As you’ll recall, Sir Wanksalot and the other party members are on the World’s Longest Walk from the tiny village of Besaid to the boat that will take them to Luca. As Tightass passes under some ruins, suddenly the game goes into FMV mode and the giant blue lion dude jumps out of nowhere, landing in front of Tightass. Tightass jumps back wankily as Blue Lion Dude flexes his muscles and roars for about 15 minutes. The other party members are conspicuously absent as BLD attacks Tightass and we go into battle mode. I doubt I would just stand back and watch BLD beat up on Tightass like that — I’d want to join in and beat the shit out of him, too.
The fight, to which I shall now award the title of “Most pointless fight so far”, ends after Wakka tells BLD to knock it off. Damn it, Wakka! As BLD calmly walks away, Tightass wonders what BLD’s deal is. Exposition!Lulu fields this question. “Kimahri Ronso, of the Ronso tribe. He’s learned the fiends’ way of fighting.” In other words, he’s the Blue Mage of the group. Literally. “He’s another of Yuna’s guardians,” Wakka explains. “Huh?” Tightass responds wankily. Get used to this — “Huh?” is Tightass’s response to most simple sentences. “Dude, I can’t fucking make that sentence any simpler — He’s. Another. Of. Yuna’s. Guardians,” Wakka replies, hitting himself in the head. Not really — he’s way too baked to be irritated with Tightass. Maybe I should follow his example.
Yuna says that no one really understands Kimahri, but he has protected her since she was a child. Tightass makes a wanky sound. Yuna seems to think it’s funny that Kimahri attacked Tightass, and I have to agree.
I’m kind of wishing that the party could have taken the shortcut through the water from earlier because this path is really fucking long. There are some more tutorial battles, where we get to see Yuna summon the giant Aeon with boobs, but more importantly, we learn that you can switch party members in battle. So no more of this “Hey, you guys go on the non-monster path and wait for us at our destination, and the three of us will go fight random battles for a couple hours.” Nope, now it’s “Hey, we’re gonna fight some monsters — you guys stand back there behind us and look pretty. Oh, and be ready to run in at any time. Except for you, Tightass.”
Tightass and company continue down the path and past a waterfall. There is another tutorial battle which involves Wakka saying “Say goodnight, birdie,” in Bender’s voice. Damn, that’s eerie. I wonder if Wakka would object to the fact that Bender is machina.
Even the children have disturbing outfits.
Finally, they make it to the beach. Apparently all the people who are standing around to see Yuna off on her journey either took the shortcut or managed to avoid all the battles along the way. Yuna, her guardians, and Mr. McWankerson all board the boat, and all the badly motion-captured people start bawling their eyes out when Yuna waves goodbye to them. This is Giant Hint #2 that Yuna is not expected to return. Ten more minutes of waving, crying, bowing, praying, and fancy camera work, and finally the damn boat leaves. Cripes.
A little map appears over the footage of the sailing boat. This is the closest thing to a world map you’ll see in this game. Well, duh, because technically it is a world map. But you know what I meant — it’s not a traditional world map that you can walk around. Instead, a dotted line appears, showing the route from Besaid to Kilika Port. Unfortunately, that’s not how quick the journey is. Nope, we have to have more cutscenes and exposition. The screen fades to black and then the scariest thing happens. I don’t know if words can describe how frightening this scene is, but I’ll sure try.
And yet more fodder for nightmares…
We fade in on the point of view of someone who is using binoculars. An upside-down Tightass appears RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, as he says, “Boo”. I scream in fear and horror. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we have to hear ten seconds of Tightass grunting as he rhythmically swings around. It looks and sounds like he’s fucking something, which is wrong on so many levels. The camera angle switches, and there’s Tightass ON THE BINOCULAR PERSON’S SHOULDERS, HUMPING HIS NECK WHILE STILL MAKING THE RHYTHMIC GRUNTING SOUNDS. It is at this precise moment that I began to doubt the existence of God.
Please, please just kill me.
Tightass does a stupid flip off of the dude’s shoulders and onto the railing of the ship, and then he skitters forward like a disgusting spider and snatches the binoculars. I hate him.
Hmm…did they put this in there for the fanboys? By the way, where are her nipples?
As if the obnoxious camera angles up to this point in the game weren’t enough, we are now forced to see Tightass’s point of view as he looks around with the binoculars. Is it any surprise that he takes a good long look at Lulu’s chest? If I were Lulu, I would grab those binoculars off his face and shove them where the sun don’t shine. On second thought, that would mean that I’d have to pull down Tightass’s pants, and that is a terrifying thought. Tightass also stalks Yuna with the binoculars because apparently he hasn’t been creepy enough yet. She waves at him because the script told her to, but in real life, she would probably be quite squicked out.
Now is the part where I get to walk around and talk to all the random people. Directions!Wakka explains some stuff about their destination, Kilika Island. After reaching Kilika, they’ll head to Luca, but not before Yuna prays at the temple. Just as important a task is Wakka and the rest of the team praying for victory in the tournament. It’s always good to have your priorities straight.
“Great plan,” Lulu says, in a sarcastic tone that I only wish I could master someday. “Hey, it is a great plan,” Wakka whines, looking at Tightass to back him up. “Don’t look at me,” Tightass replies. If only the game would make that possible.
At the front of the ship (whatever the hell it’s called), some random dudes are standing around Yuna and providing us with some exposition. They say that Yuna is the daughter of High Summoner Braska. You’d think that someone would have mentioned that before this point, since it seems kind of important.
Yeah, like anyone would let Tightass be in charge of anything.
Lulu, standing over by herself, has a great line. “I don’t know who you are, or where you came from,” she says to Tightass. And yet, the very tone of her voice makes it clear that she doesn’t want to know. Brilliant!
Down below the deck, some random dude approaches Tightass and shrilly says, “Oooh, them’s fascinatin’ clothes you’re wearing!” I expect him to be some flagrantly fruity fop, but he’s just some merchant who sounds like Steve Irwin. He goes on to insult Tightass’s clothes, which are well-deserving of insults, and announces that he is “O’aka XIII, merchant extraordinaire”. The whole point of this scene is that O’aka is not well-known, but he wants to be, and Tightass and pals will likely help him out, and they’ll meet up with him many times in random places along the way. Oh, and he’ll always get everywhere before they do, despite having no superior means of transportation. I make Tightass lend him some damn gil, because I’m nice.
At the end of the hall, guarding a set of double doors, are our Crusader friends from earlier. “I’m not at liberty to talk about our plan,” Luzzu says, even though Tightass didn’t ask him about his fucking plan. I guess the Crusaders have been excommunicated because Luzzu warns Tightass about a similar fate should he choose to associate with them. Given that Yevon obviously sucks and wouldn’t let me use all my machina (including, but not limited to, my computer and game consoles), I would probably happily accept excommunication from his stupid church. Gatta must have been plugging his ears during the last fifteen seconds, because even though Luzzu said they couldn’t discuss the secret plan, Gatta lets it slip that “[their] operation depends on this cargo”. Once again, Tightass didn’t ask, but thanks for volunteering the information.
In the other room, Tightass finds a puking Aurochs and a suitcase that drops potions when he kicks it. I’m surprised Tightass didn’t kick the puking Aurochs and receive a less-appetizing sort of “prize”.