Basic Trope: A Boss Battle in a video game where the player controls the boss, and not their usual player characters.
- Straight: At one point in Tales of Troperia DLC: The Legends, the player gets to control Emperor Evulz and fight the heroes they were controlling for most of the game.
- Exaggerated: The player gets to control every boss in the game at some point.
- Downplayed:
- The player gets to control a Mook and fight a Hopeless Boss Fight against the heroes.
- Play as a Boss: The player characters steal one of Evulz' "Great Skull" class battle tanks, previously fought as a boss fight, and get to wreak Mook Horror Show havoc with it.
- Justified:
- The heroes are normally given orders by mission control, as a Diegetic Interface. For this fight, Emperor Evulz tricks mission control into giving him the orders instead, leaving the heroes helpless.
- Emperor Dark is telling his side of the story.
- Inverted: In a game where the player normally controls giant bosses, they must play as a standard RPG party for one battle.
- Subverted: The player gets to "control" Emperor Evulz, but he only has one attack option available that ends the fight immediately, and control of the party resumes right after.
- Double Subverted: Later on, the player can control Emperor Evulz again, and he has a full roster of attacks available.
- Parodied: Emperor Evulz has Medium Awareness, and keeps asking the player how fun it is to control a big, strong boss character instead of the hero.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: The player remains in control of their party for the entire game.
- Enforced: The writers need Emperor Evulz to win the fight to advance the plot and don't want to take away player agency through Cutscene Incompetence, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, or a Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz exploits the added intelligence the player can give him and his army to defeat the heroes.
- Defied:
- The heroes tell the player not to abandon them, and control shifts back to them.
- After a few turns, Evulz turns to the player and says, "but enough of this. I am in control". Cue the player's control being wrenched away with a nasty Ominous Visual Glitch, and Evulz crushing the player characters in a cutscene until the player regains control.
- Discussed: "Admit it, you're enjoying this, aren't you? It must be really fun to control a big, strong Evil Overlord, instead of some wimpy wannabe hero!"
- Conversed: "Wait... are you controlling the big Evil Overlord guy, and not the hero guy? Man, that looks so cool!"
- Deconstructed: Since it's been made apparent that the player's control can shift between different people, everyone in the game is aware that the player exists. Some take to worshipping them, while others want to destroy them to return to their normal lives.
- Played for Drama: You have just as much moral control over Emperor Evulz as a PC during his segments and can significantly reinterpret his past actions down to killing himself in the boss battle to stop his body from being controlled by his cursed crown. It leads to the two story paths clearly being alternate universes.
- Played for Horror: The swap of control is used as a reveal that the player perspective was that of a malevolent demon using people as puppets all along.
This time, the link to Role-Reversal Boss is going to click on you!
