope, there's nothing you can do, you have to end the battle sooner or latter.
• Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance features this, requiring you to find specific quest items, go for the optional harder boss, and having a specific pendant equipped before it happens though.
  • Castlevania: Circle of the Moon has a more straightforward version though, it combines it with Rival Turned Evil and Defeat Equals Friendship.
• Robo's fight with Atropos in Chrono Trigger, though she doesn't throw off the reprogramming until after she's already damaged beyond repair, and dying.
  • In the DS version, Magus's fight with the Dream Devourer. Schala only comes to her senses for a moment.
• Then, at the end of a Task Force in City of Heroes, the player characters fight The Honoree, who those familiar with the backstory will quickly recognize as Hero-1 ("The Honoree." Get it? Get it?), who is being turned into one of the Scary Dogmatic Aliens by a bizarre biochemical transformation . This being a memorpuger, of course Status Quo Is God, and the opponent winds up fleeing, still Not Himself.
• Also in City of Heroes, one of the Hero Tip missions has you trying to rescue three heroes captured by the Devouring Earth, but one of them has already been completely transformed and can do nothing but beg you to kill him as he fights you against his will.
• Depending on the ending you get, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories provides both a straight example and a subversion when Rozalin accidentally unlocks her Superpowered Evil Side in an effort to defeat the Big Bad of the game. Of course, being a Superpowered Evil Side bordering on the verge of a cosmic entity, its not going to let Adell and the rest of the group walk away from the fight alive either. Depending on the amount of felonies and ally kills you rack up, this can go two ways:
  • Good Ending: Rozalin declares Adell her enemy, Adell refuses to attack, and Rozalin hesitates in blasting him long enough for him to snap her back to reality with a kiss.
  • Bad Ending: Rozalin doesn't hesitate and zaps Adell into oblivion. And if you've got really many felonies and ally kills, this further devolves into the...
  • Worst Ending: Adell fails to hold back during the ensuing fight and accidentally kills Rozalin during the fight. It only gets worse when the thing takes ahold of his body in Rozalin's place while he's BSOD-ing...
• Divinity: Original Sin II: Gareth's Evil Former Friend Jonathan turned into a sadistic murderer who, in one story branch, kills Gareth's parents for sport and gets put down in turn. If the player character reminds Jonathan's spirit of his friendship with Gareth, he deflates, quietly apologizes, and leaves for the afterlife begging for Gareth's forgiveness.
• In Dragon Age II Anders is overtaken by Justice in a rage and threatens to kill Ella, believing her to be collaborating with the Templars. Hawke manages to talk him down successfully, allowing Anders control back.
  • Subverted when your party members fall to a demons temptation one by one while in the Fade, Hawke, being the only one who refused the demon, tries to talk their friends down but is unsuccessful and attacked.
• Near the end of the final route of Duel Savior Destiny Super Mia and Selbium attempt to get through to their brother/friend Taiga due to his mind being blanked out by the Messiah Armor while he rampages. After the fight, they're briefly interrupted when the Big Bad shows up, leading to a Duel Boss that results in a mutual KO and the former person is left to try to get through. Naturally, she manages to break through and with the help of his other love interests they manage to snap him out of it.
• Dust: An Elysian Tail plays this straight with the final battle. There is, however, a twist: It's the antagonist trying to draw his friend out of the main character, who is an amalgamation of two souls, one of which is said friend's.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Happens to two characters in Final Fantasy IV: Kain and Yang. Yang gets a good old beatdown, while Kain breaks the control, then loses himself again, then breaks the control a final time. Golbez is also Brainwashed and Crazy, but no one knows that except FuSoYa, so they never bother trying it.
  • The fight between Barret and Dyne in Final Fantasy VII isn't a typical example as both combatants are using full strength, but close enough to count. The real tragedy is that Dyne is so far gone that as soon as Barret non-fatally defeats him and tells him they can go back and see his daughter together, clearly assuming the trope worked, Dyne tells Barret he can't come back anymore and commits suicide.
  • In Final Fantasy X while fighting against Braska's Final Aeon, Tidus gains a "talk" command that attempts to reach Jecht, resetting the monster's Overdrive gauge. It stops working the third time...
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 uses this trope as well near the endgame. After ditching your clan, Adelle has a run-in with Illua. The mission you pick up at the bar is actually an encounter with a buttload of monsters and a controlled Adelle, who Luso has to talk back to her senses. Of course, to make things easier, feel free to kill the vanguard Illua entrusted to her.
• In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Nils the Bard does it on his sister Ninian the Dancer, who may not be attacking people but has been brainwashed into summoning a dragon through the Dragon's Gate. Nils, however, gets through her and Ninian stops the ritual in the nick of time.
  • The same also occurs for Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, but also tries to avert it at the same time. Lyon summons the big bad demon that promptly possesses him, slowly and surely trying to kill Lyon's own soul at the same time as making him (on the outside) even more sickly than he already was as the process goes on. Throughout the game, he is fighting between being Lyon and being the Demon King possessing him and shows that Lyon may still be him to Eirika, but a lost cause to Ephraim. Eventually Eirika has many moments of invoking this trope for him once the twins are reunited and she tries to get Lyon to fight the Demon King for his body back, which works... Until it doesn't. The Demon King averted it by screwing with Eirika and destroying one of the last two sacred stones left on earth when she fell for it. He also pretty much confirms Eirika's fears that this is a wasted trope... Until it isn't. Lyon is, in fact, still alive but barely so and certainly wasn't strong enough to take back his body. Until he does... Right after Eirika, Ephraim and the others kill him, which lets him pull a Dying as Yourself.
  • Another important example is found in Mystery of the Emblem, where you have to get Merric, Minerva, Julian and Camu... er, Sirius to talk to Elice, Maria, Lena and Nyna respectively, who have been brainwashed into becoming sacrificial maidens for Medeus's resurrection. If you don't do it fast, they will be eaten by Medeus so he'll recover strength.
  • And another prominent case is in Genealogy of the Holy War! Where upon hitting the final part of the final chapter, Manfroy sends a Brainwashed and Crazy Princess Julia at you. Seliph tries this on her.... it doesn't work outright- instead you have to kill Manfroy first. Easier said than done, due to how powerful Julia is (and you have to deal with her attacking you) and the fact that on top of being a semi-powerful boss, armed with Fenrir, Manfroy is surrounded by Dark Mages with Hel tomes. Upon completing this ordeal, and having Seliph then talk to Julia along with Narga, which pretty much is the means to the end.
  • Played with in Radiant Dawn where, in part 3 chapter 7, Haar can recruit Jill away from the Daein forces by appealing to the same sense of justice that got Jill to defect from Daein in the previous game. A little nonstandard in that Daein is *also* heroic, so it's halfway between this and a "They Still Belong to Us" Lecture.
  • This is done in an interesting way to the Avatar in Awakening. When the fell dragon absorbed the Avatar, everyone within your party calls you back, telling you to fight. And it actually works. What makes this situation different from others on this page is that the entire sequence is shown from the Avatar's point-of-view.
• In the intro of Jak II: Renegade, Jak shifts into Dark mode and starts advancing on Daxter. "Easy now. Easy, buddy. It's, it's your old pal Daxter remember?" The claws stop about an inch from his face.
• Kingdom Hearts has, well, several instances of the trope:
  • Sora at one point fighting Riku in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. The catch? It's not really Riku at all, but a clone created by Vexen, and the memories they're fighting over are fake too.
    Riku: I remembered it, Sora. I now know the one thing that is most important to me. Protecting Naminé. Nothing else matters — not a thing.
    Sora: Hey... Riku... I think I'll jog your memory.
  • It happens in Kingdom Hearts II, specifically in the fight against Beast, who goes stark raving mad out of paranoia and needs a lot of shouting from Cogsworth to calm back down.
  • A special version happens in 358/Days, where Riku taunts the bits of Sora inside Roxas, to make sure he's really in there before he gives himself up to the darkness.
  • Also happens a lot in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Every time a character is possessed by something/someone not quite well intentioned, the proper response is to fight them and "free their heart" or something like that. In the final chapter, this culminates in a fight between Aqua and a Xehanort-possessed Terra where the former actually says "I know you're in there".
    • Sadly, neither instances are truly successful. Aqua manages to hold off a possessed Ventus long enough for Ventus to free himself, but his heart is severely damaged in the process and he is left comatose. When confronting Terra, who is possessed by Xehanort, Aqua fails to free him. Terra/Xehanort lose all their memories, and are nearly lost to the Realm of Darkness.
