Barbatos Goetia

Barbatos Goetia (バルバトス　ゲーテイア) is one of the primary antagonists in Tales of Destiny 2. He was a ruthless warrior who would do anything to get what he wanted. He fights with a huge axe, but also has some magical spells at his disposal. Barbatos also personifies many of the evil traits shown by humans, such as betrayal, deceit and brutality, showing that he'll resort to underhanded tactics to accomplish his goals.

He is voiced by Norio Wakamoto.

First Death
Barbatos Goetia was actually alive during the period of Ae'ther Wars. It's unknown which side he was on, but he's known for his atrocity that he betrayed his friends for his own and only benefit. Eventually, it was Lieutenant Dymlos Tinbar who put an end to Barbatos' life and due to his evil deeds, Barbatos' name would be written out in history, as if he didn't exist at all.

Resurrection
After around a hundred years, Barbatos is resurrected by a holy woman named Elraine who enlists his help in her quest to alter history. More than eager to prove his existence, Barbatos accepts the proposal and becomes Elraine's personal assassin. His task is to eliminate the current heroes that saved the world from the resurrection of the Ae'therians.

Barbatos' first destination is Cresta, where two heroes Stahn Aileron and Rutee Katrea settled. In front of Rutee's orphanage, Barbatos encounters two young boys Kyle Dunamis and Loni Dunamis. Barbatos then asks of Stahn's presence, but Kyle is already suspicious on him and throws a stone to him, which is easily dodged. Barbatos then threatens to kill Kyle, but Loni shoves him out of danger, causing Barbatos to instead grab Loni as a hostage. As he expected, Stahn and Rutee come out and attempt to stop him. Barbatos then threatens to kill Loni if the two don't drop their weapons. They do as he tells them, and as Stahn asked if he wants money or Lens so he will get out, Barbatos exclaimed that he wants their lifes and brutally assaulted the couple. Although Rutee only suffers from major wound, Stahn is killed in instant. Barbatos mutters how weak the heroes are in front of him and vanished.

It takes around ten years for Barbatos to appear again, this time attacking Philia Philis in Straylize Temple. He is interrupted with the grown up and more experienced Kyle and Loni, but they are still no match for him. It takes another interruption by a masked fencer named Judas to make him stop doing anything further. Barbatos bid his leave, but he warns Kyle that he'll never forget him.

Shortly after, Barbatos appears again in Phandaria, his target being Garr Kelvin (Woodrow Kelvin in Japan). Using a distraction in form of crashing the ship Draconis to the castle, Barbatos struck to the throne room and wounded Garr severely. Kyle interrupted again, but he is still no match for Barbatos. The warrior vanished again as the group headed to the future timeline.

Barbatos doesn't make any appearance again, but when Kyle enters the Alternate World created by Elraine, Barbatos is mentioned as a hero. This is, however, a mere fabrication of Elraine's ideal world and Barbatos' wish, thus history is not going as it's supposed to be.

When Kyle's group travels back to the period of Ae'ther Wars, Barbatos appears again when the group is in Dycroft along with the Legendary Swordians in their human guises. Barbatos is pleased to see Dymlos again and is on the verge to defeat him before Atwight interrupted and reminded him of his crimes. Barbatos then used another plan and takes Atwight as his hostage, leaving with her to Spiral Cave where he issues a challenge to Dymlos to come at the place if he values Atwight's life.

To his surprise, it is Kyle and his groups that comes to Atwight's aid. However, they fall for Barbatos' trap, putting them in despair. Suddenly, Dymlos rushes into the scene and defeated Barbatos, although he manages to escape.

During the Swordian Team's final assault in Dycroft, Barbatos once again appears in front of Kyle and declared that his desire at that point is to defeat Kyle. He battles against his group but is defeated. He claims that he'll be waiting in a more proper place for their battle to continue and vanishes.

Barbatos then appears in Stahn's timeline, interrupting and on the verge of defeating his team as they approached Dycroft. To his surprise, Kyle appears again and double teamed with his father to drive Barbatos, who flees the scene afterwards. He resurfaces again just as Judas is about to stab his Swordian to the Eye of Atamoni. Barbatos fights and is defeated for the second time. Still proud of his strength, he claimed that he is defeated by himself, not Kyle. Using his last ounce of strength, he plunged himself to the Eye of Atamoni, killing himself.

As Kyle succeeded defeating Elraine and Fortuna, history is repaired and all of Elraine's actions, including Barbatos' revival and feats, are annulled as if they never happened at all.

Battle Prowess
Barbatos is a fearsome foe to face in battle. Not only that he has a significant destructive power and magic, his most notable trait is that whenever a character casts a spell or uses an item (depending on the situation), Barbatos will counter by casting a spell and during his chanting time, he will be invulnerable. He also possesses a dangerous move called 'Genocide Braver', where he fires a huge powerful blast towards his foe. He also possessed the move 'Cheap Elimination', where he kills the party if the player battles him in "Simple" difficulty.

Trivia

 * Barbatos is surprisingly popular within the Tales fans. In the third popularity contest of Tales characters, he ranked the 19th place, making him the second most popular antagonist behind Asch from Tales of the Abyss.

Barbatos in Tales of Destiny Remake (Playstation 2)
Due to his popularity, Barbatos is featured again in the remake of Tales of Destiny. He appears as a random encounter, with the purpose of punishing players that attempts to auto-level their characters. He has changed his fighting stance from a passive one to a very aggressive and fearsome pose. Reflectively, he attacks more than he did in Tales of Destiny 2, using a more ruthless arsenal of attacks. He still retains his Genocide Braver (which requires charging) but his Cheap Elimination will inflict K.O. to all party members this time around. However, he will only use it in the EX Dungeon on Simple Mode.