Gris is a sorrowful city of mysteries and broken lives. In this city, four people struggle against their lives and past, paralyzed by fear and regret. Meanwhile, a magician studies their journey as a part of a cryptic theater play, while collecting tarots when they face the manifestations of their traumas. This is only the beginning of Frail Hearts, a hybrid JRPG, and adventure with a great setting.

In Frail Hearts Versicorae Domlion, the player independently plays each storyline, deciding which character will reach the end of their road. While playing the story of a specific character, they will not be available during the flights, but you will use instead all the other characters. The battles are challenging and turn-based, with puzzle-like elements. In fact, understanding the correct strategy is the key to win each battle. Moreover, the characters can level up by using the Lust collected from previous battles, useful to improve skills or characteristics. However, Frail Hearts is a linear experience inside each chapter, where every battle is a boss battle (for a total of 22 enemies).

The art-style is full of personality and details, and this is especially true for the monsters. The abominations are a festival of details, going from demons to ancient Egypt-inspired creatures, reaching being so complex that is challenging to understand what they are. The main characters will face huge and tough abominations, especially at the end of their journey, where the boss will take shape from their fears and sorrows. Every monster is also associated with a cryptic tarot deck, which provides information on their symbolism.

In the following article, you can check the four bosses at the end of each journey, including their analysis and symbolism. The description of the tarot card obtained after defeating each boss is reported in italics at the beginning of each description.

Memento Mori

Finally, the silent blade descends on the World in ruins. Nobody can be saved… goodbye. Nobody can save me… farewell. Nobody saved me…

Death pure and simple. Memento Mori is a terrifying being made of different bodies merged together, with a dragon-like appearance. The body is clearly separated in half, with a side completely skeletal and dead, a symbol of its connection with death like a proper god of the underworld. The boss also shows other peculiar features, for example, the centipede-like neck, a creature often associated with evil and death in Japanese folklore. However, the most disturbing detail is the living half of the face, which is in fact the one of a dog. The family dog of the protagonist.

The creature can attack both with the piercing tail and the main body, inflicting a huge amount of damage. But the highest threat of this boss is its Mephitic Breath, able to debilitate even the entire party with poisonous effects. The battle against Memento Mori is a huge skill check and a race against time. Will you kill it fast enough before the poison will do the same to the party?

Memento Mori is the final boss of Anne’s route. The girl is a skilled student from the local university, with a brilliant mind focused on science. However, Anne doesn’t have much outside of her studies, only her family and dog. But this is not enough for her, and quickly, her life becomes an oppressive trap. Too much care morphs into a prison, and Anne is trapped in there. Memento Mori in Latin is to “remember that you will die,” a constant paranoia of dying without achieving anything. And Anne’s paranoia takes the shape of her twisted dog and family, since the creature appears after her doppelganger family spoke to her. The boss is extremely disturbing, especially the way it asks Anne to bring it out for a walk, as if the monster still is her dog.

Lailah

Alone, from their first wailing, those babies do cry the loss of their mother. The hour of eternal sleep comes, forever extinguishing the light in the eyes of the innocent.

Lailah is probably the most challenging boss before the endgame. The flying demon has female features, with a pair of giant wings… and missing her lower half. Similar to the Philippine female demon also missing her lower half, the Manananngal, the boss is also keen to devour infants. Lailah is bold, and her face shows a sort of peaceful smile. The creature has a baby in her arms, an infant, held by the hands of this grotesque mother and connected to her body through a purple umbilical cord. However, in the middle of the battle, Lailah devours the baby, changing her appearance into a more feral form. Her peaceful smile will morph into a grin, while horns and an evil halo will appear on her head.

Lailah is a dangerous enemy, which can constantly fascinate the characters and send them to sleep, possibly doing some combos and unfair killings. She will wake up the sleepers with deadly Nightmares, inflicting heavy damage to the entire party. Especially after devouring the baby, Lailah can constantly fascinate the entire party, transforming every ally into a dangerous new threat.

Lailah is the final boss of Catherine’s route, a nun who will discover the horrible secrets hidden beneath her church. A grotesque secret made of carnivorous demons and children offered in sacrifice. Catherine’s journey will test her faith, and Lailah is the final trial between her faith and her new self-assuredness. Because Lailah represents a sort of reverted version of Holy Mary, a demon cuddling an infant. The connection is even more evident because, to access Lailah’s lair, the player must use a statue of Baby Jesus on Holy Mary to unlock the secret door.

Ben-Nut-Shu

Three are the personalities of one god, long lost in the eternal emptiness of an ephemeral existence. Which is their real face? Is it really that of a vengeful spirit?

The appearance of this boss is truly fascinating. Borne as a sort of forgotten Egyptian god, the figure is composed of three main targets. And at least two separate entities. The main body is a gigantic old man, a hooded god wearing pharaoh-like paraments and sigils, a terrifying monstrosity radiating power. The god has two giant arms, with incredibly narrow and long fingers, with the skin covered in ancient glyphs and chained at their wrists. The god is imprisoned in this dungeon lurking for freedom. The last entity is more simple but not less effective: a bird trying to fly toward freedom.

This boss is an easy battle, once you figure out how to defeat it. It is more a puzzle than a proper fight, but a very satisfying and well-implemented one. While the long arms will strike the party with attacks, the main body will only attack the bird, trying to sacrifice it. On the other hand, the bird will help the party by healing them. However, if you use multiple-targets attacks or directly target the bird, you will lose. So what is happening in this fight? Because the main body cannot be damaged, and destroying the arms is not enough to win. Only in this fight, each character has the Offering ability, which can slightly heal. Only by using Offering on the bird for long enough, the bird will run free. Subsequently, the main body will suicide.

This boss is the final enemy on Arthur’s route, an archaeologist who was adopted and mysteriously lost his father. While the Egyptian inspiration of the boss highlights the main profession of Arthur and his father, always wandering in tombs and ancient temples, the trinity of personalities of the god represents their family. The bird is an emblem of freedom, dreams, and hope, but also an unhealthy obsession for work or family, something that is necessary to let go to be free.

Gabriel

Farewell. Farewell to you, who I loved but didn’t know how to love. Farewell, heaven. Farewell, stars. Farewell, Fiore.

Gabriel is a tragic boss and a very tough opponent. The main body is a weak and harmless heart, which can be destroyed with a couple of attacks. However, the heart will soon shield behind a gigantic humanoid crow, a very aggressive and disturbing being. A human face, sleepy or sorrowful, is buried into the neck of the creature, swallowed by the black feathers. The creature resembles a distorted angel, not only because of the majestic wings but also for the huge halo on his head.

The battle is more challenging than could appear, and a lot depends on luck and raw attack power. The heart will immediately shield by creating multiple targets: the crow’s main body and its pair of wings. All the targets hit quite hard and can easily kill a party member in a single turn. Luckily, they have very few HPs, so it will be easy to expose the heart. The main problem? At every heart’s turn, the crow will generate again, bringing the exact same problems as the battle before. So, even if the heart is very weak, if you finish the crow with very few or no turns before the heart, the challenging battle will start again.

Gabriel is a tragic boss borne by an unspoken love story. He is the final boss of Michael’s route, a gangster with feelings for his best friend. However, both of them never spoke about their feelings… till it was too late. The heart shielding behind a ferocious beast is a clear symbolism of these hidden feelings, of burying the love under a mountain of appearance and toxic masculinity. So to truly reach the heart, it is necessary to defeat the monsters hiding and protecting that fragile and intimate feeling.

If you want to check the complete battles against these bosses, the following video in the Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel will satisfy your curiosity: