Doppelgänger Attack

aka: Doppleganger Attack

"The Mirror Image Technique"
This allows you to split your body into two bodies. This can help you against many enemies. However, remember that your strength will be half of what it normally is, so use this technique with caution.

— Snippet from Shurikit's Scroll, The Legendary Starfy

Similar to Doppelgänger Spin, Doppelganger Attack involves making multiple copies of oneself, during combat. Unlike the former, however, the "copies" are actual physical copies, be they manifestations of energy, split off from the original, or copies made of stone, clay, or another material. As they are solid copies, there is no "which one is the real one" game to be played here: They're essentially all "real" and all dangerous. They can be used to attack, train, or defend the original. If the copies are unable to rejoin with the original after being created or summoned, they may suffer Clone Angst.

While they are all solid, often the summoned copies are much weaker than the original, and can be killed more quickly. The major difference between this and Doppelgänger Spin is that the doppelgangers are able to attack, even if they can be destroyed by being hit once or twice. Sometimes making more copies makes the original opponent weaker, due to the Conservation of Ninjutsu. In fact, Ninja-theme characters in Toku are frequently an example of both these tropes.

Compare Doppelgänger Spin, Disposable Decoy Doppelgänger, Me's a Crowd, and Weaponized Offspring. Expect lots of Power Perversion Potential. If the Doppelganger attacking is of the player, it's a Mirror Boss.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Buso Renkin: The ability of the Buso Renkin, Satellite 30, allows the humanoid homunculus Moonface to create 30 versions of himself, each one representing a phase of the moon with a head of the corresponding shape^note the new moon one is headless. Each version is also real and its own version of the Satellite 30 so, while only 30 copies can be produced at any one time, they all need to be destroyed to defeat him.
• In Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, both this and its sister trope, Doppelgänger Spin, appear occasionally;
  • Some characters, like Tenshinhan/Tien and Piccolo, can divide their bodies into weaker physical copies to employ special fighting strategies. Piccolo also uses it to spar with himself when there's no suitably strong partner available.
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai Cell Saga, episode 88 "Showdown! Cell vs. Goku". Cell uses Tien's "Multi-Form" technique to create multiple versions of himself. When they all attack Goku at the same time, they force him to flee. Goku tricks Cell into spreading out the copies and defeats each of them individually.
  • Sgt. Purple of the Red Ribbon Army subverts this; While he claims he can do this, he's actually part of a set of identical septuplets, who pretend to be this trope.
• This is the specialty of Land from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. This is shown with him creating an illusion of himself to fight against an enemy while he hides, letting him study and understand the enemy to properly take him out. However, he notes that the illusion is technically a clone, since it's a flawless copy of his actual body and possesses the same power. The fact that he goes through the entire First-Class Exam arc with his actual body being in the next town over impresses Serie enough that she lets him pass.
• In Gakuen Alice, Misaki Harada's doppleganger Alice allows her to create multiple versions of herself.
• One of the Zoalords from Guyver can hide himself in "imaginary space", where he cannot be harmed by anything in "real space". From there, he can project up to three "shadows" in "real space": the copies look identical to the original, but are intangible, invulnerable and capable of firing homing ball of plasma, which are tangible and more than capable of harm. The drawbacks of this technique is that he can safely use it only for ten minutes at a time, and that someone who possesses the same ability could also enter the same "imaginary space" and attack him directly.
• An early character in Hunter × Hunter, Kastro, fought Hisoka with a Nen ability he called "Double", allowing him to create a perfect copy of himself. It worked for a time but Hisoka worked out its flaws. The main flaw was that the double did not display battle damage or accumulate dirt making it easy to recognize over a prolonged battle. It was also a bad choice in technique for Kastro in particular, as his natural abilities in Nen were ill-suited to the conjuration and manipulation Double required.
• Funny Valentine of Jojos Bizarre Adventure has the ability to access alternate universes with his stand, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, and can drag people out of those universes into his "prime" universe. While other people will suffer Never the Selves Shall Meet if they make contact with their alternate-universe selves, like what happened to Wekapipo, Valentine is immune to that caveat, meaning he can bring multiple copies of himself from alternate universes and use them for team attacks.
• Kagurabachi, an unnamed sorcerer Bounty Hunter can create identical copies of himself out of the surroundings, which he uses to send an expendable swarm of henchmen after his target while he remains a safe distance from the carnage.
• Chantez Arpinion of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid reveals her ability to do this with her Ensemble spell during her match against Victoria, overwhelming her opponent with several tangible clones that are nigh-indistinguishable from the original and just as fast and skilled, though quite fragile. She was shown to be able to create up to eighteen clones at once. Unfortunately, her opponent is a One Woman Army who wipes them all out once she gets serious
• Naruto:
  • The earliest example is the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Unlike the normal Clone Jutsu that simply creates an illusionary copy meant to distract and confuse the enemy, Shadow Clones are much more tangible and independent they can hurt their targets if they land a hit, but they tend to be really fragile and die with one good hit. It's considered a Dangerous Forbidden Technique because each clone receives an equal fraction of the original's chakra in addition to however much is used to cast the jutsu, and it's possible to die of chakra exhaustion from making too many. If you've got nearly bottomless chakra reserves like Naruto, however, that risk is all but gone.
  • There are other solid clone jutsus too, mainly in the form of "X Clone Jutsu", where X is an element like water or sand, with varying levels of similarity to the original. The advantage is that they tend to be much harder to destroy than their shadow clone counterparts. Their disadvantage compared to the Shadow Clone Jutsu is that the user needs to have a supply of the element in question on hand (ie to make Water Clones you need to be near a river or lake and for Sand Clones you need to be near a beach or desert...or do like Gaara and carry a huge gourd full of sand wherever you go). For just a handful of clones, that's rarely a problem. Creating thousands of them like Naruto sometimes does with Shadow Clones, though, is implausible even if you've got a near-bottomless supply of chakra like Naruto.
  • Pain also has the ability to make copies of other Akatsuki members out of living people, which are essentially the same except with only the percentage of chakra put into it. Once again, the advantage is that they are much harder than normal clones and function in mind identical to the originals. The weakness is that they're limited in scope by the amount of chakra given to them (Itachi's clone outright states he can't use the Mangekyou Sharingan despite possessing 30% of the original's reserves).
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Kaede Nagase, in addition to the usual illusionary swarm, when she limits her duplicates to four or so all of them are fully tangible and devastatingly effective combatants. Her student and main lead's Rival Kotaro has also shown to be proficient at it, though not to the extent of her ability. Oddly, Nagi, the Disappeared Dad of series lead could do it, while not being eastern or showing any skill in ninjutsu. Rule of Cool indeed.
  • Negi can summon a bunch of doppelgangers when he fights Evangeline. Later on, he summons a thousand decoys. Made of lightning. Just because.
  • Negi's initial spell summons elemental spirits and "clothes" them in a copy of his body (presumably just because his incantation didn't specify otherwise). The divergence from this trope is that the copies are separate beings which only look like him and don't think, act, or fight anything like he does. Since they were pursuing Evangeline, none survived long enough to make this evident, though she selected her defense based on the distinction.
  • Haruna Saotome's can use her Art Imitates Life pactio to duplicate anything her incredible art skills can draw... including herself. Which can create even more copies...
• Nico Robin One Piece eventually works out how to use her Flower-Flower Fruit powers, which enable her to sprout any part of herself from any surface, to create a full body double.
• While she's generally more likely to use it for scams than for combat, Ryoko of Tenchi Muyo! is able to create solid "shadows" of herself.
• Suzaku, an early Big Bad from YuYu Hakusho, could create seven identical copies of himself, each with all of his strength. In stark violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy, he could then reabsorb those copies to completely replenish his strength, enabling him to fight forever, until Yusuke kills all the clones and damages the remaining clone's antenna, so he can no longer control his aura. As a result the one remaining clone is rendered powerless and possibly dies, though his fate is never actually addressed.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • The Outsiders: The standard tactic of Silent Majority, a member of the Force of July who fought the Outsiders and other heroes in the DCU.
  • Superman:
    • Superman can also do this in a weak form, once playing ping-pong against himself to entertain some kids.
    • Riot has the ability to clone himself at will or when attacked. One of Riot's most significant advantages in a fight is that the force of a blow delivered to one duplicate is dispersed across all of his currently-active duplicates; as a result, while Superman could theoretically knock Riot out if he hit a single Riot with a sufficiently powerful punch, with a dozen or more Riots active at once Superman's blows fail to cause sufficient damage to render any of the Riots unconscious.
    • Nightwing was once attacked by a Jokerized Riot but was able to spot the original and knock him out almost immediately causing the clones to disappear.

