Cloning, Grappling Hooks and Death

Having looked over several mechanics I'm getting closer to a solid one I want to work with. I was looking at the cloning/ghost mechanic of Company of Myself in ways that it could be used in a different ways. One variant was to replicate the ability to summon clones of yourself in a fight of some sort that have a memorised attack pattern that you program them with prior. They would run their course then dissipate and you could execute this a number of times in one level. Certain moves could only be available from specific parts of the game meaning hanging on to particular clones could promote strategic thinking. This would be similar to the mechanic in Megaman X where players can cycle through weapons utilized by past bosses to attack in different ways.

Some weapons allowed you to access items that were otherwise unreachable. This sort of mechanic with the summoning clones to attack would have to have a limit on how often it could be used otherwise the better moves would just be abused.
An alternative to the cloning idea was that the player would be able to launch their character's life force across the map, targeting special objects that can be animated to recreate the character's body. This could manifest as a pile of junk being animated into a robot that crumbles when the life force leaves it. Certain areas could be inaccessible unless the player animates something within range that's in a different area. It would function rather similarly to the grappling hook mechanic that games like Just Cause and Worms have.

 The grappling hook allowed for incredible manoeuvrability and some rather silly gameplay that made an entertaining experience and if it was mastered became an incredibly powerful tool. Implementing this would of course require a decent physics engine.