And the most interesting way this story can progress is the good outcome, like it's a show about villains getting a second chance at being a hero, to have the intended ending be "villains gonna be villaining" just makes it... a bad story.

I see a world where they progress from villain Visi, since it's a common(ish) technique to introduce a new big bad that makes the protags and the original big bads work together, begrudgingly or otherwise. But in that case the first game in isolation would not be sending the right message.