      "Only one of you had the riot gun, Riot. Moron."

  • Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Ever since her earliest appearances, Di has been able to move fast enough to seem to interact with at least two of herself, which she normally used to help maintain her secret identity.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Alpha Flight: The character Flashback can conjure up versions of himself from seconds away in time, allowing him to swarm an opponent all by himself. He's not so good at picking foes he can actually beat this way, though, and the downside is, if one of his phase-forms dies, he gets to worry if it's the one from his future.
  • The Avengers: Quantum, a foe of the Avengers, can teleport back and forth so fast that he's effectively two (or more) places at once, allowing him to hit heroes from several directions.
  • X-Factor: Multiple Man. Especially recently as his clones tend to reflect part of the typical human personality. His libido manifested with a clone and much sex (not with clones) ensued.
  • X-Men: The mercenary Timeshadow, a former pawn of Apocalypse, has a similar power.

Fan Works

• In the first story of the Facing the Future Series, while Danny and Sam are fighting Vlad, Vlad uses his go-to move of duplicating himself. Danny counters by using his own duplication powers to create four versions of himself who all then use his Ghostly Wail to create a wall of sound that traps Vlad. It works, but the maneuver wears Danny out a bit.

Films — Live-Action

• Doctor Strange pulls this◊ against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Black Adam (2022): Doctor Fate pulls this off twice, first when fighting to restrain the title character and second when facing off against Sabbac.
• In Sky High (2005), an African American cheerleader named Penny Lent has the ability to duplicate multiple copies of herself. In the final act of the movie, she and the other antagonists help Royal Pain (who is revealed to be Gwen) turns everyone at homecoming into babies and are only stopped when the sidekicks defeat them. Penny herself is defeated after her, since she is ignorant of Layla's power and becomes trapped in vines. She and the rest of the villains are placed into jail at the end of the movie.

Literature

• Post-Self: In the virtual reality of the System, uploaded individuals can copy themselves and merge their "forks" practically at will. When May fights an assassin in Mitzot, she forks into his space to knock him back and prevent him from injecting her root instance with his virus, which would kill her.

Live-Action TV

• Kamen Rider frequently features this trope.
  • The Zebra Undead (Nine of Diamonds) in Kamen Rider Blade has this ability; thanks to the Power Copying nature of this series's Applied Phlebotinum, Kamen Rider Garren gets a limited version after defeating it.
  • Kamen Rider Knight's Trick Vent card lets him create up to four copies of himself; Ryuki once uses his Copy Vent card to duplicate its effect.
  • Kamen Rider Decade's Attack Ride: Illusion card does much the same; he even uses it to counter Knight's Trick Vent in one episode. He also gets a Moment of Awesome thanks to this in The Movie. When faced with a three-on-one fight against Black, V3 and Super-1, Decade counters their Triple Kick by combining the Illusion card with his Final Attack Ride, performing a Triple Dimension Kick all by himself. Later in the series, Diend gets his own version of the Illusion card.
  • Kamen Rider OOO's GataKiriBa Combo gives him this ability. However, because the effects involved were quite expensive, it tends to pop up more in the movies than the series itself; in The Shogun and the 21 Core Medals in particular, OOO creates seven copies of himself then has each one change to a different forms, allowing all eight of his Full Combos to fight side-by-side.
  • Kamen Rider Wizard's Copy Ring is one of the first tricks he demonstrates; the White Wizard and movie villain Kamen Rider Sorcerer have Dupe Rings with similar effects. Wizard's Mid-Season Upgrade, the Drago Timer, puts a unique spin on this by letting him create three copies of himself, all using a different element, which can then merge together to let him access All Dragon form.
  • Kamen Rider Build's NinninComic Form gets the requisite Bunshin no Jutsu thanks to its Cool Sword, the Yonkoma Ninpoutou.
  • The Ninja Raise Buckle in Kamen Rider Geats has this as one of the many ninja tropes associated with the Ninja Raise Buckle. Geats uses it to great effect against the first Final Boss of the DGP.
• This normally happens in Super Sentai whenever there's something involving ninjas. It also happens in Power Rangers sometimes.
  • Yellow Mask in Hikari Sentai Maskman, who was raised as a ninja, had the Yellow Mask Kage Bunshin ("Shadow Clone")
  • Zyuranger's Boi (Tiger Ranger) does this when he trains to be a ninja.
  • Ninja Sentai Kakuranger. And in the third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which used footage from Kakuranger, this was one of the tricks the Rangers could pull in their Ninjetti forms. Aurico, the red Aquitian ranger, could also do it.
  • Kouta/Hurricane Yellow's Chō Ninpō: Mai Jishi ("Super Ninpou: Dancing Lion") Also used by Dustin in Power Rangers Ninja Storm. Kouta uses it again when he returns in Gokaiger.
  • Kamdor in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive did this once. Being a Ninja, it could be the use of a skill that gives the illusion of more opponents than there actually are, or the typical magical Flanderization of a real-life technique intended to do this.
  • Shuriken Sentai Ninninger had an episode where the team had to win the approval of Ninja Red and Hurricane Red, and after doing so gained access to their signature moves; naturally the Kakuranger Shuriken gives this power. When the show was adapted into Power Rangers Ninja Steel, however, the connection to previous teams was dropped.
• While the Baltans of Ultraman are more of an example of the Doppelgänger Spin, another alien race, the Guts from Ultraseven, possess the ability to split themselves into multiple clones that possess the same abilities and physical power of the original.

Tabletop Games

• Continuum does this in a way: since all characters are time travellers, they're within their rights to resolve that they'll come back to this moment later on, and watch as their temporal double pops in out of nowhere. The risk is that this means committing to a return into a dangerous situation, and if you see your older self get killed, then that's a pity, isn't it?
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • There's a huge number of abilities that allow the players to pull it off.
    • The Psionic Power Fission is this trope in a nutshell.
    • One of the Swordmage powers in the supplement book Arcane Power creates three copies of you that you can use as starting points for your other powers, though they all share your action pool.
    • The first edition supplement book Oriental Adventures also has the Conjuration spell "Body Outside Body", allowing a Wu Jen to create a few clones of himself. Those have less Hit Points than the caster and cannot use spells, but they have all of his martial prowess.
    • Trickery Devotion, a feat from 3.5, lets you clone yourself 1/day. It's a very frail clone, but still...
• Magic: The Gathering: The Myriad ability, designed for the four-player "Commander" format, causes creatures that have it to create token copies of themselves when they attack; these copies, and the original creature, each attack a different player. The tokens go away at the end of combat regardless, but the original creature will stick around, assuming it wasn't killed by combat or another effect.