  • On Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Sora attempts to reach out to a reprogrammed Tron, who was under the control of CLU.^note This wasn't technically the same Tron Sora encountered and befriended, but, it is implied that the two of them are connected Despite his success, Tron falls down into an abyss, and is seemingly derezzed (The "seemingly" part comes from CLU mentioning how he needs to "retrieve" Rinzler, which wouldn't be possible if he had been derezzed).
    • The Final Boss of 3D is Sora trapped inside of Ven's armor that has been overtaken by darkness. The player plays as Riku during it.
  • Kingdom Hearts III has the original Baymax that died in the climax of Big Hero 6 get possessed by the powers of darkness, so Sora and Baymax 2.0 have to beat it out of him. The end result is Hiro having two Baymaxes.
    • The climax of the game features Lea calling out to Saïx multiple times during their battle, trying to get what is left of his childhood friend Isa to come to his senses. This same fight also has Xion having Come Back Wrong as the surprise thirteenth Seeker of Darkness. Due to the Laser-Guided Amnesia caused by her death in 358/2 Days Lea doesn't remember her at first, but Roxas within Sora does recognize her and stops her from killing Lea by saying her name. It works, but given how she grabbed her head and screamed it clearly wasn't easy.
• In The King of Fighters 95, the mid-boss before Rugal is Kyo's father Saisyu Kusanagi, who was believed to be dead... but is actually Brainwashed and Crazy. If you fight as Team Japan (Kyo Kusanagi, Benimaru Nikaido and Goro Daimon), Kyo is shocked to see his father like this (and for worse Saisyu tries to pull a We Can Rule Together) but after a rather Narm-filled talk due to "Blind Idiot" Translation, he decides to set that aside since Saisyu simply won't listen. It works in the end: the defeated Saisyu apologizes to Kyo and asks him to keep fighting before passing out, and then the Team focuses on Rugal.
  • It's done differently in the KOF: KYO manga: the manga starts after Saisyu has aleady defeated Benimaru and Daimon off-screen so Kyo fights Saisyu on his own, first screaming at his dad to recognize him ("Father, wake up! Don't you remember your own son?!") and then curb-stomping him with a single Orochinagi, de-brainwashing and disabling Saisyu but not knocking him out so he can explain to Benimaru and Daimon the deal with Rugal and the Orochi power he absorbed, as Kyo fights Rugal alone.
  • And later in KOF::KYO Saisyu returns the favor when Kyo falls in a state similar to the Yagami's Riot of the Blood., reminding him that the Kyo doesn't fight purely for the thrill of the battle but also to protect others.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel ends with your party discovering that Crow Armbrust, a slacker classmate who joined your party is actually C, the leader of the terrorists who've been troubling your party and the nation throughout the game. As Rean takes control of the Divine Knight that he awakened with the party's help, including Crow's, Crow shows up in a divine knight of his own. They have all-out robot battle, Rean determined to bring back the Crow the party loves, only to find that Crow is way out of his league. Most of the second game is about Rean getting strong enough to actually beat Crow to try to bring him back, only for Crow to end up doing a Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Lufia series danced all around this trope before finally embracing it:
  • Lufia & The Fortress of Doom has the "I know you are in there" without the fight.
  • Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals does the opposite with the same character.
  • Lufia: The Legend Returns finally has both elements but without the refusal to fight back (same character again).
  • It isn't until Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals that we finally get a fight against Erim that consists of nothing but dodging attacks while the characters reach out to Iris. It happens again in the True Final Boss fight, but this time Maxim has no choice but to fight back and kill her - and it's then subverted when she reveals that she was in control the entire time, and was making a Heroic Sacrifice in his place. Amusingly, if you let them finish their dialogue without attacking, Maxim points out that he'll actually have to fight back this time.
• In Magical Cannon Wars this is the ending fight between Akira and Zero, trying to release the latter from the grip of "mechanical magic".
• The same goes for Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Alrevis, using the main character (just like above) as the Final Boss.
• Implied in the final level of Mark of the Ninja Master Azai does not fight the main character, but informs him to take the clan's ancestral sword and bring it to the garden. When you get there, you are given a choice to either kill Azai or Ora, the woman from whom you have been taking advice the entire game. Killing Azai implies that the ninja fails this fight, whereas killing Ora — who is revealed to be a hallucination — implies that the ninja wins out and does the right thing.
