Beat Them At Their Own Game: Difference between revisions

Villains can use this tactic, too. It's sometimes cited as a reason for creating an [[Evil Knockoff]] of the hero. [[Playing Tennis With the Boss]] is arguably a sub-trope of this.

 

{{examples}}

 

== Anime ==

** Lampshaded in one fight where Sanji matches up with a swordsman while Zoro finds himself squaring off with a martial artist.

*** Typically they fight similar opponents intentionally. Zoro for example wants to be the greatest swordsmen in the world, so fighting other swordsmen is a bit important for that goal.

** The CP9, confident in their abilities, made a game out of rescuing Robin where they divided five keys among them (one which unlocked Robin's cuffs) and had the Straw Hats scramble to defeat them and find the right one before Robin was permanently taken away. We all know how that turned out.

* Frequently used in ''[[Ranma One Half]]'', but notably subverted and then averted when Ryoga learns the Shi Shi Hokodan technique. After being devastated by the technique, Ranma attempts to master it, but this proves impossible, as the Shi Shi Hokodan is powered by depression, and Ranma (despite all circumstances) is a pretty happy fellow compared to Ryoga, and certainly can't hope to match his misfortunes. Instead, he resorts to mastering a variant powered by his ''confidence''. This works for a time, but Ryouga -- helped along by the depression of having his technique thwarted -- then uses the ''Perfect'' Shi Shi Hokodan. It's fueled by a level of absolute depression for which Ranma can't muster an equal amount of confidence, especially once Ranma starts losing. In the end, Ranma achieves victory by finding a way to turn Ryouga's own attack against him.

* The ''[[Naruto]]'' character Kakashi Hatake is known as the "Copy-Ninja" for his ability to flawlessly copy an enemy's moves, using his Sharingan eye, ''even as they are performing them''.

** In one instance, the ninja he was copying was so surprised by Kakashi's perfect move for move copy that he stopped cold in the middle of his sharingan. ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Kakashi continued anyway and completed it despite having never seen it.]]''

*** Technically, she didn't cheat. The only thing she did that wasn't within the rules of the game was to turn off the computer club's cheat.

* During the Kyoto [[Story Arc]] in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', Saitou challenges Sanosuke to hand-to-hand combat (the latter's specialty), even going so far as to suspend [[Combat Pragmatist|fighting dirty]], in order to prove that Sano isn't on his or Kenshin's level (and consequently, a liability in the coming battles). Needless to say, it was a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]], and not in Sano's favor.

** He also beats a guy using a quiz deck with a quiz of his own.

* This is the tactic employed by the [[Anti-Villain|Anti-Spiral]] in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' - whenever the protagonists get a bigger mecha, they field an equally big one to try and instil despair into the protagonists in order to dampen their [[Hot-Blooded|hot blood]] powered Spiral Energy.

* When Kenshiro fights Shu in ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', he managed to defeat him through a secret Hokuto Shinken technique that allows him to emulate Nanto Seiken.

** During his battle with Raoh, Toki artificially increases his strength to use his opponent's fighting style. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed.

 

 

* [[Arnold Schwarzenegger|Dutch]] uses stealth tactics to defeat the [[Predator]].

** In ''Predator 2'', Harrigan kills the Predator with its own disc weapon.

 

== Literature ==

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Too bad [[No Export for You|this show doesn't run in Brazil]]. That would shut some people up there.

* In a championship round of ''Junkyard Wars'', the Turbines stole an entire car from the Pit Crew's lot, and foiled the Crew's attempt to steal it back. This could be karma in action, as the Pit Crew had stolen some motorcycles (yes, ''several'' motorcycles) from their opponents in a previous round of the championship.

 

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

 

* Also in wrestling, certain characters usually have matches that are claimed to be their specialty ([[The Undertaker]] has casket and buried alive matches, the Hardys are associated with ladders, the Dudleys with tables, Kane with the Inferno Match), but generally they tend to lose those matches.

* At some point in [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]]'s career, he began to make a habit out of hitting his opponents with their own finishers. This included giving [[Triple H]] a Pedigree onto a table, giving the Undertaker a chokeslam, spearing [[Goldberg]], putting [[Kurt Angle]] in the ankle lock and giving [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] lots and LOTS of Stunners. While he usually tried to pick up a pin after this, they pretty much always kicked out. Also, this usually meant that eventually the other wrestler would give him the Rock Bottom.

