Van steps up to save his dad and pay off the debt. Since the character of this random nameless debt collector has been set up so subtly and skillfully, there are no surprises when she talks down to Van — an innocent child! — as well, sneering that the coins from his piggy bank won’t make a dent in the massive amount of cash his dad owes. Begging her to wait just a while longer, Van implies that he has some grand plan to get the money. The debt collector is all, “I bet. What, are you going to rob that shitty restaurant on the middle tier?” This is where Van dramatically announces, “I’m going with these guys to search for the Frozen Flame!”
Wait…what? Whose ass did that come out of? I confess, I have no idea what’s going on here. If Van just came up with this random idea to stall for time, how utterly convenient is it that Cronabe and the others really are searching for the Frozen Flame? Not that anyone’s actually mentioned it in this recap as one of their goals, but I checked back to an earlier recap, and it looks like that’s another thing that Cronabe’s supposed to find. Yes, I know that the Frozen Flame is supposedly some famous treasure, but it still seems too convenient for Van to randomly bring it up. But if it’s not random, then how would Van know that they’re actually looking for it? They barely talked to him except to hire him as a freaking tour guide. And if they had talked to him for more than two seconds, it’s more likely that Harle would have jabbered something about fate and time and the nature of one’s soul and Radius would have asked a dozen questions about General Viper. I just don’t get this.
No, because normal people totally dress this way.
The debt collector woman seems less than impressed with his declaration. She’s all, “You’re just a kid and kids can’t do anything because they’re kids!” Plus, she thinks the Frozen Flame is just a bunch of bullshit. Out of the blue, I get to choose whether Cronabe backs up Van’s story or whether he, too, acts like it’s just a big steaming pile of bullshit. Of course I make him play along because that’s what I need to do to get Van to join my party. And I don’t know what I’d do without a purple-haired, sailor-hat-wearing 14-year-old boy in my collection. The evil woman laughs at their craziness and naivete, but remarks, “The Frozen Flame is supposed to be the treasure of all treasures… Even if it’s just a legend, there’s something very tempting about it.” This unnecessary dialogue is so that we know this extremely minor NPC is, as you may not know, slightly fond of treasure.
Apparently, she’s just tempted enough to wait a bit longer for the debt payment, on the off chance that the kid and his band of frightening friends might find the Frozen Flame. But she doesn’t really think that will happen. Whatever, I’m just happy when she leaves. Van takes this opportunity to go on a tirade about how money would solve all their problems. Get it, because his counterpart has a ton of money and only wants to paint? See what they did there? He rags on his dad for not being able to sell his shitty paintings. Gogh is all, “But we have each other and that’s what matters! Yay for family! See, I’m not a money-coveting buttnozzle like my Other World version!” Van is having none of that.
There’s some more arguing which I’m not going to bother recapping, and then Van announces that he’s going to have to be the responsible one and find them a new place to live. Before slamming the door to his room, he thanks the group for going along with his “bogus story.” So I guess that answers my question — it was just an extremely random coincidence that he brought up the Frozen Flame. This is where we’re supposed to chuckle at the irony.
Just to go back to the whole parallel universe thing, let’s take a look at this unhappy family in both their incarnations. First, we met the Other World Van and Gogh, where Van only wants to be an artist and his life sucks because his dad is a soulless businessman who cares only about money. Then, we met the Home World Van and Gogh, where Van wants to make sure they don’t have to sell their bodies on the streets and his life sucks because his dad is a head-in-the-clouds artist who can’t pay the rent. There’s a really obvious moral of the story staring us right in the face here. You know what I’m getting at, right? That’s right: don’t have kids. Seriously, then both Goghs could follow their own paths without having to worry about both Vans’ lives sucking. Am I right?
I think we’ve all had enough of this particular family, but too bad, because we immediately cut to Van’s room where he exposits to himself about his dad. This sequence is accompanied by the Pity Me Piano, in a pointless attempt to make us care. We learn that Van thinks his dad’s paintings don’t blow total donkey balls, but they never sell because Gogh is picky about who he’ll sell them to. “He says cocky things like he’ll only sell to those who understand his work,” Van monologues. When I’m done rolling my eyes at Gogh’s “I am an artiste” pretentiousness, I immediately bump him up several notches on the Douche Meter. I mean, is there any human being who thinks like that and isn’t an utter wienerhead? I think not.
I’m sure if Seymour lived here, you could earn that money in a heartbeat.
Van continues to narrate his every move, informing us that he’s retrieving his piggy bank from the secret compartment behind the painting. “OK, the money’s in here, too,” he says out loud. “Now, the hardest part is finding a place to live.” Yes, because the islands are just full of unattainable mansions. It’s not like they couldn’t just nail some boards together and go live in the swamp if it came to that. Anyway, Van continues to the next painting on the wall, which also hides a secret compartment. From here, he takes out “Dad’s homemade paint color, El Nido Blue.” As he jiggles the paint jar around, he talks about how this paint color is worth a fortune because it smells like salt water or something odd like that.
He retrieves the third and final item from — you guessed it — a third secret compartment behind a third painting. I think it would be a lot more efficient to put all the items in a single compartment. Given that the holes are the same size as the paintings themselves, that can’t be good for the infrastructure of the shack. This last item, a seashell, is “the only remaining reminder” that Van has of his dead mom. He goes on for a while about his fond memories of his mom and the shell, which is probably the most character development we’ve gotten of anyone thus far, not that it’s any less nauseating for that fact. Addressing his mother’s spirit, Van promises that he’ll look after his dad. Yes, we got that already. The camera pans up to show the beams of light shining through the tiny windows of the room. Oh, how meaningful.
