‘Those damn recappers, always making those gay and penis jokes and ruining my favorite games!’
Even though Shinra’s reaction to the possibly-accidental explosion was extreme and unnecessary, Mr. T still takes all the blame upon himself for this incident. “Never should have gone along with the building of the reactor…” he sighs. Okay, two points here. First, Mr. T’s self-flagellation might make sense if he were the one who made the decision to build the reactor against everyone else’s protests. As we learned in the last scene, not only did the entire fucking town — save for Dyne — fall for Shinra’s obviously false promises, but Mr. T wasn’t even the town’s leader. Second, we’re talking about a company who not only has their own fucking army, but who also isn’t afraid to send that army to slaughter innocent villagers. Does Mr. T really think that if they turned down Shinra’s proposal, that they’d just be all, “Okay, well, thanks for your time!” and then leave without inflicting any sort of punishment? If anything, he probably bought Corel some extra time by saying yes to the reactor.
To continue on the nitpicking of this plotline, why on earth is the entire remaining population of Corel — who shouldn’t even be alive, according to Mr. T’s story — also convinced that Mr. T is at fault for this mess? As the Village Headman said very clearly — for once in this game — the only one who didn’t want the reactor built was Dyne. By that logic — I know, I know, that word has no meaning here — everyone else did want the reactor built. They would share an equal amount of the blame, right? And if this were some sort of extreme denial on the part of every single surviving townsperson where none of them could bring themselves to accept responsibility, then why single out Mr. T to…oh. Well, I guess we’re back to my original assumption, then. Fucking racists.
Tita is nice enough to point out that everyone thought Shinra was really cool back before they turned all evil and shit, so it’s not worth beating himself up over believing them. While I agree that he should stop blaming himself, it’s not like he just lost some money in a bad investment — his wife totally croaked, as he reminds Tita. There’s still no mention of Marlene. Yes, I have played this game and I know we’ll get to that later — it’s just odd that no one asks about her and how she survived.
The Ropeway conductor tells the group to stop the damn pity party and hop on the blue penis train already. I’m not depressed at the thought of moving on from the tragic flashback, but this guy is acting like they’re holding up a line of paying customers when they’re the only ones nearby. Unable to handle this criticism, Bitch boards the vessel, but Mr. T is not about to let the focus switch to someone else. “Dyne was my best friend. We was close ever since we was kids…” he exposits while Bitch waits impatiently inside the Ropeway car. After that random statement, he, too, boards the car. Tita’s all, “Yeah, this is the first I’ve heard of all this.” Which is good in a way, since he’d be quite the downer at parties if he kept bringing up this crap. Airhead and Gay Lion share in the Ellipses of Meaningful Silence, only to have it broken by a snide Yuffie. “I’m not sympathizing with Mr. T!” she shrieks. “He never should have trusted Shinra, Inc. …” It’s kind of funny because everyone else was so God damn mopey over it, but mostly Yuffie’s coming across as a giant dick. And not the good kind. Even I’m not a big enough fucker to go up to someone and basically say, “Yeah, everyone close to you died, but it serves you right for being such a gullible motherfucker!” Well…unless it was someone I really hated, like Tidus.
No one calls Yuffie on her Judging Jane routine, since she’s an optional character and that would require programming in extra dialogue options, so the rest of the party just follows her onto the Ropeway car. Let’s advance the plot with an FMV! The Good FMV version of the blue train car glides on its cables through the clouds, ending up at the mysterious Gold Saucer.
The Gold Saucer is a futuristic amusement park on crack. It consists of a central stalk with large, metallic mushrooms protruding from it at different levels. The whole thing has a golden tint to it, and I suppose if you squinted your eyes, you could imagine that the mushroom things are kind of saucer-shaped. But it’s a stretch. As the car approaches the massive structure, the air becomes filled with the sounds of carnival music, cheers, and screams — but the fun kind of screams, probably from people riding the roller coaster track winding around one of the saucers. There are roughly a billion searchlights on each of the saucers — some of them choreographed into a light show — as well as a bunch of other random, seemingly unnecessary lights sprinkled all over the outside of the saucers. Can you imagine the power bills?
