In our last installment of “Whiny McWankerson Pisses Off Jeanne,” our resident bunch of Einsteins found out that Maester Seymour the Pedophile was, in fact, a bad guy. Through a series of wacky misunderstandings where they got themselves in deep shit with Yevon, they all ended up under the frozen lake, in about a foot of water. Everyone ragged on Auron, Wakka managed to be even more annoying than Tightass, and I killed myself. Again.
Everyone is still under Lake Macalania, just hanging out. In the background, a trained soprano voice sings the Hymn of the Fayth over and over and over. In spite of immediate concerns such as how the hell they’re going to get out of the lake, Tightass decides it’s a good time to ask Yuna about the singing. She spouts some crap about it being a gift from Yevon to sooth the weary soul and then walks away. I’m going to pretend it’s because she wants to get away from Tightass. Somehow it’s easier for me to get through the day if I convince myself that she’s not in love with him. Don’t destroy my dreams.
Next stop is Wacko Wakka. He asks Tightass, “Say, you feel something weird in the air?” That would be my fist trying to make its way through the TV screen. He mentions something about “bad vibes”, further proving that he is into illicit substances. Tightass can agree or disagree, and because I’m too lazy to press down on the controller, I just have him agree. “I thought so,” says Wakka. Wow, it’s a good thing my choice resulted in such an important scene. I guess this is the game designers’ “subtle” way of letting us know that something bad is about to happen.
Tightass is still really concerned about that darn singing, so he asks Lulu about it. She tells him that it’s the fayth singing. How lucky for the Yevonites that someone whose voice didn’t completely suck chose to become a fayth. “Huh?” Tightass wanks. “The fayth? What? It can sing?” I just love when characters repeatedly question what was just said. “Of course it can. Don’t be a fool,” Lulu says, earning bonus points from me. And that’s it for that conversation.
Rikku, meanwhile, is still dwelling on the whole “friends” comment from earlier. “First time a non-Al Bhed called me that,” she gushes. Dude. Tightass called you a friend. Does that really count? No, it does not. She follows up her statement with a creepy, “Hee hee hee,” causing me to wonder if she’s not a bit unbalanced mentally. That would be so unusual in this game.
Tightass returns to Lulu because I forgot to try for further dialogue earlier. She mentions something about the ground shaking, our second Gigantic Clue that something’s about to happen. All right — we freaking get it. I skip past Yuna and Kimahri to talk to Auron, so hopefully they didn’t have anything important to say. Well, of course they didn’t.
Auron mentions that Jecht used to sing the hymn a lot. I immediately have a mental image of Jecht singing the Hymn of the Fayth in an operatic soprano voice. Since we haven’t been reminded for a while that Tightass hates his dad, Tightass makes sure to rip on Jecht for the frequency and shittiness with which he sang. “Another trait you share,” Auron replies. That’s two people ripping on Tightass and it’s only been two minutes. I’m so happy. “What? You were listening?” Tightass squeals, leading into the White Screen of Flashback Transition. We hear Tightass humming the Hymn of the Fayth and Auron is correct — he sounds like ass on a stick.
In flashback mode, we see Tightass from behind, sitting on the dock while he’s humming. It’s supposed to be from Auron’s viewpoint, which lends an air of wrongness to the whole thing — as if Tightass singing isn’t wrong enough. Auron, sounding a bit wistful, tells Tightass that his awful singing reminded him of Zanarkand. I’m going to bet that he missed hearing the song sung well. Because if I imagine the alternative — that he was actually happy to hear Tightass sing — I’m going to have to hurt myself. So it’s the first option. “Oh, right. You’re not originally from Zanarkand, are you?” Tightass einsteins. Oh, for crying out loud. I know it’s extremely silly of me to expect that Tightass will not get any stupider than he already is, but it still amazes me just how much more idiotic he becomes with each recap. He asks Auron if he was homesick, to which Auron responds, “Maybe.” I sense a definite note of sarcasm, because it’s quite obvious that Auron is ecstatic at the thought of once again being in a place without Tightass.
Tightass wonders how Auron got to Zanarkand. He brilliantly deduces that Sin was a major factor in the journey. Auron doesn’t even bother to respond to this because it’s so God damn obvious, and Tightass is a bit smug that he figured out the big “mystery.” It took him long enough to ask this question, when he had the perfect opportunity at an earlier point, so we see once again that Tightass is just a giant dumbass. “That proved it,” Tightass Wankeses. “Sin was the link between Zanarkand and Spira.” Wait a sec, wasn’t this already established? By Tightass himself? So not only does he not remember what other people tell him, but he doesn’t even remember stuff he’s already figured out. You go to hell, Tightass. You go to hell and you die.
Tightass is all sad that he won’t be able to go home if they kill Sin. I have a solution — kill Tightass. Sure, he still won’t be home, but at least we won’t have to hear him whine about it. Tightass snaps out of his wankst and runs back toward the others, triggering a cutscene. It becomes eerily silent and Lulu notes that the singing stopped. Hey, the fayth need rest for their vocal cords, too. But of course it’s something more ominous: the Big Bad Thing that was subtly foreshadowed a minute or so ago. The ground shakes, causing Wakka to make the astute observation that something is there. Auron says, “The ground!” and looks down. The next scene is where things get extremely confusing. Unsurprisingly, the Bad Thing turns out to be Sin, because we haven’t heard from him in a while. Frankly, I’m glad to return to the bad guy that goes around randomly killing people after spending so much time with the bad guy that goes around randomly raping children.