• Played straight twice in Mass Effect. Benezia breaks Saren's indoctrination briefly during the fight on Noveria at Shepard and Liara's urging, and if you have sufficient Charm or Intimidate points, you can make Saren break Sovereign's control in the final fight. It's not much of a breakage in either case, though, as both kill themselves — Benezia goes for suicide by Spectre, Saren shoots himself in the head — rather than continue as evil pawns. This is because Reaper indoctrination is permanent. Any break is only temporary.
  • Except for Shiala, who had to become controlled by the Thorian and become subsequently freed.
• Mega Man:
  • Done to death in Mega Man Battle Network. First in 4 Blue Moon with Proto Man, in 5 (both versions) with Mega Man and either Colonel or Proto Man again depending on your version, and Mega Man in both versions of 6.
  • Mega Man Star Force
    • Subverted. Fighting the first human-merged-with-alien, Mega Man is reluctant to attack because a human is in there and defeating the enemy would mean killing the human as well. Omega-Xis, the alien who gives Mega Man his powers, promptly corrects this misconception, assuring Mega Man that defeating the enemy is the only way to get rid of the alien and restore the human.
    • Played straight with Acid Ace, however. Joker, being Ace's "dark half", can corrupt Acid and drive Acid Ace into a berserk state, and he does near game's end. The first time around, you need to stall for time until Acid Ace's safety kicks in and forces him to revert; the second time you have to thoroughly beat the sense back into him, and just in time for a Heroic Sacrifice to boot.
  • The fight against Maverick Zero in Mega Man X5, except X decides the best course of action is beating the crap out of Zero to bring back his true self, and does so (the fight ends more or less in a tie). Also Zero vs Iris in X4. In both cases, unfortunately, they die after becoming normal again, but for different reasons.
  • In Mega Man ZX, Giro finds himself being controlled by the Big Bad and forced to fight Vent/Aile, who try to reach him even as they fight. He finally does throw it off once he takes enough damage...but then the Big Bad decides to be a dick and blasts him with a lightning bolt, and follows it up on Vent/Aile with a similar attack. Giro ends up fatally injured by the accumulated damage, and has to give up his Biometal (the only thing keeping him alive at this point) to make sure Vent/Aile don't join him.
• Subverted in Metal Gear Solid 4, where Solid Snake apparently beats Liquid Ocelot^note the reincarnation of his evil twin brother Liquid Snake in the body of Revolver Ocelot so hard that he knocks Liquid's "ghost" (Ocelot was actually under autohypnosis the entire time) right out of him, and Ocelot enjoys the last few moments of his life as himself.
• The final fight in Episode 7 of Minecraft: Story Mode is this played straight. Jesse fights either Petra or Lukas (determined by the player’s choice) as they try to defeat PAMA.
• The final boss of Mother 3 has Lucas fighting his brother Claus, who has been brainwashed by the Big Bad into being a slave who is being used to destory the world. Lucas can't bring himself to attack him, so he just defends and heals against his barrage of attacks, all while the Ghost of his Mother comes back to talk Claus into remembering who he really is. He eventually comes back to his senses, and then he kills himself with his own attack, and dies in his brother's arms as repentance for his actions and to be with the Mother he loves again.
  "I'm going to where Mom is now."
  • Another fight against the same guy happens a few minutes before, though you don't get to see it, as Flint tries to fight the "Porky" that's in Claus. That is, fight off Porky's influence.
• In Neverwinter Nights, a good-aligned character can pull this off with Aribeth, a supporting character from the first part of the game driven to madness by her lover's execution and turned Dragon to the Big Bad. Note that you can't do this unless you either did a sidequest earlier in the game and still have the reward from that quest, which has no other real value, or you have an insanely high Persuade check.
• Octopath Traveler: During Ophilia's chapter 4 climax, her sister Liana has been overtaken by the grief of losing her father and the false-hope of being able to bring him back by corrupting the Sacred Flame. Mattias tells Ophilia that the only ways to stop the dark ritual Lianna is performing, which is draining the life force of the cult members and opening a pathway to Galdera, is either killing Lianna or making her give up on her desire. Ophilia is able to break through to her sister by reminding her of a talk from years prior when their father discuss with them that death isn't an evil and not to grieve him when his death finally comes. This is enough to make Lianna give up on her desire and it changes the Flame back to its normal hue.
• The final boss battle of Ōkamiden when you battle Akuro in the form of Chibierasu with a possessed Kuni on his back. After the fight, Kuni becomes your partner again... too bad Kurow doesn't make it.
