Characters / Furi

All the different interesting characters in Furi.

Perhaps needless to say, given how obscured much of the story is for most of the game, but unmarked spoilers are plentiful. You Have Been Warned.

Protagonists

The Stranger

The Stranger/The Rider

"You were a weapon, a bringer of death. And now, you're nothing."

—The Chain

The Player Character. A nameless man and "bringer of death", imprisoned by the Guardians. The Voice frees him from his prison at the start of the game and he fights his way to freedom. He is, in actuality, a scout for an alien invasion of the planet to harvest its resources, and him returning to the ship at the end of the game jumpstarts the destruction of the planet, something he can either let happen or interrupt.

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• Apocalypse Maiden: His return to The Star will result in the world's destruction, unless he decides to rebel.
• Badass Cape: The Stranger wears a long red cape and he's a formidable fighter.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: An analysis by the Burst reveals that his heart has 8 beats per minute, and that his DNA either can't be analysed or is otherwise nonexistent. This is likely due to his true nature.
• Dark Is Not Evil: You'd be forgiven for thinking so. Then again, this trope could be true if The Stranger ends his vengeful quest or saves the Free World.
• Healing Factor: He can regenerate damage by parrying attacks, beating one phase of a boss, or by dying.
• Heel–Face Turn: Potentially, if he takes The Song's offer and gives up his quest for vengeance, or if he refuses The Star's commands and saves the planet from assimilation.
• Heroic Mime: He is completely silent, though he is quite emotive. However, the "heroic" part of this trope gradually fades away while the game progresses. The only way the trope can play itself straight again is if The Stranger accepts The Song's peaceful offer or rebels against The Star to save the Free World.
• Hidden Depths: Despite not saying anything, it's clear that he understands what's transpiring, and he makes a lot of interesting facial expressions.
• Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Has the motif of both War (dressed in red cloak, wielding a sword and being an invincible warrior) and Death (being the herald of the world's destruction, and being a Walking Wasteland).
• Human Aliens: Looks like a cybernetic human, but he's actually a mass-produced alien scout to determine if the Free World is fit for assimilation.
• Humanity Is Infectious: A possible explication to his potential Heel–Face Turn against The Star, at the very least The Star appears to believe that this is the case.
  The Star: They said you corrupted their world, but they corrupted you.
• Katanas Are Just Better: His Graphene Composite Saber more closely resembles a katana.
• Laser Blade: Overlapping with Hot Blade, as his Graphene Composite Saber tends to crackle with power but is not made of Pure Energy.
• Leitmotif: "My Only Chance", by "The Toxic Avenger" (the music artist, not the movie the artist is named after).
• Lightning Bruiser: Able to dash at speeds up to 73 kilometers an hour, slice things to ribbons with his graphene-composite blade, and regenerate wounds and resurrect himself after death.
• Magic Genetics: The Burst's drones receive an error when trying to figure out what his DNA is.
• Meaningful Name: Yes. "The Stranger" applies because he's an enigma to the player at the start of the game, and hence is a Stranger to them. As for his other title, "The Rider", well, The Bible gives us a pretty big hint.
  • This Is My Name on Foreign: He's still named "Rider" even in the French version.
• The Musketeer: A Graphene Composite Saber and an Automatic Laser Handgun are The Stranger's weapons of choice.
• Mystical White Hair: Who or indeed what he is is a mystery for most of the game. As the game slowly reveals The Stranger's past, he falls under White Hair, Black Heart unless he saves the Free World.
• Ray Gun: His other weapon, capable of both semi-automatic fire and Charged Attacks.
• Red Is Heroic: The Stranger wears a long red cape and black clothing that sometimes glows blue Tron Lines, and he is seemingly on an epic quest for freedom. Then this trope gets subverted in favor of Red and Black and Evil All Over when The Stranger is revealed to be a Villain Protagonist halfway through the game. Then again, it's possible for The Stranger to redeem himself, whether by accepting The Song's offer of peace or by fighting The Star to save the Free World.
• Resurrective Immortality: Serves as a justification for Video-Game Lives, and for why the Guardians don't just kill him; they tried, but nothing keeps him permanently down. They had to settle with locking him away and convincing him that he couldn't escape. The Chain exploits this to torture him endlessly.
  The Chain: I will keep on killing you. Again. And Again. I am your future: an eternity of slow, painful deaths.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: What the Guardians see him as. Depending on the player's actions, they might be right.
• Shock and Awe: His sword occasionally crackles with energy, implying this, particularly considering graphene's conductivity.
• Super-Speed: According to The Burst's scanner, he can run at 73 kilometers an hour. It's unknown if that counts his ability to dash even faster than he runs.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: A rare protagonist example. The Stranger/Rider is "merely" a mass-produced alien scout, but despite this his initial defeat required the committal of hundreds of warriors just to wear him down enough to get imprisoned, and afterwards placing a group of powerful guardians to imprison him away from Earth.
• Tron Lines: His suit is covered in these. They glow blue regularly, green when healing from a parry, and bright yellow when his sword is charged up.
• Unobtainium: His sword is made of graphene, an allotrope of carbon. Zig-Zagged in that while graphene can be made today, it can't be used in layers any thicker than a single molecule. Perhaps justified as well, considering that it's a graphene composite rather than just pure carbon.
• Villain Protagonist: As the game progresses, this is ultimately what he's revealed to be. The first four bosses are either insane or sadistic, or both (with the notable exception of The Line). From the fifth boss onwards, the game begins twisting what you think was a heroic escape from a terrible situation into a horrific tale of an escaping apocalyptic threat and the people trying to save their world from him.
• The Voiceless: Never speaks. In combat, however, he can occasionally be heard grunting when either getting hit or delivering an attack string finisher.
• Walking Wasteland: Outside of the Prison, anyway.

