Nathaniel Joseph Claw
The Hero of this story, he's a pirate captain who happens to be known and feared across the Seven Seas. After being captured by Le Rauxe and sent to the infamous La Roca prison, he finds a posthumous note from Edward Tobin, a long-dead prisoner who resided in Claw's cell before him. Tobin's note tells the story about Amulet of Nine Lives—an artifact that not only grants its wielder the aforementioned nine lives, but also great magical power. Intrigued, Claw decides to break out of the prison and obtain the Amulet.
- A Father to His Men: Captain Claw looks after his men, and finding them is his second major objective. Once he does find them, he encourages them to look for a ship while he braves the perils of the final approach to the Amulet on his own.
- Art Shift:
- Awesome, yet Impractical: His Magic Claw attack—it'll rip through anything in his path with the exception of bosses, but you get so few pickups for it that it's best saved for the endgame foes.
- Badass Adorable: Captain Claw is a cat and looks kinda cute with his royal-blue uniform and the kitten look on his face. However, he's also one tough pirate who fights his way through all the mooks and bosses on his own!
- Badass in Distress: The game starts off with him being captured by Le Rouxe, he escapes on his own shortly after.
- Badass Longcoat: His blue tailcoat certainly adds to his appearance.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: He may ask player to bring him something from the kitchen from time to time should the player forget to pause the game.
- Deadpan Snarker: He has smartass comments directed at the situation, his enemies or even you.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: One of his remarks is "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the handsomest cat of all..."
- Hand Blast: His Magic Claw attack, a shimmering projectile blast that takes out anything in its path and pierces through enemies.
- Idle Animation: If you don't move him, Captain Claw will start saying things like, ostly in a snide tone."Hello, I'm not getting any younger!"
"I'm growing impatient!"
"At least bring me something back from the kitchen."
"I'm waiting!" - Magic Knight: Aside from his skill with a cutlass, a pistol and bare-handed, Claw can launch Hand Blasts titled "Magic Claw". How he gained access to this power is unknown and unexplained.
- The Musketeer: Claw wields both a cutlass and a flintlock pistol with equal skill, but doesn't dual wield them.
- It's Personal: Le Rauxe's sinking his ship and imprisoning him made the arrogant dog top on Captain Claw's hit list. Claw also seems to have a bitter personal history with Katherine, Marrow, and Red-Tail.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: In addition to his cutlass, pistol, and Magic Claw, the good captain can hurl bundles of dynamite.
- Super Drowning Skills: In a blatant case of Gameplay and Story Segregation — a cutscene shows him jumping into a moat and swimming to the other side —, if Claw falls into water of any kind during gameplay, he dies instantly.
Tropes applying to bosses in general:
- No-Sell: Unless specified otherwise, all bosses are immune to your pistol, dynamite and magic claw. As such, you must rely solely on your sword skills.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: You can try... but you'll just waste the precious ammunition that you collected earlier.
Le Rauxe
A French dog and naval commander who happens to be working for the Spaniards. He managed to capture Claw in the opening cinematic, sunk his ship, and sent him to La Roca to await execution. He's the first boss the player will face, and quite disappointingly—yet thankfully, given his status as the first boss—he's more or less a Warmup Boss. In a stroke of coincidence, he holds the first gem for the Amulet of Nine Lives.
- Agent Peacock: Don't let his frilled coat and effete mannerisms fool you — Le Rauxe is tougher than the men he commands (This, of course, is relative).
- Faux Affably Evil: His politeness to Claw in the opening cinematic is poisoned with a mocking undertone, and he cheerfully informs Claw that his stay in La Roca — the last place he'll see before his execution — will be particularly uncomfortable.
- It's Personal: Despite being a first boss, he's earned Claw's personal enmity by sinking his ship and imprisoning him.
- Real Men Wear Pink: His clothes are violet and purple, and boast frills.
- Sissy Villain: His voice is soft, his movements are decidedly limp and he wears violet clothes with frills.
- Softspoken Sadist: Both in the cut scenes and when Claw enters his room, his voice is low, silky, and soft...all of which are done in such a way as to accentuate the fact that he's quite evil.
- Sword Fight: Notably, he's one of the few bosses who duels Claw properly with a blade. All the others rely on more exotic weapons or gimmicks.
- Warmup Boss: Le Rauxe is easily the most straightforward of the bosses that Claw faces - while you can't just stand there and stab at him, it's a relatively simple matter to jump at him and slip a blow past his usual defenses, then pull back to avoid his counterattack. Rinse and repeat.
Katherine
She's a cat who used to serve under Claw, but got kicked out because of her recklessness and sloth. Currently resides in Thieves' forest and is the second boss. As you have probably guessed, she also has one gem.
- All There in the Manual: Being kicked out of Claw's crew is something that you wouldn't know about unless you read the design document.
- Dark Action Girl: As a pirate and boss enemy, she falls under this trope.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: She's a Wakeup Call Boss of the very high caliber, despite what the Claw Design Document may suggest.