  • Critical Role's Explorer's Guide to Wildemount introduces the Echo Knight subclass for the Fighter, which lets you create "echoes", gray-toned copies of the fighter that can move independently. They can't technically attack, but you can decide whether an attack comes from your character's position or the echo's (and Fighters naturally get multiple attacks as part of their class), attack fleeing enemies if they move past the echo, and instantly switch places with the echo. An echo only has 1 hit point, but they can be created at will.

  • White slaadi can summon up to six instances of themselves from their immediate past and future to attack a foe all at once.
• Gamma World: In the 7th Edition, one of the origins, Doppelganger, focuses on such powers. At 1st-level, you could briefly have three of yourself simultaneously. (It's an at-will power.)

Toys

• Makuta Bitil from BIONICLE wears a Mohtrek; or in layman's terms: A Mask of Time Duplication. When mentally triggered it summons different versions of the user from different points in time into the present. These duplicates are just as strong as the original was or will be at that point in time. When dismissed, the duplicates will return to the very same moment they left, meaning that no one will have seen them suddenly vanish and reappear. They also lose their memory of what happened while summoned to avoid any whacky time paradoxes. The downside? The summoned duplicates will return to their time with all the physical evidence of the summoning intact, meaning that if you get wounded, that wound will seem to have suddenly appeared on you somewhere in time. And if one gets killed... all versions past that one gets erased from time, as if they were never there. So if a past version of you gets killed, you cease to exist; even in the memories of those you were fighting, and all the people you have ever met. Whoops. That said, Bitil seems to instinctively desummon any duplicates if they take a nasty enough hit to avoid any fatalities and when he dies, it's due to his current present self getting fried out of existence by Karda Nui's energy storm.

