Sandy asks the boss if there is any way to get through Chamba before the hex disappears. Unfortunately for us, the average person needs “special armour just to go inside”, and the hex won’t be fully removed for at least a year anyway. This isn’t good enough for Sandy, because she wants to find her sister now, dammit. The boss suddenly has a change of heart, and says that Ruley and Sandy can enter the hexed area, provided that one of his workers guides them. Hold on a second, I thought the hex was so dangerous that the smallest exposure to it is lethal, and special armour is needed just to go inside? THIS. MAKES. NO. FRICKING. SENSE.
*THUD*
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*THUD*
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*THUD*
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Sorry, that was just me repeatedly mashing my head into the keyboard. Back outside, I must — you guessed it — talk to the fucking NPCs yet again. Mercifully, the torture is over quickly this time, as most of them repeat the same thing — “Fuck you! Taking wankers like you into the hex is too dangerous!” (not literally, but you get the idea).
Presumably, it is a place for deformed mole men.
So, with not a guide to be found, Ruley and Sandy head back towards the boss’s house. The boss is now standing by the Huge Wooden Gate Of Doom (hereafter referred to as the HWGOD for the sake of my fingers, my keyboard, and what’s left of my sanity). As the party and the boss begin to talk, the camera does that ‘Evil Dead’ thing…but a lot more slowly. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Don’t you? *crickets chirp* Anyway, in simple terms, the camera — now placed behind the HWGOD — slowly zooms in on the party. This is supposed to raise tension and suspense, but I can’t stop laughing after remembering Bruce Campbell slicing off his own hand with a chainsaw.
“The streets are like a maze!” cries the boss, as the camera continues to play its tricks. “I mean, we’re just lucky that they [the wraiths and specters] don’t smash down that wall and attack us right now!” Cookies for you if you guessed that, at this precise moment, the HWGOD would swing open. Swing open it does, complete with a corny haunted-house “creak” sound. This is so lame.
The gate fully opens to reveal something which looks like a bizarre hybrid of a trashcan, Robo from “Chrono Trigger”, and TikTok from “Return to Oz”. Folks, Ershin has arrived! And guess what? SHE’S NOT NORMAL!!!! Just preparing you for the deluge of Big Fucking Clues and hints as to this notion.
“I have returned, boss” says Ershin. She and the boss engage in some nonsensical dialogue for a few moments, until the boss whispers to Ruley that Ershin is “a little odd”. This is Big Fucking Clue #2 that Ershin is NOT NORMAL!!!! (#1 is the fact that she never comes out of her robot suit/armour). Ershin overhears this, and replies “Incorrect! Ershin is not odd.” Hmm, referring to herself in the third-person? Hey, kids, it’s Big Fucking Clue #3 that she ISN’T NORMAL!!!!
The next part of the conversation consists of Ershin offering to guide Ruley and Sandy through the hex. I won’t recap it in detail, as its sole objective is to annoy the hell out of me. That’s my story, anyway. Eventually, Ershin (now called TikTok — because I said so) joins the party. Maybe by the end of this recap, we’ll have passed through the fucking hex. I live in hope.
I didn’t mention in the previous recaps that the person in the lead of the party can run (usually Sandy, as the game insists on placing her ahead of Ruley, for some unfathomable reason). Sandy, predictably, runs like a complete dork with her arms behind her back. Ruley runs normally, and TikTok…well, TikTok glides across the floor whilst making a sound like a vacuum cleaner. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Incidentally, the image of a vacuum cleaner has given me a disturbing insight into how BoF fanboys ‘relieve tension’. Ew ew ew. Excuse me while I wait for the deluge of email flames using the basic structure of “OMG U S4Y V4CUUUM CL34N3R USE 4 M45TERBATUN!!!111!!one!!!1 UR SICK AND GAY ADN NEEDS 2 GET 4 BLOWJ0B!!!1111” Hey, I haven’t been graced with one of these suckers yet, but give it time.
Back to the game. Not wanting to see any of Chamba’s NPCs ever again, I head through the HWGOD. Into the hex we go! The hexed part of Chamba is, naturally, not a pleasant place. The party runs across the rooftops of houses, the bottoms of which are obscured by a purplish-black mist. Rickety wooden bridges connect these houses, and, as the boss said earlier, the streets are like a maze. Hmm, just like any other town in Breath of Fire IV. In case we couldn’t tell that this place is 5UPREAMLY EV4L, there is creepy ominous music in the background, complete with muffled church bells and everything. I know I’m terrified to go on.
