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Big Bad / Visual Novels

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Big Bad
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"The ultimate villain of the story, who's causing the problem the heroes must solve."

Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Big Bad is the one who turns out to be behind several other seemingly independent threats.

Works with their own page:

  • Each Ace Attorney game is split up into multiple cases, so there often isn’t a single villain behind everything, but each game’s prosecutor usually acts as the closest thing to a main antagonist to Phoenix and Co. in addition to a mastermind who is often behind them and the last culprit.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
      • Miles Edgeworth is a ruthless and legendary "Demon Prosecutor" who will do anything for a guilty verdict, bringing him into conflict with Phoenix Wright, but it is his mentor, Manfred von Karma, who essentially set the entire series into motion with the murder of Edgeworth's father. A murder in the present that was orchestrated by him to get back at Edgeworth ultimately results in his comeuppance.
      • Police Chief Damon Gant is revealed as the true murderer of Bruce Goodman and Neil Marshall in the bonus case, Rise From The Ashes, from the first Ace Attorney. Damon Gant eventually admits to being responsible for coercing Lana Skye, the Chief Prosecutor who in turn was responsible for "helping" Edgeworth with cases, which resulted in the rumors of Edgeworth's backhanded deals and forgeries that DIDN'T already come about from Edgeworth's already established relationship with Manfred von Karma.
    • Justice for All: Franziska von Karma is effectively the closest to an overarching antagonist that the game has, and her motive is revenge that would be achieved by defeating Phoenix Wright because she blamed Phoenix for causing Miles Edgeworth to disappear even though the real culprit for that was Damon Gant, and she planned to achieve her vengeance by defeating the lawyer that Miles Edgeworth was unable to defeat. The primary antagonist of the final case is Matt Engarde, a famous actor who paid Shelly de Killer to kill Juan Corrida, his rival, to preserve his image. He’s also Phoenix’s client who has Maya kidnapped to force the lawyer to defend him.
    • Trials and Tribulations: Godot (aka Diego Armando) is the mysterious, white-haired, masked new prosecutor. His main motive for going up against Phoenix is to get revenge on him because he blames Phoenix for the murder of Mia Fey and is the game’s final culprit. However, his primary motivation in the final case is to save Maya, and the one who poisoned him (both literally and metaphorically) is Dahlia Hawthorne, who is the culprit of Cases 1 and 4, and kickstarts the final case by attempting to kill Maya as part of a revenge plot conducted by her mother Morgan.
    • Apollo Justice: Kristoph Gavin is the mastermind who uses every trick in the book, from forged evidence to outright murder, to take down Phoenix Wright and keep everyone quiet about it. He's even convicted of murder in the game's first episode, but the full extent of his crimes aren't revealed until the final episode.
    • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Ambassador Quercus Alba of Allebhast is the head of the international smuggling ring responsible for nearly every murder in the game. The lone exception is the culprit of the third case, and even then it's the criminal's father who has a connection to Alba's syndicate.
    • Ace Attorney Investigations 2 has The Conductor and The Mastermind as the ones responsible for most of the murders in the game:
      • The Conductor/Blaise Debeste, the Chief Prosecutor and minion of the fake President Di-Jun Huang is behind much of the series events and sends Justine Courtney and his son Sebastian Debeste to obstruct Edgeworth and prevent him from uncovering their crimes. He is also responsible for the tragic backstory of the Mastermind.
      • The Mastermind/Simon Keyes is the mastermind behind most of the murders of the game, who killed his former best friend and the aforementioned president for personal reasons, tricked the president's cohorts into committing murder to get them imprisoned, and is the Final Boss of the game after effortlessly out-gambiting Blaise.
    • Dual Destinies: The phantom is the mysterious spy who bombed the space center seven years ago and again during the game, among other things brought on by trying to keep these crimes hidden, and subsequently plunged the courts into the Dark Age of the Law by getting an innocent, Simon Blackquill, convicted in his place, which resulted in Simon Blackquill becoming the main prosecutor. The Phantom is impersonating Detective Bobby Fullbright after killing him a year before the game, trying to lead the case away from himself.