Video Games

• In Abobo's Big Adventure, the Old Man splits into three versions of himself, all wielding swords.
• The time-travel RTS Achron can be made to do this. A technique allows the Delayed Ripple Effect to be Delayed permanently, so that your units can Help Themselves In The Future but never return to the past, without any nasty paradoxes. Unfortunately, this requires so much time and concentration that it's easier to just build new units if you need to.
• The main attack of Macho-Riki in The Adventures of Dino-Riki is firing clones of himself.
• One of Konoha's supers in Arcana Heart has her creating a bunch of doppelgangers to pummel her opponent with a 100-hit combo.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • The last battle in Assassin's Creed against Al Mu'alim, where he creates a dozen illusions of himself, each of which is perfectly capable of killing you, being the most dangerous fighters in the entire game. If you can figure out which one is the original, you can cause the others to disappear. That's pretty much the entire point of the battle, really.
  • Assassin's Creed II: Ezio uses the piece of Eden in his battle against the Pope. The copies are different in that they attack independently from you and they don't disappear when you or they are hit. It makes the battle rather easy as you can just wait until he is fighting one of the copies and then attack him from behind and the wait until another copy attacks and he's busy fighting him. Rinse and repeat, Pope defeated.
• Bad Dudes: The main attack of the stage 3 boss is creating a bunch of clones of himself.
• In Baldur's Gate, some of the more powerful arcane bosses utilize the simulacrum spell, creating a weaker copy of the caster that fights alongside them.
• In Baldur's Gate III, Auntie Ethel's main trick is to scatter herself into multiple illusory copies that share her spellcasting. She also teleports to hide among them, but locating the real Ethel is often a secondary priority to destroying the duplicates before they can start unleashing their spells.
• Banjo-Kazooie:
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge: Gruntilda employs this tactic, after her Mecha Grunty suit is destroyed.
  • Banjo-Tooie: Klungo employs duplicates of himself in one of his battles, namely the one where he drinks the blue potion beforehand.
• Ra's Al Ghul in Batman: Arkham City and Copperhead in Batman: Arkham Origins are both shrouded by copies in their boss fights, but they're not actually using this technique. Rather, in both cases, Batman is under the effects of hallucinatory drugs.
• ST Thanatos and ST Valius in Battle Clash do this. Valius is said to be so fast Eddie warps and fires from three different locations at once, but in truth the standing tank is really only in one place even if the shots are coming from seemingly impossible simultaneous angles. Find its shadow and shoot there.
• Taokaka from BlazBlue has a Distortion Drive called "Almost Becoming Two!", where a transparent doppelganger appears behind her for a short time. Whatever moves Taokaka uses, the doppelganger uses.
• Bloodborne, Dark Souls sister game, has a few of these as well
  • One of the Wet Nurse's attacks is a nightmare reality in which every three seconds, a clone of the Wet Nurse appears and instantly launches an attack, only to vanish and do it again.
  • Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen can create duplicates that can use a lot of her attacks and will be constantly firing blood bullets at you. They can be destroyed easily, but can really make dealing with Yharnam very hard. The only thing that differentiates it from the real one is that the duplicates aren't pregnant.
• The boss of Stage 4 in Blood Over does this.
• Hedrox, the bestial vampire in BloodRayne, does this during his battle.
• In Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack creates hologram copies of himself in his boss battle to distract and attack the player. His playable body double in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! has the exact same ability, though he can only have two out at a time.
• In Borderlands 3, Zane can also summon a hologram copy of himself to distract and attack enemies, with the added ability of being able to switch places at the press of a button.
• This is one of the abilities of Dark Lumina in Brave Fencer Musashi, in addition to all the others provided by the Five Scrolls.
• In Cannon Dancer, Kirin's signature technique creates these.
• The 8th boss of Captain Commando, Doppel, does this when he's injured enough in single player. In the multiplayer, he does this from the get-go.
• In Cave Story, one of Ma Pignon's attacks involves it jumping into the ceiling and summoning a number of clones. Those are weaker than the real one, and can be destroyed.
• Clonk's Fantasy Pack adds, the Magic Copy spell, which works like this.
• In Cosmic Break, this is the key move of the Palmier unit, called Palmier Frame Bombardment.
• Some bosses in Cube World have the ability to summon clones of themselves, which have a lot less health but still hit relatively hard. Others can summon clones of you.
• In Crawl, a monster called Slavering Maw has a special attack that creates a clone (after a short delay the clone is able to move and attack). You can use this unlimited times (provided you respect the ability cooldown), so the battle can get quite hectic. Killing the original will also kill all the clones.
• Dark Souls has Pinwheel, a necromancer who makes fake copies of himself.
  • In Dark Souls II, the Darklurker will create a copy of itself when its health reaches halfway; the copy acts independently and has all the same powers as the original. However, they share the same health bar, so when one dies, the other will die as well. The player can also invoke this by disguising yourself as Maldron The Assassin and invading in Eleum Loyce while wearing White Ring.
  • The Crystal Sage in Dark Souls III will begin creating decoy copies of himself at half health. They die in one hit, but they are also capable of using sorceries just as powerful as the original. Pontiff Sulyvhan can also create a phantom clone of himself in the second half of his boss fight. The clone has low health, but all the same attacks as the Pontiff himself, and he can create more if the one he's currently using is killed. However, the phantom mimics Sulyvhan's movements about a second behind, so its attacks are very predictable, and its presence really just means you have to dodge all of the Pontiff's attacks twice.
• Darkstalkers:
  • Morrigan does this with one of her ultimate moves in a few of her fighting game appearances. Darkness Illusion, specifically.
  • Lilith as well. But, while Morrigan's clone is mirrored behind the opponent, Lilith's copy follows her arround and does the same attacks with a delay.
• During the first battle with Soul of the Phoenix in Death's Gambit, she goes from orange-red to the much hotter blue flame. During the second battle, a blue version of her is created alongside the normal one.
• In Deeeep.io, Tier 9 Humboldt squid can create up to 2 clones of themselves once they eat enough.
• Defense of the Ancients:
  • This is pretty much the whole point of Phantom Lancer. Two of his skills create illusory copies of himself (that can still damage enemies) along with their other effects and his ultimate gives his basic attacks the ability to do the same - and this ability also applies to his copies. Sadly, the illusion-count tops out at 8 or so and they have a relatively short duration, meaning no army of angry Catfolk charging across the battlefield.
  • Meepo is a fairly unique case of this in the game, as his copies (passively granted by leveling up his ultimate) are full-fledged hero clones that have the original Meepo's abilities and items. The downside is that killing any one Meepo (that's not an illusion) kills all of them.
• The Clone power in defly.io does exactly that. Notably, the Clone has its separate health as it moves opposite the player, and if the player gets killed regardless, they'll not respawn while the clone is still around.
• Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Buru's "secret ability" is having two weaker copies of itself joining in during the second phase.
• Devil May Cry:
  • When Dante uses his Doppelganger Style in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, he can create a single duplicate of himself. The duplicate will mirror Dante's movements and attacks, but the player can choose to increase the lag between the command inputs and the duplicate's response — or a second player can take control instead.
  • The doppelgänger's rules from Devil May Cry 3 apply with Vergil's Devil Trigger in DmC: Devil May Cry, minus the second player controlling the doppelgänger. This is also the last phase as the Final Boss in Dante's story.
  • In Devil May Cry 5, Vergil gains the ability to summon a spectral copy of himself. He creates one when he Turns Red in the final battle, and his playable version from the Special Edition incorporates a Doppelganger as his regular Devil Trigger (just like his DmC counterpart). Nidhogg can also summon clones of himself instead of the usual serpents, but only on Dante Must Die mode, and once his health gets low enough.
• This is done by Loki in Devil Survivor. Though, the real one has a shadow and slightly more speed.
• Diablo II:
  • The Amazon and Assassin both have abilities like this. The Amazon can create an illusion of herself and summon a real spirit warrior to aid her; the Assassin can summon a shadow of herself with somewhat reduced skills, or a more powerful version at higher levels with greater skill levels.
  • Baal himself can do this in the expansion. Thankfully, he can only make one copy.
• Disgaea:
  • Mid-Boss' ultimate attack, Adonic Fury, utilizes this. He splits himself into four copies and surrounds the unfortunate target to beat the ever-loving crap out of him/her/it. There's also his Super Adonis, which has him rapidly magichange countless copies of himself into swords and rain them down upon his unfortunate targets.
  • Several other special moves, such as Doppelganger, use copies as well. The makers of the game have commented that the attack is "also useful if you want to vote for something".
  • Phantom Brave and Soul Nomad & the World Eaters show that this kind of attack isn't just for demons.
  • In those same games, the "Clone" Geo Panels recreate duplicate versions of whatever is standing on a matching color panel, be they allies or enemies. All of the generated clones are very real (and will invariably attack your party), and retain the stats and Hit Points of the original, but you can't steal any of their equipment.
  • Zeroken from Disgaea 5 can use his Overload skill, Superluminal Wolf, to summon four full controllable copies of himself with weaker stats for a few turns. He uses them in some of his special skills as part of his attacks.
• Both Branka and the Desire Demon possessing Connor from Dragon Age: Origins make copies of themselves after taking some damage. It's pretty easy to tell which one is the real one in both cases.
• The boss battle against Manah's personal demons in Drakengard II involves a lot of these. In fact, defeating the dopplegangers doesn't even earn you kills or experience points.
• In Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, the final battle in Domon Kasshu's "Original Mode" path pits him against Master Asia, who uses his powers to create several clones (of varying toughness) of his Master Gundam, and Domon has to fight them simultaneously to achieve victory. In the second game, activating God Gundam's enhanced super move will cause two clones to appear that will mirror your actions and attacks.
• Sigdis Gaulderson, a Flunky Boss in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, combines this with a teleport ability to create a Shell Game for the player. Unlike a Doppelgänger Spin, though, all three draugr are capable of attacking you with bows and Shouts. The spectral copies will go down in one hit, while hitting the true boss a few times will cause him to teleport again and summon new copies.
