Fighting Your Friend: Difference between revisions

There are a few situations in which this may become a case of [[That One Boss]]. An ally may be [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|powered by the dark side]] or [[Duel Boss|has to be fought one-on-one]] with either a specific character or the player character. In western RPGs about building individual character strength, no problem...you should be a [[Game Breaker]] by this point anyways. But in a Japanese RPG that emphasizes the strength of a group working together? Having only one ally might be ''quite'' a handicap without additional damage-dealers and tanks. Sure, in this case, the opponent may have reduced stats compared to a regular boss fight, but still almost always [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|way more stats than they could ever actually attain while on your side]] to give the player a challenge. They'll also have their entire skillsets to throw at you, occasionally [[Secret AI Moves|even more]].

 

 

'''WARNING: Some of these are a little detail heavy, so SPOILER alert.'''

** {{spoiler|Kain and Yang}} in ''[[Final Fantasy IV|IV]]'' as the mind control variant. {{spoiler|Cecil's former self}} also has to be fought, but the hook here is [[Sheathe Your Sword|not to harm him.]]

** ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' has one battle where you have to fight {{spoiler|Ritz}} in order to get to the final area of the game. She has no hard feelings against Marche, but just doesn't want him to progress any further.

** Hell, even in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', Terra gets mind controlled into fighting one of the heroes, Cloud fights Firion to test the strength of his dream, WoL and Squall fight etc. It's not uncommon.

** {{spoiler|Fran and Balthier}} in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]] [[Revenant Wings]]''. Making this worse is that it's probably the hardest fight in the game, and that the whole thing is a stupid misunderstanding.

** In ''Ten Desires'', the Stage 1 boss is {{spoiler|Yuyuko, the [[Final Boss]] of ''Perfect Cherry Blossom''}}, who here is just helping out the heroines and holding back her power to serve as a [[Warmup Boss]].

* The third stage of ''[[Magical Battle Arena]]'' has your character finding her respective ally ([[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha|Nanoha and Fate]], [[Original Generation|Sarara and Kirara]], [[Slayers|Lina and Naga]]) only for the [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|rules of the universe forcing them to fight]] to get out of their current area. The only ones that doesn't are [[Cardcaptor Sakura|Sakura]] and [[Mahoujin Guru Guru|Kukuri]], who instead invokes [[Defeat Means Friendship]] on each other for the team battle on the next stage, and [[The Dragon|Ruru]] and [[Big Bad|Nowel]], who will go through said team battle solo.

** Also, Mario is forced to fight {{spoiler|a possessed Princess Peach, who is now the Shadow Queen.}}

* A subversion of this occurs in ''[[Bayonetta]]'' where it's revealed that Jeanne, who is fought on multiple occasions, is actually the protagonist's brainwashed childhood friend.

** That was Metal Slug 6. This also happens (sort of) in 3, where your character is abducted by aliens and you have to play as a different one to recover them. Along you way you fight legions of clones of the captured character.

* Happens fairly often, usually via Mind Control, in the ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series.

** In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFeKFc0peH8 Chapter 10] of ''[[Super Robot Wars MX]]'', Duke Fleed in ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'' has to to fight [[Great Mazinger]] (piloted by Blacki) and [[Mazinger Z]] piloted by a brainwashed Kouji Kabuto. Eventually, he breaks Kouji free and defeats [[Great Mazinger]] with his help.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' has a number of these.

** While your rivals in the first two generations of the game are both [[Jerkass|Jerkasses]], [[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire|May/Brendan, Wally]], [[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl|Barry]], [[Pokémon Black and White|Cheren, and Bianca]] are all considerably friendlier.

* ''[[Street Fighter]]'' has indulged in this trope more than a few times, most prominently in ''[[Street Fighter Alpha]] 3'' and (''Super'') ''[[Street Fighter IV]]'''s Rival Battles.

** ''IV'': [[Fortune Teller|Rose]] believes that Ryu is [[The Chosen One]] destined to defeat Bison, but doesn't want him to preemptively rush into danger (according to her visions, he can vanquish Bison ''only'' at a specific time). On the other end, Guy tries to prevent Rose from facing Bison herself because while she intends to eradicate ([[Heroic Sacrifice|or at least]] [[Taking You with Me|stall]]) Bison, [[Senseless Sacrifice|she has seemingly resigned herself to death and holds a far greater importance to the world than she believes]] (he tried this before in ''Alpha 3'' but failed, leading Rose to eventually be [[Grand Theft Me|possessed by Bison]] in the interim between ''Alpha 3'' and ''II''; it should be noted that he and Rose were not [[True Companions]] at this point). Cue battle (and some [[Relationship Writing Fumble|unintentional]] [[Ship Tease]]). He also confronts Cody again, mainly for the same reasons as their fight several years prior, as well as trying to convince Cody to [[Bash Brothers|join him]] in the fight against Seth and S.I.N.

* [[Fate/stay night]], Heaven's Feel route. Shirou vs {{spoiler|[[Super-Powered Evil Side|Saber Alter]].}} Made worse by the fact that to play Heaven's Feel, you have to have played the Fate route in which {{spoiler|Saber is Shirou's main [[Love Interest]].}}