Transformation Sequence / Video Games

Transformation Sequence
Mediums: Anime & Manga - Live-Action TV - Video Games - Western Animation

• Altered Beast (1988) has a momentary pause before buffing up when one of the magical floating balls is collected, followed after a third time by a short animated cutscene of the transformation into a werewolf, dragon, or giant cuddly bear with halitosis. The werewolf one◊ is particularly detailed.
  • The Japan-, Europe- and Australia-only PS2 game Altered Beast (2005) has probably the least pleasant transformations of all of the examples on this page. The player takes the role of a "Genome Cyborg" named Luke Custer investigating a town that has been overrun with "Genome Mist" transforming all its inhabitants into horrifying monstrosities. The main character appears as a human being but has the ability to take various forms. No matter which form is chosen, it is always accompanied by a gruesome CGI close-up animation showing every aspect of Luke's transformation as body parts shed blood, blow up, fall off and regrow and various organs are mutilated and reshaped, with such excruciating and nauseating detail and intensity and limitless amounts of blood, violence and gore that makes The Fly look like a DreamWorks Animation movie.
• Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel did this in a reverse effect. Reyvateils remove their clothes during their zoom-in transformation sequences.
  • Played straight in Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia.
• Baldurs Gate 3: After releasing the Nightsong, she gets one as she breaks out of her prison. It plays like a Western fantasy version of a Magical Girl Transformation Sequence, with the Nightsong being lifted into the air as her armor, sword, and wings are summoned. Her chant during this scene also reveals her true nature: not simply an aasimar, but the daughter of the goddess Selûne.
• Bang-On Balls: Chronicles: After powering up the giant mecha suit in the Time Trouble on Kaiju Island level, you're treated to a sequence of Bob putting on the armor piece by piece with a flashy anime backdrop, which makes sense, given the level's nature as a parody of both anime and Japanese culture.
• The Breath of Fire series is the king of this trope for video games, since the main character of each game (all named Ryu) can transform into a dragon or (for the fourth and fifth games) dragon hybrid, with a more elaborate sequence in each game. Furthermore, in the first and third games, a second character has a transformation sequence (Karn in Breath of Fire I, and his Fusions; Rei in Breath of Fire III, and his Weretiger transformation), and the fourth game's antagonist, Fou-Lu, is playable and can also transform into a dragon hybrid in a sequence largely identical to Ryu's. The fourth game also featured transformations from the dragon hybrid form into a full dragon as part of Ryu and Fou-Lu's breath attacks. Finally, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter had several different variations of the transformation sequence, with the transformation seeming to become easier (but shorter and more urgent) as the D-Counter rose.
• Transformation sequences were an oft-requested feature in City of Heroes, and a small set of four costume-change emotes were finally released in 2009 with the Magic Booster Pack, as well as four generic transformation sequences. By the time the game closed, there were thirty-three in all. They ran the gamut from emulating Wonder Woman ("Spin") or Captain Marvel ("Lightning"), to being reminiscent of the arrival of time travelers in the various Terminator movies ("Energy Morph"), as well as less-flashy changes like jumping out of frame and landing in the new costume ("Ninja Leap") or simply saluting ("Salute") or backflipping ("Backflip").
  • Kheldians and Nictus, the game's resident body-stealing shape-shifting aliens, follow this trope to a T. Switching into their forms involves a moment of concentration and a big, screen-shaking flash of Kheldian/Nictus energy, whereas switching back just makes the human silently pop into existence where the alien used to be. (Kheldian characters could also use this sequence for a regular costume change).
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 has the Empire's Tengu launching into a backflip and transforming mid-air when switching between mecha and jet forms. In-game.
  • To a smaller extent, the Striker VX does it as well. The intro even shows it extending two spindly legs just prior to landing then folding back it's propeller before firing off-screen.
  • Or for that matter, every single amphibious unit in the game does a Transformation Sequence when going from land to water or the opposite; from Allied Prospectors expanding an air cushion to Soviet Stingrays extending six legs and climbing ashore, Spider Tank style.
• Every human party member in Conception 2: Children Of The Seven Stars has a Magical Girl-style transformation sequence — even Wake, though his emphasizes power instead of titillation. The length and flashiness of the transformations is given a Hand Wave two different ways: first, the impracticality of it is due to Minovsky Physics (Wake's transformation produces ether particles, the heroines' depend on them being present); second, they need to transform before they can fight at all, and thus do so long before exposing themselves to actual danger.