• Elemental Master have a magic mirror power-up that allows you to split into two copies and attack simultaneously, your copy being invincible the whole time.
• Evolve's Wraith can create a duplicate of itself using the Decoy ability, which is capable of attacking and teleporting just like the original. It will disappear after a few seconds, but during those few seconds it's extremely dangerous.
• E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy allows players (and some mooks) to summon up to 6 psychic clones, which can be ordered around independently. The clones typically die in one or two hits from any weapon, but the clones can use any weapon, such as handheld miniguns and anti-tank revolvers. An alternate psychic ability allows the player to summon a single clone, which is much more durable.
• In Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts, the Ghost of She splits into four when its HP gets low. Fortunately, you only need to destroy the main body and the doppelgangers will follow suit.
• Marquis does this in Final Fantasy Tactics A2. He splits himself into five, and strangely enough, all of them have differing abilities. His doppelgangers may know anything from a Flaming Sword all the way to illusion magic that hits the whole field. This happens in a cutscene, so you're effectively just fighting a group of ninja that all happen to share the same name.
• Gharnef uses this ability when you face him for the last time in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. The real one is invulnerable to all attacks save the Starlight spell (which you may or may not have), while the clones can be damaged as normal — but the pre-battle stat readout will still predict 0 damage being dealt. One way to tell which is the real one is to use the Earthsphere, which deals 13 damage to everything on the field... except for the real Gharnef.
• Ziguragi in Fixeight has this as his special weapon, which creates three ninja clones that follow him. They aim at enemies and fires rapid shuriken.
• Freeware Shoot 'Em Up Fraxy allows for player-made content, and so this trope shows up there a lot. Eboshidori's Phantom 30K is the best-known example.
• The Unholy Prophet boss in Gloom creates two doppelgangers, who attack just like how he does, but will fade away after a single attack, without reducing his own health bar. The best way to deal with them is often to fire a bullet as soon as he creates the doppelgangers - its Over Penetration will pass through all three of them, immediately destroying the phantom copies.
• Gotcha Force: The Double Ninja. Other than his "Kage Bunshin Ninpo", he's the same as a Normal Ninja stat-wise, while costing 40% more to include in the player's force for the level. However, while the shadow double is active, he effectively doubles the player's offense (it has the same power, but there's a slight offset to its attack, making it possible if unlikely to hit with only one of the doubled strikes), and the only way to get rid of the double is to knock down (or knock out) the Double Ninja. A player capable of keeping a Double Ninja on his feet more than makes up for the cost of including one by the sheer level of offense it can provide.
• In Grandia II, both Ryudo and Melfice have similar special attacks that invoke this (Purple Lightning and Wailing Sword Slash, respectively).
• In Grandia Xtreme, Lutina has Dragon Mirage move, where she create two more clones to trap the enemy inside a triangle, before attacking him from the three angles. Titto has something similar with his last move, where he runs around an enemy, creating four clones of him to attack the enemy simultaneously.
• In Guild Wars 2, this is the core of the Mesmer profession's fighting style. Mesmers make illusionary clones of themselves that are fragile and deal little damage, but can be "shattered" to cause a variety of effects. They can also make more powerful "phantasms," which are clones that are visibly different from the Mesmer but are a serious threat and able to deal significant damage before fading away and becoming regular clones.
• Halo 2: The Heretic Leader boss fights alongside holographic clones of himself, whose attacks are just as deadly as the real thing. They can actually take more damage than him.
• In Headhunter: Redemption, Psycho Star slides across the room, which creates copies of himself that home in on Leeza.
• If you did not hate him enough already at that point, Flying Fox from Heavenly Sword has a habit of doing this in his second boss fight. While it is frustrating in normal difficulty, as the clones do not go down in one hit and block most attacks very easily, it is far worse in Hell difficulty, where they have a habit of attacking at the same time with attacks whose blocks are mutually exclusive, and they do so while ganging up, making dodging the attacks a gamble as well. Defeating him for good is one of the more satisfying moments of the game.
• Heroes of Might and Magic:
  • The Clone spell from III creates a duplicate of a unit stack with the same attack power as the original. However the clone is much weaker and is dispelled if it takes any damage.
  • The fourth part features "Create Illusion" and "Phantom Image", both of which create a semi-opaque unit stack which is the same type as the targeted stack, but with numbers based on the spell's power. Repeated casts stack, you can keep casting Create Illusion on a stack of two Titans to get three or four with each cast... those don't have any spellcasting potential, but are as good at attacking and taking hits as the base monster they were made of. Meanwhile, the fifth part has a spell just like the third one has, creating a same-number copy of the target stack that disappears of one hit, but has a 50% chance to avoid a physical hit.
• Heroes of Newerth's Circe can create several illusions, be it hers or anyone else's. She can even turn into a copy of you, down to the last detail!
• In Heroes of the Storm, both Nova and Samuro can do this, though they function differently between them:
  • Nova's Holo-Decoy is a hologram that lasts 5 seconds and deals a tenth the damage of the real one, and other heroes can walk through it as if it wasn't there. The clone is subject to Artificial Stupidity that makes it pretty obvious that it isn't the real Nova, so it's more useful for blocking attacks or as a mobile vision ward.
  • Samuro's Mirror Image clones last 8 seconds normally, but have their duration extended if they or the real Samuro attack enemy heroes. But more importantly, Samuro has the ability to switch places with one of his clones, effectively letting him teleport across the map if used correctly. Samuro's clones have better AI than Nova's (a given since his entire kit is based around them, unlike Nova's sniper-style gameplay), but with his Illusion Master heroic ability the player is given direct control over the clones.
• Shadow Dash (or Mei) in Honkai Impact 3rd, can create shadow clones of herself.
• _iCEY._'s Shadow Strike is this, sending digital copies of herself to strike vulnerable enemies, regardless of where they are on screen, and independent of what she's doing.
• Inazuma Eleven has a variety of clone attack and defense skills which are often used by the ninja-themed players. Kazemaru learns some of them as well. There's even variations of certain 3-player Combination Attacks that substitute clones for the two teammates.
• Injustice 2: In his Limit Break, Doctor Fate takes his opponent into the Tower of Fate where three clones of him proceed to beat down the opponent with various spells.
• Nora, the protagonist of Islands of Wakfu, can use Quantum Storm; a skill that creates a clone of herself that will immediately go off to fight onscreen enemies.
• In Joe & Mac, your own reflection is one of the available weapons. This may be the only part of the game that justifies the "Caveman Ninja" subtitle.
• Jotun's Thora can receive a power from Loki that creates a shadowy copy of herself. Enemies will attack the copy exclusively, and it will explode after a set time. One of the titular Jotun, Hagalaz, creates a copy of herself that fights alongside her.
• Kero Blaster: The second form of the final boss of Zangyou Mode splits into four identical copies before continuing its assault. Each clone can give and take damage, and all of them need to be shot down before moving on to the boss' final phase.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Zexion from Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix can make clones of himself to attack the player.
  • Xemnas can briefly create clones of himself to attack the heroes during his final fight in II. This is particularly annoying when he traps Sora in an HP-draining beam and control briefly switches to a Guest-Star Party Member - you have to get to Sora and free him, but Xemnas keeps sending clones of himself to stop you.
  • Larxene's "Absent Silhouette" in II Final Mix can also do this - there's a reaction command where Sora grabs one Larxene, spins her around and throws her into another, fusing them together again.
  • The Crimson Prankster in 358/2 Days splits into two when confronted, for a Dual Boss battle. If both aren't killed within a short time of each other, the surviving half will merge back together with the fallen one then split apart again, effectively reviving it.
  • The Unknown from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep does this too, in case you thought his attacks weren't hard enough to dodge already.
  • Birth by Sleep Final Mix has the Dark Hide, which starts doing this when it loses about two thirds of its health. When it does, it starts being trailed by afterimages that are tinted in primary colors. These after images are just as solid as the boss itself and extend its physical attacks into multi-hit barrages with greater ranges. They can even spin around the edges of the battlefield before charging at you themselves.
  • Sora can get in on the fun himself in Kingdom Hearts III with the Mirage Staff formchange. Dodging while it's active creates glowing, translucent "avatars" where he was standing, which will join him in blasting enemies with magic the next time he attacks.
• This is Chizuru Kagura's primary schtick in The King of Fighters, where she can create a temporary duplicate of herself to attack. She even indulges in Confusion Fu, e.g., if Chizuru sends her duplicate dashing towards her opponent, her real self may be standing on the other side of the screen, or she may be the one closing the gap. The main drawback of this technique is that hitting either her true body or her replica is equally damaging to her. Her late sister, Maki, is a more accomplished practitioner, being able to send in multiple duplicates in a mere second unlike Chizuru who makes one at a time.
• The entire PREMISE of Kirby Mass Attack. Kirby is split into ten copies of himself by the Big Bad Necrodeus, and goes off to save Dreamland and become one whole Kirby once more. You initially start off with one Kirby, but gain more as you pick up fruit.
• An oblique version of this occurs in Knights of the Round, when Phantom's second group of escorts appears. Two of them are Sky Walkers, Mooks that look just like him—and these are a one-time case where even the colors are the same! However, they do not attack in the same fashion, their only special attack being to throw a dagger straight ahead.
• The Last Story features a monster named Berith, who can create two fake copies of itself, which have all the same attacks but explode after taking a certain amount of damage. There's also a boss called Doppelganger, but he transforms into copies of your party members.
• The Legend of Dragoon had the Sandora Elite miniboss, who will create two clones of himself when his HP falls below half; hitting the clones won't do anything, but hitting the real one will cause the clones to vanish. The trick to finding the real one is paying attention to the attacks; the two clones will attack after being created, but since the real one made the clones on his turn, he won't attack. Additionally, the Elite possesses an AOE fire attack that the clones are unable to use.
