The Mirror Shows Your True Self in Video Games.
- In The Black Cauldron, The Fair Folk give you a magic mirror that shows the true nature of anyone who looks into it, and has a different message if used when the party members from the movie are around. One way to defeat the Horned King is to show him a magic mirror. He will be so horrified at his own evil that he'll jump into the Cauldron and kill himself!
- BlazBlue:
- The Ammit Cryas is a truth grimoire in the form of a mirror - its power is to show the true self of its current wielder, but if held too long the wielder may be drawn into it. Three characters are known to have held it. In order:
- Makoto was completely unaltered in the reflection of the mirror. Presumably, tumultuous origins notwithstanding, she has nothing to hide.
- Kajun Faycott, one of two Remix Heart characters, is reflected in a lab coat standing alongside Professor Kokonoe, denoting her allegiance to Sector Seven.
- Mai Natsume, the other Remix Heart character, is reflected as a male shadow - she loses her hold on the mirror before the full truth could be revealed.
- When Relius uses his Astral Heat on Terumi, we see a mirror standing behind him showing his true ghost form.
- Celeste: The story's antagonist is introduced on the opposite side of a mirror...and then the mirror breaks.
- Cyberpunk 2077 has a variation: after slotting in the Relic, when V looks into a mirror, they may sometimes see Johnny Silverhand looking back at them instead of their reflection, a foreshadowing of the Relic overwriting their personality and replacing it with Johnny's engram.
- Inverted in one of the possible quests in the video/PC game Darkstone. A witch has cursed the women of a local village to turn to stone if they ever become more beautiful than she is. Since she looks to be about three million years old, all the women are statuary. Your character must visit the local dungeon and find a perfectly normal-looking man who is convinced that he's ugly as sin, so has come down to find the Fountain of Youth in order to hopefully fix the problem. Turns out that his real problem is that he's been using something called the Mirror of Lies, which makes beautiful people appear ugly and vice-versa. After getting it from him in exchange for a normal mirror, your character gives the Mirror of Lies to the witch, fooling her into believing that she's young and gorgeous again, so she releases the spell on the village.
- Dragon Quest games:
- The Mirror of Ra appears in several games. Whenever it appears, it's always used to reveal something's true form.
- In Dragon Quest II, it's used to break a Forced Transformation by revealing that the dog who follows you around in one village is actually the cursed Princess of Moonbrooke.
- In Dragon Quest III, it reveals the true identity of the Orochi and exposes a Fake King plot.
- In Dragon Quest V, it's used to Spot the Imposter after the Queen Dowager confronts her doppelganger.
- In Dragon Quest VI, Ashlynn seeks the Mirror of Ra because she hopes it can break whatever's causing her invisibility. Unlike other examples in the series, this doesn't immediately cause the mirror to break, because it's later used against the evil dream king to reveal his true identity, and the real evil king to prevent him from launching you into the dream world again.
- Fallen London Servants at the palace are only allowed to look upon the royal children's reflections, which show their human appearance, rather than directly at their actual physical form. Though it's debatable which one is really their "true" form at this point.
- Final Fantasy IV plays with this a bit. The player's character, Cecil travels to Mt. Ordeals in order to become a paladin. Upon reaching the summit, he enters a mirrored chamber where he is removed of his dark armor and becomes a paladin. However, his reflection in the mirror does not change and he must defeat his Dark Knight self in battle as his trial... Or rather, let his Dark Knight self-defeat himself through self-harming attacks.
- This turns out to be a bad idea. Rejecting a part of who you truly are, no matter how wrong it is and how well you seal it away, can result in some serious mental damage due to suppressing who you are. In the sequel, an alternate personality starts attacking people until Cecil comes to terms with the fact that he is both a Paladin AND a Dark Knight.
- During Nimdok's scenario in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, he comes across project PERFECT IMAGE, a Nazi project which shows you yourself with utter objectivity. Not only does it show Nimdok the truth of his Jewish heritage, but it's also implied to be the true reason Hitler committed suicide, and more directly used to incapacitate Mengele with a single glance at the mirror, being left immobilized by the idea that his soul could be "so... black...".
- A glitch causes this to happen in Jak II: Renegade. When looking in the mirror behind the bar in the Hip Hog Heaven Saloon, Jak's reflection has the horns of his dark form. They flicker in and out as he moves.
- King's Quest:
- In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, there is a mirror with this quality; depending on which path you take, it can be used in one of two different ways. The basic good ending has Alexander using it to Spot the Imposter by forcing a genie to resume his true form. The best ending has him use it against Death himself, forcing him to witness the horror of his own existence, causing him to shed a single tear and lose his wager against Alexander.
- Kings Quest (2015) Chapter 3 introduces a magic canvas that functions the same way. King Graham, for example, is still the fresh-faced young man he was back in Chapter 1, while Hagatha is revealed to be a beautiful princess. It comes back in Chapter 4, where it reveals that the Sphinx is Manannan.
