Ah, Pious Augustus. Once, he was a Roman officer, loyal to the emperor. And then, one day, he got lost in a desert, teleported into some strange ruins, and took hold of a glowing, floating artifact. Seeing such an item might give anyone else pause, but no Pious. He boldly reached out, clutched the artifact with his hand, and...turned into an undead lich. A lich whose sole purpose is to serve the elder go—er, Ancient that the artifact represents. Life is certainly full of surprises and thinly veiled H.P. Lovecraft references.

But in any case, Pious spends roughly the next two millennia being a colossal dick to everyone that isn’t undead. He encases innocent people in a giant pillar to serve as a monument to his master, corrupts a French cathedral into a den of pure evil, plays the evil 1980s Nazi to the Indiana Jones of 1980, and generally revels in the suffering and madness that his brand of happy fun time tends to inflict on the minds of the sane.

And yet, his all-powerful master treats him no better than the office intern that’s forced to go on daily sandwich runs. Pious talks a big game, but he’s more or less Cthulhu’s toolbox. And, as his well-laid plans start to unravel in the twentieth century, he’s got some ‘splainin’ to do to his sanity-rending employer.

Of course, Pious pulls things together enough that he can make the final preparations for the ritual to summon his master into our physical realm. Unfortunately for him, he’s performing this ritual underneath a house occupied by a rather pissed off Alex Roivas, who has Pious to thank for a headless grandfather.

When Alex manages to make her way through the labyrinthine underground city and faces off with old bony, she finds herself on a small platform with him and a idol representation of his master that’s granting him power. What ensues is a looping figure-eight chase around the platform, but affter Alex whacks the idol a few times...

Wait, what? Why am I in the hall with the Tome of Eternal Darkness? Why am I controlling the ghost of Ellia, all of a sudden? What if I go over to where the tome is and…

Oh. Oh-ho! As the battle rages, not only does Alex fight Pious, but so do the ghosts all of the major figures that Pious had screwed over into insanity and/or death. One by one, they come out to wreck that idol, and when it’s finally destroyed, it’s on. Alex vs. Pious. Good versus evil. Woman versus lich.

Pious still has some power left, but without the direct aid of his dark, super evil master, he’s pretty much boned. (No pun intended.) Alex shoots, chops, and magicks her way to victory while Pious becomes a two-millennium-old chump. And in order for the player to get the best ending, he has to lose in three alternate universes, which means that he's once. Twice. Three times a chump. (There is no confirmation that he is also three times a lady.)

He coulda been a contenda, ladies and gentlemen. He coulda been a contenda.

Fantastic game, and a great boss. Always happy to see Eternal Darkness get some love.

@Penelope: Yeah. Eternal Darkness is not a game that's known for boss fights, though it has a a couple. But Pious is definitely worth looking back on for all of his Cthulhu-esque evil.

Hmmm... I quite like the games I've seen for your choices thus far. Of course I've only seen the Fire Emblem, Persona 3, and this one. I should go look at the older ones.

Almost got the special ending for Eternal Darkness, but I struggled like hell against the other big boss you fight in the game when I picked the magic idol. Draining magic made the game, and that boss fight in particular, much harder than draining either sanity or health did, for me.

I really liked the ghosts coming back. Other than that I don't remember much about this fight.

Favorite game ever. Glad to see something written about it. Seems like a lot of people in the GB community haven't played this game and it is a shame.