• In The Legend of Kage, you are capable of doing this, as is Yoshiro.
• Several bosses from The Legend of Zelda use a variation of this, most notably Agahnim from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (in their second fight, he summons two shadowy clones to attack Link) and Meg from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
• The Legend of Tian-ding has a Shadow Clone move the titular hero can unlock halfway through, which turns himself into two entities, both which are capable of attacking enemies. In one cutscene, Tian-ding even uses this move to save himself from being impaled In the Back by the Big Bad by allowing the villain to skewer his clone instead.
• In Lego Marvel Superheroes Loki makes copies of himself, both in the main storyline when you fight him and as one of his attack animations in free play mode.
• Clarino, the protagonist of Lethal Crisis can do this. The downside is that it'll steadily drain her own Life Energy over time.
• The "Walker Of Illusions" miniboss in Lies of P can create a clone of himself when damaged enough. The clone has a fraction of the original's hitpoints, but can hit just as hard.
• In Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, two of the bosses can summon copies of themselves. In both cases, the original AND the copies (which tend to be weaker) need to be killed in close succession, as the original can summon more copies to replace those the player has already killed, or one of the copies can become the original if the original dies.
• Luminous Plume: The Final Boss can summon clones to help with covering the screen with projectile attacks. However, the clones drop HP orbs, which can help Raven win the battle of attrition.
• Mysterio does this during his boss fight in Marvel Ultimate Alliance.
• Mega Man:
  • Gemini Man and the Mega Clones from Mega Man 3, Mega Man, Bass, and Astro Man in Mega Man & Bass (using Copy Vision), Split Mushroom in Mega Man X4, Axle the Red in Mega Man X5 and Geminineedle Man in Rockman 4 Minus ∞.
  • Infinity Mijinion from X6 clones himself every time he takes a strong attack or loses 1/4 of this health. He can very well fill the screen with himself if the player isn't careful.
  • Flame Hyenard from X7 uses a technique he calls "Tri-Formation" to split himself into three Hyenards, all of whom attack and scream with equal ferocity.
  • Dr. Wily in Mega Man 10. Not only does the color of his doppelganger hint which one is real, but the real Wily occasionally sneezes during the battle.
  • X and Zero can do this via the Soul Body special weapon in X4 and X5, using holograms that can attack.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network games, ShadowMan makes clones of himself that each shoot a blast of fire down the row they are on whenever the original does. He can also create a more ghostly clone to appear on your side of the field which attacks you with a sword. Zero channels this via his Sougenmu hyper in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
• Hong Meiling, a particularly tanky minor enemy in several of Mega Mari's stages, returns in Patchouli Castle alongside a clone of herself that's equal in strength.
• This trope is mostly used in the fight against Dark Samus in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. She divides into 2 or 3 identical looking copies that are all capable of attacking. However, you can tell which is real in a few ways. You can scan them; the copies register as "Dark Echo" while the real is "Dark Samus". They move pretty fast, so you have to keep your eye on the right one when you stop scanning and go back to the combat visor. Also, there are certain attacks that only the real Dark Samus will use. Unfortunately, they render her invincible for the duration of the attack, and she tends to recall her duplicates immediately after doing them. Also, only one glows under the X-Ray visor.
• Captains in Middle-earth: Shadow of War gained many more abilities when compared to the original. One of these is creating clones of themselves.
• Mike Shadow: I Paid for It!: Combo Lvl.2 has Mike briefly conjure a copy of himself which joins in on the machine beatdown.
• This applies to Kisuke's Haze and Phantom Secret Arts and Momohime's Flash Secret Art inMuramasa: The Demon Blade.
• Mortal Kombat has Noob Saibot who can create an ink-like shadow clone of himself to attack enemies.
• As expected, this is done by Naruto himself in Naruto: Clash of Ninja. Itachi can do this too.
• NetHack: the Wizard of Yendor's Double Trouble spell does the same thing, and if you're not carrying the Amulet of Yendor, the copy may have a fake Amulet.
• In the Hordes of the Underdark module to Neverwinter Nights, there is a hall of mirrors where most either give items of various kinds or gold, but one creates a mirror version of yourself that attacks you. This is rarely a difficult fight, though, as it fails to copy your companions. If you destroy the mirror instead of looking into it, it spawns two copies of your character. This is commented on in the related script, which goes to show that this is not due to a glitch.
• One power-up in Newgrounds Rumble creates an intangible clone of your character that follows and attacks alongside them.
• Ninja Gaiden:
  • The first two games on NES featured the Kelbeross beasts, where only one of them was vulnerable but both were very, very deadly.
  • Ryu acquired this skill in The Dark Sword of Chaos, where he could generate up to two Shadow Clones that are invulnerable, would follow in his footsteps precisely (even stopping in midair if Ryu himself jumped and then stopped moving), and would slash or use Ninja Arts in perfect sync with him. A great deal of boss strategies (and speed runs) centered around proper positioning of these clones while Ryu himself ducked into a safe spot.
  • Games made by Team Ninja instead had the self-explanatory Doppelganger fiends.
• Death Metal, the Rank 10 Assassin in No More Heroes, produces two doppelgangers when his health gets low enough. They have as much health as he does at that point, making finding the real one a bit of a chore.
• Chizuru Ishigami in Persona 2 uses a Doppelganger attack as her gimmick. You have to use physical attacks to hit the real one, or else any attempts to use magic will result in a nasty counterattack (her copies reflects magic).
• The Shadow robot in One Must Fall uses shadow copies of itself in all of its special moves. However, to prevent abuse, attacking a doppelanger does minimal damage to the main robot.
• In both the 1996 and 2005 versions of Pac-Man Arrangement, there is a power up that creates a translucent Pac-Man that mirrors the real one's moves. It's immune to harm, and if it picks up a Power Pellet, Pac-Man is powered up too. The power-up takes the form of a blue capsule in the 1996 version, and a scroll in the 2005 version. Additionally, in the 1996 version, Inky gains this same ability if he fuses together with Kinky, and both Inkys are equally capable of catching Pac-Man.
• Halfway through the deathmatch with Mai Hem in Perfect Dark Zero, she starts summoning clones of herself. Unlike her, they don't "derez" (in the words of TRON) when defeated, and you can pick up their weapons and ammo.
• The Evil Chancellor in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time does this in the final battle. Also combined with The Man Behind the Curtain, as once you defeat three copies, the actual Vizier can be defeated in one hit.
• Project Dimentia Bodhisattva really loves this trope. Its protagonist, Aqua, has the ability to duplicate when fight-dashing, doing combo moves, picking up objects to throw at enemies, and trying to rescue the pigs. This is also done by the bosses like Nisha, the catgirl Salmon which can self-duplicate by the red eggs that float in the air, and Poodle, by creating clones out of mirrors.
• Zeckle in Project G can summon clones to attack.
• The battle with Kurohagane in Project × Zone centers around him creating clones of himself, which then proceed to summon even more enemies, or turn into tougher enemies themselves.
• The Ninja can upgrade his attacks to use one in Protect Me Knight.
• Great Tiger, in both of his appearances in the Punch-Out!! series, uses special attacks where he makes clones of himself to confuse Little Mac. Dodge or block at the wrong time, and the "real" clone will hit you pretty hard. On the flip side, if you can successfully hit him while he's using the move...
• Radiant Arc: In all of his boss battles, Kagan fights alongside several copies of himself. The enemy names don't give away which one is real, though the real one always has more HP.
• The boss of Stage 8 in Ragnarok Battle Offline uses this.
• One of the defining characteristics of the Protopet in Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando. It can very quickly go from one, to seven, to forty two, and by the time you've killed half of them, the remaining half have probably already spawned the number back to its upper limit. The Plasma Storm, with its room-clearing shots, is invaluable against Protopets.
• In the Realm of the Mad God, this is done by the Crystal Prisoner and the Puppet Master.
• One of Charme's abilities in Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is to create a temporary shadow that can attack along-side her mimicking her actions. She can create up to five at a time as long as you have enough MP.
• This is done by an early boss in Robotrek. Some enemies also have the ability to summon more of themselves, though the ones summoned are real and worth experience.
• Performing the Freudenzwinger move in RosenkreuzStilette allows you to do this.
• In RuneScape, this is one of Nomad's attacks in the "Nomad's Requiem" quest. He can create three copies of himself. All of the clones hit just as hard as the real Nomad, but when they're attacked, Nomad loses focus and dismisses the copy.
• SaGa Frontier:
  • A few of the sword moves, such as Godless, Haze-To-Wheel, and ESPECIALLY the visually appealing Life Sprinkler. In addition, the Shadow Servant spell, which creates a clone of you that copies every move you use.
  • The "Magician" Arcane spell is a variant - It creates a single copy of the caster that's harmless if left alone... but when attacked, it has a chance of causing instant death.
• One of Hanzo's special abilities in Samurai Warriors 2 allows him to create up to three shadow doppelgangers this way. Nene's ability might also count, although they move more like a spin (occupying the same space, instead of spread out like Hanzo's).
• Scarlet Nexus:
  • Certain enemies are able to split themselves like this and killing the real one will defeat them all. Using a SAS Psychic Link to borrow Tsugumi's Psychic Radar highlights the real one in green.
  • Major Kyoka’s Psychic Powers are based around duplication, and can be shared with either protagonist via SAS link to copy one or two of themselves to multiply their attack power, which also doubles or triples their Mind over Matter attacks. Due to the Combo Platter Powers nature of the gameplay, where linking Yuito and Kasane together enables a special attack where all debris in a large area is gathered and launched at once, adding Kyoka’s power on top of that results in a massive Flechette Storm.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game: One of Roxie Richter's attacks is to create four clones of herself that all attack around the stage at once.
• Shadow Force: Two of the playable heroes, Kai and Blunet, have a special move that splits them into multiple clones across the screen, all of those clones attacking simultaneously taking down every onscreen mook, before they reform into the player a few seconds later.
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: One of the attacks of the Pirate Master's True Form involves conjuring three phantom copies of his humanoid form that will attack you in his place.