* At ''Hard Justice 2008'', [[Kurt Angle]] tried to use the Styles Clash on [[AJ Styles]] himself, only for Styles to turn it into the Angle Lock in midair and force Angle to tap out to his own finisher.

* At ''Final Resolution 2010'', Douglas Williams pinned [[AJ Styles]] after using the Styles Clash on him.

* At ''Sacrifice 2007'', James Storm tried to attack Chris Harris with his signature beer bottle, but Harris clocked him with a bottle of his own.

* Subverted hilariously when Vickie Guerrero attempted to Spear [[Edge]]. She comically bounces off him like he was a brick wall.

** You can still beat Meta Knight in Super Star even if you choose to go powerless (or if you end up losing your power), though the method of doing so isn't immediately obvious; when he uses one of his projectile attacks, inhale it and spit it back at him. However, this is much harder than just using the sword (or another power), as not only are you at the mercy of the [[AI Roulette]], but for the first half of the fight you must wait much longer than usual between his attacks, dodging becomes crucial to success, which is much harder to do than with most other bosses (especially with his tornado attacks), he leaves almost no breathing room between attacks during the second half, and to top it off his projectiles come out fast and can easily hit you before you have a chance to inhale them if you don't react quickly. While Ultra makes it much easier by making some of his attacks produce stars, in the original SNES version a powerless MK fight is best left until you're familiar with dodging his attacks, and is only really feasible in The Arena, where there's no time limit to worry about.

** King Dedede does the same with the Hammer power in the 'Revenge of the King' section of ''[[Updated Rerelease|Kirby Super Star Ultra]]''.

* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'''s final boss involves you {{spoiler|summoning ''another'' final boss that beats it in the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] circle, and letting it loose. While the two gods fight, you tackle the other dude that summoned the first one.}}

* According to the Strategy Guide, it is almost impossible to defeat the final boss in ''Baldur's Gate 2'' without temporarily giving into your evil nature and turning into the Slayer, which the final boss also starts the fight as. It should be noted that this is rubbish, all you really need is a strong character. They seem to like the idea of you turning into the Slayer for the final boss fight though, and the game drops hints to that near the end of the game.

* ''[[Metroid Prime]]: Hunters'' and ''Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' both feature this trope. The final boss changes the color of its [[For Massive Damage|obvious weak point]] and its own weapon to match one of the six weapons you have at your disposal. ''Corruption'' features enemies that can enter [[Quad Damage|Hyper Mode]] - the best counter being to do that yourself.

** ''Metroid Prime'' also features Space Pirates who wield copies of one of your weapons and are only vulnerable to the same weapon they use.

** Swanton Bomb nothing. Have Show or Andre the Giant steal Rey Misterio's finisher--swinging kick through the ropes, land on the apron, spring to the top rope, then fly off and land sitting on the victim's shoulders, then backflip into a pin. Tell me there isn't anything more frightening than seeing a 500-pound wrestler flying groin-first at your face.

** Or on the other side of the gamut, playing Rey Mysterio and having him do a Tombstone Piledriver on the Undertaker.

** In Tak 2: Staff of Dreams, Tlaloc uses half of the Staff of Dreams to turn into a huge purple monster with tiny bat wings. Tak counters by using his half of the staff to... turn into a huge '''blue''' monster with tiny bat wings.

* The final battle of ''[[Spyro the Dragon|Spyro]] 2: Ripto's Rage'' involves competing with Ripto to gather orbs which give [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower|special powers]] to whoever collects them.

* While most ''Klonoa'' series bosses require you to throw enemies into them, the King of Sorrow from ''Klonoa 2; Lunatea's Veil'' attacks you with spiked orbs which he controls with chains of energy. To defeat him, you have to steal one of his orbs and throw it at him; conveniently, it can be used multiple times, as it returns to you on a chain of energy after you throw it.

