I do believe we’re halfway through the most exciting hour of Final Fantasy VII to date! And still I managed to get two recaps out of it. That actually makes me feel kind of pathetic. Speaking of pathetic, in our last installment, Bitch took about fifty years to sneak into the upper part of Junon only to get suckered into masquerading as a Shinra soldier. And if that weren’t bad enough, a tedious mini-game was involved. When we last left off on a thrilling and not at all contrived cliffhanger, Bitch had just engaged in a practice session for yet another tedious mini-game. I’m the luckiest person in the world!
After the practice session — which doesn’t even count as a real practice session because the button order is not random — one of the other soldiers asks about “today’s pose.” Oh, dear. As expected, Captain Fabulous orders Bitch to “show [him] [his] best move.” At least buy him dinner first. Bitch can’t pass up an opportunity to show off his extreme studliness, so he raises his rifle above his head and swings it in a circle. Apparently the other two soldiers are very easily impressed, because they act like they just saw him turn water into wine.
With that completely riveting scene out of the way (I seem to be really lucking out in this hour of footage), Captain Fabulous, Bruce, and Lance bolt out the door. Bitch, of course, is supposed to meet them at the dock. However, this is one of those “all the time in the world” moments. So Bitch takes this opportunity to ditch these losers and continue to scope out Junon. I’m kidding of course, he still goes along with this stupid charade. Stupid Bitch.
But no recap would be complete without the obligatory town exploration and Talk To Everyone session. On the first town screen, Bitch walks right past Rude, who looks to be out for a hot night on the town. See, it’s funny because he totally doesn’t know that soldier he passed on the street is really Bitch!
Bitch stocks up on items and weapons for the party members he actually uses, and very thoroughly plunders all the buildings in the vicinity. He also spends some time in the “Respectable Inn,” which sounds like another Honey Bee Inn type establishment, but is actually a private training center. I’m not sure how that’s different. Especially considering that there are three burly musclemen flexing their muscles in unison at the right side of the room. One of them offers to review all the shit we learned at the last training center, but since I am the most 1337 FF7 player ever, I surely don’t need any of that lame information. Is that the sound of my inbox flooding with e-mails about how much I suck?
Because I am thorough, I sit through Bitch’s more “advanced” tutorial on materia. I now know more about materia than any rational human being should. I think this means I have to stop having sex or something. Bitch also gives us some rather tantalizing information on Extreme Limits, and by “information,” I mean he tells us that they exist but he doesn’t know how to get them. Thanks for nothing. Well, now that my brain is packed full of information I’ll never have to use in the real world, Bitch moves on to the rest of his errands.
Freak.
In a bar in the basement of one of the buildings, Bitch finds Rude, along with some other random guys, getting shitfaced around a table. By the admission of one of them, they’re too far gone to bother staggering up the stairs to watch all the exciting shit going on outside. Man, I never thought I’d be so jealous of an NPC. When Bitch approaches Rude, the Turk just says, “Mm…? You too? Then, take your mask off and come here. That’s our rule.” At first I’m a bit confused, because for some reason I associate “mask” with something more festive, possibly with feathers. Like the Helmaroc Queen. But I think Rude wants to get Bitch out of the uniform, just like all the other dudes at the table. Who may or may not have been uniformed in the first place. More importantly, it appears that Rude is hitting on Bitch. His ass must look fine in that uniform.
Freak.
Unfortunately for the drunken horny Rude, Bitch prefers men with long, flowing locks. Bitch takes off, heading through some tunnel thing, where he finds a guy to give him unsolicited information about a Submarine Dock and Underwater Mako Reactor located directly beneath them. Bitch files this away for later, since no one ever uses the blue text lightly. For now, he keeps going until he reaches another street lined with buildings. Jesus Christ, not more of those.
Strangely enough — or not all that strangely, really — Bitch finds himself in another bar with the rest of the Turks. Does this mean that Rude is their outcast loser? Or is he too cool for the rest of them? It’s a mystery. “The minute you think the job’s boring, you guys start messing around,” Elena comments to Bitch. I can only assume that she means that she spies on soldiers messing around with each other. Because that would definitely spice up any job. And it makes the most sense, given what we know about the Shinra soldiers. The other two Turks — including the injured Mr. Lensflare himself — don’t say anything of interest, as they are probably playing grabass with each other. Hey, there’s a stupid ceiling fan blocking my view. I’m just making an educated guess.
Bitch spends several more unfulfilling minutes exploring the rest of the block. By now, he knows the city like it was the inside of Sephiroth’s rectum. When he enters the port (no, that’s not a euphemism for the last sentence), the camera makes sure to pan down the giant ship with its backdoor open. I mean, its rear entrance. Er, its exit hole. God damn it.