The Voice

The Voice/The Architect

Voiced by: Eric Aubrahn (French), David Gasman (English), Yasuhiro Mamiya (Japanese)

"The Architect gave up, and The Father made a plan."

A mysterious man wearing a rabbit mask who helps The Stranger escape. He knows much about The Prison and the Guardians, and seems to be using The Stranger to further his own agenda.

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• Animal Motifs: The rabbit, natch.
• Defector from Decadence: Is the seventh Guardian and the architect of The Stranger's prison. He's so determined to see his daughter again that he doesn't care any more about holding the Stranger in the Prison.
• Expy: The big animal head and the fact he only interacts with The Stranger are very invocative of Afro Samurai's Kuma and Ninja-Ninja, respectively.
• Foreshadowing: He's surprisingly spiteful towards the Hand, as he focuses around building up The Stranger's anger at the person who led an army to defeat him. This is because the Hand gets to raise his child on his world in the Prison. The Voice is angry that he wasn't given the same leisure.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Architect that designed the Prison did his job so well that even he, with all his control and knowledge of the place, couldn't escape from it once he wanted to leave.
• I Just Want to Be Free: He wants to be free so he can be with his daughter.
• Leitmotif: "Love And Madness"
• Manipulative Bastard: Describes the Guardians in the worst light to The Stranger, in order to encourage the latter to fight. In truth, the jury is still out on many of them...
• Meaningful Name: You'll be hearing his Voice a lot, because he talks. A lot.
  • His other name, "the Architect," also applies, as he designed the prison.
• Morality Pet: Can eventually be this for The Stranger. If it sticks or not depends on the player's choice.
• Mr. Exposition: Tells you bits and pieces about the Prison and the Guardians before and after each fight. Justified, as he's the one who designed the Prison, and he's trying to motivate the Stranger to fight his jailers in order to help the Stranger and himself escape.
• Offscreen Teleportation: He can instantly move from a place to another when the camera's not on him, and at some points, even float in midair. It is implied he has some control over what he can do in the Prison since he's its Architect.
• On a Scale from One to Ten: This is how he describes the Burst's combat skill to the Stranger, as well as warn him exactly how difficult the fight is going to be.
  The Voice: On a scale from 1 to 10, she's an 11, and she'd give herself a 12.
• Papa Wolf: Helps The Stranger escape so that he can see his daughter before the end of the world.
• Screw Destiny: He puts little stock in The Line's fatalism. On a larger scale, he may be trying to get The Rider to fight and destroy The Star.
  There is no fate. We build our own destiny.
• Trickster Mentor: To The Stranger. His advice is always cryptic and unflattering toward the Jailers to encourage the Stranger to keep going.
• The Unfought: As the seventh guardian.
• Unreliable Narrator: It's left ambiguous just how much of what The Voice tells The Stranger is true, half-true, or a complete fabrication.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the "Inferno" ending, since his freeing of the Stranger brings about the end of the world.

Antagonists

Shared Tropes

• Boss Banter: With the exception of The Strap, who simply screams wildly and otherwise makes no vocal sounds, all the bosses will speak to and question, taunt or compliment The Stranger during their fights.
• Boss Fight: Enforced by the design of the Prison, as it's impossible to leave a section without the resident Guardian dying.
• The Faceless: The Chain, The Strap, and The Scale never show their faces. The Burst also usually has her face obscured by her purple veil, but there are a couple moments where it can be glimpsed.
• Fisher King: Each environment in the prison matches its Guardian.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Chain, The Line, The Hand, The Burst, and The Beat are finished off this way.
• Inescapable Ambush: The only way out of each section of the Prison is to kill that area's guardian. Lampshaded by The Voice, as he couldn't find any other way to escape, and he is incapable of killing them himself.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: Exaggerated and Inverted: Killing every last jailer is the only way to escape the Prison, and they volunteered for this duty for various reasons but the main one is to keep the harbinger of the alien Star locked away.

The Chain

The Chain

Voiced by: Emmanuel Gradi (French), Geoffrey Bateman (English), Tomotaka Hachisuka (Japanese)

"I was hoping you'd try to get out. So I can hurt you, real bad."

The Jailer directly responsible for guarding The Stranger. A three-faced man who serves as the tutorial boss of the game.

