So Yuna already killed off her aeons, right? I mean, killed them off enough so that she couldn’t summon them and Yu Yevon couldn’t possess them anymore. That was the whole point of that inane battle, right? And then we freaking saw the aeon statues turn to stone and the fayth disappear. Well, suddenly the aeons are back, floating through the air as Sin starts to fall. The game designers aren’t even trying anymore. Sin explodes in an impressive ball of light that spreads out to cover the entire sky. The badly motion-captured NPCs watching from the ground are suitably awed. Then we skip back to the airship, where the aeons still float around Sin’s gigantic head or whatever. But the…explosion… I rewind to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, and it looks like the explosion occurred at the location of Sin’s ass. So I guess Sin didn’t blow up, it just let a really extraordinary fart.
One by one the aeons dissolve into pyreflies, including Shiva, who floats by with one leg crooked up and her hands on her hips in this really awkward pose. We get 1001 different slo-mo shots of Yuna dancing until finally Sin’s head explodes into a bazillion pyreflies. I know the feeling. Cut to the Fayth Wall all the way over at Gagazet, where the naked dead people turn to stone as well. The column of water that looks like a penis goes limp until only a sphere is left — GET IT?! Finally that, too, dissolves into little spheres the size of Christmas tree ornaments, I’m guessing. Each one of them has a face on it. One of the faces is Tightass. I’m not hanging that on my tree.
Okay. So now every possible prerequisite for Tightass’s disappearance has been met — Sin is gone, Yu Yevon is gone, all the aeons are gone, and the Fayth Wall is gone. Can we please, please get on with what I’ve been waiting for all this time? Apparently, yes. For we cut back to Tightass. As Wakka looks around going “Whoooooa” in the background and puffing madly on the blitzbong, Tightass holds his hands up to see that they are becoming transparent. Even though it’s way more likely that he would simply fade away quickly, we have to have our big sappy ending scene. I guess I can be patient. Anyway, this isn’t the kind of disappearance that can be reversed by his dad kissing his mom at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance to the triumphant strains of “Earth Angel.” Thank God. The Piano Solo of Tragedy plinks out a sad little tune that is at complete odds with the happy scene taking place before me.
Before I go further, I would like to point out that I understand how some people could view this scene as tragic and depressing. I mean, if I try to think of the characters as two people I care about instead of an assy wanker and his dimwitted girlfriend, it could be very sad. But viewing the characters as what they are, this scene becomes one of comedy. Let’s continue, shall we? Tightass faces Yuna, who shakes her head really fast, like denial will change what’s happening. “Yuna, I have to go,” Tightass says sadly. More head-shaking from Yuna. Lots of clapping from me. Tightass apologizes for not being able to show her Zanarkand or his tiny penis. Wakka just stands there making confused noises in the background, which adds to the amusement of the scene. Tightass simply says, “Goodbye” without bothering to even hug his girlfriend or anything. Jerk. But also: hooray! As he strides toward the edge of the deck, Wakka and Rikku scream after him like they actually don’t want him to go or something. “We’re gonna see you again…?” Rikku whines. Not if there’s any good in this world.
Tightass continues on, walking just slow enough to allow Yuna to run after him. Oh Jesus. But my trepidation turns to laughter as Yuna passes through Tightass and falls face-first on the ground in one of the best video game slapstick moments ever. Everyone gasps in horror instead of laughing, for some reason. Tightass doesn’t seem too concerned. He just stands there, facing away from Yuna, grunting as a bunch of pyreflies float through him. We get a close-up on Yuna’s face as she lies motionless. A single pyrefly rises from the ground in front of her. The first time I played this, I thought she died of a head injury or something, but she’s just stunned. That’s okay, though. If both Yuna and Tightass died, then we’d get a sappy Moment of them on the Farplane together making out under that giant crappy CG sphere, and that’s just wrong.
The camera lingers on some floating pyreflies for way the fuck too long, and then for some reason we get a far-off view of the Convenience. I know I said I would be patient, but there are limits. Finally, Yuna pushes herself to her feet, giving us a view down her top, of course. She stands facing away from Tightass as he faces away from her, which is just how it should be. Until she utters the most horrifying words ever: “I love you.” Suddenly the sky turns black and demons emerge from a giant smoking hole in the ground. Incidentally, in the Japanese version, Yuna said “Thank you” instead of….those other words, meaning that this is a horrible mistranslation on the part of the localization team, and we should direct all our ire at them. Assholes.
Tightass turns around as if even he can’t believe that someone would say those words to him. Wordlessly (YAY!!!!), he walks forward and wraps his insubstantial wanker arms around his girlfriend. They stay like that for way too long, while the camera records every nauseating minute of it. Finally, Tightass lets go and proceeds to walk right through Yuna. When John first watched this, he commented, “He’s inside her.” Which, while a very disgusting mental image, still made me snicker because I’m twelve. Also, I have to wonder if it’s proper etiquette to just walk through someone if you’re not solid. It seems like that would violate some rule of personal space. Well, this is Tightass.