• At the end of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Peach is possessed by the Shadow Queen, but overcomes her to help Mario.
• Sadly subverted in Phantasmagoria. Adrienne, almost totally strapped into the Death Trap, briefly breaks through to her possessed husband Don with a little help from an old snowman ornament. Unfortunately, if you don't do anything, the demon takes over and kills her. The only way to escape is to activate the trap while Don's distracted, killing him instead of Adrienne.
• Given the nature of Psychonauts 2, the final boss ends up being a literal version of this. Maligula is an Allegorical Character representing the "fight" of Lucreica Mux's fight-or-flight response, grown out of control due to the trauma of accidentally drowning her sister and thousands of her countrymen 20 years ago. The kind and rational side of Lucrecia's mind is physically being held captive inside Maligula, and Raz has to fight her in order to free it.
• In Puyo Puyo 7, when Ringo and the gang confront Dark Arle in the depths of the forest, Satan was the very first one to notice that Arle was possessed. This might be because he knew something was off, since he had a series-long affection towards Arle.
• In Resident Evil 5, Chris ends up subduing Jill during the fight by talking to her, trotting out the most cliché lines he can manage. "Jill, what are you doing? It's me, Chris! Don't you recognize me? Snap out of it!" The whole thing is just to get her to stop leaping around so your partner can yank The Virus off of her chest. Alternatively, you can just shoot it off.
• In Rival Schools, if you choose to play with the teachers Hideo and Kyouko, at some point they're brainwashed. Later, one of them (the first one you picked) will snap out of it but not the other, so you'll have to team up with Batsu Ichimonji (whom you have just defeated beforehand) fight your companion.
  • Variation: In any other team up with charas of the same school, one of the characters will be kidnapped, get Brainwashed and Crazy and join The Dragon Raizo. Your characters will try to talk to him or her, but will have to defeat him and Raizo in battle to get their companion back. It turns out Raizo also was Brainwashed and Crazy... by the true Big Bad, his nephew Hyo. You have to defeat the old guy to de-brainwash him too.
    • Another variation happens in the second game, when Hyo himself is Brainwashed and Crazy... by the spirit of his evil Disappeared Dad, Mugen. We see the whole deal in the Taiyo team's route, when Batsu and Co. confront him right before the final battle: Hyo manages to push Mugen aside for a second and talk to his younger brother Kyousuke, explaining what happened and begging the group to Mercy Kill him so Mugen won't use him as a Soul Jar. And sadly, this is what happens: Hyo is dispossessed, but dies in Kyosuke's arms.
• In Romancing SaGa 3, the two destined children who actually have created the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere from their energies, are tried to be convinced to use the energies that they have manifested for the powers of creation instead of destruction.
• This has happened several times in RuneScape.
  • Zanik became possessed a fragment of Bandos. She manages to free herself when the Player Character asks her an Armor-Piercing Question.
  • Safalaan was turned into a super vampyre called a wyrd who acts as the final boss of the Myreque quest series. After a very long fight he regains control long enough to let the player take some of his blood so a cure for his hunger can be made.
  • When the player character confronts the High Priest of the genocidal Scabarites, they recognize that he is being manipulated by Amascut and help him to recognize this too by pointing out that his action are heresy against his god so he can free himself from her mind control.
• Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: When Uncle Mimic starts up the Dynamo, Shantae becomes corrupted by the energy given off by the machine, transforming her into Nega-Shantae. This forces Shantae's Friends: Bolo, Sky, and Rottytops to enter Shantae's mind and convince her that she can overpower Nega-Shantae, and beat Risky Boots.
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV, your friend Issachar starts the game as a perky teen whose greatest dream is to pass the Gauntlet Rite and become a Samurai. He fails and you, his best friend, pass. He becomes bitter and angry; soon after, he becomes a demon. You can invoke this, but Issachar's so furious and crazy it won't work at all. You can even try all speech commands with him. He'll respond to each with unique dialogue, still clearly fighting the demon from the inside. And losing.

• Every battle with Dita in Sol Cresta is this, once it's revealed he is Luna's long-lost brother, having been brainwashed by Mandler.