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• Battle in the Rain: His room apparently experiences a perpetual thunderstorm.
• Blood Knight: He's very thrilled at the prospect of having a good fight.
  The Chain: I swear I'll put you right back in your cell. There's an easy way and a hard way. You choose.
  [The Stranger draws his sword]
  The Chain: [laughs] Excellent choice!
• Cool Mask: Three of them, in fact. They float in front of his face on a band of some sort and rotate around as the fight goes on.
• Defiant to the End: Even as the Stranger is about to kill him, his only response is to taunt him that he has no hope of escaping in the same cold, mocking tone he spoke with when he was torturing him in his cell.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Offers this choice to The Stranger before they fight.
• Hidden Depths: He's easily the most arrogant of the Guardians, but it's interesting to note the very first thing he does upon noticing The Stranger's escape is sounding the alarm so the other Guardians will know he's coming. Maybe he's not as confident in stopping him as he seems.
• Leitmotif: "6:24", by "Danger".
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Chain wears a trio of sinister masks based on Noh theater masks and he's the cruelest Jailor in the game. Once you're past the tutorial phases, they'll rotate around his head.
• Meaningful Name: Chains are associated with jailers and torturers, both descriptions that apply to The Chain himself.
• Punctuated Pounding: In the opening scene, he does this to The Stranger to accentuate what he's in for.
• Sadist: He's quite open about his wish to inflict pain on the Stranger.
• To the Pain: Much of his dialogue is him talking about his plans to hurt the Stranger.
  The Chain: I will keep on killing you. Again. And again. I am your future: an eternity of slow, painful deaths.
• Token Evil Teammate: While most of the Guardians are Tortured Monsters who are too insane to be considered evil, Ambiguously Evil, people whose moral alignment can't really be gleaned because all they do in the story is stand in The Stranger's way, or even outright Hero Antagonists, The Chain is a barbaric sadist who spends most of his screen-time smugly talking about the pain he intends to inflict on the Stranger.
• Torture Technician: He certainly enjoys torturing the Stranger.
• Warm-Up Boss: On Furi difficulty, he's this, serving as a tutorial and moving fairly slowly. Less so on Furier, however, where he's just as dangerous as every other boss.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Compared to all the other bosses, The Chain doesn't have much exposition related to him, though it can be surmised he's voluntarily working as a Guardian in order to torture the Stranger, and has been doing so for an unstated length of time.

The Strap

The Strap

"But you and me, we both know that being locked up fucks you up inside. We know that so well..."

— The Voice

A wild woman who showed up one day, searching for something and destroying everything in her way, before getting imprisoned into a cell that would just keep growing back around her as she tried to tear it down, driving her totally insane. She serves as the second "jailer" in the sense that she's in the way.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: She somehow appears to have pink skin.
• Ambiguously Human: Her bright pink skin, as well as her nature as a wild Person of Mass Destruction who came out of nowhere, make it hard to pin her down as human.
• Ax-Crazy: Her wild screaming and crazed attacks pretty obviously point to her being completely insane. It's not likely she was very sane to begin with, as her finding something that she couldn't destroy permanently seems to have caused her current mental state. She's too obsessed with trying to destroy her part of the Prison to even consider trying to find a way out.
• Bound and Gagged: She's tied up to a segway-looking machine at the start of the boss fight. She breaks free after a few phases, however.
• Femme Fatalons: Her fingernails are very long and sharp, and she puts them to good use after discarding her scythe.
• Foreshadowing: What little information you find out about her also happens to apply to The Stranger, namely their origins of appearing out of the blue and making the situation worse.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: In-universe. She just burst into the Prison one day, and part of it was built around her so she could serve as an unwilling Beef Gate. Even The Voice doesn't know why she was originally here or where she was going.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Her fight with the Stranger ends with her nearly pushing him into a pit of electricity, only for the Stranger to throw her in instead.
• Leitmotif: "Enraged", by "Carpenter Brut".
• Meaningful Name: She's Strapped down in her restraints.
• Mercy Kill: Basically sums up her boss battle, even The Voice considers killing her as simply putting her out of her misery.
• Non-Human Head: Her head appears to be a stage light that shoots lasers. She occasionally bashes it against a wall allowing you time to attack her. It's ambiguous if she has a real head underneath it.
• Riddle for the Ages: Why was she attacking the Prison in the first place? Where did she even come from? What does her head look like under her restraints? Not even The Voice knows.
• Running on All Fours: In her last phase.
• Screaming Warrior: The only jailer who doesn't talk, because she's too busy screaming in berserker fury.
• Sinister Scythe: For phases three and four, she uses a scythe that was part of her restraints to fight the Stranger.
• The Unreveal: During the entire fight, she bashes her head against a wall and claws at her restraints to try and remove the laser turret helmet on her head. It obviously drives her into furious anger that it's there and can't be removed. In the end, she is killed before it can be taken off of her.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Which she fires from her "face."

The Line

The Line

Voiced by: Frederic Cerdal (French), Christian Erickson (English), Masafumi Kimura (Japanese)

"Time is a picture in motion through eternity."

