In yet another room, Tightass finds out how the ship is powered. Several chocobos are running on giant hamster wheels. Tightass is stupid and doesn’t know what chocobos are. Hell, I’m not from Spira and even I know what a chocobo is. The chocobo handler lady is not too impressed with Tightass’s ignorance either. “What kind of backwater island did you come from, anyway?” she asks scornfully. I laugh, until the screen suddenly blacks out and I am attacked by Wankese. Nooooo!!!

“Miracles and oddities were starting to become daily routine on this trip,” Tightass wanks. Then the screen fades back in to reveal…Tightass standing in the exact same spot. Most. Pointless. Wankese. Ever. I wish the miracle would happen where Tightass would shut up.

Tightass returns to the deck of the ship and asks Wakka about Yuna’s dad. Wakka explains, as did the random dudes from earlier, that Yuna is the daughter of High Summoner Braska. “You saw his statue at the temple,” Wakka reminds Tightass. Yes, and we’ve also heard him mentioned about fifty times in the past hour of gameplay. “Lord Braska defeated Sin ten years ago,” Wakka says. I guess he didn’t do a very good job, because Sin still seems to be alive and kicking. “Yuna’s the heir to a great legacy, just like all the Final Fantasy heroines,” Wakka continues. “It’s tough (wanky sigh) when your father’s famous,” Tightass whines. Funny, I don’t recall Yuna bitching about her dad at any point. I guess Tightass thinks everyone is as maladjusted as him. “Huh?” says Wakka, stealing Tightass’s line. “Wakka’s…a bit lacking in the imagination department,” Lulu says, as the camera focuses on her breasts. “Thanks, Lulu. I’ll keep that in mind,” Tightass laughs, as if he isn’t the most lacking of everyone in the damn group. Wanker.

Tightass goes to the front of the boat to talk to Yuna. The music stops and the camera angles get all dramatic again. Because this is going to be an Important Moment. Tightass stretches loudly, looking like he’s about to pull the yawn-and-stretch-and-put-your-arm-around-the-girl move. But he doesn’t. Thank Yevon. I think I would hurl, just like the puking Aurochs below.

The two of them stand side by side. “The wind…it’s nice,” Yuna says pointlessly. Then the two of them start laughing, also pointlessly. This goes on for a while. I try to stab myself in the head with a pen. Finally, the scene continues. “You’re a blitzball player, aren’t you? From Zanarkand, right?” Yuna asks. She must not have seen the several scenes where Tightass went around wanking on and on about how he was the “star player of the Zanarkand Abes”. She’s lucky. She tells Tightass that she believes that he really is from Zanarkand. “I’ve heard, in Zanarkand…there is a great stadium, all lit up even at night!” “Huh?” wanks Tightass. I resist the urge to scream, “She’s heard, in Zanarkand, there is a great stadium, all lit up even at night!!!! How fucking hard is that to understand?!” Okay, I don’t resist the urge.

“Great blitzball tournaments are held there, and the stands are always full!” Yuna continues. “How do you know that?” Tightass demands dramatically. “A man named Jecht told me. He was my father’s guardian,” Yuna reveals.

I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s the same Jecht. I mean, it would be funny if the game designers made it seem like it was this big plot twist where Tightass’s dad (or as Tightass would say, his “old man”) ended up on Spira and became Yuna’s dad’s guardian, but then it turned out to be just some random guy named Jecht who wasn’t related to anyone, but that’s not the case. Of course, it takes Yuna the next several minutes to convince Tightass.

“My father…his name is Jecht,” Tightass says bitterly. “Amazing!” Yuna squeals, “You know, our meeting like this must be the blessing of Yevon!” No. No, it’s not. It’s never a blessing to meet Tightass. Just for that, Yuna needs to kill herself. And then Tightass needs to kill himself, too. There’s some wanky shit where Tightass says that it can’t be the same Jecht, because his dad died ten years ago. “He went out to sea for training one day…and never came back. And no one’s seen him since then.” Yuna gasps, and then says, “Why, that’s the day that Jecht came to Spira.” Wow, she figured out the EXACT DAY from Tightass’s vague description of “ten years ago”. I’m impressed, except not. Long story short, Yuna met Jecht ten years ago, it’s the same guy. She says that she met him on the day her father left. So Jecht randomly appeared, told Yuna a bunch of stories about Zanarkand, and left with her dad all on the same day. Busy day, that.