• Hayate can do this in Shounen Kininden Tsumuji.
• In Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity, Saragat, The Fourth Knight does this during his battle. Sadly, he loses this power when you get to play as him in Skautfold: Usurper.
• Atsushi Onita in Skullman In: Scooby Doc 4: The Destroyer (Featuring Atsushi Onita) can hide in the background by splitting into six silhouettes of himself. He will then reappear from whatever silhouette is a darker color than the rest.
• In the final boss battle of Spartan: Total Warrior, Ares, the final boss, can split himself in three. The difference between the original and the two copies is that the copies get killed with one hit.
• In Spud's Adventure, the attack gained by the spade card lets you throw your 'shadow' as a weapon, which manifests as a clone of yourself. It's stronger than Spud's default weapon and most importantly shares your large hitbox, and any character can use it until they take a hit.
• In the obscure roguelike game Steamband, Fu Manchu can create clones of himself in battle. The only way to know which one is real is to kill them.
• Street Fighter:
  • A staple where certain characters have a super move that spawns shadows of them that copy the original with a slight delay.
  • Rose's Soul Illusion Street Fighter Alpha.
  • Yang gained this via his Seiei Enbu super art in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, 3rd Strike as well as his appearances in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Ultra Street Fighter IV.
  • M. Bison's Marvel vs. Capcom incarnation has this with his Knee Press Nightmare supermove, which summons two duplicates of himself which perform knee presses all together. In the Street Fighter EX series, the fact that Shin Bison also has this variation of the attack is supposed to be an indicator of just how powerful he is.
• Rudra performs one when she Turns Red in Streets of Rage Remake, summoning two extra clones of herself to fight you.
• Shiva will whip a few energy-clones out during his battle in Streets of Rage 4.
• Kae in SUGURI is capable of using clones of herself to attack her foes.
• Recurring Psycho for Hire Yuber from the Suikoden series has this ability. In terms of sheer damage and utility it's one of the most powerful in the series and appears to be unique to him.
• In Sundered, the mini-boss Hiram Macias can make a dozen copies of himself at once. While these copies die in one hit, new ones spawn in constantly to take their place, and they’re just as deadly as the real thing. Hiram himself will teleport to another platform whenever he takes a few licks, forcing the player to hunt him down while dealing with his copies.
• The boss Yaridovich from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars pulls one of these. Due either to a programming slip or a small blessing, the targeting cursor always hovers over the real one on your next turn.
• Kamek, resident Evil Sorcerer of the Super Mario Bros. series, does this in the majority of his RPG appearances; namely Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. Unfortunately for Mario, the doppelgangers in the last game's final battle with him are also every bit as strong as the real deal and about as tough to beat.
• There are several Super Robot Wars examples. Zweizergain and the Assault Scouts are prominent examples of machines that utilize this tactic.
• Tales Series:
  • Militsa from Tales of Rebirth does this when she goes up against the party solo, creating four low HP clones that are quickly replaced upon their destruction.
  • Belius in Tales of Vesperia creates a clone of herself once she reaches half HP. It's barely any weaker then the original, but can be removed by simply reigniting the torches in the arena.
  • The Golden Swordsman in Tales of Xillia does once after you run down his HP for the first time, then again once you run down the HP of him and his clone, resulting in three clones. Something of an odd case, as the duplicates possess distinct fighting styles based off of those of your party members, and are just as powerful as the original.
• Shredder at the end of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game and the arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time(in the SNES version, he instead turns into Super Shredder). The number of fakes depends on the number of players. The fakes have all the same moves, but fewer Hit Points, so if his helmet comes off, you probably have one of the fakes.
• Ezrek Khan, a boss in Torchlight II, will spawn two clones of himself during the last two times you fight him directly. They do not have much health but they can use the same spells as him (excluding the cloning). The Embermage's final skill in the Frost tree allows them to summon an Astral Ally that fights with their beginning spells, essentially creating a second Embermage for you.
• A staple of Touhou Project bosses:
  • Nue Houjuu summons and resummons an obvious copy for a Double Spoiler ~ Touhou Bunkachou spellcard (it's purple).
  • Youmu Konpaku has a spellcard in the fighting games that turns her ghost half into a copy of herself.
  • Parsee Mizuhashi summons a copy for one of her spellcards. It's a trap, and retaliates if you shoot it.
  • During the stage 6 fight with Yuuka Kazami in Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story, she frequently splits into two. Not her best idea, as they both take damage.
  • Suwako Moriya has a survival card that ultimately has three versions of her trying to kill you. And there's another version of her sunk into the background.
  • Flandre Scarlet has a spellcard called "Four of a Kind". "Four of a Kind" is the most popular example of this trope in the series.
  • Mamizou Futatsuiwa possesses a spellcard that generates two copies of herself, which, after attacking for a short time, generate two more copies EACH, and two more later. By the end, you're facing off against ten copies of her before the spell dispels.
  • Suika Ibuki can subdivide into an uncountable number of smaller versions of herself, to the point that she can take a form that closely resembles a mist (manipulation of density probably helps).
• Shockwave can create monochrome duplicates of himself to fight for him in Transformers: Devastation.
• Transistor: Youngladies' make shadowy copies that last until defeated, that can fire beams at Red, while teleporting away, as a Defence Mechanism Superpower.
• Trials of Mana: Angela's Grand Diviner class's Double Magic is not, as the name suggests, a doublecast but instead splits Angela in two, doubling the enemy's pain. This is also the Nightblade's skill.
• In Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll, Selene's mirage step increases her speed and creates a duplicate of her for extra attacks. At full power, she gets 4 duplicates and her attacks become More Dakka.
• Kayen, Father of Thirst, splits into two at the start of his battle in Unworthy.
• Raoul, Dark Mind will create shadow clones of himself in Vampire Night, along with the many other shadow-based powers he has.
• The "Labyrinth" in Vindictus features increasingly powerful doppelgangers as the end bosses on each floor (for a total of 5 encounters).
• Void Memory's Cursed Prince begins creating doppelgangers halfway through his fight.
• Warframe:
  • Mirage's Hall of Mirrors ability surrounds her with a ring of holographic clones to distract and attack enemies.
  • Wukong's Celestial Twin ability spawns a duplicate of himself that attacks enemies for him, using melee while the player has a ranged weapon equipped and vice versa.
  • Equinox normally transitions between two forms, Night and Day, but the Duality mod causes the form she's switching out of to split off into an AI Specter for a few seconds.
  • The now-removed Solar Rail disputes between clans or alliances allowed attacking clans to deploy Tenno Specter clones of clan/alliance members to attack and claim territory. These doppelgangers carried the loadouts and builds of the actual player, ranging from laughably easy to defeat beginner players to extremely difficult Trinitys using Link.
• The Mirage Potion in Wilds.io, creates a temporary clone of the player, which moves and attacks in sync with them. Drinking multiple potions creates multiple clones. While they look identical to their creator, there are still two ways of telling them apart: either by looking at their healthbar (clones are always created at full health, which is often not the case for their creators), or by trying to knock them down. Knocking down the real player will simultaneously knock down the clone(s) as well.
• Bloody Mary from The Wolf Among Us attacks Bigby like this during the last episode showdown.
• World of Warcraft:
  • The first boss of 40-man Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (Skeram) (and his 5-man protege in Arcatraz (Skyriss)) uses this ability, although there is a "real" one. Each of his copies must be separated, and the fake ones must be killed before they destroy the raid. The 5-man version in Arcatraz only splits into 2, whereas the 40-man version splits into 3.
  • Mage players can also perform their own Doppelganger Attack by summoning 3 to 4 copies of themselves able to cast basic spells.
  • Multiboxers are players who play multiple accounts simultaneously by passing the keystrokes from their keyboard to multiple active WoW installs. When a player does this while playing mage characters, when they are glyphed for Mirror Image and get 4 dopplegangers of themselves, per character, this can be a completely overwhelming sight to see. 5 characters with 4 backups each = 25 total characters. When they all start spamming Frostbolt it looks like Star Wars. Bonus points if they're all gnomes with pink hair.
  • All of those spells are based on the Warcraft III Blademaster's Mirror Image which summoned 3 clones of the caster. Those dealt no damage whatsoever and were mostly there to confuse the enemy, whereas in World of Warcraft mirror images typically do damage as well.
  • Jandice Barov of Scholomance is the champion of this trope as she summons no less than 15 illusions of herself midfight. Those deal damage, but TAKE NONE, it is imperative to find the real Jandice (her name is distinct from the images, so she can be found easily) and down her fast. In Mists of Pandaria, the attack was changed to a Doppelgänger Spin. The images no longer deal damage, and their attack is only to distract you from finding the real Jandice; they can also be destroyed, though they will explode when killed.
  • Grand Magus Telestra in The Nexus summons duplicates of herself midway during the fight.
• Silver Samurai has the "Bushin Shadows" X-Ability in Capcom's X-Men: Children of the Atom, which allows him to attack his opponents with shadow clones of himself. Notably, he does not have this power in the actual comics.
• Strings' deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards has numerous monsters summon other monsters into play, and some that summon a copy of themselves.
• Yin can create duplicates during her battle in The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. Fortunately they have less HP and fewer attacks than the original. Unfortunately, they still have the attack with the 90% chance of inflicting Death. Rixia manages to lose this ability when she joins you, both masked as Yin and as herself, probably because it would break the difficulty otherwise.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue has this effect whenever there's a Stable Time Loop, usually surrounding Agent Wyoming. For Church, it allowed him to figure out the solution to the time bomb crisis. Wyoming had been using it for much longer, and knew how to use it. When Tucker told Church that Wyoming had been putting them through such a time loop, Church remembered his experience (and doppelgängers), and realized Wyoming must be using this trope. Naturally, they collided with an army of Wyomings two seconds later.