An old man with some amount of power over time. He serves as the third boss, and seems to know more about the Stranger than anybody else.

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• Australian Aborigines: Possibly. His attire, mystical nature, and the red sands around him seem to suggest it, at least.
• Barrier Warrior: He begins his boss fight by summoning three layers of rotating shields that deflect gunfire.
• BFS: Wields a sword that is larger than he is, and throws it around with minimal effort.
• Blood Knight: Downplayed. He mentioned he's been looking forward to fighting The Stranger, and is glad he made it to him, but is otherwise nonplussed.
• Cyborg: Has some mechanical implants on his back, as revealed during his death cutscene.
• Cassandra Truth: Knew of The Stranger's purpose, but his warnings fell on deaf ears. This is likely part of why he didn't do anything else about The Stranger's arrival, despite The Voice wondering about it.
  The Voice: "Look at the sky" he kept saying, "the dot on the sun!" But no one listened.
• Enlightened Antagonist: A very wise mystic who opposes The Stranger.
• The Fatalist: As revealed by many of his quotes.
  The Line: You live under the illusion of control. Abandon the fight. It is written.

  Everything was meant to be.

  You are too impulsive. This is my time, my space. Your escape will fail.
• Foreshadowing: "Look to the sky, Stranger. Therein lies your answer."
• Hermit Guru: Invokes this with his appearance in the middle of the desert, and with how he knows even more than he lets on.
• Leitmotif: "Wisdom of Rage", by "Waveshaper".
• Meaningful Name: The line as in Timeline. Also refers to him trying to Hold the Line against you, and how his time powers have made him The Fatalist: there's only one "line" forward.
• Mind over Matter: In the cutscene introducing him, he's shown using his mind to float some stones in the air.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Not that is stops him in the slightest. His sword is bigger than the Stranger, let alone himself!
• Non-Linear Character: Implied by several of his quotes.
  The Line: I can't kill you... but I can remove you from my here and now... until the next cycle.''
  And thus the cycle ends. We will meet again... at the beginning.
• Not So Omniscient After All: He mentions that he knew that The Stranger would escape, but not how far he would come, suggesting what future sight he has is quite limited. Not to mention how The Stranger eventually kills him, despite his statements to the contrary.
  The Voice: But if he's such a master, if he saw it all coming, why didn't he do anything about it?
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: He's visibly emaciated. Best illustrated in his concept art, where his ribs can be clearly seen.
• Seers: He can see the future due to his connection with time.
• Shielded Core Boss: The very first phase of his fight involves shooting down reflective barriers that surround him.
• Time Crash: A prophecy-based example, mentioned at the start of his boss-fight. It's one of the first hints to The Stranger's true nature.
  The Line: When you appeared, everything got still. You made the picture stop. I'm here to make my clocks tick again.
• Time Master: He holds some power over time, including stopping and rewinding it, as well as seeing the future.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Serves to test the player on their knowledge of Furi's dashing and parrying mechanics, crushing players who have been reliant on running past or shooting through bullets.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: He wears nothing but a loincloth.

The Scale

The Scale

Voiced by: Benoit Seguin (French), David Coburn (English), Tomotaka Hachisuka (Japanese)

"Look at the filth around you. Look at the darkness. Look at ME!"

A man wearing a diving suit, who was contaminated by an unknown catastrophe. The Voice says that most of what he says is crazy babble, so all that talk about vengeance on the Stranger is surely nothing more than nonsense, right?

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• Ax-Crazy: He's very obviously been driven insane by his condition.
• Create Your Own Villain: He believes the Stranger made him so at least.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Implied. He's wearing a diving suit which may or may not be needed to keep him alive due to being "contaminated" by The Stranger's landing.
• Doppelgänger Attack: He's capable of creating multiple copies of himself to attack you. Luckily enough, they go down in a few hits, but the real one will always be the last.
• Interface Screw: Getting damaged by any of his non-melee attacks causes your screen to blur.
• It's Personal: The other Guardians oppose The Stranger more over philosophical or self-preservation reasons, but The Scale has a very personal reason to hate his guts seeing as The Stranger contaminated and horribly mutated him.
• Leitmotif: "Set Me Free", by "Lorn".
• Meaningful Name: The scales in this case refers to the mutation he suffered, which gave him reptilian scales.
• Powered Armor: One that looks like a bizarre diving suit.
• Revenge: Blames The Stranger for his condition.
• Sanity Slippage: He grows less and less coherent as the fight continues.
• Sickly Green Glow: His armor glows with a sinister green light.
• Talkative Loon: The Voice dismisses him as a madman, but he's an Unreliable Narrator, and there are many hints that Scale's more lucid than that would suggest.
• Walking Wasteland: Contaminated by his previous contact with The Stranger.

The Hand

The Hand

Voiced by: Paul Borne (French), Geoff Bateman (English), Ken'ichirou Matsuda (Japanese)

"I look at you, Stranger, and I see nothing. Desolation. Death. You are alone."