He continues to the edge of the airship. We see the rest of the group — Lulu looks like she’s waving, or possibly pulling up the front of her bodice. Rikku jumps up and down, waving, like she’s suddenly come to her senses and realized that hey, they’re finally getting rid of the wanker. Tightass takes a running leap off the edge, and I can hardly contain my excitement as I realize that he is jumping to his death this time. Yay!
As he passes through the clouds, we see that Braska, Auron, and Jecht are hanging out together in the glowy sunrise clouds, sans any wives. Interesting. Tightass passes Braska, and then Auron (whose facial expression clearly reads, “OH FUCK NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”), and finally meets up with his dad. They high-five each other, indicating that Tightass officially does not hate his dad anymore. So we have a bittersweet ending — Tightass is dead, which is good, but the AGT has to hang out with him for all eternity instead of spending it in sweet naked bliss with each other. Poor Auron. But still, Tightass is dead. I can’t get rid of the giddiness, even for Auron’s sake.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE’S GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that my life is finally complete, let’s continue, shall we?
Fade in on the obligatory ocean shot, complete with seagulls. We get an extreme close-up on Yuna’s eyeball as she whistles for her wanker. The camera pulls back to show us that she’s on the end of a dock, as if Tightass is going to erupt from the water like a big wanky whale. Lulu approaches Yuna, telling her that “it’s time.” Time for what? Her medication? We see a giant blitzball stadium behind Yuna, indicating that we’re in Luca.
Loading ...Cut to the inside of the stadium, where Yuna stands at a podium, looking out over a cheering crowd. I want to be all cynical and point out that Yuna had a ton of help defeating Sin and shouldn’t be getting the spotlight like this, but to be honest, it was mostly her Holy spell and the Magus Sisters that were responsible for the last few battles. And it’s not like Auron, the only other useful character in those battles, is there to share the glory. So I’ll let her have her moment without too much eyerolling.
She starts her speech with the inspiring statement that everyone there has “lost something precious.” She goes on in this vein for a while, but then announces, “Everybody…Now, Sin is finally dead. Now, Spira is ours again.” She continues to inspire everyone with talk of rebuilding what they’ve lost. The camera pans shows each of the remaining guardians in turn as Yuna blabs on and on, saying “Let’s rebuild Spira!” in as many different ways as possible. When the crowd cheers, she smiles back at the others. They smile as if to say, “Yay! Tightass is gone!” But oh no! Yuna’s smile slowly turns back to the Wanksty Face. “Just one more thing…The people and the friends that we have lost, or the dreams that have faded…” Suddenly, we get a seizure-inducing flash of scenes from earlier FMV’s, ranging from shots of all the characters to Seymour kissing Yuna (…the hell?) to the make-out scene in the pond. I don’t think my sick feeling is entirely caused by the speed of those images. “Never forget them,” she finishes, as a single pyrefly floats across a black screen in what the game designers hope is an artistic manner.
Cue ending credits. An orchestral version of “Suteki Da Ne,” aka the makeout song, plays over a scrolling background of Japanese names. I may as well take this opportunity to thank all of you for joining me on this journey. This sometimes wanky, sometimes intolerable, and sometimes — mainly during most of Auron’s lines — cool journey. Hopefully we’ve all learned something, such as how much pain one human being can withstand.
Okay, now I’ve got the sappy stuff out of the way. After a long-ass time, I start to see some non-Japanese names in the credits, signalling that we’re almost to the end. And…there’s the Squaresoft logo.
Before you die, you see….The Wank.
Before the obligatory “The End” screen comes up, however, I get a surprise, in the way that being violated with the five-inch-diameter buttplug is a “surprise.” The lone pyrefly from the ending continues across the screen and is joined by a couple of buddies. Some underwater sound effects start up just before…..OH GOD NO!!!!! Tightass appears, floating in a fetal position. He unfurls, stretching. I keep waiting for a motorboat to come along and grind him into hamburger, which is the only way that this sequence could redeem itself. But no. Instead, he starts swimming upward, directly toward the camera, zombie grin firmly plastered on his face. The last thing I see in my lifetime is that fixed smile crawling out of the television, as my brain explodes into tiny, sobbing pieces.
…FUCK.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
The game designers have thwarted me in my moment of triumph. Hate. You Guys. So Much. Seriously.
My life is shattered and I am dead, but I hope you will all join my unsent corpse as I recap the “Another Story” epilogue, followed by an Ambiguously Gay British Adolescent Homo Trio (aka me, Kelly, and Sam) recap of Final Fantasy X-2. Then and only then might I be avenged.
Be there or be Tightass.
