Nina continues to throw her porky blonde self at our green scaly hero, in spite of Alf’s lukewarm reception of her advances, earning herself the nickname Miss Piggy, which will continue to become truer and truer as time goes on. Miss Piggy tells Alf that she’s come to set him free, and Clydesdale, who’d been eavesdropping the whole time, blurts out, “T…THANK YOU!?” in size forty-million font.

What? You’ll have to speak into the microphone.

Miss Piggy scuttles over to Bonnie and Clydesdale’s cell to let them know that, duh, she’s not going to let them free, just Kermie Alf. “If I let you go, you’ll just pick on him again,” Miss Piggy Shions, like, way to fully consider the repercussions of circumventing the legal system, dummy, and Bonnie and Clydesdale profusely profess that they won’t pick on Alf. And the freaking moron actually opens their cell. Before she opens Alf’s. Without any type of guard nearby. Obviously, Bonnie and Clydesdale corner Miss Piggy, maintaining that they won’t pick on “that kid” again, rather the porky Princess. Correctly noting that the Princess will go for far more money than some shape-shifting sideshow freak will, they knock Miss Piggy against the wall and make off with her down some dungeon exit. There’s always a dungeon exit. I can only imagine how well that bodes for Palace security.

“….They’re gone,” MysteryExposition!Man declares after the screen shifts away from the Bizarro Centaur Assassin Twins and onto Alf’s cell. “The door’s locked. What do you do?” ME!M dungeon masters as Alf gazes mournfully at the iron bars. Alf is given the option of either “[Yelling] for the guard” or “[Trying] to break the door.” Well, obviously, Alf figures that the guard snoozing over by the entrance might be helpful at a time like this, so he tries to yell for the guard. Cupping his hands over his mouth, Alf gets a little yelling animation, but obviously, since Alf is mute, no sound comes out. Waaaay across the prison, the sleeping guard is awakened by, oh, I don’t know, Alf’s thoughts or something, tells the kid he’s just having a bad dream, and goes back to sleep. Alf decides to try to break the cell door down instead, backs up to get a good running start, and rams himself headfirst into the wrought iron bars. “…Ouch” ME!M understates as Alf bounces backwards off the door.

With a sniffle, Alf climbs back to his feet and ME!M asks us whether we want to “Scream ‘Help!'” or “Hit the door again.” Alf chooses the first one, uses his same yelling animation as before, and wakes the guard, who this time just shrugs off Alf’s cries and resumes sleeping. So again with the ramming headfirst into the cell door. This time, Alf backs up all the way against the opposite cell wall, and while running, flashes white, which I guess means something important, because the door rips off of its hinges. Alf darts over to Bonnie and Clydesdale’s cell to nab some “Skill Ink” and make good use of the conveniently located diary before zipping down the stairs after them.

Please tell me that’s an arm, please tell me that’s an arm… (567KB)

Bonnie and Clydesdale hadn’t thought through the nuances of their escape, it would seem, because Alf quickly catches up to them in a basement chamber and– good lord, what on earth is Clydesdale doing to Miss Piggy? The poor girl is struggling fruitlessly against Clydesdale’s vice grip, and the Bizarro Centaur Assassin Twin in question is gyrating his whole body back and forth against her, complete with an involved shoulder roll. G-to-the-freaking-ross.

The rampant bestiality rolling about in the foreground disgusts Alf so much that he dashes forward to save the poor girl. Bonnie and Clydesdale are all, “Geez, you’re harder to get rid of than the semen stains in our Christmas cardigans.” They throw Miss Piggy against the wall and make to smite Alf where he stands. Clydesdale wonders for a moment what they’ll do if Alf changes into a dragon, but Bonnie reassures him that Alf won’t try anything funny while they’ve got the princess.

For the record, Alf doesn’t even get a chance to try anything funny because the Bizarro Centaur Assassin Twins pound him to a pulp on their first turn. The Black Screen of Implausible Motivations springs into action as Alf plants his face in the cobbled floor, the better to hide Clydesdale’s irrational fear of unconscious bodies and the resulting retreat with. Alf regains consciousness to the sound of Miss Piggy screeching for him to wake up, and when he does, she sneezes that her “medicine” worked and exposits that while Alf was fighting the Bizarro Centaur Assassin Twins, she managed to escape and hide. Which is a bald faced lie at best, because Miss Piggy was sitting on her ass on-screen for the duration of the whole battle, for one thing, and for another, where on earth could she have hidden that Bonnie and Clydesdale wouldn’t have been able to find in a New York minute? I’ll admit, in previous plays of this game, I’ve had Alf attack Miss Piggy on his turn and she does run away in such an instance, but this time? Not so much. Whatever, Crapcom.