*puff*
A record amount of neon adorns the entrance to the Gold Saucer, which is the last thing we see before the game switches back to its regular gameplay mode. The car passes through a giant pink mog’s blowjob mouth and into the main lobby. It’s crack smoking time!
Speaking of crack, let’s take another plot break to examine some more nonsensical crap. So this giant fucking amusement park, which is the only fun place we’ve discovered so far (with the possible exception of Costa Del Sol), is located just outside North Corel. In fact, to get to the main entrance of the Gold Saucer via the Ropeway, one has to pass through North Corel. Given the aforementioned lack of other fun things to do in FFVII Land, we can probably assume that this place is pretty freaking popular. So with the masses of people who pass through North Corel every day to get to the Gold Saucer, the stupid-ass townsfolk can’t cash in on that? They just watch the bazillion tourists trekking through town on their way to the Ropeway, just hoping that maybe one of them will buy what they fished out of the trash? Really? Not even a single tourist trap souvenir shop? Or overpriced hotel? These people are getting more retarded by the second.
And now back to the story. Just because they’re at an amusement park doesn’t mean our heroes have any time for fun. No, they need to find the evil, scary Sephiroth inside this place filled with pastel colors and guys in chocobo suits. Right off the bat, Bitch learns that nothing inside the Gold Saucer is free, and moreover, it doesn’t even cost real gil. The currency inside the Gold Saucer is the elusive GP, and Bitch has none of that. Shit, he barely has any gil. Without any GP, he can’t even use the damn save point nearby. Well, that’s irritating.
After forking over 3000 gil for a one day pass (the lifetime pass costs a whopping 30,000 gil), Bitch enters the door with “Welcome” written above it in bubble letters. And just as you would expect, the next room is even fruitier than the one with the pink blowjob mog. This circular room contains a “map” of the Gold Saucer, which is just a stylized drawing of the structure. There are seven circular openings in the wall, each rimmed with a rainbow. These lead to the different saucers, which are actually called “squares” just to be extra confusing. The name of each of these squares is written on the floor in front of the corresponding opening. The rest of the floor consists of a pastel-colored painting of a fat mog, a traditional moogle, and a fat chocobo. This is the perfect room for some serious angsting, which is what Mr. T totally does.
The most masculine room ever.
Airhead, true to her name, would rather “have fun” than follow through with their important mission. She saunters over to Mr. T and is all, “Hey, cheer up and stop thinking about your dead wife and depressing past!” Obviously, he tells her to fuck off. It’s been several minutes since Airhead threw herself at Bitch, so she makes a beeline for him next. Tita predictably follows, stage whispering, “Wasn’t that a little harsh, Airhead?” While that’s kind of true, Tita didn’t care two minutes ago when Yuffie said something a lot worse, so it’s clear that she’s really just trying to make Airhead look bad in front of Bitch. Airhead whispers back that the best way to deal with mopey assnozzles is to ignore them and go about your normal business. I can’t say I disagree with her, although I think Mr. T’s bad mood is pretty much warranted in this case.
Airhead, rather than acting natural, makes a big show of going over to Mr. T and once again announcing her plans to “play.” “So PLAY! …messin’ around muthafuckas!” Mr. T screams, flailing his arms around. “Don’t forget we’re after Sephiroth!” he adds, taking the words right out of my mouth. He follows this outburst by making a running leap into the magical rainbow butthole leading to Wonder Square. “…I think he’s mad,” Airhead comments. DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! Lord almighty. Anyway, Tita decides that a mad Mr. T is better than a mopey Mr. T, which is probably true. Either way, it’s not like they’re going to bother to go after him. There’s a whole drug-trippy amusement park to explore!
I highly doubt Bitch would be able to forget that.
Now I have the chance to pick a partner for Bitch’s happy fun time in the Gold Saucer. The obvious choice would be Gay Lion, the only male in the room. But I have different plans for Bitch. Just to mix things up a little, I have him pick the annoying jailbait Yuffie, with the sole intention of pissing off the other two girls. The writers didn’t see fit to add any catty comments from Tita or Airhead, but you know they’re totally freaking out.
In the interest of thoroughness, I went and explored the entire Gold Saucer while recording this footage. I was motivated somewhat by nostalgia over the many, many hours of my early twenties I whiled away in this place. It’s enough to bring a tear to my eye, and not in a good way. In the interest of keeping this recap to a manageable length, I won’t go into great detail about the many delights to be found here. Instead, I’ll just give you a basic overview.
