10 Greatest Video Game Post-Final Boss Fights
7. Fallen King Allant - Demon's Souls
"This entire catastrophe has been nothing but history's longest suicide note".
The above line doesn't actually come from Demon's Souls, but from Netflix's (utterly fantastic) Castlevania series.
There, the words are spoken to a mad, grieving Dracula, whose wife's murder led him to wage war against humanity. And unfortunately for the cast of Demon's Souls, its chief antagonist - King Allant - shares Dracula's omnicidal-suicidal tendencies.
Demon's Souls climaxes in a battle against the Fallen King, who by this point has degenerated into a pitiful blob monster who wails about "the tragic realm of existence". It's the easiest fight in the game, and in stark contrast to the battle against Old King Allant - the King's stoic, impressive-looking body double who exudes regal authority and provides Demon's Souls stiffest challenge.
As a metaphor for the debilitating effects of depression, it may not be subtle but it certainly is effective.
The idealised Old King Allant is a far cry from the fleshy mess the real king has become by the time you face him, and putting the Fallen King out of his misery provided a suitably somber climax to the game that birthed the ever-dark Soulsborne series.