Captain Fabulous, Bruce, and Lance are already near said open door, waiting for the last member of their happy little entourage. Though he just wasted a ton of time on an unauthorized shopping spree, Bitch still manages to make it just in the nick of time. How lucky and convenient! The three peons line up in front of their commander, ProtoSeifer enters the area with Heidegger, and the very exciting and necessary send-off begins!
This is, obviously, the stupid button pressing mini-game I practiced earlier. Just as in the parade, I am judged on my skills, this time by ProtoSeifer instead of some random and unnamed TV Producer. Ack, the pressure!
Not Bitch’s finest moment.
Like I mentioned before, my skills in this unessential mini-game have improved somewhat with my learning of the buttons. But even my knowledge of the Playstation controller can’t overcome my general incompetence at mini-games. So when Bitch spends half the send-off facing the wrong way, it hurts the score slightly. Luckily, ProtoSeifer either has a sense of humor or he’s just not picky, because I earn a decent prize — the Force Stealer! I think it’s a sword. Or some kind of Star Wars-related item.
Run away!
During this whole scene, Gay Lion of all people is hiding on board the ship. It seems like it would be a bad idea, if you were a bright orange lion who wanted to remain hidden, to sit there with your bright orange head in plain view. My theory is that Gay Lion just couldn’t resist watching those burly young mens twirling and thrusting their long black rifles all over the place.
Now that he’s had a proper send-off, ProtoSeifer walks up the ramp to the ship. Gay Lion has intelligently decided to hide his head as well, the freaking genius. Ironically figuring that he’s in the presence of friends, ProtoSeifer blabs something to Heidegger about Sephiroth luring Bitch and the others with his bishounen pheromones. Heidegger assures that he will break all RPG traditions by obliterating the good guys nine hours into the game.
If such a thing existed, I would program my AutoRecapper to repeat the earlier scene with ProtoSeifer bitching at Heidegger re: his annoying laugh, followed by Heidegger winding down said laugh and proceeding to take off after the unlucky witnesses until the boat starts to leave and he catches it “just in time.” Since I haven’t yet invented the AutoRecapper, we’ll just call the preceding series of events a “Heidegger Hissy.” God knows if I’ll ever get a chance to use it again, but I seriously doubt that the game designers can resist repeating jokes. Kind of like us recappers with penis jokes. Except with more drugs involved.
You’d think Bitch would hurry to join his friends on the ship, but he’s way too enthralled with the gossipy Lance and Bruce. They tell him that Heidegger’s been a PMSy bitch because Hojo quit the company and ran off to crazier pastures. And now Heidegger’s been roped into dealing with all that shit, too. Well, that’s sort of handy to know, if completely random and unsolicited. Finally, the not-so-ambiguously gay trio runs off into the sunset, leaving their newest and prettiest member behind. And they regretted it for the rest of their lives.
Even though Bitch hasn’t really shown much interest in fulfilling his mission in Junon, he suddenly has a change of heart and decides to board the ship. Probably because ProtoSeifer mentioned Sephiroth. God knows he’s not into Gay Lion in that way.
Over a black screen, Bitch coughs up some exposition: “We’ll cross the ocean, to the new continent. …even if we are wearing Shinra’s uniforms…” What does the uniform have to do with crossing the ocean? And for some reason, calling a continent “new” just gives me the image of this gigantic land mass popping up overnight. Of course, I wouldn’t put such a thing past these game designers. They’ve even made floating ones!
On the overworld map, we see the impressive ship traversing the gloriously detailed waves. Or we just see a shitty ship model speeding over a big flat blue area. Take your pick. Happily, the ship manages to cross all the way over to the other continent with no problem whatsoever. I’m just kidding of course — that would imply that we gloss over this exciting ship adventure. And I don’t know about you, but I just have to find out what the ship’s entire crew is doing and thinking at this very moment!
No. Comment.
A rather drunken sailor jig tune accompanies the fascinating ship exploration. Bitch finds a random sailor puking behind a bunch of boxes. To his extreme surprise, the shitty sailor is Yuffie in disguise. And he almost thought it was some burly seaman. Wow, that could have been awkward. After looting the lower level of the ship of its crappy items, Bitch hunts down all the other members of his party who have magically found their way onto the ship. Of course, we never find out just how they did it, but…hey, what’s that over there?!
Airhead also managed to procure an identical Shinra uniform from some unnamed source, and Bitch finds her roaming the downstairs level as well. Since she’s been deprived of Bitch yet again, she has to exhibit the obligatory clingy behavior by asking him to take her for a ride on the airship. And supposedly she’s talking about the one at Junon. Right. For God’s sakes, she asks, “Hey, do you think I could get on it?” Yeah. Bitch can either answer, “I’ll take you someday” (ew) or “I dunno…” Obviously I choose the second one because Airhead is a psycho stalker. She can only reply, “But just once, I’d like to ride it.” Yes, you want to ride his airship. You want to impale yourself on his buster sword. You want to give him your flower. WE GET IT.