By now, you’ve hopefully read the recap of the Final Fantasy X ending. So you know of the…horrible after-credits sequence and my subsequent death. Since I was in shock and unable to truly dissect that scene at the time, I’ve been fortunate enough to put it off till now. But now is the time for me to stop running.

So, as we all remember, Tightass helped Yuna kill off the fayth and ended up dying himself. And by “helped,” I of course mean “annoyed the shit out of everyone and didn’t do a single useful thing.” The game designers could have left well enough alone there, but instead chose to have a terrifying shot of Tightass swimming upward into the camera right after the credits.

I first played through Final Fantasy X right when it came out in the U.S., and at that time, I don’t think any of us had any idea that there would eventually be a sequel. So when I first saw that Tightass shot at the end, I simply assumed that Square was giving us one of their ambiguous endings that would fuel absolutely riveting discussions on message boards for years to come. Pro-Tightass people, all two of them, could consider him alive, possibly swimming up to meet Yuna and commence unspeakable acts. The rest of us could interpret that scene as Tightass swimming alone somewhere on the Farplane, far away from the Ambiguously Gay Trio. Or fill in your explanation here — I really don’t feel like covering every possible interpretation of that shit.

Now, I don’t really mind stuff that is open to interpretation, but all too often it’s less about interpretation and more about game designers just fucking with people’s brains in order to be assholes and/or artsy. I think the “assholes” explanation is the correct one, since there’s nothing remotely artistic about that final scene. To the surprise of many of us, instead of letting us all stew in our own Final Fantasy flame wars, the game designers produced an epilogue, entitled “Another Story” that was included in FFX: International. This epilogue was supposed to explain things. At least that’s what someone who isn’t familiar with Final Fantasy games might expect. As it was, the epilogue only introduced more God damn questions and irritations. Some people figured that there had to be some sort of sequel, otherwise that epilogue was the most nonsensical freaking thing ever. Again, I wouldn’t put it past the game designers to leave us totally hanging, but alas, they actually decided to create the first direct Final Fantasy sequel, creatively titled “Final Fantasy X-2.” Yes, you already know all this, but let me be thorough and shit.

Of course I’m totally glossing over the fact that those of us in the U.S. who aren’t S00P3R 1337 1MP0RT3RZZ didn’t even get a chance to see the epilogue. And I can’t speak for anyone in countries other than Japan, either. Thankfully, FFX-2 doesn’t contain a single reference to the 15-minute “Another Story,” so those of us who never got a legitimate (or otherwise) copy are not left high and dry. I’m lying out my ass, of course. But we can save that particular discussion for the FFX-2 recap.

Anyway, I just thought I’d give a bit of background to pad out this short recap, like the last two long ones don’t more than make up for it. I would also like to thank ffx2.net, where I was able to download the “Another Story” epilogue. The GIA (R.I.P.) provided the translation. Because I’m not a total asshole, it is not my intent to pick on the quality of said translation — it’s much more fun to pick on the professionals. Also, there are translated names of people and groups that don’t match up to the official names in FFX-2, because the translation was done pre-FFX-2 and the fan translators are not psychic. I will change these to be consistent with the official names. Not because I think you guys would get confused, but because I don’t want ten thousand nitpicky e-mails correcting me.

Enough of the yapping. It’s time to rejoin our “beloved” characters and find out what they’ve been up to since the End of the Wank. Presenting…Final Fantasy X: Another Story.

The scene opens with a view of the sky from underwater. A female voice — accompanied by italic subtitles, which indicate that this is a voiceover — counts from 37 to 41. The last two numbers sound eerily like the speaker is getting a tad too excited, if you follow me. She breaks through the surface of the water, treating us to a nice view of the midday sun, complete with lens flare. Oh, how I love thee, lens flare. After a few gasps of what sound like pleasure (ew), the voiceover continues: “Two minutes, forty one seconds, a new high!” Wow, that is fast. Well, some people like to time themselves doing…that, I guess.

From behind her, a blitzed voice calls out, “Yuna! C’mon!” and here’s where we act all surprised to find out that it was Yuna doing the wanking, in both senses of the word. The camera switches to Wakka standing on the Besaid Island beach, looking the same as ever. We get an unnecessary close-up on him, just to remind us that even though some time has passed, the game designers still despise us with the fire of a thousand suns. “Pretty good at holding your breath now, ya?” Wakka leers, pretending she was doing something other than…that. “Not as good as you!” Yuna plays along. “Yeah, well, I haven’t even practiced recently,” Wakka replies. Ew ew ew. Then something even more disturbing takes place. Yuna stands facing Wakka with her back to the camera, so she’s essentially blocking everything from his chest down from our view. As she says, “You sure look it,” her arm moves slightly, apparently poking Wakka, and we hear a squeaky toy sound. There is only one body part on Wakka that could produce that sound. The nightmares just won’t stop.

Yuna makes a random comment about how he’s not the one having the baby, making sure we all know of the horrible events that took place between the end of Final Fantasy X and now. Wakka and Lulu, apparently noticing that things just aren’t wrong and disturbing with Tightass out of the picture (and yes, he is gone, confusing after-credits sequence notwithstanding), so they had to introduce more grossness into the world to make up for that. Therefore, someone had to have sex with Wakka. And since we’re going for the ultimate in wrongness here, it had to be someone we formerly respected. Luckily Auron is already gone to the Farplane, or he might have had to take one for the team.

Wakka, upset over the comments about his manhood, makes a dismissive sound and runs off, leaving Yuna standing all alone on the beach. Then, things get even worse. God, I can hardly say this, but…Yuna slips into Wankese. I must have murdered children and puppies in a former life. Anyway, Yuna wanks that it’s been two years since they defeated Sin, and her major accomplishment since then is that she can “hold her breath” for two minutes. She inanely talks about how it’s not just strength, but a series of tricks that help her achieve this. “I didn’t understand when it was explained in words, but after a lot of practice I finally got it.” Only Yuna would have trouble figuring…that out. She goes on some more, causing me to watch this sequence through my fingers, due to my extreme discomfort. Finally, she changes the subject from her own self-pleasure to some self-pity. Ah, that’s the Yuna I’m used to. “I couldn’t afford to think about anything back then,” she woe-is-mes. I guess the lack of thinking explains why she got with Tightass.