Back outside, where I am now able to cross the mud river using the top of the lowered sluice gate. However, less than a minute later I come to another sluice which needs closing. The hell? Nobody mentioned the tiny fact that there were two fucking sluices. Does this game explain anything (except how to play the increasingly pointless minigames)?
Inside the tunnel next to Sluice #2, there is another huge wheel to turn. However — SHOCK HORROR! — the lever next to it refuses to budge. Right about now, my BoF Minigame (from now on fittingly referred to as Minitortures) Sensor is going haywire. Sure enough, it appears that the wheel must be turned manually; a random NPC woman enters the room and informs the party that “…It’s been a little stiff lately…” Yes, disturbing fanfic writers, she’s talking about the wheel. You can put your pens down now. “You have to turn it really fast to get it to work,” she continues.
I’ll bet it has.
Before I can do this, however, I’m subjected to the most patronising briefing EVAR. First, the random NPC woman explains that turning the wheel is done by rotating the d-pad on the controller rapidly until Ruley begins to sweat. This indicates that he’s getting tired (funny, I thought it was just Sandy breathing down his neck). Then, I’m treated to a long-winded onscreen instruction, which reiterates almost exactly what the stupid random woman just said. Finally, I’m asked if I want to read some hints on how to turn the wheel.
I’ll give you a minute to take that in. That’s right, I’ve been told THREE FUCKING TIMES how to play this stupid Minitorture. This wouldn’t be so bad if the game actually involved a modicum of skill, as opposed to rotating the controller. Memo to Capcom: We are not 12-year-old braindead morons. This is almost as bad as Quistis and her random tutorials.
So, after taking the best part of five minutes to read the deluge of instructions (and completing the Minitorture in about five seconds) Sluice #2 closes and I head back outside. Right outside the tunnel is a watchtower, at the top of which is a creepy mole man. He informs me that he is to ring the bell next to him if the Mud Non-dragon should attack. I’ll say it once again, dear readers: that scenario is never going to happen, right? And especially not during this recap.
Back in the mud, Ruley knocks over a long wooden plank which provides a bridge back to the area where Rhoppe the Moron and the Not!Worker (who, incidentally, is still sitting on his ass) are. After the sluice key is returned, the Not!Worker tells Rhoppe to operate the lift…however, he’s stopped mid-sentence by a certain sound. The sound of a ringing bell. Hmm, now how many bells have we seen in this recap? And why are they there? (hint: OMG TEH MUD NON-DRAGON IS COMEING!!!111shift!!11) The mole man cries that the sluice has broken and the mud is about to overflow. Man, who’d have thunk it? Not!Worker tells the party that they’ll have to operate the lift themselves. To do this, Ruley receives a ‘crank’. (No, Game Designers, not crack. Settle down.)
The party runs (and TikTok glides) over to the lift, where I insert the crank into the waiting box and pull it several times to lower the lift. Note that this is all done in real-time, while the tidal wave of chocolate mud appears over the dam. It really is quite terrifying, especially when Clay and Sandy are swept straight down to hell by the shower of mud…then I wake up to find that the entire party is in fact safe. Darnit.
The elevator safely lifts the party to the bank. Strangely, they all remain stock-still and not at all distressed, despite the fact that fifty tonnes of mud is angrily raging around a few feet beneath them. As if the scene weren’t stupid enough, Rhoppe the Moron floats past in his tube, yelling “Yahooooo!”. Meanwhile, TikTok’s (remember her?) eyes are flashing wildly as she ‘hops’ up and down. Clay asks her what’s wrong. Um, Clay: she, along with the rest of you wankers, was just nearly BURIED UNDER A SEA OF MUD. I think she’s entitled to be a little upset.
In response to his wanky question, TikTok replies: “Hmm…should I perhaps have laughed, then?” Because, you know, it’s impossible to get through half an hour of gameplay without another sledgehammer-to-the-head clue that she ISN’T NORMAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, I exit the dam (well, what remains of it, anyway).
Back on the Not!World Map, I proceed for the grand total of eight paces before the dreaded “!” bubble rears its ugly head once again. This time, it leads to a cliff overlooking the sea. We see a nice picture of the sunset and, just in case we haven’t noticed the ocean, there is a cacophany of deafening typical ‘sea sounds’. The party enters the area, which is strewn with fragments of broken pillars, only a few of which remain standing. TikTok, ever the attention-seeker, vacuum-cleans her way onscreen before jumping on top of a rock. Meanwhile, Clay exposits that “There’s a village called Kyria to the east of here. We should be able to get to Synesta from there.” I know I’m not at all confused by these various towns, and just why in the hell we’re going to visit them. Oh, right, the party is trying to find Elina (Sandy’s sister, remember?), finally continuing the Plotline That Time Forgot.
Suddenly, exclamation marks appear above the party’s heads, one by one. We hear the sound of the Stephanie McMahon/Dying Hyena/Mud Non-Dragon once again. This time, however, we actually see the creature, which looks like — I’m not kidding here — a huge, phallic, wobbling, translucent thing. It casts a huge shadow over the party, just to emphasise the point that it’s big, bad, and phallic.
I bet Sandy wants to get a grip on that.
“Isn’t that…?” squeaks Sandy. I’ll assume she recognizes the Non-Dragon because of its blood-chilling distinctive cry, and not due to its resemblance to a gigantic penis. Suddenly, the Non-Dragon grunts inquisitively and leans straight towards the party, particularly towards Clay who, once again, has been placed ahead of Ruley. Unfortunately, it ignores my telepathic “EAT HIM!!!” messages. Close-up, it looks even more disturbing: its body is quivering and gelatinous, and its spine is visible through its translucent skin. Ew ew ew.
