ALEPH
RED KING OF CONQUEST
This particular Archangel might look rather plain, but he is anything but. Aleph here is the final opponent one must defeat to clear Cassette Beasts' main story, and he's visible from almost the very first instance, escaping the scene as the first train station housing the nearly-destroyed Morgante is unearthed. His design is simple for his role, being simply a humanoid in a British military uniform with a reflective triangle for a head. That simplicity belies the message of the character, which is to say "war sucks and is the root of all problems in the world". Throughout the game, as you defeat Archangels, every time you do, Aleph is there on the scene, and "recruits" the defeated Archangel by warping them through that triangular portal he has for a head. Eventually, he starts clueing in to the fact that you, the player character, are there every time this happens, and he shows up in the middle of Harbourtown to offer you a deal: free passage off the island in exchange for staying the hell out of his way. This is a deal you can't refuse, because he doesn't wait for you to accept before teleporting you to a Dead World.
Once there, the Amber Lodge turns up and explains the whole story of Aleph for you. Aleph, as the incarnation of conquest, took on the role of many a conquering ruler in his day (with specific examples he himself cites as Agamemnon, Alexander the Great, and King Arthur). He also had an entourage of other Archangels with him as he did this, including the Amber Lodge, Morgante, and the child he once had with Morgante (and then later slew because conquest is like that), Mordread. His gameplan on New Wirral is to build a new band of Archangels with which he can continue his campaign across all of reality. To put it in his words: "YOUR MOST POWERFUL THOUGHTS WOULD BRING US TO LIFE, AND IN RETURN WE'D TRAVEL TO YOUR WORLDS TO ACT OUT WHATEVER FANTASIES YOU CONCOCTED FOR US! ADVENTURES... WARS... EXTINCTION EVENTS... YOU PEOPLE LOVE THAT STUFF THE MOST, AND SO DO I!" Naturally, such a concept doesn't agree with anyone in your party, even though he offers to leave your respective worlds alone, so you throw down with Aleph at the final hidden Mer-Line station, Night's Bridge Station, which holds the only way out of New Wirral.
In the fight, Aleph's tactics mostly involve doing big physical damage with his signature multi-hit attacks, Death By 1000 Cuts or Death By 10,000 Cuts, fueled by his Prismatic passive that gives him a random coating every turn. He also uses Sharp Edges and Sharpen to further amplify the damage he deals, and his Angelic Attack, Deus Ex Calibur, is just more of the same big chunky damage, albeit this time with a single hit. The swords displayed for these attacks are the same as your fusions might be able to access with the sorta-procedurally-generated Fusion Powers, so every sword he uses is customized for whatever his current typing is, and that's pretty cool. Nothing you haven't dealt with before, and if you're keeping up with your defenses you can handle him okay... but that fight isn't the end of it. The Fusion trick your teams have used throughout the many encounters has impressed him, so he elects to give it a try with his own crew, resulting in...
ALEPH NULL
ETERNAL WAR INCARNATE
Aleph Null said:
I TAKE BACK MY OFFER.
I WILL VISIT YOUR REALITY FIRST. I CAN SMELL ITS SCENT ON YOU...
AN UNBLEMISHED TIMELINE, ALREADY ON A PATH TOWARDS DESTRUCTION.
WHAT A MARVELLOUS PLAYTHING IT SHALL BE.
Yeah that's right. The final boss fuses with
every other Archangel you've beaten up to this point except Morgante, where they then fight your entire team atop the Mer-Line out of New Wirral. See how many design elements you can spot from the different Archangels here! If you haven't fought a specific Archangel, their particular changes to the pattern will be gone, leaving only Aleph Null's triangular head, and red-coated sword body. And you pull out all the stops to match, as you don't just have your usual partner with you, but
every partner you've recruited. It's an extremely climactic scenario, pulling out all the stops to face the most high-stakes dangerous foe you've ever met.
It gets even more over the top as Aleph Null decides to hit you where it hurts, breaking the cassette player you've been using to transform and robbing you of the monster forms that are your weapons. Once that happens, all seems lost, until Morgante chimes in and offers her aid. After all, why wouldn't the spirit of rebellion stand firm against the entity that is eternal war? Her aid gives you and your party the ability to summon her with a team-wide fusion, resulting in...
MORGANTE GESTALT
SPIRIT OF REBELLION
This is the form you take against Aleph Null for the final smackdown. It is still undeniably Morgante as the core, including her moveset, but now colored (literally and figuratively) by the humans that have invoked her. Her moveset is the same as in her rematch form, but this time, every move except Coda Morgana is named for a certain party member: Your Conviction, Barkley's Energy, Eugene's Courage, Felix's Creativity, Kayleigh's Melody, Meredith's Wit, and Viola's Determination. It's a little sad that basically everything from when you first hop on the train to fight Aleph Null is scripted with no real chance of failure, and all you need to do in this fight is use Coda Morgana to win, but that doesn't mean it's not COOL AS HELL.
Aleph, in all his many layers, is an extremely unsubtle critique of empire at its worst, and I love him for that. He's a fun villain that starts out campy and gets more and more threatening as he starts revealing what he can do, and the final showdown of Cassette Beasts is absolutely beautiful. I love this game.