The mountain is no less bland and uninteresting than Mts. Glaus and Myrneg, save for the varied enemies, which include our old friends the nutty Acorn People and crusty goo-oozing penises (Tar Men) as well as new foes such as Orcs and a palette-swap of the Gongheads. I’m sure some of Crapcom’s staff must be Bongheads to come up with these enemies. I spend an insane amount of time levelling up and accumulating zenny, because weapons and armor will soon become ridiculously expensive, and the difficulty of battles will soon skyrocket faster than Squall’s heartbeat when Seifer enters the room I just love playing this game so much.
As recapping BoFIII dungeons is even less enthralling than playing through them, I’ll just cut to the interesting part – after a seemingly endless barrage of random battles and nonsensically-placed treasure chests containing crappy items, Alf and Miss Piggy find themselves at a small house at the top of the mountain. NPC stonemasons outside the house reveal that they “quarry the stones” – no, Crapcom, not stoners – from the mountain and use a cable car to transport them to another mountain. A kindly-looking man standing at the door wonders aloud why Alf and Miss Piggy are up in the mountains by themselves, then shatters his concerned-old-man image by whispering “…….Well, it’s getting dark, so come on inside…” (DPC: 8). Poor, trusting, naive Miss Piggy doesn’t need to be asked twice, and before the old pedo can say “Care for some candy?”, she and Alf are making themselves at home inside his house.
Run away again!!!!
“………So,” she reveals, aiming to set a new game record for excess ellipses. “We’re trying to get away from the bad men chasing us…”. The old pedo mason, who is IN NO WAY connected to Bonnie and Clydesdale, replies “Hmm…who exactly is it that’s chasing you now, little girl?”, probably thinking about chasing Miss Piggy’s ass himself. Miss Piggy somehow has to think about his question for a while, despite having been hounded by B&C for the better part of an hour, and adopts a thoughtful, stare-at-the-ceiling expression before stammering tentatively “Ummm………someone named…[Bonnie] and…[Clydesdale], yeah, that’s it…” Good grief, if she uses any more periods we’ll be here all day. I’m sure 2000 of the 3000-odd words in this recap so far consist of “…………”. Huge orange exclamation marks flash above the heads of Old Pedo Mason and his equally unnerving friend (DPC: 9) when she says this, indicating that something is amiss. Naturally, neither Alf nor Miss Piggy pick up on this, despite the fact that their hosts begin to act very suspiciously. Maybe they’re so used to being in the company of pedophilic furries, pedophilic horse-men and miniskirted powderpuffs, nothing seems strange to them anymore. Or maybe the game designers are blithering idiots.
An awkward silence descends over the room, and after about half a minute Miss Piggy finally realises that things may not be what they seem. Maybe it takes that long for her brain to process thoughts? I don’t know. A question mark blinks above her head (I love how Crapcom use giant flashing punctuation marks to convey emotions and reactions, instead of, oh, I don’t know, writing convincing dialogue) and she asks “Do you know them?” GASP! Someone in the party actually has a clue! I tremble in sheer awe and shock, as Hell gets a heavy snowfall, the sun is blotted out from the sky and Tidus becomes a funny, loveable hottie. “I wouldn’t worry about them…” Old Pedo Mason replies, blatantly refusing to answer her question. “Whoever they are, they won’t come this far, now will they?” No. No, of course they won’t. I mean, that would be soooo predictable, right? Sadly, Miss Piggy’s alarm bells fail to ring (I guess that one intelligent thought frazzled a lot of gray matter), and she happily accepts Old Pedo Mason’s offer of a bed for the night. Not his bed, I hope.
After raiding Old Pedo Mason’s closet and netting a Bent Sword (no comment), Alf and Miss Piggy toddle into what will serve as their bedroom for the night. “We’re lucky we found some nice people, huh Alf?” Miss Piggy squeaks as she and Alf try to get comfortable in their furniture-devoid room. See, this is all ironic because Old Pedo Mason and his friend aren’t really nice people at all. Because they’re kiddy-chasers affiliated with Bonnie and Clydesdale. Would somebody please buy this girl a clue? If she were any more trusting, Seymour could probably persuade her to visit Guadosalam to see his new puppies. Alf and Piggy settle down for a peaceful night’s sleep, blissfully unaware of the imminent 274th chase sequence drama that will ignite the following morning.
Alf wakes the following morning to find Miss Piggy standing over him. Jeez, she’s getting clingier by the second. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been standing there all night, just watching him. When Alf tries to head back into Old Pedo Mason’s room, he finds the door locked. Oh noes! As Alf rattles the lock for all it’s worth, we see Old Pedo Mason casually smoking his pipe at the table. “That’s funny…” Miss Piggy duhs. “I wonder what’s going on?” Shall you tell her, or shall I?
Miss Piggy bangs on the door a few times, and eventually the fact that they’ve been deliberately locked in their room begins to seep into her brain. We see Old Pedo Mason again, this time joined by his mysterious buddy. “…I got them” OPM declares, as – huge shock! – Clydesdale trots into the house. Hearing Clydesdale’s voice sends a jolt of realisation through Alf and Miss Piggy, and the poor pursued pre-teens realise that they need to get the hell out of there, STAT. Some “Oh shit, we’re being chased by perverted centaur assassins” music kicks in as our plucky heroes race out of the backdoor of their room, rather conveniently, to the area housing the aforementioned cable car. As the lift is out of power, Miss Piggy decides to use her magic on the control panel, which is powered by [crack] energy. Lord knows how her magic is related to [crack]. Then again, it could explain why her brain seems to work so slowly. Drugs are bad, mmmkay? Especially for princesses.