Hey, this looks like a nice place to live, don’t you think?
The area is teeming with random battles. The enemies here are the standard RPG ‘Ghost’ Monster Set — we have ghosties, gaseous skulls, and zombies…the freakiest monster ever. The top half of the zombie is vaguely humanoid, with long spikes instead of arms. Where the monster’s legs should be is what looks like the bottom end of a particularly phallic slug. Okay, now I really can hear the collective typing of the Anti Penis Joke Flame Committee.
What the fucking fuck is this?!
Because I have no antidotes and the game designers hate me, almost every frickin’ monster in this God-forsaken place uses poison attacks. Therefore, I must resort to using Sandy’s magic. After three battles, she has 0 AP since she had such a shitty amount to begin with. And she needs to die.
TikTok isn’t too bad in battle…well, she’s better than Sandy, and that’s good enough for me. Whereas Sandy attacks by twirling her magic wand, TikTok fires a rocket-propelled fist at the enemy. It’s quite amusing to watch, especially with her comical “Hi-ya!” battle cry, which emphasises her freakiness cuteness.
Further into the hex, blah blah, random battles, annoying camera angles, blah blah, poison attacks, blah blah, you get the picture. In the next area, there’s a small and not terribly complex puzzle, in which TikTok must explore the lower section of the area, while Ruley draws the short straw and has to team up with Sandy to traverse the upper level. I suppose this is meant to tell us that the lower half of the area, shrouded in the purple mist, is too dangerous for them to walk on; but, to me, the whole “the hexed area is dangerous! There’s no way ordinary humans can withstand it! But if this animated tin can joins you, you should be fine” scenario stinks of laziness and inconsistency on the game designers’ part. Okay, huge rant over.
When the two ‘teams’ meet up again, Ruley and Sandy must activate a valve on the upper level, while TikTok simultaneously uses one at the bottom. Apparently, this dilutes the mist, allowing Ruley and Sandy to finally jump down to the lower level. Um, why don’t the Purifiers just do the same thing lots of times to remove the entire hex? It seems to me like the game designers just made up the rules for this area as they went along. Either that, or they were off their faces on crack. I half expect the next area to feature a giant dust suction machine that the party must fight in order to vacuum up this pesky hex.
A little further along, on the middle of a particularly unsafe-looking bridge, the party stops. Sandy whines that she heard something from below. At this point, I beg all the ghosts and wraiths and specters and slug zombies lurking in the mist to surge up and drag Sandy, screaming, into the abyss. On second thought, this is a bad idea, as Sandy would most likely turn into a demon. Demon!Sandy would probably then be the next boss battle, and everyone knows a Mary Sue can’t lose a battle, demon or not.
Oops, sorry, that was me. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten those sprouts.
Anyway. Something that looks like a huge, translucent, skeletal fish emerges from the pit, before performing a fancy dive back into the murky depths. Um, okay. Chamba now has show-diving zombie fish. Quite frankly, nothing in this game surprises me now.
“W…what was that?” gasps Sandy, because she’s the naive Mary Sue who needs the hero (or in this case, the talking tin can) to explain everything to her. According to Exposition!TikTok, the huge zombie fish is the physical embodiment of all the hatred and suffering contained within the hex. She neglects to explain exactly why these negative emotions take the form of a fish, however. I know why! Because the game designers are on crack!!!!
“TikTok says that it is extremely dangerous” declares TikTok. No, that wasn’t an example of extremely bad grammar — TikTok is now referring to herself in third-person terms again. Apparently, TikTok is laughing right now, as Sandy asks accusingly “If it’s so dangerous, why are you laughing?” What a bitch. I beg TikTok to aim her rocket fist right at Sandy’s mush. Much to my disappointment, she merely admits that she laughed at an inappropriate time. Not knowing when/when not to laugh? Folks, we have Big Fucking Clue #4 that TikTok ISN’T NORMAL!!!! Meanwhile, I slash my wrists with a blunt pencil while listening to Avril Lavigne. Hey, it’s less painful than being smashed across the head with the TikTok-Isn’t-Normal Mallet another 54783267 times. Please, hand me that bottle of Nytol Family Size, and wake me up when this recap is over.