• Diablo 2: In the cutscene before Act IV narrated by Marius, he has the misfortune to witness The Wanderer's horrific transformation into Diablo. Spikes burst out from his back, his face distorts horribly, and it ends with Diablo casting aside what's left of his human shell like a dirty rag.
  Marius: What I saw next was not meant for mortal eyes!
• In the Digital Devil Saga games the characters all transform into demons to fight. The player characters and major NPCs emit glowing Tron Lines from the sigils tattooed on their bodies which extend across them before morphing into their monstrous forms, while minor enemies just summon a cylindrical energy field to surround them before being replaced by their monster shape. The sequence is not often seen though, as players almost always start battles already transformed and only start in human form when ambushed. Although they do have the option of switching back and forth between human and devil form in battle, this is rarely a good idea as human form is, unsurprisingly, much weaker. In the second game the player characters also gain access to a 'berserk form' which randomly happens when solar noise is at maximum, forcing them into a half-transformed state with massive attack power and critical chance, but low accuracy, all spells and skills apart from hunt skills sealed and 0 defence.
• Subverted in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, when Etna shoots two Sentai members during a transformation sequence because, hey, they were wide open during it. Turns out that was the dumbest thing she could have done...
  • Then again Disgaea 3 and the PSP remake of Disgaea 2 plays this straight with the "magichange" feature (which allows a monster type unit to "merge" with a humanoid unit by acting as a weapon for them), although only the monster unit transforms.
  • One of the combination attack animations in Disgaea 4 has the participants put on a simplistic, multi-person centipede costume, accompanied by dramatic visuals, sound effects, and camera angles.
    • Also features a brief one when monsters combine for the size increasing type of transformation.
  • In Disgaea Dimension 2, Flonne is given temporary Archangel powers, she chooses to manifest it by becoming Pure Flonne the Awakened Angel. With a costume and transformation sequence based on the magical girl anime she watches. However, Flonne avoids the risk of transforming in mid-battle because she wants to show it off to her friends right away and thus did in in the safety of Laharl's throne room, then stays transformed for the remainder of the game.
• More minor transformation sequences are used in Final Fantasy VII (Vincent's Limit Break) and Wild ARMs 2 (Ashley's transformation into Knight Blazer). These pretty much are of the "original character fades out, new form fades in" variety rather than the flashy sequences mentioned above, though. Ashley's transformation is accompanied by a dramatic Theme Music Power-Up, though.
• This trope is arguably the entire point of Final Fantasy X-2, as changing Dresspheres (Jobs) involves two transformation sequences (specifically, the first half depends on what job they're changing from, the second half on what job they're changing to). Luckily, there's an option to shorten or turn off the transformation sequences after the first time the girls have changed into their new Dresspheres.
• Gitaroo Man: The titular hero's can be seen here about a minute into the video. His transformation is sort of rushed in further levels, though.
• In Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock's Quest mode, every character gets one when you play their encore song for the first time and they transform into their warrior form.
• The Legend of Dragoon has individual anime-like transformations for every single playable character in the game, as they turn into their Dragoon forms. One villain also gets a mid-battle transformation into a Dragoon with his own sequence. Dart, the main character, gets a second Dragoon form late in the game with an even more over-the-top sequence.
  • Luckily there was a menu option to replace the sequence with a much shorter "Normal form Flash Dragoon form" sequence.
    • But you still got the full transformation sequence of the character who initiated the "transform all" Special command.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak, there are two notable instances. First is protagonist Van's first transformation into the Grendel, which is basically him armoring up into a monster-like form, and then there's Judith transforming into her Phantom Thief alter ego Grimcats, which is more reminiscent of Magical Girl-style transformations.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has earned its fame as the darkest of the Zelda titles partially due to the transformation scenes, which involve Link gasping and cringing to the background transformation sound effects, culminating in a scream as the sequence finishes. Skippable by pressing a button, but only after the first time. Transforming back triggers a short scene involving a halo effect around his head as he pulls the mask off, reappearing as human.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has a disturbing transformation towards the end of the game. After Link gets to the top of Gannon's Castle, Ganondorf has a disturbing cutscene when he monologues about Princess Zelda's Dream and the Gods of Hyrule. Then his bones snap as he moans and grows in size into a puppet Boar-Like monstrosity titled, "Puppet Ganon"
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Also has a Painful Transformation sequence when Link transforms into a wolf for the first time. After this all of links transformations into wolf link are much smoother. Midna gets one when using the fused shadows. A few of the bosses also have transformation scenes such as Ganondorf's transformations into a giant boar and then into a cloud of evil smoke with his face and also Yeta being transformed into Blizzeta.