• Spider-Man (PS4): During the final boss fight with Otto, Peter is determined to save his idol and mentor from himself and repeatedly tries to appeal to the good man who just wanted to help people... Then Otto reveals that he's known Peter is Spider-Man all along, and it still didn't stop him from releasing two prisons' worth of criminals, forming the Sinister Six, causing the epidemic which is killing Aunt May and countless others, and trying his damnedest to kill Peter during the game's last act, exploiting their borderline father/son relationship in the process. Once Peter realizes all this, he descends into Tranquil Fury, quits pulling his punches, and puts Otto down for the count, sadly forced to admit that he's beyond saving and leaving him for the police.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2 appropriately hits us with two; midway through the game, Miles has no choice but to fight against Peter, in order to force the symbiote from his body before it could boost his aggression any further. The whole fight has Miles trying to appeal to the Venom-influenced Peter, who angrily rebuffs his attempts until he begins fighting the symbiote from the inside. Eventually, Peter is able to tear Venom from his body, giving the opportunity for Miles to contain it using Dr. Connors' tech. Later in the game, Peter has to face off against Mary Jane, after Harry and Venom infected her with the symbiote and turned her into Scream. Peter spends most of the battle appealing to Mary Jane within and apologizing for his previous actions, which ultimately proves successful as Scream is removed and eradicated.
• Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, which largely recycled the plot of NWN in this aspect. The same character you save this way will be completely disbelieving of your willingness to *try* when she finds out you tried it on the Big Bad as well, given everything he had done.
  • This is also invoked on your Player Character if you're playing female, have done the Carth romance, and chose a Dark Side ending. Carth comes up and offers a Last-Second Chance to reject the Dark Side. Rather too bad you have to mod the game to get the full effect, because Sbarge earns the paycheck.
  • The Brotherhood of Shadow Game Mod for KOTOR has an epic one. After Shadow/Channa Mae/Matilda/Sera Degana is put into an Angst Coma by her now-insane former Jedi master, smuggler Kobayasi plays this card by shouting that they're not so different — turns out he was a failed Padawan who had to give up his own identity after his master was killed, letting her know how hard the fight will be because he's done it himself and expressing faith that she can win like he did. He comes just short of admitting he is head over heels in love with her, too.
• Reversing what happened in the Street Fighter animated movie, in the Alpha games Ken is the one who pulls this on Ryu in Alpha 3, with the help of Sakura and even Sagat. More exactly, Ryu has been kidnapped and forcibly infused with Bison's power, which makes him go Brainwashed and Crazy. Sagat (who has just had his Heel Realization upon finding the brainwashed Ryu and being mocked by Bison himself) talks/fights to Ryu to make him return to his senses, while Ken and Sakura take on Bison. It only fully works when Sakura pulls a Go Through Me to protect a fallen Ryu and is hit point-blank by the fully Psycho Drive-empowered Bison, which triggers an Unstoppable Rage in Ryu that breaks through his brainwashing.
  • Played straighter in Ryu's path, where Ken is the one brainwashed and Ryu has to snap him out of it before taking on Bison himself. And then he gets infused with the Psycho Drive energy as it explodes, but manages to resist it this time.
  • If you play as Juli, the mid-boss fight with T. Hawk has him recognizing her as his childhood friend Julia and begging her to come back home with him. Since you are the one controlling Juli, it obviously fails. She does return to his side, but much later and in different circumstances. In IV, however, it's revealed that those circumstances are extremely tragic: Juli is freed from Bison's control, but her conditioning wiped out every trace of the girl she once was, so now she's a catatonic Empty Shell on life support.
  • Charlie Nash returns in Street Fighter V, but this time he's a Frankenstein's Monster who is hellbent on only one objective: Revenge. Against Bison. To make matters more tragic, Guile is in the game as well, but their reunion isn't a friendly one. Nash has fully committed himself to killing Bison, and he will do anything in order to achieve that goal, including killing his former friends.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2, Arado and Seolla, a set of partners from The School, are separated when Arado is shot down by the good guys. After he decides to join up with the team once he figures out that his old allies were merely brainwashing him, he gets into not one but three such fights with Seolla before finally breaking through her brainwashing.
    • Then in SRW OG Gaiden, this gets repeated when a Brainwashed and Crazy Lamia threatened to self destruct immediately to plunge the team into eternal despair for not being able to save her forever. Except she didn't do it immediately, which prompts Axel, who just performed a Heel–Face Turn, to scold and point out why she didn't do it immediately, which means he knows her real self has yet to be deleted by the brainwasher, which prompts Lamia to finally revert to her own self temporarily, but enough for Axel to reaffirm that the chance for her salvation is not lost and proceeds to activate Code DTD which reverses her brainwashing and plugs her out of her machine.