- Little Nightmares: This is implied to be the reason the Lady's lair is full of broken mirrors; in the DLC Secrets of the Maw, the Runaway Kid gets a look at the Lady's reflection when her mask is off, and though her model has a beautiful doll-like face her reflection is just as flabby, wrinkled, and hideous as any of the other monsters in the Maw.
- In Lollipop Chainsaw, Mariska possesses Rosalyn to lure Juliet and Nick into a trap. Mariska appears when "Rosalyn" is in front of their bus' rear-view mirror. This is only for the audience's benefit because Juliet and Nick don't notice before Mariska gets the drop on them.
- There's a magic mirror in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals which shows the truth about anyone who looks into it. People use it to find out if their spouses have been faithful to them. When Iris looks into the mirror, she (and the player) sees her true form as Erim.
- At one point in Lunar: The Silver Star, your party comes across an item called Althena's Mirror, and uses it soon afterward to expose Xenobia, who had been posing as Lemia, head of the Vane Magic Guild (the real one was captured and imprisoned).
- In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, under the right lighting conditions, Venom Snake's reflection on the window of the Aerial Command Center will flash the image of the character created at the start of the game, foreshadowing that Venom is not the real Big Boss but rather Big Boss' top medic in MSF, whose previous appearance is said character.
- This is more blatantly shown at the end of the mission "Truth: The Man Who Sold The World", where Venom Snake examines himself in a bathroom mirror and his reflection suddenly transforms into that of the Medic. In the same scene his reflection also briefly morphs into his "Demon Snake" form.
- In the second-to-last level of Monument Valley, the main character walks past a mirror in which she is reflected as a white bird. At the end of the last level, she transforms back into one as a reward for returning all the Sacred Geometries she stole.
- Fittingly for the Mask of the Betrayer campaign for Neverwinter Nights 2, you find a Light and Mirrors Puzzle in the Red Wizard academy which does the job of one of these mirrors. For you companions it shows a secret aspect of them which even they might not be aware of, but for the PC you get to see them in the eponymous mask.
- In OMORI:
- On occasion, if you glance at a mirror Omori and his friends' faces will distort moments before cutting away, hinting at Omori's sinister nature and how his friends are all fabrications.
- From time to time if you look in a mirror as Sunny, he'll see Something behind him, or other apparitions of a hanged Mari looming behind him. This comes to a peak in Black Space — after Sunny is forced to confront the truth behind Mari's death, he perceives himself as a demonic being when he looks in the mirror near the end.
- If you're on the Hikkikomori Route in the real world, you are still controlling Sunny, but looking in the mirror will reflect Omori in Sunny's place, monochrome palette and all, showing that Omori has completely taken over.
- In Persona 3, you have to break the mirrors that don't show your reflection in order to get to the Lovers boss chamber.
- In Quest for Glory II, the Enchantress Aziza uses water magic to reflect the true image of the Hero of Spielburg's pack animal, to reveal that it is actually the missing Emir of Raseir.
- In Rule of Rose a bathroom mirror on the Airship shows, not the protagonist's "true" form, but the environment's; it shows the orphanage that is the Airship's true face.
- In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, you have to find Mot before you can engage in his battle. He disguises himself as a statue and hides among the other statues. The trick to finding him is that the floor that the statues are on is a reflective surface. Mot is the statue that isn't reflected on the floor.
- ...and in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, you have to use a magical mirror to unmask Amaterasu, break her out of the illusion she's trapped in, and allow her to return home. (There's some Genius Bonus here for those familiar with Shinto mythology: A mirror was a key item in the Gods' ploy to draw Amaterasu out of the cave she was hiding in and get her to return to the heavens.)
- In Tales of Phantasia, any character possessed by Dhaos has a Grim Reaper figure floating above their mirror reflection. Early on, Cress exploits this when Rhea and Demitel confront each other to find out who is responsible for destroying Harmel village.
- Though it's often forgotten about, Eiki Shiki from Touhou Project possesses a mirror that reflects the viewer's past deeds. She can also use it to pit the viewer against a copy of herself.
- In Undertale:
- For most part, if you look in a mirror, the text reads "It's you." If you do so near the end of your journey, it reads "Despite everything, it's still you." Contrast with the Genocide route, where the mirrors would read back "It's me, [name]." When the red text becomes a lot more personal than the other runs, it shows that some other personality is taking over.
- A Dummied Out example includes a set of water reflection sprites for this, showing the Fallen Child's reflection instead of Frisk's, but the flag that causes this to occur can only be set through Debug Mode, and even then only works in a single room in Waterfall. Presumably, it was intended to be used after completing a Genocide run and selling your SOUL, but given that it was scrapped, it's impossible to say for certain.
- In Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, vampires have normal reflections in mirrors, except for members of the Lasombra clan. Fittingly, the only member of that clan encountered in the game has a haven with wall-sized mirrors to play up that fact (as well as many painted portraits, the only way the Lasombra can still see their own faces).
- In Tokyo Afterschool Summoners:
- Bael, a Transient from Gehenna and member of the Eastern Rule Makers. The wings in his 5 star unit depicts that underneath his facade of sophistication hides what he truly is: a sadistic, envious and vicious monster.
