“If it works, what’ll you do then? You need more than the hymn,” the fayth prompts, bringing up the text box with the same three choices once again. Oh, how I want to pick one of the two wrong choices again, but seeing as how I have a buttload of footage to record for this recap, I choose the plot-furthering option. “We fight Yu Yevon,” Tightass announces, like he thought of this idea instead of the random text-box god. No, game designers, it just won’t work. You can’t have me pick the option and then try to pass off Tightass as having the intelligence necessary for such a plan. If you want to make it believable, you make him come up with it on his own during the cut scene. Of course, making Tightass seem intelligent is probably a bigger task than the game designers can handle. I’m not letting them off the hook, though, since they’re the one’s who created this wanky asshole in the first place.

So anyway, the fayth asks what Tightass knows about Yu Yevon. “He’s what makes Sin come back!” Tightass regurgitates the information from the whole two conversations he’s had about the guy. Yuna follows with, “Sin is his armor. It protects him.” The fayth is going to make damn sure we make up for all the lost Yu Yevon exposition time during the game. He explains that Yu Yevon was this kickass summoner a long time ago (most likely 1000 years). Now, he just kind of hangs around, summoning and resummoning Sin. “He is neither good nor evil. He is awake, yet he dreams. But…maybe not forever,” the fayth finishes. “Yeah, that’s right,” Tightass wanks. “Because we’re ending it.” The fayth is all, “Yeah, sure. Anyway…” and he continues to tediously re-explain to us the mechanics of the Final Summoning and Sin’s rebirth via Yu Yevon. “Yu Yevon merges with the aeon…” Yuna says as if this is some new information. “Then, protected by this new Sin he has created, Yu Yevon continues the summoning,” Bahamut Fayth finishes. Tightass says something stupid about Sin being eternal, even though he just said that he would end it. The fayth pretty much points this out. He then tells us some information that we technically didn’t know — Yu Yevon lives inside Sin, instead of sitting on some remote island somewhere summoning it. Of course, since Sin has been referred to as Yu Yevon’s armor about a zillion times, I think we all pretty much deduced this on our own.

The fayth offers his services and the services of all his fellow dead rock people to Yuna for the purpose of defeating Sin. He practically begs her to summon them during the battle. “I’m afraid your swords and magic won’t be enough.” He apparently has never met Auron after receiving his ultimate weapon with Break Damage Limit and traveling around the entire sphere grid. But that’s my other game, and for this one we’ll pretend that the final boss is difficult. Oops, spoiler. Finally, Yuna agrees to summon them, if only to shut up the annoying fayth brat and his pathetic pleading. The fayth continues to babble about how he and his buddies will wake up and “Our dream will vanish.” The camera focuses on Tightass, to remind us that he will disappear, too. However, this time I don’t really mind having this reiterated because as you all know, I enjoy being repetitive about the subject of Tightass’s death.

Tightass kind of brushes this off and stupidly asks, “You’ve been dreaming a long time, haven’t you?” “No, I’ve only said that a million times because I was lying out my ass. I actually just laid down for my nap, what did you think?” Actually, the stupid little moron apologizes to Tightass, who at least has the good grace to say that he’s thankful that they bothered to dream up his wanky existence. Yuna, meanwhile, begins to suspect that something is going on. Tightass tries to tell her that it’s nothing, but since he’s the worst liar in the world, she’s onto him. Oh boy, that brings up some mental images I just did not need. Finally, Tightass walks away when Yuna refuses to believe him. Yes, she’ll never suspect you now. “You’re a bad liar, you know?” Yuna mutters to his retreating back. But she’ll still screw him. Oh God. Ew.

We rejoin the group somewhere in the palace as Shelinda unfortunately returns and announces that her search for the grand maester was fruitless. Tightass tries to take his leave, but Rikku has a bit more brainpower and thinks to ask Shelinda to help them round up people to sing the hymn. She’s supposed to tell everyone in Spira to sing along when they hear the airship blasting the Hymn of the Fayth. Shelinda has no clue as to why she’s doing this, but Rikku tells her it doesn’t matter. After Shelinda repeats the instructions back, as if they were rocket science, Tightass announces that this will help them defeat Sin. Shelinda practically creams herself (and unfortunately, we all know what she would sound like), and goes off to tell “all of Spira.” I’m sure this will take a while, so it’s probably a good thing that the party will be spending their time off doing random side quests.

Speaking of side quests, the party immediately warps back to the airship, where I have control of Tightass just outside the bridge. Auron is still there in his usual spot, and I talk to him. Unfortunately, everything goes horribly, horribly wrong in ways that I could not have predicted. “I must admit I was worried at the beginning, but you’ve done well,” Auron says, almost….seductively. The unnecessary and unwarranted validation of Tightass combined with the fact that Auron is using that sexy tone of voice toward that….that thing makes me curl up into the fetal position and claw my eyes out. I must really hate myself, so I talk to Auron again. This time, he says, “One more trial to pass,” like beating the 1000-year-old scourge of Spira is just as simple as sticking a sphere into a sphere-shaped hole. Okay, I really need to stop saying shit like that. And because I still have not learned the finer points of not being a masochist, I talk to Auron a third time. “Our stories will end together,” he tells Tightass. There is no curse in Elvish, Entish or the tongues of men for this treachery.

That’s probably more than Tightass needed to know about his dad.