    • Spirit of Justice: Queen Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in is the one responsible for turning the Kingdom of Khura'in into a dictatorship where defense attorneys are punished along with their clients if they are convicted. In addition, Queen Ga'ran is also the mastermind behind half of the game's murders, and is puppeteering prosecutor Nahyuta Sahdmadhi to enforce the regime.
    • The Great Ace Attorney: The overall villain of the duology is the Reaper of the Bailey, a mysterious London Serial Killer who is targeting anyone prosecuted by Barok van Zieks and acquitted, and is at the head of The Conspiracy that causes all but two of the cases in the duology. Their identity turns out to be Lord Chief Justice Mael Strongheart, who engineered everything so he could become the Attorney General and turn London into a crime-free utopia under his iron rule.
      • The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures has a Big Bad Ensemble. On one side, Magnus McGilded and Ashley Milverton are leaking top secret British governmental information, and commit murder to hide this, resulting in two of the cases (3 and 5). On the other is the Reaper, Mael Strongheart, who hired Jezaille Brett/Asa Shinn to kill John H. Wilson (Case 1) and is indirectly behind Cases 2 and 4.
      • The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve: The Reaper is once again the villain, as their schemes indirectly lead to the first three cases, and they directly mastermind the last two, in addition to having masterminded the murders of the Professor, Klint Van Zieks, who he blackmailed into killing his targets.
  • Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword has Akitsuki Shun, The Rival to Yuuto and the man who (though not the official leader) controls the Sargios Empire, enemy of the Rakios Kingdom. He is also the wielder of Oath, the weapon that Yuuto, with his sword Desire, must destroy, and the game’s Final Boss. And he’s obsessed with taking Kaori for himself. However, it is actually his sword, Oath, that is controlling him, making him violent. And then there is Temuorin, Matriarch of the Law Eternals. She is not the actual final fight, or the most powerful enemy faced, either, but she is the one who was in charge all along, as she engineered the whole plot of the story.
  • Atlach=Nacha has Hatsune Hirasaka as a Villain Protagonist, having infiltrated Yaesaka High School for the purpose of eating/raping the female students to replenish her strength and prepare herself to battle her nemesis Shirogane. However, Hatsune can be played as a Nominal Hero, and it turns out Shirogane himself is actually the true Big Bad, who not only makes his presence known at the end of the game, but is responsible for turning Hatsune into what she is now.
  • Corpse Party:
  • Danganronpa: Monokuma/Monobear, also known as the Ultimate Despair and the Mastermind, is the series antagonist as the host of all the Mutual Killing Games. By extension, there is also 'his' true self, Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista and the Evil Overlord of the Ultimate Despair that rules over the post-Tragedy world; the goal of the series is to overthrow her.
  • Death Room: Depending on the route, Dominic, Evie, and/or You will end up trying to kill everyone else to escape the room. The captors, on the other hand, are never revealed, making them a Greater-Scope Villain.
  • Demonbane: Master Therion is the founder and leader of the Black Lodge who seeks the magical grimoire Al-Azif so he can use her power to destroy the universe. Except he turns out to be a pawn of the evil librarian Nya, actually Nyarlathotep, who has her own agenda of unleashing Azathoth and the other Outer Gods to consume everything for her amusement.
  • Divi-Dead: The PE teacher Sano-sensei, aka the real Nishizaki, is revealed to be the leader of the cult operating in Asao Private School, with the goal of reviving the “divine child” via a Human Sacrifice.
  • Doki Doki Literature Club!: The club president Monika does her damndest to steal the player’s affection and keep him away from the other love interests; to that end, she is responsible for the other club member's deaths, all so she can have the Player (the player themselves instead of the player character) to herself. The Downer Ending reveals that the game itself corrupts whoever becomes President of the Literature Club, giving them the knowledge they're in a game and making them fall in love with the player.
  • Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets: Sally seems to be the main villain, since she kills Marty in many loops in order to protect her secrets. In reality, she's being controlled by her Split Personality, "Seira," aka Shadow, who is based on her traumatic memories of her sister and her Survivor's Guilt over the car accident that killed her boyfriend and sister.