“It’s that dragon that destroyed the dam!” yells Clay. Before he can yell any more, some weird banjo-like music plays from above. Christ on a cracker, how many more shocks can this party have in one recap? They look upwards to see a creepy-looking robed frogwoman standing atop one of the pillars.
She plays some more creepy-ass banjo music, before leering “Never seen a dragon come this close to the shore before…Looks like your paths have become intertwined with the dragon’s….” See, this is really clever and shit, because the party (and player) are led to believe she’s wittering about the Mud Non-Dragon, when in reality she’s talking about Ruley. Well, it’s never confirmed that she IS talking about Ruley, but she could be. Wait…that would make sense. Scratch that.
Since the other members are presumably creeped out by the frogwoman, Sandy decides to do the talking. “Do you know a lot about the dragons, ma’am?” she asks.
Before the frog/woman/thing can even reply, Clay butts in, asking “Is this the same dragon that destroyed the dam?” Isn’t it strange how, not two paragraphs ago, he uttered the same line of dialogue in the form of a statement. Why is he so unsure about the issue a few lines later? Maybe Sandy’s wankiness is contagious.
Before the frogwoman answers their questions, she plays a few more notes of music (she does this after almost every line of dialogue, and it’s fucking annoying). “Dragons don’t attack people, dear…” she reveals. “This one just wants to tell you something…” Right. That makes a lot of sense. Hey, I don’t know about you readers, but whenever I want to tell someone something, I go on a destructive rampage too! Doesn’t everyone?
Clay seems as confused as me (although, in his case, it doesn’t take much to do so), as a question mark appears over his head. Right now, something is hanging over my head, too — the Big Cryptic Exposition Mallet of Doom. “Really?” asks Sandy. “I wonder what he wants to say.” What I want to say right now is unprintable.
The frogwoman continues her incoherent babbling: “Dragons are beyond the understanding of mortals like us…what we know of them comes to us in songs from ancient times.” She goes on to ask the party if they want to hear one of her songs. Dear God, no. Unfortunately, listening to the song is vital for the scene to progress, so, after being offered the choice of paying her 10 or 100 zenny, I choose the latter, simply because I know that stupid decisions like this usually influence important events in most RPGs. Clay throws the money to the woman, who — wait for it — catches it with her tongue, like a frog with a fly. “Heh heh…thank you kindly…” she leers. Could she get
any more creepy?
The banjo music kicks in once again, and the song lyrics are displayed onscreen. Sadly, this is accompanied by the woman’s Japanese ‘singing’ in a high-pitched wail.
“From the world’s dawning to its end…the Endless open the way. You who hear their call…abandon yourself to fate and surrender yourself to all…” Huh? Sorry, I must have fallen asleep for a minute.
The song ends and the Mud Non-Dragon disappears in a shimmering light.
Just try to tell me she doesn’t look creepy.
Clay decides to say what I’m thinking. “I don’t get it! What was that supposed to mean?”
Unfortunately, Babbling Frogwoman isn’t done yet: “It means when the dragons move, the world follows. Everything the dragons do changes the world in some way…and you have all been caught up in that change…”
Clay cuts her short and tells her, in blunt terms, that the group doesn’t have time to listen to this pile of crap. Predictably, Sandy is more polite, simply saying “Thank you for singing to us, ma’am.”
The group walks away and leaves the area, as the camera pans back up to the Babbling Frogwoman. “Heh…” she chuckles. “Your path is more than just tangled up with a dragon’s…you’ve got one walking around with you!” Gasp! What a shock! This is presented as a huge revelation, but it makes no sense; the player obviously knows Ruley is really a Non-Dragon, but surely the party must know by now, too — for fuck’s sake, he uses his transformation in battle often enough.
After this not-at-all-random scene, I appear back on the Not!World Map, and Kyria lies just a short distance away. A forest is just outside the village, but I don’t want or need to go there yet. Entering the village, I’m greeted by some ‘sneaky’ village music. That’s the only way I can describe it, but I’m sure you know what I mean. This, coupled with the fact that the area is oddly devoid of villagers, tells us that there is Something Amiss in the village. The only ‘person’ in the immediate area, a Manilo (orange fish-man) warns Ruley to be careful in the village. Hmm, I wonder what he could be warning us about? Don’t worry, this trapping question will be answered soon. Quite literally, in fact.
I take a few minutes to perform the obligatory “walk, talk and steal” exploration of the village. Unfortunately, since the villagers of Kyria are stingy bastards, the latter part of my mission is made redundant for now. In one house, a woman wearing a tea-towel on her head exposits “The mayor here us a little eccentric…he loves traps. That’s why the village is full of them! Only problem is, we get caught in them ourselves sometimes!” Man, this mayor sounds like a sane, well-rounded individual, doesn’t he? The nicest people I’ve ever met are the ones who leave traps lying around.
Tea-towel woman’s sprog continues this profile of Mayor von Trap, by telling us that he thinks “the best way to keep the village safe is to rig it with traps!” Jeez, why the hell does everyone here bitch about their ruler? I guess it’s a BoF thing; after all, I don’t tell complete strangers that Tony Blair is a scheming, slimy, lying wankstain. Oh, wait, I just did.