* ''[[Painkiller]]'' has a demon morph [[Super Mode]] which is devastatingly effective against the game's demonic enemies.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' is a good example of a game where you can [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|cheat just as much as the computer...]] [[Game Breaker|and possibly even more than that.]]

** In the story, Marche often gets attacked by various groups of people, including bounty hunters, that {{spoiler|his brother Doned}} tells about him when he goes out on missions. Marche, wanting to lure {{spoiler|Doned}} out to talk with him, takes an especially promising job. He's able to defeat his foes and {{spoiler|reconcile with his brother}}.

* Reverse example. in [[Devil May Cry|Devil May Cry 3]], Dante goes the whole game with his broad sword and his brother Vergil with a [[Katanas Are Just Better|Katana]]. At the final level, Vergil gains a similar sword and starts fighting almost exactly like ''you'', going from a [[Glass Cannon]] [[Ryu and Ken|Ken]] to a full-fledged [[Perfect Play AI]].

** Badass as it was in the boss fight, the cutscenes make it evident that Dante was far superior with broadswords.

* In ''[[Okami]]'', the kitsune lord Ninetails has a Celestial Brush of its own on each of its tails. Trying to use your own Celestial Brush will make Ninetails bring up a Brush to match and disrupt your Technique, forcing you to finish the pattern as soon as possible before the enemy crosses it out.

* Subverted in ''[[Summoner]]'', when the [[White Magician Girl]] and [[The Lancer]] go two-on-two against the evil queen and dark prince. The queen is a powerful magician, but totally immune to magic, while the prince is a powerful swordsman, but totally immune to physical damage.

** There's also B Bunny, a rabbit type boss in ''Wario Land 2'' and 3 that has to be beaten at a variant of either basketball or football (soccer in the US), by using the boss as the ball. While the boss is trying to use Wario as the ball instead.

*** In case that was difficult to explain, see the end of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpp59VRwhZE&feature=related this] video.

** Speaking of Wario, he'll try doing this to ''you'' when you fight him at the end of ''[[Super Mario Land 2 Six Golden Coins|Super Mario Land 2]]''. He uses a carrot on himself to give him the same flying bunny-ears power that Mario could use in the game; beat him in that form, and he picks up a Fire Flower...

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', this is often reversed, with boss fights designed to use players' abilities against them. [http://www.wowwiki.com/Herald_Volazj Herald Volazj] in Anh'Kahet is one such boss, who splits the party and forces each player to fight clones of the others. A similar effect is used by Valkyr Heralds in Icecrown Citadel, who spawn copies of randomly chosen raid members that everyone must fight. Perhaps the most literal use of this, however, is in the Trial of the Crusader, whose third boss fight consists of a group of PvP opponents that behave as much like opposing players as it's possible for the game's AI to simulate. For example, crowd control abilities, normally useless on bosses, suddenly become mandatory.

** The move Mirror Move allows the user to use the move just used by the opponent, and the move Transform literally allows Pokémon to beat the opponent at their own game, as the [[Ditto Fighter|Transforming]] Pokémon gains access to the target's typing, stats, and moves. To a lesser extent, the move Role Play can change the user's ability to that of the target.

** Additionally, unlike Mario and friends, the Koopa can be stomped out of your way as always. You simply need to gain enough height to reach his head.

* [[Grand Theft Auto]]: San Andreas has a scene where you can fight a Vietnamese gang boss sword vs sword (he tosses one to you to duel). Of course, if by then you've picked up a shotgun, you're still more than free to use it.

*** {{spoiler|Mostly Subverted, however, considering your character loses the dual no matter what, and just pulls a gun on the guy}}

* The ''[[Lego Adaptation Game|Lego Star Wars]]'' games have the player Force-pushing objects, thrown by the boss, back at the boss. Fighting Dooku even lets you do it with [[Shock and Awe|Force Lightning]].

* In ''[[Red Steel]]'' (the first), your character proceeds through each level with the usual assortment of FPS firearms. The [[Boss Battle]] of each level, however, is inevitably a swordfight, requiring you to put away your guns and use your blade instead.

* ''[[Super Smash Bros]] Brawl'' has a boss named Duon that has a melee-attacking side and a projectile-throwing side. The blog notes that it's best to match him and fight close to it when the melee side is facing you, and keep your distance from the projectile-throwing side.