  • her tears were my light: Nil is the dark entity/personification of nothingness that seeks to separate Space and Time. She isn’t doing it to be evil, however, but to make Time remember her, as she is the version of Space that has burned out, making her a rare example of a non-evil main antagonist.
  • The House in Fata Morgana:
    • In the original story, The Witch, Morgana, is the one who cursed the titular mansion to bring misfortune on all its masters, making her responsible for all the conflicts of the four eras. Until the final chapter, where she stops opposing you — from then on, Lord Jacopo, the Fallen Hero who is indirectly responsible for Morgana becoming a witch, becomes the antagonist keeping Morgana locked in the tower for her holy blood.
    • In the prequel, A Requiem For Innocence, Lord Jean-François Barnier is the insane tyrant whom Jacopo seeks to overthrow in order to stop his cruelty and protect Morgana from him, at least for Part I and the Interlude. In Part II, Jacopo himself becomes the new tyrant ruling over the land and the one who locks Morgana in the tower.
  • The Letter: The Ghost, aka the Anslem Butcher, haunts the Ermengarde Mansion and is said to kill anyone who reads the titular letter. All seven of the playable characters have to fight her off in their respective chapters. She is actually the fused spirit of Takako, a Japanese slave-turned-Meido, and Charlotte Ermengarde, the noble who rescued her, then tormented her until she had her executed as a witch. Takako came back and haunted Charlotte into suicide, wherein their spirits fused and became the terror of the main story.
  • Love & Legends: The Witch Queen is the driving antagonistic force of the story; she is trying to take over the realms with her armies, and the heroes are trying to stop her.
  • Marco & the Galaxy Dragon: Astaroth is the ruthless alien tyrant and Omnicidal Maniac who needs the Lizard Stone to fulfill his goals of galactic conquest. He's responsible for practically every bad thing that happens in the plot, directly or otherwise, and even Marco's kidnapping at the start of the game was done at his orders.
  • Mystic Messenger: The Savior is the enigmatic leader of Mint Eye, a cult who aims to destroy the Rika Fundraising Association and bring about happiness through brainwashing, and sends Unknown to abduct the heroine to use her for their plans. It turns out to be Rika herself, who was supposedly dead.
  • In both of the Romance Detective novels, the culprit behind the love brainwashing is the artist Leandre, who wants to create a world of love... except she herself is a pawn of Venus, the Love Goddess, who wants everyone to worship her again.
  • Science Adventure Series: The Committee of 300 are the overall villains of the series, as they plan to reduce humanity to a population of one billion and unite the remainder under a single totalitarian utopia where peace is maintained through the eradication of free will. Every individual Big Bad has some kind of connection to them, direct or otherwise.
    • Chaos;Head: The mysterious old man in a wheelchair, known only as 'Shogun/The General', is the one stalking and haunting Takumi Nishijou, and is using the Demon Girl to perpetrate the New Gen murders gripping Shibuya, all for some hidden purpose. Shogun is eventually revealed as the real Takumi, and his malevolence is all in Takumi's head. Both he and Rimi are innocent, and trying to train Takumi to fight the real villain — Norose Genichi, president of the NOZOMI group who created the super-powered Gigalomaniacs through Mind Rape and used them to power Noah II. He masterminded the murders with the goal of psychologically tormenting Takumi into awakening as a gigalomaniac, then extracting his CODE sample to perfect Noah II and use it to essentially control the world through Mass Hypnosis.
    • Steins;Gate:
      • The mysterious FB is the local leader of the Rounders, a private army employed by SERN to attack anyone who tries to expose their shady activities. FB is sent to spy on Okabe and his lab members with the intent of acquiring his time machine, which SERN aims to use to Take Over the World (and already has in a Bad Future). Many of the things Okabe has to deal with can be traced back to FB, including some of Mayuri's deaths and Nae going Ax-Crazy. It is eventually revealed that FB is Yuugo Tennouji/Mister Braun, Okabe's landlord. Once he is dealt with, the role shifts in the final two chapters to Dr Nakabachi/Shouichi Makise, Kurisu's father and killer who wants to steal her time travel research, which leads to another Bad Future — World War III. To save humanity, Okabe must save Kurisu from him.