Now that my life is pretty much over, I continue to the bridge for the inevitable Chatting With The Peeps. Lulu talks about the upcoming permanent Calm, the upcoming big bad battle, and waxes philosophical over a Sin-less Spira. Then she says something that makes me hate her: “Afterwards–after we defeat Sin–promise you’ll stay with Yuna.” Jesus, Lulu, that means you’ll have to put up with his wanky ass, too. What is wrong with you people?

Talking to Wakka reveals that he has Something To Say. You see, in all video games, there is at least one character who was narrow-minded about something or someone and who eventually sees the error of his ways and becomes a better and sometimes more irritating person. Obviously, it would take a huge miracle for Wakka to be any more irritating (like suddenly morphing into Tightass), so I guess this has to be an improvement. Anyway, moving on. Wakka apologizes to Cid for being such a bigoted asshat, even admitting that he wasn’t willing to listen to reason. “I was a big jerk,” he understates. Cid admits that he, too, was a Yevonite-hater. He doesn’t say he’s not now, but I think that’s what we’re supposed to get out of that statement. There’s no hug or obnoxious J-pop ballad drilling it into our heads that People Are People, so I guess we’ll have to wait until the sequel for an overdone Mary Sue song that teaches Spirans not to be hatin’ on each other.

Now that Wakka has made the requisite character improvement and tied up that little annoying subplot, Tightass talks to Yuna. She’s still wanksting over by the sphere oscillo-finder, so it’s time to get the hell away from her before her wank combines with Tightass’s wank into a Super Mechawank that destroys the universe.

…And the level of wrong reaches new heights.

At this point, I have completed all the prerequisites for fighting Sin. However, all number of side quests now become available, from plot-heavy to brain-gougingly awful. As much as I would just love to finish all of them for the sake of thoroughness, I will only be focusing on the ones that add to the story. For your reference, I have made a list of the quests I will pursue:

1. Collecting the remaining aeons.
2. Collecting the remaining Jecht spheres.
3. Finishing up Leia’s story.

So no Omega Ruins (a dungeon with mean monsters that give me ouchies, for those of you who haven’t played the game), and for the love of God, no fucking ultimate weapons. I really think that I’ve done enough for you people, dealing with Tightass for twenty-one recaps, so I don’t feel the need to suffer for your sadistic pleasure any more than I have to.

Consulting the strategy guide, I note that there are three optional aeons: Yojimbo, Anima, and the Magus Sisters. For some dumb reason, I decide to get Anima first, instead of the more obvious and easy-to-get Yojimbo. Maybe because Yojimbo sucks ass, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

If I may get all gameplay-technical for a moment, the first step in getting Anima is to collect all six treasures from the six Cloisters of Trials. I don’t believe I ever went into the mechanics of receiving said treasures, but they involved sticking a special kind of sphere (destruction sphere) into a particular hole and then opening the treasure chest that was ultimately revealed. As I noted, there are six of them. And as you may not know, I didn’t have a chance thus far to collect the one from the Zanarkand Dome Cloister of Trials. So with a heavy heart, I teleport down to the stupid ruins I recently left.

Luckily for me, little teleport pads have appeared at various points, leading from Zanarkand Dome to — I believe — the base of Mt. Gagazet. Unluckily for me, however, I totally don’t notice this until after I walk all the way from the very beginning of the ruins (where the airship drops me off) to the dome. Sometimes I really hate my life. But that’s seven minutes of footage burned right there. Only four hours and twenty-two minutes left to go!

Upon finally reaching the Tetris Cloister of Trials, the group meets up with some familiar faces. Wow, we haven’t had any secondary character encounters for quite a while. Well, not counting Shelinda, which I don’t. Anyway, it’s Thonga and Barthello, and thank God Thongaladriel is dead because that much thongage in one building would cause the earth to implode. Thonga is pissed off about finding only ruins instead of the magical wonder of the Final Aeon. Tightass explains, “Well, a lot’s happened. You should know… There’s no more Final Summoning.” Thus making it sound like it’s something that randomly took place rather than something they had an active role in. Thonga comes the closest to panic that we’ve ever seen her, but Tightass assures her that they have a plan. This isn’t any more reassuring than when he told Mika the same thing a little bit ago. Thonga sounds a bit skeptical that the Wanker Bunch is going to single-handedly take care of Sin — an expected reaction. “You just watch. We’ll get Sin!” Tightass cockily wanks. Thonga is all, “Sure you will” as she and Barthello take their leave. I know Yuna’s all over Tightass’s dick, but does she really have to let him be the spokesperson for the group? Jesus H.

This is not something you want to say to Tightass.

Now the group heads into the first Tetris room. I didn’t include this in my previous explanation, but some of the light-up shapes are white squares. And they would always reset the rooms during the first visit to the dome. At this point, however, the goal is to light up all the white squares in both the Tetris rooms. This isn’t any less irritating than lighting up the colored shapes, nor is the destruction sphere placement, so let’s just skip to the treasure: a Magistral Rod. A glowy symbol appears above the treasure chest after Tightass opens it, just like in all the other Cloister of Trial treasures. This is the only clue we have that there is Something Special about these particular chests. But of course we all pick up on this.

Now that I have all six required items (and I don’t think you have to keep the actual items — you just have to have opened the chest), I’m ready for the next step. Back to the airship! Anima is located in Baaj Temple, a destination that is not on Cid’s map. The game designers have given me the ability to discover exciting hidden locations on said map by letting me randomly move my cursor around on the map while I mash the X button like a madwoman. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but this works, so leave me alone. I magically teleport to Baaj Temple, and….hey! It’s the place where Tightass originally washed up after his voyage in Sin’s ass. Fuck, the game designers actually remembered something from earlier in the game.