Webcomics

• In 8-Bit Theater, the heroes end up trapped in a void where causality does not exist. Their solution? Use that lack of causality to create an army of themselves and break out.
• El Goonish Shive: Nanase has a "decoy summon spell." It is a partially sentient puppet that can be controlled directly or behave based on the user's mental state at the time of summoning.
• The God of High School: Jin Mori uses this in conjunction with his Magic Staff to wipe out 99.7% of an invading angel army in less than thirty seconds.
• Grrl Power: Harem is a teleporter who can create up to five extra bodies. Each body has a different style and damage done to one of them is felt by all of them.
• Homestuck:
  • Aradia builds an army of her doomed time travel clones in order to fight her session's Black King. They don't do much good against Jack, though.
  • Her fellow Hero of Time Dave is also fond of creating time clones through stable time loops to fight alongside him. His aren't much good against Jack either — Dave's original self dies fighting him this way.
  • Member number 12 of the Time Master gang the Felt, Eggs, has an egg timer which allows him to travel back in time for increments of up to one hour. This basically allows him to create near-infinite past and future copies of himself to aid him in battle.
• Scoob and Shag: Ger's Ballyhoo power, "Stunt Double", can be used to swarm opponents with disposable copies of himself.
• Sleepless Domain: Cassidy, as the magical girl Flash Cut, has the ability to split herself into two halves using her massive pair of scissors. These clones are significantly less durable than Cassidy herself, but if either of them is destroyed, the other becomes her main body again, using up some of her magical energy but leaving her body unscathed. As a bonus, the scissors also split in half when Cassidy does, allowing each clone to wield one half as a sword.
• Sluggy Freelance: In one plotline, Doctor Schlock assists Bun-Bun in a fight by firing a gun loaded with countless plush Bun-Bun dolls. As a result, once Bun-Bun is knocked out, the dolls remain, obfuscating his opponent's efforts to finish the real Bun-Bun off.

Web Original

• Trinton Chronicles has Aurora who can make clones of herself to run around and perform multiple attacks against a single target.

Western Animation

• Ben 10 has an alien form called Ditto which can split itself into multiple copies, but was otherwise roughly equal to a human child. Its weakness was that all of its copies shared damage; if one was attacked, they all felt it. In Ben 10: Alien Force, he gets a new form named Echo Echo, which has this power along with sonic attacks and minus the damage-sharing.
• The Buzz Lightyear of Star Command villain Torque has the ability to create identical copies of himself to do his own bidding. As an independent villain from the Big Bad, Emperor Zurg, Torque did not originally have this power, but he acquired his power as part of a deal with Zurg to eliminate Buzz and his team.
• Ulrich's "Triplicate" power in Code Lyoko. The two clones only have one life point and are easily dispatched, but otherwise they're as deadly as the real Ulrich.
• As part of his ghostly abilities, Danny can duplicate, but it's an often difficult task for him. He managed to succeed in the last season for a brief amount of time. Meanwhile, Big Bad Vlad's been able to do this since his intro.
• In the Kaeloo episode "Let's Play Super-Powers", Stumpy tries to use this against Quack Quack. It didn't work, though, since Quack Quack managed to destroy the clones. Stumpy does it again in Episode 63 when fighting Mr. Cat. Surprisingly enough, it works.
• Experiment 344 (Dupe) in Lilo & Stitch: The Series can make physical copies of anything, but the more copies are made, the weaker they all become.
• General Malaise fights in this way in Ozzy & Drix when, as a germ, he starts aggressively undergoing mitosis.
• During his first guest appearance on Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Doctor Strange magically generates numerous copies of himself to confuse and attack Baron Mordo's brainwashed cultists.
• The cartoon-only villain Luminus from Superman: The Animated Series originally used the Doppelgänger Spin, but never had the good sense to get away while the getting was good. Eventually he came up with Hard Light versions of these that actually were a threat. He showed up again in Justice League and got the drop on the Flash, who was used to Mirror Master's Doppelgänger Spin and wasn't expecting the "illusions" to throw a punch.
• In Teen Titans (2003), Billy Numerous can split himself into many duplicates. Unlike most other examples of this trope, the clones do not diminish in power until they reach triple-digit quantities. As a result, he can take on and overwhelm the entirety of the Teen Titans. After his own episode though, he joins other villainous groups as a minor character and doesn't display nearly as much competence as in his debut.
• The Tick animated episode "The Tick Loves Santa" features a villainous thief in a Santa Claus costume who acquires the ability to create multiple clones of himself by absorbing electricity. Connecting himself directly to a generator at the hydroelectric power plant, he spawns hundreds of clones almost instantly.
  The Tick: It's a YULE-TIDE!"
• Winx Club:
  • Nabu may have this ability, but it is unclear whether the duplicates are solid or not. In a fight against Darcy, he was able to attack all of her illusion copies this way.
  • Also, Darcy herself can do this in addition to the normal Doppelgänger Spin, but she's limited to three copies who surround the opponent to attack from multiple direction, and hitting one will dissolve the copies and knock Darcy out. This invariably terrifies Musa into helplessness, as the first time Darcy did it the attack nearly killed her trough sheer pain.

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