She orders Alf to climb into the cable car as we see Clydesdale unlock the door to their room. As Clydesdale leaves, Old Pedo Mason sighs “Forgive me, children…I just don’t want any trouble…”, showing us that, even though he’s a backstabbing, creepy dickhole, he isn’t really. Or something. Cut back to our pre-teens in peril, trying desperately to power up the lift. “[Crack] energy is like magic…” Miss Piggy muses, as Clydesdale canters ever closer. Yes, honey, I’m sure it feels like magic, but now is neither the time nor the place. “There you are, you pipsqueaks!” Clydesdale yells, inexplicably deciding to go after Miss Piggy first, even though she’s standing on the opposite platform while Alf is five paces away, tops. Whatever. Alf sneakily takes a swipe at Clydesdale as the dumb old mule passes him, leading Clydesdale to hold his head in his hands and bawl like a baby. Something tells me he isn’t the best choice for this job.
“MOVE!” Miss Piggy screams, losing her patience with the control panel and adopting Clydesdale’s own size forty-million font dialogue from the Wyndian Prison. She fires off a blast of pixie dust from her wand, making the control box fizzle a bit. Suddenly a blast of pure white [crack] energy bursts from the panel, powering up the cable car, which begins to move. This is actually quite suspenseful and exciting, especially as the cable car seems set to carry Alf away to safety, while leaving poor Miss Piggy at the mercy of Clydesdale. But Piggy won’t give up so easily – with the magic of the [crack] energy making her believe she can fly, she takes a running leap off the platform and just manages to hang on to the cable car. The car zooms away offscreen, leaving Clydesdale sobbing in despair at having missed his chance yet again.
Cut to Miss Piggy and Alf excitedly jabbering about their Great Escape. Well, Alf is silent as usual, so Miss Piggy is the one doing all the jabbering. “Were you worried about me?” she asks, followed by “I know that even if something went wrong…you’d do something to protect me, Alf!” Yes, because it’s all about her. Alf, sweatdropping, is sorely tempted to throw the clingy bitch out of the cable car, but ultimately decides against it. After all, he’ll need a beard in a few years’ time, and it’s doubtful he’ll be able to find any more gullible princesses to do the job. The cable car eventually reaches the other side of the mountain, where it comes to a halt with a bunch of clunking and juddering noises. Neither of the kiddies know where the hell they are, but agree that they should be OK once they descend the mountain. Hah – easier said than done, as we – and they – will see very soon.
Alf and Miss Piggy begin to make their way across the mountain. After several minutes of random battling, they arrive at a dead-end, which appears to be considerably high-up. As Miss Piggy laments, Clydesdale appears, yelling “Bingo!”, once again in an unnecessarily-huge font. Please, someone kill him and his asshat partner/brother/butt-buddy already. The green-maned moron approaches Alf and Miss Piggy, neither of whom try to run away or put up a fight. “You can try and run…” Clydesdale threatens, “But we always get our way in the end…” I don’t want to know what he’s referring to here. I really don’t want to know. “Oh yeah? That’s what you think!” Miss Piggy squeals defiantly. I half-expect her to add “Meanie!”. That would show him how tough you are, girl! “Come on, Alf…let’s jump!” she continues, dragging poor Alf over to the cliff edge. God dammit, if I were in Alf’s shoes, I’d turn into a dragon right now and torch both of their asses. Remember when I said at the start of the recap that Miss Piggy isn’t annoying? Well, scratch that. Now, as if she weren’t being childish enough, she pokes her tongue out at the bemused Clydesdale. Before leaping over the edge. Oh no! Will they live? Will they die? Do I care?
As will the legions of Nina fanboys.
Fortunately for our heroes, the side of the cliff is slightly sloped rather than a complete vertical drop, which would probably have made things a little more messy. As a result, Alf and Miss Piggy half-slide down the cliff on their asses. Halfway down, Alf somehow, while assraping the laws of physics, manages to place himself in front of Miss Piggy and transforms into a Whelp to break her “fall”. Jeez, why bother? The worst injury she would have incurred would have been some chafing to her backside. At the bottom of the mountain, she leans over the motionless body of Alf in Whelp form, throwing herself a mini pity party in the process. “If it meant being caught again, I would rather jump…but now look what’s happened to Alf…” she cries, just as Alf begins to twitch before reverting to human form. All is well, and Alf doesn’t seem to have received any damage from his daring stunt. Miss Piggy cries that she thought Alf had died. Hmm, that would have made this a pretty short game, and none of us are that lucky. Piggy continues that Alf SAVED HER LIFE!!!, and that’s she’s forever indebted to him. “I don’t know how, but someday I’ll repay you…” she promises. Before she can get any ideas of just how to repay him, Alf drags her out of the area and onto the World Map.
After making a short diversion to collect a new Dragon Gene (to unlock new dragon transformations in battle), they come across a strange tower. With nowhere else in the vicinity to investigate, they decide to enter. Before we go on, allow me to make something clear – the “Tower” is the dungeon I loathe the most out of all the possible candidates in this game, so forgive me if I’m not completely thorough when recapping it. Hey, this way, I’ll avoid the otherwise-inevitable keyboard-butting and eye-sporking, and you’ll all be spared the torture of hearing me rant about it too much, so it’s a win-win situation for all of us.