Remarkably, just as Bitch announces that he is 100% confident in his marching abilities, another soldier, James, runs in to announce the actual arrival of ProtoSeifer! The other guys run out as Captain Fabulous screams at them to not fuck it up. Bitch just stands there with his thumb up his ass, obviously not as stoked to see the guy who cast mean Bolt spells on him.
We cut to a scene of the city, as a helicopter flies past tall buildings decorated with ProtoSeifer banners. The camera pans over to some blocky soldiers and Captain Fabulous — or one of his clones. It’s time to begin the parade!
The parade itself consists of many groups of soldiers, each led by a Captain Fabulous clone. ProtoSeifer stands in some kind of blocky gray vehicle in the center of all of this, waving to the nonexistent crowds. Obviously there is no voice acting, but I’m still totally picturing this group of guys all singing the “I love ProtoSeifer like that” anthem. You know they are.
But oh noes! Bitch, Lance, Bruce, and the true Captain Fabulous haven’t even left the building yet! As the three non-Bitch guys run offscreen, Bitch stops again to admire yet another phallic structure outlined against the sunset — the massive gun. If he doesn’t stop drooling over every God damn penisy object that comes his way — so to speak — this game is going to last forever. Oh, wait. After the camera finishes its endless metaphorical blowjob of the gun, we cut to the now-empty streets of Junon. Captain Fabulous is all, “Fuck, we’re late!” What were they doing offscreen that made them so late?
PENISES EVERYWHERE!
By the way, Bitch has had a quite a few opportunities to escape from this mistaken identity mess in order to go off and do his own thing, but for some reason he hasn’t. We never really find out why, so I’ll let you guys decide. I know I’m in the mood for some fanwanking. Give it to me, baby.
Loading ...But all is not lost! One of the peons — I’m going to guess Bruce — has a plan! All the buildings in Junon are identical — tall buildings with alleys in between. He figures that if they sneak down one of the back alleys — so to speak — they can meet up with the parade and just slide right in. I’m sure that won’t be conspicuous at all!
Well, maybe “conspicuous” isn’t the right word. “Lame” might be closer. And why is that, you ask? Well, because this part is an extremely retarded mini-game. As a “Live TV Ratings” percentage is displayed in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, Bitch must wait for an opening in a group of soldiers and quickly run into place. As for why there are soldiers missing in the formation in the first place…hey, look over there! Now this is where all my hours of marching practice pay off. See, Bitch must match the pace and rifle swings of his fellow marching companions in order to drive up the TV ratings. And if he succeeds, he gets something totally awesome.
I don’t think that’ll be a problem for Bitch.
Unfortunately, I don’t find out what that is, because the whole God damn thing is over in ten seconds. Yes, I was subjected to that training exercise and all its accompanying insipid dialogue just for a ten second mini-game. Not that I wanted it to last longer or anything, but they barely even gave me a chance to do anything, the fuckers. I love unnecessary game padding. Over 100 hours of exciting gameplay!
Despite the fact that Bitch didn’t really do that badly, the TV Producer in Black Screen Land throws a freaking shitfit over “that soldier”‘s actions. Whatever. I could go back and repeatedly attempt to achieve perfection in this shitastic mini-game, but I think you see where I’m going with this. Suck it, TV Producer.
I get six potions as a reward for my crappy performance. Yay for me. Afterwards, we get to see what’s going on with the evil Shinra guys. ProtoSeifer stands behind Heidegger on a small staircase next to the street. Not directly behind him, as Heidegger already has someone in mind for that activity. Oh, baby. A bunch of soldiers show off their fancy rifle choreography as Heidegger laughs his ass off. Some random soldier gushes over ProtoSeifer, and would probably try to rip his clothes off, but his Captain Fabulous clone tells him to shut up and zip his pants back up.
After the display is over, ProtoSeifer asks, “How’s the job?” and walks to the end of the small platform he’s on. Heidegger doesn’t answer him because he can’t figure out why the fuck ProtoSeifer asked that. Did he find out about the “job” that took place between him and Palmer? “What happened to the Airship?” ProtoSeifer clarifies, meriting a reply. “The long range airship is still being prepared. It should be ready in about three more days. Gya haa haa!” Heidegger laughs. He’s like one of those people on the internet that puts “LOL” after every single sentence. “Today totally sucked LOL. I got tentacle-raped by a demon from the underworld LOL. Then my entire family was killed by a psycho LOL.”