A Knight, and the one who imprisoned the Stranger. He fights to protect his son, and lectures The Stranger for having nothing to fight for.

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• Animal Motifs: The bull, particularly his helmet's horns.
• Badass Normal: As an extension, he seems to be the least tech-assisted of the bosses along with The Edge, facing the Stranger with only a sword, shield, and suit of armor.
• Death or Glory Attack: Most bosses have one, but The Hand is notable for his being a 17-hit melee combo followed by a shockwave, the single longest uninterrupted melee string in the entire game. Fortunately for you, his fatigue will cause him to slow down as the attack progresses, until his last few hits become pathetically easy to block.
• Hero Antagonist: His sole reason to battle The Stranger is to protect the Free World, its people, and his son. Along with The Beat, The Hand is one of the most heroic Jailors in the game.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: A heroic Jailor who fights with a sword as his weapon.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Certainly has the persona, though his armor isn't quite so brilliant by itself, but the energy effects it has do make it glow.
• Leitmotif: "What We Fight For", by "Carpenter Brut".
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He wields a shield in combat that can reflect your projectiles, including charged ones. He'll lose the shield after you knock him around for a bit.
• Meaningful Name: It refers to being the Hand of justice, befitting his knightly persona.
• Mighty Glacier: Moves slow, but hits hard. If his armor wasn't protecting him enough, his shield makes him extra tanky.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The warrior who defeated The Stranger prior to the events of the game. Granted, he was leading a small army at the time.
• Papa Wolf: Fights to protect his son from The Stranger.
• The Power of Love: Exclaims frequently that having someone to fight for (his beloved son) makes him stronger than The Stranger. The Stranger's decision to aid the Free World in one of the endings may be motivated by realizing The Hand was right.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: About halfway through his fight, he abandons his shield and handles his sword with both hands, attacking much more aggressively.
• Technicolor Fire: His sword, shield and armor glow with this, even forming the horns of his helmet. If he's knocked around, the fire fades for a moment.

The Song

The Song

Voiced by: Stéphanie Lafforgue (French), Kim Tilbury (English), Michiko Kaiden (Japanese)

"If you go any further, I have no other choice and you, even less than me."

A woman who uses energy wings and is not initially hostile to the Stranger, offering to let him stay in her section of the prison where she'll look after him. The Voice says she's messing with his head, however.

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• Automatic Crossbows: Wields two energy crossbows, and the rate at which she fires them implies something like this.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's uncertain if the Stranger actually kills her, due to the lack of visible injuries in her body after he swings his sword. It's possible he spared her.
• Berserk Button: She goes ballistic if you refuse her offer to stay with her.
  The Song: How dare you shun me? And turn down all of this. You have no idea. I was your only hope. You have brought this upon yourself, Stranger. I'll make you stay.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Her offer for peace for the Stranger will quickly become sour if he walks away, and the rest of the fight has her berating him over his choice. Considering the Stranger's true identity and purpose, however, the "bitch" part is highly debatable.
• Bullfight Boss: Will dive at you in some phases, which can then be parried for massive damage.
• Dating Catwoman: In her ending, she offers to be his girlfriend while he's trapped.
• Face Death with Dignity: Her uncanny peace causes the Stranger to hesitate in killing her. She's also Defiant to the End.
  The Song: This will eat you up inside for the rest of your days.
• Gilded Cage: What her offer boils down to. Yes, the Stranger will be able to stay without being restrained or tortured in a nice place, but he will still be trapped there, and not truly free.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Presents herself as this. Whether she actually is this is not so clear.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: Offers to let The Stranger stay in the Gilded Cage, instead of continuing on his destructive path.
• Leitmotif: "Make This Right", by "The Toxic Avenger", which gets a Remix in her ending.
• Meaningful Name: She tries to tempt you away from your goal, in effect chanting a metaphorical siren's Song. In addition, it fits her motif as angels are known to sing the praises of God, to the point that a group of them is called a choir.
• Non-Standard Game Over: If you accept her offer. One of the few examples where leaving your quest is probably the better outcome.
• Our Angels Are Different: Her appearance evokes a high-tech version of this, complete with a halo that flips down to become a combat visor.
• Shielded Core Boss: She surrounds herself with an invulnerable energy shield toward the end of her fight, powered by several generators. Every time a generator is destroyed, she adds a new attack to her barrage.

The Burst

The Burst

Voiced by: Fiona Chauvin (French), Bibi Jacob (English), Airi Otsu (Japanese)

"On a scale of 1 to 10, she's an 11, and she'd give herself a 12."

— The Voice

A playful woman who delights in planning every single thing and hunting down somebody to perfection. She's watched all the other fights the Stranger has had, and even does a total scan of him in order to have every advantage possible against him.