Tightass is still skeptical. “How would he get here?” Yuna points out what every one of us is already thinking: “You’re here, are you not?” Tightass looks over, shocked, and Yuna laughs wankily. Big eye roll. Even Sin is sick of this wanky shit, as he chooses this moment to attack the ship. He obviously likes to follow Tightass around, and my solution would be to throw Tightass overboard, for the greater good.

So anyway, Sin attacks, and the ship starts to tip over, causing Yuna to lose her footing. Tightass grabs her hand. Why doesn’t the man ever lose his footing and cause the woman to catch him? Why is it always the other way around? Cripes. Not that I would want anyone to catch Tightass. There’s a big, scary tidal wave, and then Tightass can’t hold onto Yuna’s hand anymore. Come on, she weighs what? 90 lbs.? Luckily Kimahri is less of a wanker than Tightass, and manages to hold onto Yuna. A giant FMV fin emerges from the water. The camera rushes past Yuna and her comrades to do a closeup on some random shirtless guy. He stands there calmly for a moment, then suddenly screams, “Sin!” Just in case we thought it was some other enormous sea monster that goes around attacking people.

Yuna just stands there looking sad, and random shirtless guy runs over to one of the harpoon guns on the front of the boat. Wakka yells that shooting a harpoon into Sin will drag the boat under. The guy doesn’t care — his family is in Kilika and he wants to distract Sin. “Forgive us, Lady Summoner,” he says. Yuna just nods calmly. If I were the summoner in this situation, I’d do something just a tad bit different. My approach would be more like, “Listen, bitch! I’m not letting you kill me just so you can save your dumb brats!” And then I’d probably bring up something about how my mission was for the good of all Spira, not just a few, and then maybe I’d finish it up by summoning an Aeon to kick his ass. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

Because Yuna isn’t as cool as me, the guy ends up shooting Sin with the harpoon, and then it’s a fun carnival ride as Sin drags the boat all over creation, with lots of tidal waves and people falling all over the ship. Oh, and there’s a boss battle. Against Sin. Duh.

This is one of those battles where the thing that you want to hit (in this case, Sin’s fin) can only be reached by the few members of your party with long range attacks. You aren’t supposed to realize that you can attack the fin, though — the sinspawn in the front row are the obvious target. However, having played FF games before, and also seeing the numerous hints in the battle screen, I quickly figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do. This doesn’t stop Wakka from yelling, “The fin! Attack the fin!” halfway through the battle. Dude, you have been attacking the damn fin for the last five minutes! Seriously, time to cut down on the drugs! And then, in case Wakka’s suggestion combined with the fact that I have been attacking the fin wasn’t enough, the little instruction screen comes up explaining about how I should use magic or Wakka’s blitzball to attack the fin. I give up.

Hm, I wonder why no one is helping him out?

Finally, Sin pulls the harpoon gun off the ship (I’m surprised it took that long), and then swims off into the distance. With the sea calm again, everyone kind of stands around blankly. Except for Wakka, who is inexplicably making wanky sounds. Oh, I just realized that Tightass is gone; that must be why Wakka is upset. I, on the other hand, am quite happy to leave things as they are. No, Wakka, don’t do it! But it’s too late. Wakka dives in the water to search for Wanker Overboard. Yuna is upset for about a split second, but she calms down when Kimahri shakes his head. No, I don’t understand it either.

Too bad there wasn’t more blood in this scene.

Under the water, an unconscious Tightass is being attacked by sinspawn. My heart leaps for joy. Then Wakka has to come along and ruin it by using a potion on Tightass. I hate Wakka right now. They give each other the thumbs-up sign for several minutes. Then there’s another boss battle with Tightass and Wakka. Yeah, I can use some really intricate strategies here. Or not. The boss is a giant jellyfish. I attack it. It dies.

After the battle, there is an FMV. Sin is heading straight toward a small village on the water. Now I’m going to ask the question that everyone has on their minds right now: why in Yevon’s name do people insist on building villages right on the damn water? I would understand if the islands were too small to provide any alternatives, but they’re not. You’d think that 1000 years worth of living with the possibility of an attack by a giant sea monster would cause people to adapt a little better. “But Jeanne,” the citizens of Spira would reply, “If we change our way of life…then Sin has already won.”