"Nice to see you again, Gamer 2.0. Our last little round felt a little incomplete, so how about a rematch? I could give your game a whole new dimension!"
—Hawk Moth
Ladybug and Cat Noir once again face Max, now Gamer 2.0. Let the game begin!
Tropes:
- An Aesop: It's important to keep a balance between working and playing so you don't get over stressed. Cat Noir delivers the said aesop, since the situation Marinette experiences in the episode is basically Adrien's daily routine.
- All Your Powers Combined: By the final round, both Gamer and Ladybug can use the powers of the defeated opponents. While Gamer can become any of the akumas used in the previous rounds, Ladybug can use the items of her used akumas plus Cat Noir's cataclysm.
- Battle Discretion Shot: Ladybug and Cat Noir go through every single character in the roster, but Bakerix, Pharaoh and Bubbler don't show off their moves. And it's implied there is even more characters: Markov is seen among the kidnapped, Vanisher is used despite the fact that she wasn't on the character roster (uh, probably) and Gamer takes on the form of Reverser even though he also wasn't seen on the roster. Then again, what's a Fighting Game without plenty of hidden unlockable characters?
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Ladybug fights Gamer by creating a smokescreen with a bag of flour, similarly to how he first beat her with Dark Owl's smoke grenade.
- Call-Back: Some of the match-ups;
- Cat Noir uses Mr. Pigeon, one of the sillier villains, to defeat Dark Cupid, who made Cat Brainwashed and Crazy.
- Cat Noir uses Reflekta, who previously turned Cat into a copy of herself. And since he already has experience walking around in Reflekta's platform shoes, Cat easily gains the advantage when he turns Gamer-as-Rogercop into a Reflekta copy, who is left helpless as he can barely even stand up.
- Ladybug using Copycat against Puppeteer makes a blunder worthy of the real Cat, activating Cataclysm just to have Puppeteer using it against her.
- Cat uses Lady WiFi to defeat Timebreaker, who almost killed him; uses Weredad, who gave him a vicious beatdown, to defeat Frightningale; and uses Desperada, who he tried and failed to defeat over 25,000 times as Aspik, to defeat Pixelator, the first villain to incapacitate him as Adrien.
- Ladybug uses Evillustrator, who loves Marinette, to defeat Volpina, who hates Ladybug.
- Ladybug defeats Antibug, whose civilian self is Chloé, with Kung Food, who Chloé was responsible for getting akumatized (although that applies to about half the roster).
- Ladybug, using Princess Fragrance, defeats Prime Queen by using the same submission move she used the first time she faced her.
- Ladybug defeats Gamer 2.0 by using Volpina's power of illusions.
- Calling Your Attacks: Done a lot with characters like Stormy Weather, Mr. Pigeon, Dark Owl or Copycat.
- Continuity Nod: Marc and Nathaniel are shown working on their Ladybug comic. They must have gotten a publishing deal since "Reverser", as there's a finished comic in front of them and Marc mentions that they have a meeting with an editor.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: A lot of the battles are completely one-sides, often due to exploiting Logical Weaknesses. Some examples include:
- Puppeteer vs Copycat simply has Puppeteer force Copycat to Cataclysm himself.
- Glaciator, a snowlem made of ice cream Vs Sapotis, who multiplies through eating. Glaciator is promptly Devoured by the Horde in a matter of seconds.
- Zombizou, who wants to spread her twisted love, vs Horrificator, who feeds on fear and grows weak when loved. Zombizou dances with Horrificator, causing her to quickly disintegrate.
- Darkblade Vs Troublemaker has Darkblade charges at her… with her becoming intangible in response, causing Darkblade to fall to his doom.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Gamer abducts everyone who was previously akumatized and puts them into a giant game. He and the heroes face off using different villains, the winner getting the losing villain's powers to use for the final round. He didn't anticipate that Ladybug and Cat Noir, who previously beat all these villains, would have a significant advantage in knowing how to use and counter all their powers, so Gamer ends up with a comparatively less appropriate selection of mostly offense oriented powers, despite have access to all characters.
- Ladybug, due to her stress from civilian obligations, tries to rush through the matches and chooses the wrong characters for the match-ups. For example, she picks Gorizilla to fight Stoneheart. At first, it seems even, but Stoneheart can grow larger, and Gorizilla can't. Luckily, Cat Noir is able to calm her down and she fights more effectively.
- Discard and Draw: Gamer 2.0 is less of a new villain form and more original Gamer but with his own video game tournament instead of a giant robot.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Gamer broadcasts trough television, computers, jumbotrons and even advertising screens on bus stops.
- Epic Fail: Gamer plays as Volpina and creates numerous illusions of himself. Unfortunately he forgets to give those illusions flutes so that only the original has one and gives himself away instantly. Of course he is defeated immediately.
- Forgot About His Powers: Both Ladybug and Gamer 2.0 make this mistake several times and lose because of it. For example Gamer 2.0 never uses Riposte's Sword Beam while Ladybug (as Gorizilla) just punches Stoneheart which only makes him bigger and stronger.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Look closely when Manon is shown before being abducted by Gamer- she's playing with the same Ladybug and Cat Noir action figures Adrien had in "Syren".