• “Franchise/Lego”: The videogames, onward from “LEGO Marvel Super Heroes”, have characters that can transform as long as you hold down the character button.
  • “Lego Marvel Avengers” Has one during a cutscene where Bruce turns into the Hulk. Even better, It earned the name of the "Crazy Hulk transformation".
• Magia Record, a gacha game based on Puella Magi Madoka Magica features massive number of Original Generation Magical Girl in addition to the main cast of the original PMMM anime (and the four spin-off mangas to boot) and every one of them has a transformation sequence. Original generation characters usually get a simple and short transformation sequence, but the Holy Quintet tend to get transformation sequences that are considerably more complex and loaded with Mythology Gag.
• Angelic Buster has one in MapleStory in the beginning of her class showing her transformation from Tear to Angelic Buster. You can play it as many times as you want.
• In Mass Effect 2, when Harbinger engages his Villain Override and takes control of a Collector, the Collector's body goes through one of these. Note that he is not invulnerable during the transformation sequence, allowing a quick-witted player to whittle down his shields and armor before he starts attacking. The transformation sequence elevating him above most structures serving as cover certainly helps getting a few good shots in.
• Mega Man ZX "Model X! Model Z! Megamerge!"
  • Every single villain and hero also transform in the Star Force games, though admittedly usually everyone except for Geo gets theirs shortened to a quick fade to white and back.
• Samus, when activating her Power Suit in Metroid: Other M.
• When a CPU or CPU Candidate in Neptunia activates Hard Drive Divinity, the user switches into a Stripperific bodysuit, her hair changes color and grows (or changes to drill hair in Uni's case), her eyes change color, glow, and sport (white) power symbol shaped pupils, and her weapon will increase in size or at least change how it looks to fit the appearance of the user; in Neptune's case, her voice is also changed as she goes from looking like a preteen to an adult woman. The Transformation Sequence is very Sailor Moon-esque in the first game and rather lengthy at that, but can fortunately be skipped with the press of a button. Arfoire likewise gets a transformation in the first game as well; into a colossal and powerful dragon, that is.
  • These sequences are also clearly meant for the sake of fan service, as we frequently get to see what they look like from an outside perspective when the characters transform during the visual novel segments due to plot reasons: they get enveloped by a column of light for a few seconds which then dissipates, revealing their new form (similar to what happens in-game if you choose to deactivate a transformation during battle). This has also been lampshaded by more than one occasion where a villain is momentarily blinded by the light of a transforming CPU, leading up to a dramatic reveal, such as when Plutia transformed on-screen for the first time.
  • Every later game uses a much shorter sequence, although it's unskippable now (since it hides the new model's load time).
  • And then Megadimension Neptunia VII had the budget to reintroduce gorgeously-animated Magical Girl-esque transformations once again, although thankfully they can still be skipped.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokemon evolution features the creature fading into its outline, and then the outline shifting into the new evolution, before fading back in. You can glitch this process in the first game, resulting in a near-endless stream of (impossible) evolutions.
  • Pokémon X and Y introduces Mega Evolution, which occurs within battle, and its activation takes place before any other selected attack.
  • Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire further adds Primal Evolution forms for Groudon and Kyogre, which involves an automatic transformation sequence that takes place at the start of the battle, rather than on command.
• Princess Waltz has a transformation sequence Magical Girl style, but despite it being a hentai game, the fanservice level isn't worse than you average Sailor Moon episode (albeit minus the glowing Barbie Doll Anatomy effect.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?: Subverted and parodied by Asagi. In your final battle against her, Asagi will say the words Pretty Prinny Evolve and will appear to flash as her Theme Music Power-Up starts playing. However, once the flash is over, she runs off screen to put on her costume. And the kicker? It's just a Prinny costume.
  Asagi: Hey, no peeking, perv!