- She-Fu: One of the more acrobatic bosses. Back her into a corner too much, and she jumps past Claw, dealing damage and forcing him to re-position himself.
- Smurfette Principle: The only female boss out of eight of them.
- Terms of Endangerment: She's prone to calling Claw "so pretty," with a deadly purr in her voice.
- Wakeup Call Boss: You can't just back her into a corner like you did with Le Rauxe - you've got to give her some room to approach, or she'll perform an acrobatic leap that puts her behind you and damages you along the way.
Lucius Wolvington
The wolf Magistrate of El Puerto Del Lobo, the owner of third gem, and the third boss.
- Anti-Villain: He just happens to stand in Claw's way and doesn't seem hostile (like Aquatis) nor is he somehow related to Claw's past.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: He's the magistrate of Puerto del Lobo, and puts up more of a fight than his already-talented men.
- Hand Blast: Six of them, creating a barrage that's really hard to avoid. Even after nerf, it can still chip away up to 30 hp.
- Inexplicably Awesome: How is he able to do the same kind of magic as Claw? No explanation is given.
- Noble Wolf: A rare example of the antagonistic variety. He's a villain but he has no personal grudge against the heroes.
- Power Fist: His favored counterattack is to run in close and punch Claw with a silver gauntlet. You can duck under this and counter-attack with a ducking stab.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Despite being the magistrate of a Spanish-occupied port town, Wolvington's accent is either Scottish or Irish.
Mr. Gabriel
Red Tail's second-in-command. He's quite vain, preferring to let others do the fighting for him while he preens and attacks from a distance. As the fourth boss, he also happens to be carrying a gem for the Amulet of Nine Lives.
- Agent Peacock: He's vain, preens, and tells his men to fight for him. He can still sling a trio of bombs to ruin your day pretty quickly.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Gabriel, we know you're a confident guy, but why the hell would you allow your enemy to switch your cannon's direction? And why would you keep firing it (risking the chance that your enemy reversed its direction) when you've got a bottomless supply of bombs and an army of sailors to fall back on?
- The Dragon: He's the first mate to Red Tail, Claw's Arch-Enemy. And while he's hardly among the final enemies you encounter, he's dangerous enough to be considered this trope.
- Flunky Boss: He has a habit of occasionally sending Mooks at you.
- Large Ham: His death scene, in particular, has him thrashing about and lamenting his impending demise with an awful lot of volume for a dying man.
- Puzzle Boss: You cannot hurt him in any way. The only thing you can do is climb a series of platforms to hit a switch that reverses the direction of a nearby cannon, causing Gabriel to hurt himself when he fires it.
- Smug Snake: His pre-battle quote is basically this:"Ah-ha! The soon-to-be-deceased, Captain Claw."
- Stuff Blowing Up: He throws clusters of bombs at you.
You won't like them.
Joseph Marrow
"An old friend" of Claw, the leader of pirates from Pirates' Cove, the fifth boss and the owner of the fifth gem.
- Acrofatic: Dodges attacks like crazy, and is noticeably rounder than other bosses.
- Hand Cannon: His flintlock pistol can do a lot of damage if you aren't good at dodging his shots.
- Loyal Animal Companion: He owns a parrot who fights for him tooth and nail.
- Marathon Boss: It takes time to defeat him because first you have to fight his attacking parrot, plus the parrot can transport him to save him from Claw's fighting.
- Right-Hand Attack Dog: "Arrr! Go get 'im, Beaky!"
- Secondary Color Nemesis: He wears green, in contrast to Claw's blue tailcoat.
- Sword and Gun: He attacks Claw with a sword and a high-caliber flintlock pistol, and it proves to be quite a deadly combo. And, of course, that's not counting his parrot...
Aquatis
A king of undersea caves, a giant, fat octopus-esque creature. Immune to everything you have, which forces you to look for an alternative solution to fight him. The sixth boss and an owner of the sixth gem.
- Adipose Rex: He's a pretty heavy-set guy.
- Cool Crown: He wears a gilded grown set with jewels.
- Combat Tentacles: And he can strangle you with them!
- Death by Looking Up: He can only be hurt by triggering earthquakes that drop stalactites on his head.
- Evil Laugh: A rippling, burbling one that makes it sound like he's talking through water.
- Oh, Crap!: He adopts this expression whenever Claw successfully gets a stick of dynamite through the hall.
- Puzzle Boss: You can't kill him with any of your weapons. The trick is spotting the hole in the wall behind him, and hurling dynamite into it.
- Stationary Boss: Doesn't move an inch during the whole fight.
Red Tail
Claw's greatest enemy, though sadly we do not know that much about him. The penultimate boss and an owner of two gems. Unlike other bosses before him, he gets out of the fight alive (or at least in one piece).
- Abnormal Ammo: whatever he fires from his gun, it's definitely not a normal projectile. Given Red Tail's Evil Counterpart status to Claw, it might be even magical in nature.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: Inverted. While the wall in question does exist in the Boss Room, you will be the one who'll end up advancing on it.