“OMG You’re SO BRAVE and I wanna have your BABIEEEEES!” Miss Piggy beards, somehow managing to muscle herself into the party. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she commands, and turns to face further down the dungeon path. No, Miss Piggy, actually, the way out would be back up through the prison. And that’s just where Alf leads her. It doesn’t do the two any good, obviously, because the guard stationed right outside the door is sleeping, Miss Piggy can’t talk or rouse him in any way, she’s lost the key to the dungeon door she opened not ten minutes ago, and Alf has forgotten that he has the capacity to knock over even the most imposing of gates because he’s a dragon. I hate this game and its existence makes me doubt God. Seriously. Throw me a bone here!

Miss Piggy: ‘My magic wand is of no use!’Alf: ‘No, really?!‘

With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart, Alf leads Miss Piggy back down to the sub-prison dungeon. They eventually emerge in some underground catacomb of sorts that’s positively crawling with zombies and those electric bolt monsters from McNeil Manor. In case any of you were wondering, whenever Miss Piggy enters a battle, she jumps around in a circle and summons her wand from an errant cloud of pixie dust. When she attacks, she spins around in a circle and directs a positively threatening burst of the same dust in the enemy’s general direction, complete with an obligatory HIEEE-YAAAH! She’s as threatening as garden gnome and has about as much stopping power, without the benefit of being crafted from plaster. The first time she dies in battle, I curse profusely, because she revives at the expense of the “Soul Gem” she was equipped with, which is both rare and expensive. Stupid me girl for not removing it before battle. And it’s more of the same from here on out.

Miss Piggy leads Alf through the catacombs to a huge epitaph which reads: “A treasure to he who pushes the 7 words… The path opens to he who learns the 7 words…” ME!M notes that “‘7’ is sticking out and looks like it can be pushed” Miss Piggy pushes 7, it does nothing whatsoever, and the two toddle along until they find another epitaph. It reads: “Whether you go above or beneath is up to you,” and ME!M lets us know that the colored words are raised and look like they can be pushed. Miss Piggy chooses to push above and it does nothing. Miss Piggy travels onward to several other epitaphs, pushing all their green words too, and they all do nothing as well. Alf gets over-stimulated from all the rampant excitement, so much so that Miss Piggy gives up before finding the last few epitaphs, instead, she leads Alf to the largest and most impressive epitaph of all, one that reads:

Remember the red words, not the green…
You were right in climbing up… from here you fall…
I will show you the right path…
You need not fear– the exit is there.
Do not be lost– look for the hidden trap.
Now, what is beneath you will lead to what is above you…
Do not choose that one–this is what you seek…

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Miss Piggy uses an ancient scroll she found lying around online on the ground to figure out which of the many words she should push, pushes them, and promptly falls through a hole in front of the epitaph. She walks forward a few steps, falling through another hole, and she and Alf both land behind a stone altar in yet another level of the cave. Miss Piggy tells Alf that they made it out of the prison and that they should make haste if they want to get away before Bonnie and Clydesdale show up again. Alf shakes his head, and Miss Piggy magically deduces that Alf is looking for Teepo and CT. Not catching Alf’s subtle hint that she’s about as useful to Alf as a boob job is to the gals of FFX-2, Miss Piggy tells Alf that it is her solemn duty as Princess to help those in need. So, like, let’s get looking for some clues!!

Alf leads Miss Piggy out of the final stretch of the catacombs and emerges, not in the center of the earth as I’d feared, but on one of the outer parapets of Castle Wyndia. How convenient. I guess all the earthen, underground shit was just for show, then. Miss Piggy’s idea of searching for clues involves talking to every NPC in town to see if anybody has seen or heard from Teepo and CT, and the search starts at the very northernmost part of town.

Searching many of the windmilled houses, Alf finds lots of bakeries and pockets some 5 loaves of bread total, but all the NPC’s have relatively useless things to say, like “Did you know that the Wyndians used to have wings?” or “Our ancestors used to be able to fly, and that’s why we aren’t afraid of heights,” or even “We harness the power of the wind to make delicious bread!” Yeah, I know. It’s absolutely riveting.

Continuing south into the heart of the city, Alf finds an outdoor café and the shopping district, and he and Miss Piggy load up on new equipment before heading toward the Inn to make a much needed sleep’n’save. After all, it’s not like anybody’s going anywhere until we find somebody who knows something about CT and Teepo’s whereabouts, right?

So, this recap dwindles down to a fairly blasé close, but fear not! Next time, Ben will lead you through the best game of Hide and Seek you’ve ever played, the world’s shadiest stadium, and more Bonnie and Clydesdale-related hijinks than you can shake a stick at! It’ll be like Christmas has come early, just you wait! See you in Part Five!