Unfortunately for me, this inane truckload of wankst and bad exposition conversation shows no signs of ending, as Cecilia prepares to deliver his next Oscar-worthy performance: “Listen! Possessing the crystal is an essential factor for our prosperity. Moreover, His Majesty judged that Mysidians know too much about the secret of the crystal. We are the Red Wings, the air force of the Kingdom [of] Baron!”
God, what a wanky speech. Somebody get this guy a coffee…black, with two scoops of Shut The Fuck Up. Anyway, the gist of the speech is that the King of Baron is a greedy bastard who wantsssss all the crystals for himself. He sounds like most other RPG Kings. Oh, and what the fucking fuck are Mysidians? I wonder if they’re anything like Misogynists. After witnessing the female characters in this game, I could hardly blame them if they were.
Suddenly, one of the Exposition!Hulkamaniacs cries “Captain!”. Apparently, monsters are approaching the airship. They probably have Wank Sensors attached to their talons, claws, fangs, wings, or any other part of their monstrous anatomy. Let’s face it, this group of wankers would send any Wank Sensors into overdrive.
“Take up fighting positions!” orders Cecilia, as though the Hulkamaniacs were just going to stand still and be torn apart while he made sure his fucking armour was nice and polished. Heaven forbid that Cecilia would look anything less than perfect in battle.
So, onto the first battle of the game…except not. You see, as soon as Cecilia enters the battle, he automatically fires off a spell which eradicates the monsters in one turn. I don’t know whether this is because Squaresoft wanted to show off their crappy snazzy graphical effects, or whether they thought we gamers were too dumb to actually fight the battle ourselves. Then again, this is FFIV Easytype, after all; I wouldn’t be surprised if the final boss decided to cast Cure All on my party each turn as I pummelled his ass, just in case the battle was too difficult for poor ol’ me.
I wish I had these spells at the start of EVERY FF game.
After the fight, Cecilia checks on a fallen Hulkamaniac, before being plunged into another battle straight away. This one is also fought automatically. Okay, what the fuck is the point of these battles-that-aren’t-really-battles? Whatever it is, it’s making me spit bile.
After some more inane dialogue, the airship begins its descent. A few seconds later, Cecilia, sans Hulkamaniacs, arrives in Baron. An important-looking figure hurries out of the city gates, and leads Cecilia inside. The sprite – called Baigan – gasps “Oh, Cecilia! Is it the Crystal of Water?” No, it’s a fucking dragon turd disguised as a diamond. What the hell do you think?
“But Mysidians were so helpless…” says Cecilia dejectedly. What the hell? Did he miss out a ‘the’, or is he just a blithering idiot? I know which one I’d pick. Baigan replies “What are you trying to say?” My sentiments exactly, Baigan. I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to that question.
With that intellectually stimulating conversation out of the way, Baigan leads Cecilia into the castle – apparently, despite being captain of Baron’s air force, Cecilia has never been in the city before…unless, of course, Squaresoft thought we were too retarded to explore the castle by ourselves.
Cecilia is led through the classic Medieval Final Fantasy Castle…you know, the sort of dark-and-dingy-grey-walled folly that was a staple of the series until FFVII/VIII came along and spoiled everything. OMG ITZ FIN4L F4TN45Y N0T FIN4L SC1-F1!!!111elevenses!11. Surprisingly, the castle looks quite nice…well, as nice as the oldest possible 16-bit graphics can look, I suppose. Eventually, after passing through about fifteen rooms, Baigan and Cecilia stop inside a narrow hallway. The hall is adorned with a red carpet (actually, it’s more of a shade of maroon, but I digress), so we can safely assume that the Throne Room lies beyond. Or maybe the servants get to have a red carpet, too; after all, the King of Baron sounds like a greedy, ruthless dictator benign and generous man. *cough*
“Please wait here,” Baigan says, before disappearing into the supposed Throne Room. Oh, I get it. Even though Cecilia is the one who stole found the Crystal, he isn’t allowed inside the Throne Room ‘cuz he’s just the lowly Captain of the Red (and Yellow) Wings. If I were Cecilia, I’d barge straight into the room and shove the fricking Crystal where the sun don’t shine. Or, to put it more simply, UP THE KING’S FAT HAIRY ASS. Ew, I think my mind’s eye just got blinded.