* Subverted in ''[[Doom]]'', as the rocket-firing Cyberdemon actually takes less than normal damage from the rocket launcher, making it rather ineffective<ref>To be specific, the rocket deals damage from both the impact and the explosion itself. The Cyberdemon is immune to splash damage, which means it only takes damage from the impact itself.</ref>.

* In [[Pickory]], [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|one of the boss fights is actually a clone of KSpaceDuel]]. You get a ship which is identical to the boss in every way.

* A literal example: a team of ''[[League of Legends]]'' developers was beaten at ''League of Legends'' by a team of ''[[Heroes of Newerth]]'' developers, their [[Dueling Games|chief competitors]] in the market, which is doubly ironic because ''HoN'' is considered by many to have a higher skill cap, which ''LoL'' fans often vehemently deny.

* Don Flaminco in ''[[Punch Out]]'' uses this against you. For most opponents, you have to block or dodge their attacks and then counterattack. Don does the same trick against you, refusing to land a blow on you unless you strike first so he can counter. Of course, you can counter his counterattack.

* In ''[[Evolva]]'', you're forced to do this, as you must mutate to get the defeated enemies' attacks and use them against the enemies, if you don't want to complete the game only with your fists. It's still not recommended to use an attack against the enemy that gave you the attack in the first place.

* In ''[[Skyrim]]'', dragons have the natural ablity to use "[[Words Can Break My Bones|shouts]]". When humanity learned how to use shouts (which the dragonborn can do as easily as a dragon) from {{spoiler|[[Defector From Decadence|the dragon Paarthurnax]]}} they developed {{spoiler|a shout called "dragonrend", which was basically made of the draconic words for "mortal", "finite" and "tempory". As they were basically a race of [[Time Abyss]] near-gods, the mere concept of relative time (particularly something ending) screwed with them so much [[Weaksauce Weakness|it could be weaponised]] against them}}.

* In the final battle of ''[[Kirbys Return to Dream Land]]'', {{spoiler|Magolor's second form and Soul form imitates the various [[Limit Break|Super Abilities]] used by Kirby as attacks after he [[Turns Red]].}}

 

 

* Inverted in ''[[Samurai Jack]]'', after Aku grows tired of sending wave after wave of bounty hunters against Jack, wondering aloud "Is there any fighting style that can defeat his!?" He decides to solve the issue by creating an [[Evil Twin]] of Jack [[Enemy Without|from his hatred and anger]]. True enough, Jack could not defeat it in combat; instead, [[Sheathe Your Sword|he defeated the clone by meditating and reaching inner peace]].

** Played straight when Jack becomes a ninja to fight a ninja.

** Same thing happened, though on smaller scale, on ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', along with a [[Hannibal Lecture]]. Superman was having problems taking down his evil clone, prompting Wonder Woman to fly in and suggesting to switch dance partners. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl end up doing the same thing. We see The Flash and Batman easily beating their own doubles, however, the Flash with a particularly effective [[Shut UP, Hannibal]], and Batman by virtue of the fact that he didn't give his double a [[Hannibal Lecture|chance to start messing with his head.]]

** This also happens in one of the early Archie [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] comics, wherein the main cast has an all-out brawl with their [[Mirror Universe]] [[Evil Twin|Evil Twins]]. The heroes start out fighting their own counterparts and neither side can gain an advantage, but after they switch partners the goodies handily tromp the baddies.

** Also don in an issue of Spider-Ham complete with lampshade hanging, Mooster Fantastic consult the hero's manual and find the proper tactic for dealing with evil counterparts, switching opponents!

* In [[Asterix|The Twelve Tasks of Asterix]] they face a trial that the magic potion has no effect on... Bureaucracy! However, Asterix is smart enough to play the system against itself, causing enough chaos for the head of the place to just hand him the item to make him go away.

* [[South Park]]: Don't try to make Cartman regret his actions and behavior using a psychology approach.

{{quote| '''Long Feng:''' You've beaten me at my own [[The Chessmaster|game]].<br />

'''Azula:''' [[Magnificent Bastard|Don't flatter yourself]]. [[Xanatos Speed Chess|You were never even a player]]. }}