      • Linear Bounded Phenogram: FB continues to be the main antagonist, as the various conflicts of most of the chapters can be traced back to them. The exceptions are the last two chapters: In Okabe's second chapter (Abduction Across Three Worlds), 4℃/Shido is the one responsible for the disappearance of Mayrui as the one who stole her pocket watch, and in Nae's chapter (Lunar Bifröst), the SERN agents pursuing Nae are the antagonists.
      • Rebellion of the Missing Ring: Kayano is the Rounder from the Bad Future who is pursuing Suzuha to kill her and stop her from saving the future.
      • Braunian Motion of Love and Hate: FB/Yuugo Tennouji's unnamed superior from SERN is the one sending FB on their mission to secure the IBN 5100, and threatening Yuugo Tennouji's family in the process.
    • Chaos;Child:
      • The mysterious chat user known only as Amy is the mastermind behind the Return of the New Generation madness murders, replicating the ones from the original story. The true identity of Amy is Serika Onoe, the main heroine and childhood friend of Takuru Miyashiro. However, she is working for Dr. Wataru Sakuma and Mr. Shuichi Wakui, Miyashiro's Mad Scientist foster father and a teacher at Hekiho, respectively, who are members of the Committee of 300 and want to kill all Gigalomaniacs on their behalf. In the Real Sky route, Serika betrays Sakuma and Wakui to become the antagonist for real.
      • Love Chu Chu: Shuichi Wakui reprises his role, being the one who traps Takuru and his friends in a shared delusion to make Takuru use his powers.
    • Steins;Gate 0: The mastermind behind the plot to hijack Amadeus, steal the time machine blueprints, and spark World War III is revealed to be Judy Reyes and Alexis Leskinen, two American doctors at Viktor Chondria University who are actually agents for DURPA and Stratfor respectively, and desire to win the war for America and Russia respectively. Though they do work together, it is at cross purposes.
  • Secret Game: Killer Queen:
    • In Ep 1, the Game Master who runs the Deadly Game that the characters are trapped in is Mayumi Gouda, the businesswoman who was encountered at the beginning of the episode.
    • In Ep 2, this role is taken over by the mysterious person who is killling the other characters, who turns out to be Shikijou Yuuki, the little girl who Soichi was protecting.
  • Shining Song Starnova:
    • Seiichi Kamijou is the antagonist of most routes. As the CEO of Golden Calf and producer for the rival idol group Quasar, he takes it upon himself to humiliate and destroy the titular Starnova group in every conceivable way to get revenge on Mr. Producer, Mariya, Sasami, and Aki for daring to turn their backs on his company.
    • In Aki's and Sasami's routes, Board Chairman Kenjiro Oda and Quaser Idol Haruka Enokida become the antagonists, plotting to take over Golden Calf from Kamijou so Oda can be rich and powerful enough to molest girls without any consequences and Haruka can be the top idol.
  • Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair: Momoko Mori is the mastermind behind the murder of Hiro Shiratake and potentially Kotoba Gaikoku, in order to frame Kamen Eiga and Runa Hikari and get revenge on the four of them for their mistreatment of her in the past.
  • Policenauts: There is a Big Bad Duumvirate of Gates Becker and Joseph Sadaki Tokugawa.
  • Saya no Uta has the titular female protagonist Saya, an extradimensional being whose appearance is apparently so horrifying that anyone who looks at it will go insane. Saya spends the game killing, eating, and experimenting on innocent people, and has the mission of transforming all of humanity into members of her species. Fuminori Sakisaka sees her as a normal girl due to his extreme agnosia and grows to love her, though whether he chooses to stay by her side and grow more depraved over time depends on the player's choice, and if he does they form a Big Bad Duumvirate, working together to accomplish her horrific goal.
  • School Days: Depending on the route, any one of the characters can become the villain, from Makoto Itou himself manipulating the girls for sex, to Kotonoha Katsura and/or Sekai Saionji snapping and becoming a murderous Yandere, to Otome Katou and her Girl Posse bullying Kotonoha.
  • Spirit Hunter series:
  • Sunrider: Veniczar S. Arcadius is the leader of PACT who aims to conquer the galaxy. His first order of business is capturing and marrying the Princess of Ryuvia to gain access to it’s secrets. His true identity is a Hive Mind of female Artificial Humans known as the Prototypes, led by three people: Alice Ashada, Alpha Prototype, and Claude Treillo.