Each of the “squares” features something a little different, as well as a series of portals leading to all the other squares. As this latter feature makes no physical sense whatsoever, it’s fair to say that a very magical, very crack-addled wizard was responsible for its creation. There is a hotel, a spooky haunted house/graveyard, a roller coaster, a romantic gondola ride, a chocobo racing track, a battle arena, a theater, and my personal favorite — a mini-game arcade. The downside is that many of the features require GP to use, and the only ones that actually give you GP are the arcade and betting on chocobo racing. Joy.
My lack of GP and my lack of desire for acquiring it makes this trek through the Gold Saucer rather short, which is probably a good thing for you guys. That’s not to say that nothing happens, though. In Speed Square — shocking that anything in this place would be named after drugs — Bitch meets a guy wearing nothing but a thong. I can’t tell if those blocks attached to his chest are gigantic rippling pecs or flabby moobs. So he’s either really muscular or really fat. I love trying to decipher this game. Well, Bitch isn’t going to pass up a chance to converse with a man whose buttcheeks are exposed. “Hey, boy,” says the man’s very obvious blocky package. “How is it? You having fun?” Without waiting for Bitch to respond, he continues (most likely staring at Bitch’s groin), “Mmm, so, you ARE having fun. Well, good, good for you boy.” Bitch does not like being called “boy” — he’s all man, damn it!
Because ‘Bitch’ is so much less insulting than ‘boy.’
As it turns out, the nearly naked guy is named Dio, and he owns the damn place. I bet Bitch could figure out some way to procure a lifetime pass to the Gold Saucer. Dio — and I’m not making this up — turns his back toward Bitch, flexing and preening to get his attention. Wow. Before they can discuss any Gold Saucer-related “transactions,” Dio randomly asks Bitch if he’s heard of “Black Materia.” Is that a dark-skinned male stripper? This random conversational turn is yet another awkward way for Bitch to find out that Dio saw Sephiroth, who made sure to mention Black Materia for some reason. “I thought you might know who he was, seein’ as how you’re both about the same age,” Dio tards. That might be the most idiotic thing anyone has said in this game yet. Yes, Dio, everyone in the same age range automatically knows each other. I suppose it might be a somewhat natural thing to consider if, say, two people way outside the age demographic of the Gold Saucer passed through at the same time. But it’s not like Bitch and Sephiroth are 100 years old or anything.
The last thing that makes this comment stupid is that there is one very unusual and obvious feature that Bitch and Sephiroth have in common — their glowing Mako eyes. But no, their age is what Dio noticed. This damn dialogue. To add to his lack of observational skills, Dio didn’t happen to see where Sephiroth went. With this helpful information, Dio tells Bitch to go to the Battle Arena to check out Dio’s “collections.” And by “collections,” he means “balls.” Then Dio flexes his muscles in Bitch’s face and leaves the room. Well, that wasn’t a waste of my time or anything.
Bitch may have a different opinion, but I’ve seen Dio’s balls (or “blocks,” to be more accurate) in more detail than I ever wanted, so the Battle Square is out for now. The Wonder Square is the next destination. A swingy little jazz theme plays in the background as a rather, um, unique individual addresses Bitch. It’s not apparent from the graphics, but the character in question is a tiny black and white stuffed cat wearing a crown and riding on the shoulders of a large white (or pink, depending on the screen) stuffed mog. This might be the most random fucking thing ever.
Because I’m recapping this game sober.
The cat/mog waddles over to Bitch and offers to read his fortune. “Oh, but don’t hold it against me if it’s not a great prediction!” he (I think) squeaks, so we know that this is the “comic relief” type of fortune teller and not the “serious game hints” type of fortune teller. Like we couldn’t figure that out from his appearance. When Bitch stares at him blankly, the cat/mog assumes that Bitch is just confused about why he wants to read his fortune. Yes, that’s the most confusing thing about this encounter. Even so, the cat/mog explains that he’s a fortune-telling machine. And then I get a naming screen, meaning that this weird-ass motherfucker is playable. Awesome. And for once I don’t mean that sarcastically.