ProtoSeifer then asks about “the Air Force’s Gelnika.” Boy, he’s totally out of the loop, isn’t he? But Heidegger is on a roll, continuing to ROFLHAO all over the place. Understandably, ProtoSeifer cracks and tells him to cram it sideways. In a comic relief moment, Heidegger visibly winds down his laughter, ending with “Gya…” In other news, “the ship” will be ready right away. Well, that’s good to hear.
Finally tired of asking all these questions, thank God, ProtoSeifer enters a nearby doorway, leaving the emasculated Heidegger to face the members of the army that witnessed his humiliation. In unison, they all imitate his laugh. He deals with this like a mature adult — running forward and beating the shit out of any unlucky bastard he can get his hands on. Not that I can totally blame him — if I suddenly ended up in FF7 land, I’d probably want to do the same thing. To everyone. His antics are cut short by the screen rumbling. The “building” that ProtoSeifer entered starts to move up a track, and Heidegger manages to catch it just in time. Whew! Okay, he wasn’t cutting it close — I was just trying to inject some God damn excitement into this totally boring scene. Seriously, this shit could be bottled up and sold as an insomnia cure.
Let’s move on to something a lot less like watching grass grow. Actually, I may be getting ahead of myself here. The group of soldiers and their two commanders stand around for a while, gossiping. Some of the information, like the fact that Heidegger was totally pissed off, is both obvious and unnecessary. Other information like, “The man in the Black Cape’s been roaming the city, but we can’t find him,” is a little more useful.
What I love is that no one can figure out that “Man in the Black Cape” is Sephiroth. Seriously, the dude was a famous member of SOLDIER five years ago, has long silver girl hair, wears a very special and distinctive Black Cape, not to mention carries around an impressive sword. Yet these Einsteins can’t put two and two together.
“Man in a Black Cape?” Bitch wonders. Dear God, I hope he’s just trying to gather information and that he actually knows who they’re talking about. The alternative is too sad to contemplate. According to one of the soldiers, Sephiroth — sorry, the Black-Caped man — appeared a few days ago and murdered some soldiers. “He disappeared right after that. There’s a rumor going around that it was Sephiroth.” NO! IT CAN’T BE!!!!!
With this electrifying revelation out of the way, the soldiers are dismissed. Everyone bolts except for Bitch and one of the Captain Fabulous clones. Or perhaps Captain Fabulous himself. You know, I try to give these poor bastards a proper backstory and characterization, and then the game designers fuck me over by making them all look the same.
Anyway, the dude is all confrontational, rudely wondering if Bitch is “messing with the army.” Now where did that come from? Just because Bitch can’t march to save his life? Let’s get a grip, here. And this is apparently not a rhetorical question, as I receive two options: “Who cares?” and “What if I am?” I feel so immersed in this game. I pick “Who cares?” because really, who does care? This makes Captain Might Be Fabulous completely pissy, and he denies Bitch a break. Asshole.
Actually, what’s really going on here is that Captain I’m Thinking He’s Fabulous is just trying to find an excuse to get Bitch back into the locker room. Because that’s what happens. Wow, is this guy totally unsubtle or what? Bitch sees right through his sad ploy. “This is the military, soldier!! Your orders for today are to send off President [ProtoSeifer] at the dock!” Captain Fabulous commands. Oh ho ho! Wait, he said send off. My bad. But then he follows up with “I’ll keep drilling you until it’s time!” I knew it. On cue, Bruce and Lance race back into the room, offering to help with said drilling. Boy, Bitch just keeps on getting himself into these gangrape situations, doesn’t he?
Speaking of rape, I’m once again forced into learning the rules for another God damn mini-game. I must have really pissed off Jesus. This particular mini-game involves hitting the correct controller button after the captain calls it out. Each button causes Bitch to perform some rather sweet moves. Sure, left and right are no problem, but once upon a time back when this was my very first Playstation game, I had a hell of a time remembering which shapes matched which buttons. I was used to the Nintendo button system, you see. Thankfully, eight years has improved my skills…slightly. We’ll get to that in a bit.
But first, a lame cliffhanger in a sad attempt to split this recap directly in half! Really, there wasn’t a good breaking point. My deepest apologies. In the meantime, why don’t you grab a drink and some snacks and meet me back here for the even more riveting Part 10?