• [PROTOTYPE]: Alex Mercer goes through a lot of morphing, but acquiring a power during a cutscene, the camera zooms in for a sequence with writhing sinews of biomass in the full spectrum of color from black to grey consuming him before he emerges with his new Red Right Hand. You can also do the long version of the sequence at any time by holding the D-pad for the quick-change instead of just pressing it. This lets you see the sequence for powers you acquire as upgrades like Musclemass, Whipfist, and the vision powers.
• Carbuncle from Puyo Puyo, in this commercial, does the usual intro... right before Carbuncle transforms into a handheld with Carbuncle himself inside it.
• SaGa Frontier: Red had one but nobody could see it because he needed to maintain his Secret Identity. But a good Secret Identity Change Trick (Power Outage, Mecs only in party, Characters stunned/blinded) allows him to go Alkaiser no problem.
• Saiyuki: The Journey West features characters who can "WereChange" into monsters. Each one has an elaborate transformation sequence and an equally elaborate reversion sequence. Furthermore, there's two more sequences for transformation and reversion used in cutscenes (even though they otherwise use the same sprites!)
• Senran Kagura: The girls can initiate "Shinobi Transformation", where their civilian clothes disappear, leaving them naked for a few seconds, before ninja attire slowly forms over them. The transformation actually increases their strength and fully heals them.
• Parodied in Silent Hill 3 (Of all places...) when Heather equips her ridiculous Princess Heart outfit, triggering a lengthy transformation.
• Sonic the Hedgehog
  • The series regularly delve into this trope with the titular character's Eleventh Hour Superpowers. The most notable are Super Sonic and most related transformations, and Excalibur Sonic.
  • Similarly, in Sonic Heroes, Metal Sonic receives a very detailed nigh-minute long sequence depicting him transforming into his Metal Madness form.
• The Steven Universe games, like the cartoon they're based on, feature fusion as a gameplay element, with appropriate sequences:
  • Attack the Light features the Gems fusing into Alexandrite as an Awesome, but Impractical super attack, complete with a dramatic sequence.
  • Its sequel Save the Light makes combination attacks, including Fusions, into a central element of battles. There's five Fusions in all, each of which has their own sequence, though Alexandrite is not one of them this time.
  • The third game, Unleash the Light, scales it back to only three fusions (Steven + Pearl, Garnet, or Amethyst) and minimal animation for the fusion sequence.
• String Tyrant has a transformation sequence upon losing, Mary gets turned into one of denizens of the mansion and is made perfectly happy to be one. The same happens to her friends when Mary captures them.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The majority of 2D platform games actually pause the action around the player character while they're transforming, though the change in form is fairly instantaneous and without frills otherwise. The exceptions are Super Mario Land and its sequel Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, where Mario inherits the power-ups' respective traits in real time.
  • Princess Peach: Showtime!: Done through Platform-Activated Ability via Peach and Stella combining their Sparkle magic together through Peach's ribbon with her dress glowing bright blue before a flash of light occurs, revealing Peach in the costume related to the play she's currently performing in. The one time the sequence is shown in more detail is when the Sparklas grant their own magic to the main duo before the final battle to transform into Radiant Peach.
• The SRX from Super Robot Wars has an impressive combinations transformation which has its own theme called "Variable Formation".
• Super Smash Bros. Melee has a relatively quick transformation sequence between Zelda and Sheik. This is lengthened in Brawl because of loading, and Pokémon Trainer goes through a similar "transformation" when switching Pokémon, but the character transforming cannot be damaged or intercepted from the time the sequence starts to when it ends. There is still a lag period at the end, though.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduces the "Final Smash", which includes a couple of transformations. Wario transforms into "Wario Man" and Bowser transforms into "Giga Bowser".
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: For her debut trailer, Min Min undergoes a transformation to claim the Smash invitation from her rivals, swapping out her ramen chef uniform for her fighting gear.
• The Tekken series has quite a few. Including Devil Jin's ending from the fifth game and Ogre's transformation into True Ogre in Tekken 3.
• The opening cutscene in Werewolf: The Last Warrior depicts the protagonist's transformation into a wolf-man via closeups of his snarling face and a shot of him roaring triumphantly, accompanied by Dramatic Thunder.
• In World of Warcraft, the Worgen race can switch between a human form and a werewolf form. When becoming a werewolf out of combat they exhibit a rather elaborately animated transformation scene; but since they have to be in werewolf form to participate in combat, entering werewolf form in combat is basically instantaneous.
• The character of MOMO in Xenosaga gets power-ups that can be used once per fight that include transformation sequences.