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• Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl: She is certainly quite arrogant about her skill and rightly so as one of the harder bosses, but is still ultimately defeated by The Stranger.
• Blood Knight: Enjoys the challenge that fighting the Stranger offers.
• Combat Pragmatist: Unusually for a Blood Knight. The very first thing she does when the Stranger walks into her section is perform a full scan of his body and weaponry, so she can prevent any surprises. Not only does she try to snipe you from afar, far out of reach and sight, she deliberately sets up her arena to give herself an advantage (being capable of reforming it at a whim), uses a cloaking device to reposition and perform sneak attacks, and sends countless drones and mines after you to slow the Stranger down and possibly kill him through Scratch Damage.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Voice describes her as a incredibly well-prepared planner.
• Evil Brit: She speaks with an upper-class, sultry British accent.
• Evil Genius: So says the Voice.
• Flunky Boss: She'll send multiple unmanned drones after you and lay down mines all over her arena.
• Friendly Sniper: Antagonistic as she is, she considers the Stranger a Worthy Opponent, and most of her Boss Banter is cheeky taunting and borderline flirting.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: For the first half of her fight, she tries to snipe the Stranger from far off-screen and will run away if you get too close and don't attack her soon enough, or if you attack her at any time other than immediately after she fires her gun. Thankfully, just one hit causes her to stop running until she reaches her next health bar.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Her primary design motif. Her optic cloak is covered in hexagons, her arena is made of hexagonal platforms with hexagonal floor tiles that can extend upward as walls, and her Attack Drones are made of a hexagonal control unit and hexagonal "wings".
• Leitmotif: "You're Mine", by "Carpenter Brut".
• Meaningful Name: A more meta one; out of all the bosses, she does the most Burst Damage, due to her One-Hit Kill attack.
• One-Hit Kill: If you haven't put a wall between you and her when she fires off her laser rifle, no matter how much life you've got left, you can kiss one of your lives goodbye.
• Purple Is Powerful: The Burst is both clad in purple gear and possesses the only one hit kill attack in the game.
• Villainous Breakdown: She loses her arrogant demeanor and starts ranting at the Stranger when she unleashes her final attack. Despite all her preparations for fighting him, she's still losing.
  The Burst: This is my moment! I prepared for it! You are not taking it away from me!

The Edge

The Edge

Voiced by: Guillaume Desmarchelier (French), Tom Morton (English), Ken'ichirou Matsuda (Japanese)

"Excellence is not an art, it's pure habit. We are what we repeatedly do."

A samurai, and the eighth guardian. Obsessed with fighting The Stranger, ostensibly to prove his mastery of his art and fulfill his destiny.

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• Combat Compliment: Compliments The Stranger on successful attacks, and remarks on how quickly The Stranger learned his form.
• Cyber Ninja: Samurai, but he appears to have numerous cybernetic augmentations.
• Expy: Possibly one for Miyamoto Musashi, considering he's a samurai at the peak of his craft and utilises an oar through half his boss fight.
• Foil: To the Hand. Both are swordsmen whose battles are almost entirely in melee, but the Hand fights you for altruistic reasons such as protecting others, while the Edge fights you to improve his personal skill and because he wants to. The Hand is a heavily armored knight, while the Edge is a fragile yet deadly samurai.
• Friendly Enemy: He is delighted to fight the Stranger, and encourages the prisoner to defeat him.
• Glass Cannon: He has a lot less health than the other bosses, with only 4 health bars that each take only 6 basic hits to deplete (12 for the last one); his first three health bars also each go down in a single charged blow, letting you potentially end phases instantly if you know what you're doing. In return, his attacks take off massive chunks of your health, with his basic attacks each dealing 3 bars of damage (making his full combos liable to be One Hit Kills) and his stronger wave attacks dealing 5.
  • Notably, he's the only boss in the game that doesn't gain a HP boost on Furier difficulty. The upgrades to his attack frequency and speed are more than enough to make up for it.
• Improbable Weapon User: Sheathes his katana during the third phase of his boss fight after recognizing the Stranger's too in-sync with his sword style to rely on it further, using an oar for the rest of the fight.
• Leitmotif: "Something Memorable", by "Kn1ght".
• Master Swordsman: Exemplified by the fact that landing a charged attack/perfect parry on him doesn't lead to a deadly combo inflicting massive damage, but to a Quick Time Event where losing sees you losing a big chunk of your health, and winning deals as much damage as a normal blow.
• Meaningful Name: The Edge of a blade, and referring to the Edge being at the "cutting edge" of skill.
• Mirror Boss: Has a similar appearance to The Stranger, down to the Tron Lines and hairstyle, and wields a similar weapon.
• Rush Boss: His boss fight usually ends very quickly, regardless of who wins.
• Single-Stroke Battle: At the end of his boss fight, as befitting a Samurai.
• Spirited Competitor: Wants to fight The Stranger very much, as he feels The Stranger is one of the few people who can teach him anything anymore.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Not only is he the only boss fought exclusively in melee range, halfway through the fight he changes venues to a narrow pier, turning the fight into a 2D Fighting Game battle.
• Worthy Opponent: Sees The Stranger as this. It's left ambiguous as to whether The Stranger returns the favor, but The Voice certainly thinks he does.

The Beat

The Beat

Voiced by: Jessica Monceau (French), Kaycie Chase (English), Yui Kondo (Japanese)

"I wanted to be here. Where else would I be? Here is where I can make a difference."