- Arch-Enemy: Of all Claw's enemies from the past, he seems to be the biggest one.
- Blow You Away: If you hear "Western Wind, come forth!", you can consider yourself screwed.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Inverted. If anything, his Boss Room is designed so it can enhance his attacks, and there's no power-up for you to pick up ( apart from a small cache hidden at the far end of the shoreline, but you need to take a blind leap of faith to get at it).
- Boss Banter: Compared to other bosses, he talks surprisingly much. He's also the only boss to grunt when hit.
- Combat Pragmatist: Aside from his considerable arsenal in the boss fight, Redtail isn't above using dishonorable tactics like drawing a hidden dagger to try and turn the tables on Claw after losing their duel.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: The only way to beat Red Tail is to hit him until he stops moving. The fact that he'll only allow two hits at the time considerably lengthens the fight.
- Evil Counterpart: To his rival Claw: both are felines, both are experienced and respected captains, both fight with many weapons, both are among the very few characters who can appear to use magic. One dresses in blue and tan while the other dresses in red and black. Despite the similarities, Claw is shown to have a moral code and is good to his crew, while Red Tail appears to care only about himself and is much more willing to use dirty moves.
- Face Death with Dignity: Subverted - while he doesn't actually end up biting it, he had no reason to expect he'd survive when Claw disarmed him at the end of their duel. Instead of cowering or begging, however, he grimly reflects that Claw's likely to die in the temple, and defiantly tells Claw that he's not worthy of the Amulet of Nine Lives.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The cutscene that plays after his duel with Claw suggests that the two of them were having a swordfight. The thing is, he doesn't use a sword against you at any point in the boss battle.
- Hand Cannon: Owns a particular massive flintlock pistol, and uses it from time to time.
- King of Beasts: He is a lion, and is very ambitious and prideful.
- Red and Black, Keep Back: his outfit is colored like this, and he's one of the game's main antagonists.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He hands one of these to Claw at the end of their duel, espousing his belief that even with the Gems, Claw doesn't deserve the amulet.Redtail: "The trophy is for someone like me. A leader. A visionary. A survivor. You're nothing more than a decorated thief."
- Sore Loser: When his last-ditch effort to kill Claw fails, Redtail throws the gems in his own possession into the waters of Tiger Island's shoreline rather than hand them over. Of course, Claw retrieves them rather easily, and it's implied that Redtail just used this as a distraction to escape.
- We Will Meet Again: His parting cutscene has him escaping after losing the gems, vowing to Claw that they'll meet again someday.
- Worthy Opponent: He seems to concede this after the player bests him.
Lord Omar
The Final Boss and the guardian of the Amulet of Nine Lives. Whether he knew Claw in the past is anyone's guess, but he certainly seems to know his name when he arrives for the final battle. Noted as notoriously hard among the fanbase.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: At the end of the game, it turns out that he's going to accompany Claw as protector of the Amulet of Nine Lives.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Zig-zagged. One the one hand, there'd be no way of getting past his shield without the magical swords that he keeps in his boss chamber. On the other hand, getting to those swords (and then getting back to where Omar is) is hardly easy. Potentially justified — he's there to challenge would-be treasure hunters seeking the Amulet of Nine Lives. It wouldn't be a fair test if they couldn't get past his barrier.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Like Redtail, the ending cutscene suggests that he was dueling Claw with a sword during their boss fight; instead of the much more drawn-out process Claw had to go through to fight him.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Omar teleports to another spot whenever you wound him, forcing you to pursue him in order to continue the fight.
- Graceful Loser: Once Claw bests him, he makes no effort to prevent the pirate from claiming the Amulet of Nine Lives.
- Kill It with Fire: Not the man himself (although he's surrounded by a fire shield), but the traps in his Boss Room are basically made of this trope.
- Kill It with Ice: He is surrounded by an ice shield once you get rid of the fire shield. And then the circle repeats.
- Large Ham: He would be right at home on the set of one of Shakespeare's plays. Fitting, since he quotes the Bard's works during his boss fight.
- Puzzle Boss: During the first phase, you need certain weapon power-ups to damage him, depending on the shield he's using.
- Shout-Out: All of his battle quotes directly reference works by William Shakespeare.
Edward Tobin
A Posthumous Character, but the one who sets the whole plot into motion. It is his note about the Amulet that is found by Claw in La Roca.
- Despair Event Horizon: His voice-over when Claw reads his letter is weary and miserable. Justified, as he was facing execution and knew there was no way out for him.
- The Ghost: We never get any idea as to what he looked like.
- Hero of Another Story: He had his own set of adventures before finally being locked up in La Roca. At the very least, he managed to get his hands on one of the gems of the Amulet of Nine Lives, before losing it in a gamble at a tavern in Puerto del Lobo.
- I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: In his note, he encourages the reader to succeed where he could not and retrieve the Amulet of Nine Lives, providing a piece of the map to help with that goal.
- Posthumous Character: He's been executed by the Spanish long before Claw ever ended up in his cell. Nevertheless, his final note is what sets the whole adventure into motion.