  • Tokyo Dark: Reina, aka Ruby, is the mysterious ghost girl who is the culprit behind several incidents and the kidnapping and death of Kazuki Tanaka, Detective Ayami Itō's Love Interest. Reina aims to steal the Mask from Ayami, who spends the game chasing her down, in order to reach her mother's spirit in the Door because the Collector told her to, and because her abuse at the hands of Higachi and Tokimassa had warped her.
  • War: 13th Day: King Barium is the leader of the clan of the Vi, a mysterious clan who appeared and has essentially taken over Virgo Island. Wildfire, one of the main heroines, plots to overthrow the Vi, putting her in conflict with him. Of course, the Barium seen here is a part of Wildfire’s Dying Dream, putting into question how malevolent he really is. The true villain for the immediate story could be considered Wildfire’s murderer, aka the player.
  • When They Cry:
    • Higurashi: The cause of the Hate Plague is identified as the curse of the guardian deity Oyashiro-sama, who is worshiped by the local Religion of Evil in Hinamizawa; although it is ambiguous if he is really a god of a human mastermind pretending to be one. His true identity is — well, there's two of them. Hanyuu Furude is the true one, but she's innocent; while Nurse Miyo Takano is revealed to be using the name as an alias to cover up the fact that she’s the true mastermind behind Rika's murder as well as the one orchestrating the Great Hinamizawa Disaster in what is a Milkman Conspiracy. Her plan is to actually become a god.
    • Umineko: The culprit behind the storm surrounding the Rokkenjima Manor, and the murders, claims to be Beatrice the Golden Witch, whom the patriarch Kinzo made a deal with. Battler insists that she is a mundane human using tricks, and sets out to expose her true self, which turns out to be Sayo Yasuda/Lion Ushiromiya. However, once she dies at the end of the first half, she is usurped by Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, the ones who turned her into a witch in the first place, for the second half. Because of this, Bernkastel is now a Rogue Protagonist and Fallen Hero, since she is the amalgamation of all the dead Rika Furudes from Higurashi, while Lambdadelta is implied to be the one who granted Miyo Takano’s wish to become a god, and possibly Takano herself in some form.
    • The Unforgiving Flowers Blossom in the Dead of Night: While each story has it’s own antagonist, Higanbana herself is the most recurring one, being the third-ranked Youkai who manipulates the students into despair to consume their souls. However, Reiko Osumi/Sumire, the seventh ranked youkai, turns out to be responsible for the mass bullying, and by extension the storylines that surface from it. She’s also the one who made Higanbana into a cruel Youkai.
    • Rose Guns Days: Rather than a single main antagonist, the greatest threats to City 23 and Club Primavera are the dueling mob bosses, each of whom is fought in succession of each other. By season:
      • Season 1 has “Crazy” Alfred Akagi, a mob boss that extorts the Primavera club for money.
      • Season 2/1957 arc has Father Caleb Souhei Keireiji, leader of the Caleb Family who seeks to gather 100 million Japanese dollars for the American occupying forces to help his people — and kills people, squeezing every last money out of them, and antagonizes Primavera, to get the money.
      • Season 3/1948 has Blue Dragon Wang Yuanhong, a leader of the Golden Dragon Society, who competes with Primavera to control the spice trade, and also plots on behalf of his superiors, the Elder Council, to unseat the young emperor of the Golden Dragons.
      • Season 4/1949 and (indirectly) 1950 has Major Gabriel Kaburaya of the GHQ, who turns the other villains into his pawns and starts killing everyone to engineer a gang war between Primavera and Golden Dragon as revenge for his family being killed by yakuza. In 1950, he controls Richard and installs him as the direct threat, but is still the Final Boss.
  • Yo-Jin-Bo has Harumoto, upstart clan-leader wannabe and would-be murderer of Hatsuhime.
  • The Zero Escape trilogy has, in each game, nine people kidnapped and forced to play a Deadly Game by a mysterious person calling themselves Zero. Each game has a different Zero, and the Big Bad often turns out to be hiding among the group.

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