  • In Super Robot Wars V Kouji Kabuto loses control of Mazinger Z and it transforms into the massive Mazinger ZERO, taking control of Kouji as it does. Its initial rampage is stopped by Awakened EVA-01, but the others are forced to fight the beast. It takes the arrival of Mazin Emperor G and the power of Shin Getter Robo for Kouji to finally regain control
• In Tales of Vesperia, Yuri has to fight a Brainwashed and Crazy Estelle, the most innocent person in the game solo. You can go all out, even to the point of using your Limit Break on her, and even so, Yuri will be able to bring her back to her senses.
• Undertale.
  • On the Pacifist run, the boss has consumed the souls of everyone you'd met up to that point, and you're powerless to do anything until you realise that your friends can still be SAVED. Done by calling their names out of the boss's soul, the Lost Souls do not remember you and are hostile until you help them remember, wherein they say something encouraging and you move on to other friends. This works for depowering the boss, and then you call their name to try to convince them to stop fighting.
  • On the Genocide run, Sans tries to invoke this with the player. A player in this run is likely to have done the Pacifist run first and have already made friends with Sans at that point. He remarks that they are "someone who, perhaps in another time, might have even been... a friend?". Agreeing on his viewpoint gets you dunked on, with him killing the player before making them a simple request.
    "If we're really friends... you won't come back."
  • And not specifically a boss, but the Amalgamate enemies. They are fusions of other encountered enemies, are completely invulnerable, and are only pacified by interacting with them in the manner that their component monsters would have been satisfied with. Especially true for So Cold (Snowdrake's mother), who stops fighting immediately upon remembering that they're a fan of bad ice puns.
• Unleash the Light: After the Crystal Gems defeat Pyrope, she and Demantoid team up and force George to fuse with their Prisms to become the Prism Fusion and turn against the heroes. Hessonite joins the Crystal Gems at the last moment to help them fight the Prism Fusion, and after defeating it, Demantoid, and Pyrope, Hessonite and Steven reach out to George by reminding him that he doesn't have to be a weapon and he's become his own person like them. This snaps him out of his brainwashing and unfuses him from the other Prisms.
• World of Warcraft:
  • If you play a death knight, you are ultimately given a quest to execute a helpless NPC of your death knight's own race. This NPC — who, it can be inferred from the dialogue, knew you somehow before you became a death knight — pulls this on you. Seeing as this leads to your death knight's inevitable Heel–Face Turn, one can only conclude that it works, but there's a twist: Your superiors wonder why you're taking so long, which causes your old friend to tell you to kill them to keep up the Masquerade.
  • Both lampshaded and subverted in a memorable World of Warcraft quest in which Big Bad Arthas openly accuses Knight in Shining Armor Tirion Fordring of falling victim to this trope. Tirion, however, displays a notable lack of Genre Blindness when he tells Arthas that he just wanted to see for himself if he had lost his humanity completely and, now knowing the answer is yes, attempts to kill him. He unfortunately fails, but still considers the quest a success.
  Tirion: I do not view what we just went through as a failure, <name>... quite the opposite. By allowing me to peer into his heart, you allowed me to confirm what I needed to know. There is no Arthas Menethil anymore — there is only the Lich King.
  • In a quest given by Tirion in Eastern Plaguelands, your character delivers a bundle of childhood memories to his son Taelan, a member of the Scarlet Crusade. It causes Taelan to realize the corruption of the Scarlet Crusade and go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge through Hearthglen until he is killed by Grand Inquisitor Isilien on his path to reunite with his father.
• Xenogears
  • Fei attempted this on Elly. This is because the latter used the Psycho Serum known as the Drive to fight the former since she is too much of a coward to do it. He eventually snapped her out of this by using The Power of Love.
• X-Men Legends 2 has Sabretooth trying this to Beast after he is put under Apocalypse's control. Sadly, it fails when he arrives to stop it.
• Mentioned by the villain in Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising. If the traitor is Jonah Orion, he turns out possessed by a demon, who promptly tells the protagonists:
  Demon: Jonah is right here, infant. I can hear him screaming.
  • He still fights. While he can't stop the demon from attacking you or drive it out, he does prevent it from using it's powers to regenerate itself once its been mortally wounded.

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