A young girl, and the final Jailer. She comes across as an idealistic, somewhat naive girl. The Voice is disgusted that such a young girl is the final Jailer, though he warns that while she may be an amateur, she is still dangerous.

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• All-Loving Hero: Her motivation to fight The Stranger is completely selfless, and even tries to show sympathy for him in spite of this.
• Break the Cutie: Practically in tears when cornered in her final phase.
• Combat Pragmatist: Since she can't fight you head-on and knows it, she relies on her arena's unique construction and traps along the way to stop you.
• Final Boss: She's this if you choose to have the Free World assimilated, unless you're playing on Xbox One (where The Flame fills this role instead).
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Much of the fight is spent chasing her across floating platforms to small arena segments.
• Hero Antagonist: She is the idealistic and compassionate last hope for the Free World, as well as the only thing left in The Stranger's way.
• HeroicBSoD: She nearly collapses in her final phase. She's desperate, exhausted, frustrated, probably concussed from that giant laser cannon she just fired at the Stranger, and practically grieving for the impending fate of her home.
• Kill the Cutie: The inevitable outcome of her fight, unless the player stops their journey here.
• Leitmotif: "You Are The End", by "Waveshaper".
• Light Is Not Good: Wears mostly white, fights in a snowy area and is probably the nicest and most sympathetic of the Jailers.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: As suggested by her name, she utilizes sonic waves from the oversized speakers she wears.
• Meaningful Name: She has music-based attacks and is pretty upBeat.
• Naïve Newcomer: The poor girl really thinks she can make a difference, she really does. Too bad she's up against the Stranger.
• Oh, Crap!: Her Boss Banter becomes less idealistic and more panicked as the fight goes on, as it becomes clear her arena isn't enough to stop the Stranger.
• Rousseau Was Right: Thanks to her idealistic character, The Beat believed in the best of others and tried to reason with The Stranger, even if it got her killed. Then again, her words could influence The Stranger to rebel The Star and save the Free World.
• Sad Battle Music: Her last phase's theme, A Monster, really underscores the fact that she's a barely adult girl who spends her "battle" being scared and running away from you, letting her turrets do the work, and once you corner her she's practically terrified for her life, knowing full well she doesn't stand a chance against you without the turrets.
• Skilled, but Naive: Downplayed. She's skilled enough to be a guardian, but is the weakest among them and the most naive.
• Snow Means Death: The last of the Jailers to be killed off and fought in a room designed like a snowy mountain.
• Sympathy for the Devil: One of her lines has her state how similar she and The Stranger really are, as they are both each the last hopes for their respective home planets.
  "I look at you and I don't understand. We are so alike."
• The Turret Master: While she is capable of ranged attacks of her own, at least half of her damage output comes from turret guns that surround her platforming segments and arenas.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Her last effort to kill you is via a massive laser blast from a cannon the size of a building.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She fights in hopes of saving her people. She refuses to judge The Stranger based on his reputation as "a monster," instead trying to reason with him. As if it could save her. However, if The Stranger chooses to save the Free World, The Beat's ideals might carry some truth.
• You Monster!: Zig-zags on this trope throughout her boss banter. She initially rebukes the other Jailors' claims that the Stranger is a heartless monster and offers him sympathy, believing him to not be as bad as they said he was. Once she's pushed back into a corner with no way out, she'll instead break down and acknowledge that they were right.
• Zero-Effort Boss: In her final stage, all the running and the superweapon's blast has tired her out to the point she can barely fight back. She can't even hurt you at this point, even if you intentionally let her hit you.

The Flame

The Flame

Voiced by: Paul Borne (French), Geoffrey Bateman (English), Ken'ichirou Matsuda (Japanese)

"For Seta, For Emon, For Dimès. For the ones who fell."

A man with multiple robotic arms who guards the tower that stores the Rider's armor. He was added to the game in One More Fight as a new opponent, and he certainly took that time to prepare.

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• Beam Spam: Overlaps with Wave-Motion Gun.
• Bullet Hell: He has three arms, all of which carry guns. Do the math.
• Counter-Attack: All bosses have one if you recklessly attack them while they're guarding, but instead of a melee blow, the Flame can retaliate with a massive frontal explosion that must be dodged instead of parried.
• Cyborg: His original arms have been replaced with his current mechanical set.
• The Dead Have Names: He names three people that have apparently fallen by the Stranger's hands, though it's unknown if he's referring to the Guardians or someone else.
• Final Boss: In the Xbox One version, if you don't fight The Star.
• Guns Akimbo: As shown, he has a pistol in each hand.
• Leitmotif: "Shambles", by "Scattle".
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Starts off with three mechanical arms (with the fourth having been broken at some point before the story), but he later rips one out of its mounting to use as a club.
• Nintendo Hard: All of his attacks are wide-reaching and come out quick, often saturating upwards of half of the arena with some form of projectile.
• No Body Left Behind: Vaporised by the Stranger's gun at the end of his fight. The only surviving part of him is one of his arms.
• Non-Indicative Name: Out of all the characters save Bernard, he's the only one that doesn't have a Meaningful Name. He doesn't have any Playing with Fire attacks (the one that could be argued as fire is more of an explosion) or association with fire at all, except perhaps his omnipresent cigarette.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction before he's blasted into nothing by the Stranger.
• Optional Boss: In the PC, PS4, and Switch versions. Averted in the Xbox One version, where he's made into a mandatory boss fight.
• Screaming Warrior: He lets out bellowing Kiais just as often as he actually speaks.
• Smoking Is Cool: Throughout his boss fight, he keeps a cigarette in his mouth.
• Wave-Motion Gun: His guns are slightly larger than pistols, but the beams they shoot out are much broader.