We fade out, then fade back in on Baigan inside the Throne Room. The King is, like all RPG Kings, a fat man with a long ginger beard. How original. “Your Majesty! I’m afraid Cecilia has developed quite a rebellious air,” Baigan exposits bitchily, all in one text box. God, the problem with this game (aside from the dialogue) is that the characters try to squeeze a whole cutscene’s worth of exposition into one sentence. Therefore, the result is akin to what would happen if Roseanne Barr tried to fit into a pair of Calista Flockhart’s panties. God, my blind mind’s eye is now burning.
So…yeah. Back to the game. In response to Baigan’s exposition, the King gasps “Truly? Well done, Baigan!” God. It isn’t as though Baigan has actually done something USEFUL, like slaying a dragon or rescuing a kitten or killing 50 Cent. No, the only thing he’s done is to bitch to the King about how rebellious Cecilia is. Baigan is such a pussy…so that’s what he’ll be called from now on.
Pussy stands there, looking all proud and probably thinking about a possible promotion. Oops, I’m getting carried away with my alliteration again. King Wanker (his new name) declares “We must do something. Call him in!”. At this point, Cecilia enters the room (although, due to the crappy graphical ability of the game, the door never opens).
King Wanker begins his speech. “We thank you for successfully completing the mission. Now, where is it?” Presumably he is referring to the crystal, which Cecilia duly produces with a tinkling sound. I don’t know about you, but whenever I pick up something made of crystal, it doesn’t start tinkling away with a life of its own. Maybe things are different in the FF world, or maybe the game designers are idiots. And on crack.
A narration says “Hand over the crystal”. If the narration is explaining to us stupid gamers that Cecilia gave the crystal to King Wanker, shouldn’t it say “HandED over the crystal”? And to think that people were actually paid for this pile of steaming horse-shit disguised as a translation. That’s right…PEOPLE ACTUALLY RECEIVED MONEY FOR THIS. I’m losing my faith in humanity.
Back to the game. “Real crystal…” Pussy drools, salivating all over said crystal. I just hope his drool melts the crystal, prompting King Wanker to lop Pussy’s head off. Instead of doing everyone a favour, King Wanker says “Good! Cecilia…you may leave now.” However, instead of leaving, Cecilia stops by the door and gathers his courage. He then dramatically walks back up to King Wanker and Pussy, crying “Your Majesty! I need the bathroom.” Okay, I made the bathroom part up. “We do not understand the meaning of taking crystals away from honest people,” he continues. Damn, his BadassWanker-to-SappyWanker metamorphosis has started already. That must be a world record.
“Disobeying me?” cries King Wanker. I’ll just skip over the glaring grammatical error in that sentence. “No, I don’t!” replies Cecilia. Christ on a cracker, could this conversation get any worse? It sounds like it was scripted by an eight-year-old who learnt English from a textbook. Actually, I take that comment back – the dialogue in this game would actually be an insult to anyone learning English as a second language.
“We do know of your discontent, Cecilia,” King Wanker reveals, “If you cannot trust me, I can no longer place the Red (and Yellow) Wings in your command! You are dismissed from your post!” The tragic music kicks in, as if Cecilia has just heard that his entire family was killed in a freak airship crash or something. For fuck’s sake, Cecilia, get over it. Not five minutes ago you were complaining about the random slaughtering your job entails.
“Your Majesty!” Cecilia gasps, tears stinging his eyes and smudging his mascara. Actually, it’s hard to tell whether his sprite is crying or not. Look, I’m just trying to make this scene more interesting, okay? Right now it contains enough wankst to fill Avril Lavigne’s Greatest Hits.
“Go and hunt the Summoned Monsters of the Misty Valley! And…take this Package to Village Mist. You may depart tomorrow morning!” King Wanker declares. I have no idea why the translators opted to insert random capitalisation in that last speech box. Whatever the Reason, it’s Fucking Annoying and I hate It.
Suddenly, a strange-looking blue figure enters the room. I hope it’s a member of the Grammar Police, coming to arrest King Wanker and Cecilia for crimes against the English language. I also notice that the figure is wearing some black in his costume. Maybe he’s a goth – I can just see him crying “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside!” Hey, he’d fit right in with the wanksty action in this scene.