Loading ...The scene fades out and back in on the trio. After that awkward monologue from Van and all the “plot” we’ve already encountered in this house, I figure that the party will be on their way, after retrieving their “tour guide.” But no, Gogh still has more to say. Good God. He tells this complete group of strangers about the psychological makeup of his son, adding that he wishes Van could be a typical carefree teenager. Well, I’m sure he could if you freaking sold your paintings instead of worrying whether or not people appreciate and understand your artistic vision.
Van thankfully emerges at this point, surprised that Cronabe and the others haven’t gotten the hell out of there yet. Believe me, I wish they would too. Radius and Harle explain that they actually are searching for the Frozen Flame, just as Van said. Of course Van thinks they’re either a) making fun of him, b) stupid, or c) trying to cheer him up because he’s “just a kid.” Options A and C imply some kind of reasoning capability or personality, so I’m leaning toward B. Radius is all, “Believe what you want.” But suddenly Van can tell they have the Eyes of Truth (just like his mom!!!) so he believes them. The Pity Me Piano is still tinkling along mournfully in the background, by the way. I didn’t want to leave out that obnoxious detail.
Although Van is tempted to leave on a journey with these three strange adults, he doesn’t want to leave his deadbeat dad behind. But Gogh, perhaps seeing an out with this whole “having kids” thing, encourages Van to go out into the big, dangerous, monster-infested world with these people he just met. He tries to justify this with something about “broadening his horizons” and “finding out what real happiness is” like there aren’t a million better and safer ways for Van to accomplish this same goal.
I wonder if that’s my problem, too.
The goodbye scene stretches on for a ridiculously long time, making me wonder why the hell the game designers spent so much time on this scenario. After all, I’m pretty sure it’s all optional anyway. I was just about to write that I’d rather sit through another pretentious Lynx monologue than this glurgy crap, but that’s not true either. I think the point I’m trying to make is that I can’t win. While I typed all that, Gogh went to retrieve something for his son to take on his journey. If it’s lube, I’m ending this recap right here. Thankfully, it’s only a boomerang. I seriously just typed “boomerwang” which means my fingers are still thinking about the Wind Wanker recap. There’s no reason why it can’t be the boomerwang here, too. There is some more extraneous dialogue where Van mistakes the boomerwang for a toy (I guess that’s true in a certain sense, if you follow me). Gogh corrects him: “During your journey, there will be danger. This should help you when that time comes.” Then, and I’m not kidding here, he adds, “And…a boomer[w]ang comes back when it is thrown. I want it to be a reminder to you.” This statement manages to be both sappier than shit and completely incomprehensible. I mean, is he saying that he wants Van to come back after he’s “thrown” out into the wilderness? What the hell? This is painful, people. So painful. See why this took me three months to finish? Jesus.
Because we need more ultra-permissive parents around.
I’m just going to skip past the rest of the scene, since it doesn’t tell us anything new. Van officially joins the team and I don’t bother to rename him. In hindsight, it might have been funny to name him something inappropriate that would fit with “Gogh.” As you can imagine, I was not feeling at all creative by this point in my playthrough. Something to do with my brain melting out through my ears, I believe. I decide to swap Radius for Van because with Cronabe’s original form gone, there just isn’t enough male jailbait in the party.
Yeah, that would be a real tragedy.
Back outside in the beautiful fresh air, Cronabe zips across the walkway where the fortune-teller and fake mermaid were located in the Other World. Here, it’s just another double row of phallic cannons. I like that: “just.” I guess I’ve played so many games, I’m completely jaded by penisy objects at this point. Then, they head down the stairs to the giant seashell where Dario’s grave was located in the Other World. From the inscription on the sword stuck into the grave, Cronabe finds out that Home!Dario (and his daddy Garai) are buried here as well. While the sword was strangely unrusted in the Other World, that’s not the case here. A Porre soldier who is patrolling this area for some reason exposits that the sword is a rusty piece of shit. I’m sure the significance of the rusted versus non-rusted swords will be explained later, so let’s visit the nearby shack to see if El Asso Wipo’s Mexican wrestler doppelganger has anything pretentious to share.
Oddly enough, El Asso Wipo is nowhere to be found. The shack’s occupant, who appears to be someone we’ve never met before, warns them in a — surprise! — pretentious way about the lurking spirits or some wanky nonsense that has nothing to do with anything. He/she randomly exposits about a spirit that appeared to him/her last night. “He said his name was ‘Ghetz’ or something,” he/she adds. Hey, we’ve heard that name before! That’s the guy who I decided was El Asso Wipo’s gay lover. But this namedrop doesn’t lead to any further exposition, so Cronabe, with a great deal of relief in his heart, leaves the area. After that excruciating cut scene with Van and Gogh, I’m definitely not going to complain about this cryptic conversation that went nowhere.
At this point I’ve pretty much exhausted any conversational possibilities in Termina. Try not to be sad. Now that we know how almost everyone in Home World Termina corresponds to their counterpart in Other World Termina, we can enjoy this game in a much more complete way. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next time to enjoy it, because I can’t handle any more of this complex character development. Join Cronabe in the next installment as he continues his quest for whatever item he’s after by doing things that don’t relate to that quest at all. See you then!