The True Final Boss (Major spoilers)

The Star

Voiced by: Stéphanie Lafforgue (French), Kim Tilbury (English), Michiko Kaiden (Japanese)

"Welcome back, Rider. Let's see your report on your target planet."

The AI controlling the mothership the Stranger was sent from, serving as an optional True Final Boss should the Stranger rebel against them.

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• Alien Invasion: The Star is an extraterrestrial Artificial Intelligence who sent The Stranger to the Free World to see if the planet is compatible for assimilation. The reason? She claims that assimilating the Free World will save The Stranger's species, but it could possibly be a mere lie.
• Big Bad: Was the one who sent the Stranger to the Free World in the first place, kicking off the entire plot of the game.
• Bullet Hell: Almost all the bosses have this to some degree, but she takes it to its conclusion by being nothing but Bullet Hell.
• Huge Holographic Head: The only hint as to its appearance. As an Artificial Intelligence, it probably doesn't have an actual body.
• Leitmotif: "8​:​02", by "Danger".
• Machine Monotone: Her tone never budges from this.
• Meaningful Name: Zigzagged. For one, The Star is in space, among the Stars. However, The Star In the Tarot implies "Sudden change and awakening" "Inspiration" and "Hope for the future." All these descriptions fit The Stranger, rather than The Star itself. If The Star as a Well-Intentioned Extremist as it suggests, then the normal meaning fits it as well, as it refers to a sudden change/awakening in the plot, and is hope for the future of whatever species The Rider is.
  • Ironic Name: The Star in tarot can refer "Hope for the future." The future for the Free World if the Inferno Ending is chosen is rather hopeless.
• Planet Looters: By way of being The Assimilator...presumably.
• True Final Boss: Of the good ending.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The final battle is a pure shmup compared to the rest of the game which is more of a hybrid of shmup and fighting elements due to the Stranger riding a spacecraft the entire time. The entire fight is spent shooting the boss while avoiding the increasingly elaborate bullet patterns.
• Walking Spoiler: Mentioning her existence will inevitably spoil The Reveal that it sent The Stranger down to scout the world to prepare it for assimilation, and that the Jailers imprisoned the Stranger in order to stop this.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Claims that the assimilation of the Free World is necessary to the survival of the Stranger's species. Whether she's telling the truth about this or simply trying to manipulate the Stranger is left ambiguous.

Bernard

Bernard

A grey, mannequin-like being. The second boss introduced in One More Fight, unlocked after defeating The Flame. Has no part in the story, but is the single greatest challenge that the player can battle, and is locked to Furier difficulty to boot.

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• The Blank: A completely featureless 3D model.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: It's hard to take a mannequin named Bernard seriously...until he beats you silly.
• Final-Exam Boss: He fights with empowered versions of all the Guardians' attack patterns, with each health bar comprising one Guardian's behavior in the order that they're fought in (with The Beat and The Edge sharing the eigth to make up for their lack of melee/ranged phases respectively).^note The only Guardians he doesn't mimic are The Flame and The Star He even shares many of their animations and copies their melee combos to the letter. His final attack in particular is a nonstop string of all their attack patterns dialed up to eleven, which the player must merely survive until he gets exhausted enouugh to finish off.
• Inexplicably Awesome: No explanation whatsoever is given as to what he is or why he's so powerful.
• Leitmotif: A combination of of "6:24" and "8:02", by Danger, with the last segment of the latter being completely exclusive to his final phase. Interestingly, these are the themes of both the first and last bosses in the main story.
• Marathon Boss: He has nine health bars compared to all of the other Guardians' 4-6, and this being Furier means that each of said health bars has a lot of HP packed into it. Even for a seasoned player, it'll likely take a good 10 minutes to chew through all his health, which is bad news considering what he'll put you through during that time.
• The Silent Bob: Never speaks or makes any vocal noises outside of occasional grunts, but that doesn't stop him from getting his taunts in through body language alone.
• Standard Power-Up Pose: Does this a couple times between phases.
• Superboss: The second boss that One More Fight adds to the game, and the "bonus boss" of Furi.
• Throat-Slitting Gesture: How he taunts the Stranger when he gets a KO.
• Tom the Dark Lord: He has a rather mundane name, especially compared to the flashy names of the Guardians, but don't let that fool you into thinking he's not a tough opponent.

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