Sin is floating in the water. I’m not sure where exactly it’s floating, seeing as how the lake appears to be completely empty except for the foot or so of water that the party is standing in. Yuna looks up as she shrieks, “Sin!” but if it’s up there, that means there’s water above them, and yet it’s not filling the part of the lake where they are. This makes no fucking sense. And to further compound the complete incoherence of the scene, the game designers choose to rapidly show headshots of all the characters as the screen fades to white.
The next scene, which takes place in the exact same location, involves Tightass with a bunch of pyreflies floating around him. This is apparently his cue to slip into some more Wankese. “It was then I knew…that Sin really was my old man. For the first time I was finally able to believe it.” Well halle-fuckin-lujah. I imagine that the weather forecast in hell calls for some snow. This scene is supposed to be all artistic and stuff, with all the slow-mo and rippling effects. It’s like the person who made it was trying out all the crappy video effects in the editing program, trying to be cool. Tightass starts talking to his old man, somehow deducing that he was listening to the hymn, and suddenly Tightass gets sucked into another random flashback dream mode thingy.
The softcore porn music from earlier plays over the endless White Screen of Crack-Smoking. When the next sequence finally loads, we see a pseudo-artsy image of Zanarkand reflected in the water. Tightass makes sure to say, “Zanarkand…” for those who just can’t figure out what we’re seeing, despite the many times they’ve shown us the damn city. “You homesick, too?” he asks his dad/giant sea monster of death. The camera pans dramatically over the area where the “I’m the BEST” flashback took place, only instead of Mini-Wank making a huge ass out of himself, there’s just a group of blitzballs. Tightass wanks, “That’s not your world anymore. You’re Sin now.” Well, gee, I bet Jecht is really glad that you’re there to explain that to him. Idiot. The scene changes to a very pathetic Mini-Wank sitting on the ground feeling sorry for himself. Apparently, this is how Jecht remembers his worthless son. Tightass again points out the obvious — that he’s older now. Well, no God damn shit, Sherlock. The guy is Sin, not a mentally-challenged, drooling moron. The next shot shows Jecht in front of an ornate door or wall or something. Tightass says, “I know. You want this to end.” Ha! He only knows that because Auron told him. The camera zooms out overdramatically as Tightass promises that he’ll find a way to end all this crap. I bet that makes his dad feel really confident.
Imagine he’s dead.
The White Screen of Load Time appears again, and fades into a welcome shot — Tightass floating face-down, not breathing. Unfortunately, a minute later he sputters and stands up, having somehow made it to a random oasis in the middle of a desert. Wait, how the hell did this happen again? Don’t get your hopes up — it’s never explained. We’re just supposed to accept that the following things happened:
1) Tightass and company end up on the bottom of an empty frozen lake.
2) Sin shows up in a pocket of water that magically exists somewhere in said lake.
3) Tightass has some random shared memories with his old man/Sin.
4) …
5) Tightass ends up in a random oasis.
The game designers are a bunch of lazy assholes.
Just when it seems that things can’t get any more nonsensical, Tightass starts speaking to Sin…in his head. “I forgive you, this time,” he says. “Be good for a while, okay?” What? He’s telling the scourge of all Spira to “be good”?
Two steps away from the Oasis of Complete Idiocy, Tightass runs into a giant black bird monster that looks like it could snap him up in one bite. Despite what others may say, I think that would be a great place to end the game. Who cares about loose ends? Tightass would be dead. The Big Birdie of Death pecks Tightass in the head, causing Auron to show up out of nowhere to help. Not that I’m complaining about seeing Auron again. “Need some help?” Auron asks. Surely this is a rhetorical question. A moment later, someone casts a Thundara spell, unfortunately not on Tightass. Look shocked — it’s Lulu. She asks, “Are you all right?” and I’m going to assume that she’s talking to Auron. So now we know that the Magical Sin Warp Machine brought at least three of them to the desert.
Loading ...After the battle, Tightass asks about the others. Lulu says she hasn’t found them. She wants to follow what is usually the most logical course of action when a group gets split up — staying in one place. However, if everyone did that, then no one would find each other, would they? Auron walks off, and Tightass tells Lulu she can stay there if she wants, as if he was the one who came up with the plan to go looking. Of course Lulu follows them. There is a broken-down machina a short distance away. Unfortunately, Wakka is there. He’s sitting on his ass, smoking the blitzbong. He asks the others where Yuna is. They all just look at each other, not saying a word. Wakka whines about losing Yuna and being ambushed by a machina. “Great day I’m having,” he finishes. Because it’s all about him. Notice how no one has mentioned how they even got to the desert in the first place. I know I keep harping on it, but the whole situation is so utterly stupid. It’s like they said, “Hey, we need Plot Point B to happen right after Plot Point A…but how are we going to get the characters there? I know! We’ll just leave it up to the player’s imagination!” And they get paid for this.