- Graceful Loser: After Ladybug beats Gamer, he merely says "You got me. Good game." and surrenders his akuma voluntarily.
- The Ground Is Lava: Marinette and Cat Noir are challenged by the Gamer to play a game where they fight against him on a platform, but whoever falls off and touches the floor loses. Eventually, Marinette is forced to battle alone for the final level, but is allowed to use the powers of several villains. The platform gets destroyed and she appears to fall, but doesn't disappear upon touching the ground and says that the game is glitching. The Gamer then touches the ground only to immediately lose the game because Marinette actually used Volpina's powers to create an illusion of her touching the floor.
- Guile Hero: Ladybug wins by a trick: Gamer seemingly knocks her to the ground for a Ring Out, but nothing happens. Ladybug says it must be a bug in the game, and Gamer tests it by touching the ground himself, thereby ringing himself out. "Ladybug" turns out to be an illusory copy, and the real one then reveals herself.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When Gamer pits Ladybug and Cat Noir against each other, Cat Noir eliminates himself so Ladybug can save the day.
- I Need to Iron My Dog: Marinette accidentally invokes this trope by being so stressed that she mixes up her already compacted commitments, and tries to correct herself. Chloé claims that she's blatantly lying (she is not) and no one wants to help Max on his video game.
- Intangible Man: For the final round, Ladybug uses Troublemaker's pen to become intangible and avoid all of Gamer's attacks. It would've ended the game in a complete deadlock… if Ladybug didn't use her Lucky Charm earlier.
- In-Universe Catharsis: Cat Noir and Ladybug playing as akumas who gave them so much trouble in the past, to defeat other akumas who also gave them nasty times. The overworked and stressed Ladybug in particular really enjoys letting off steam, especially when she delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle against Antibug as Kung Food.Ladybug: No cockroaches in my kitchen!
- Irony:
- Ladybug yells at Cat Noir that he should select Copycat and end a battle quickly with a Cataclysm. When she uses Copycat herself against Puppeteer, he is taken over using one of her action figures and is instantly defeated.
- In the end Volpina's (aka Lila) superpower is the key to Ladybugs victory.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Ladybug is clearly overjoyed when Evillustrator knocks off Volpina, aka Lila, with a giant boxing glove.
- Just Eat Gilligan: Marinette actually suggests the obvious solution that would wrap things up quickly: Pick Copycat and use Cataclysm to destroy the entire game and go after Gamer directly right away. However, Gamer accounted for this by counterpicking Puppeteer when Marinette tries it, and having her Cataclysm herself for a very quick defeat.
- Kick the Dog: Unsurprisingly, Chloé twists the knife on Marinette trying to politely decline Max's request by stating how no one wants to be with Max.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Ladybug employs strategy and caution in her first fight, but after losing, she blindly picks Copycat and Gorizilla and suffers a humiliating defeat each time. Later, Gamer makes the same mistake when he charges at Troublemaker as Darkblade and ends up falling off the stage.
- Lethal Joke Character: Cat Noir's first chosen character is Mr. Pigeon, much to Ladybug's annoyance. He manages to obliterate his opponent, Dark Cupid, with just one pigeon.
- Logical Weakness: In most of the match-ups we see, characters are easily defeated because their opponent's powerset is a perfect counter for their own abilities.
- Gorizilla vs Stoneheart seems like a fair match-up at first glance, but only if you don't realize that Stoneheart gets bigger with every hit, and Gorizilla's main strength is hitting things hard.
- Horrificator feeds on fear, so a fight against Zombizou, who's only motivation was to spread love, leaves her less than powerless.
- Volpina's power is to create any illusion she desires. Not bad, but when pit against Evillustrator, who can do more or less the same, only his constructs being tangible, it's obvious who wins that fight.
- Sapotis multiply whenever they eat, so the literal ice cream man Glaciator is naturally no problem for them.
- Vanisher has the obvious weakness that her main advantage can easily be taken away simply by coating her in a layer of something not invisible, like say, glitter. So it's easy to see how she lost to the villain Style Queen, who's primary power is literally glitter.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: In exchange for his Humongous Mecha, Gamer kidnaps most of Hawk Moth's previous victims and turns them into playable characters in his pyramid.
- Showdown at High Noon: The fight between Reflekta and Rogercop is one (it even has appropriate western BGM). Reflekta wins the duel, allowing her to easily push the transformed Rodgercop off the edge of the platform.
- "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-Universe, Ladybug has this attitude through most of episode until she mellows down.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Manon ends up turned into Puppeteer while holding Ladybug and Cat Noir's dolls, meaning that Copycat is the only character she could reasonably take on.
- Voices Are Mental: All game characters are voiced by their players, leading to such oddities like Kung Food with the voice of Ladybug.
- Workaholic: Marinette being too stressed about her tasks and obligations is one of the factors that causes Max's second akumatization and disturbs her performance at the beginning of Gamer's trial.
