In the first riveting half of the double recap, we had the privilege of experiencing yet another powerful and transcendent Laguna dream that made us all better and more enlightened people. Then, the assnozzle game designers decided to set up the best Squally/Seifer scenario in the entire universe, only to yank it out from under me like a cheap, jizz-stained tablecloth. I’m still not over it.
So we’re back to the Tired Trio and Moomba yet again. The three of them are almost as bored as I am, and they’ve also realized that they can’t just hang around in prison for the rest of the game. It’s time to formulate an escape plan. “Well, we could skin this little guy and wear him as a disguise…” Selphie suggests, leering at the Moomba. Not like that. Typical Selphie, with the disturbing and violent ideas. She quickly assures the freaked out Moomba that she was just joking. Really. Yeah.
Through a level of genius that truly displays her history as a child prodigy, Quistis decides that since magic isn’t an option, they’ll have to use weapons. Only one small problem — their weapons were confiscated. Zell, who might be even more of a genius than Quistis, takes three whole text boxes of inner monologue to realize that he can fight with his fists alone. He poses, vibrating, when he realizes that he’s going to be the stud that saves the day. Selphie reminds us that Zell also knows the layout of the place. Zell thinks to himself that he doesn’t really know his way around, since he spent most of the time mopping bodily fluids off the walls, but out loud he’s all, “Yeah, I’m the biggest coolest dude EVAR.” Whatever, Zell.
Strangely, Zell manages to come up with a plan to sneak out. He tells the chicks to lie on the floor. Hey, wait a minute, that’s not an escape plan. Oh wait, he’s just going to pretend they’re sick. He screams at Mean Guy to get them some help. And what is Zell’s brilliant excuse? “I think a snake bit ’em!” Yes, a snake slithered up to the seventh floor and snuck into a locked metal cell. Jesus. Mean Guy enters the cell, either because he’s a gullible retard or because he just has to see how badly Zell is shitting him. But Zell suddenly uses the martial arts he just totally forgot about earlier to knock out the prick. With that, he’s off to face the other armed guards. Easiest cell break ever!
A one-eyed trouser snake, that is. Oh wait, not in this game.
The Moomba is just dying to come along on this exciting weapon retrieval mission. I’m sure it’ll be an essential member of the battle party and might even share important clues on hunting down the place where the confiscated weapons are being stored. A stairway about five feet away from the cell leads up to the next identical floor (Floor 8, for those of you who have trouble with numbers). Conveniently and coincidentally, two Galbadian soldiers stand in the center of the walkway with the pile of weapons at their feet. That makes sense — why would the weapons be stored somewhere safe when a couple of dudes could drop them on the floor and look at them for hours, directly above the floor where the weapons’ owners are being held, no less?
Soldier #1, Tom, holds Squall’s gunblade, swishing it around a bit. The other guy, Joe, asks, “Is this what they call a gunblade?” No, this is some other weapon that combines a GUN and a BLADE. Christ. This is funny because even though the timing and place for this scene is asinine, I can totally see, say, myself playing with the confiscated weapons. Especially the gunblade. Tom points out all the other weapons, making it sound like the two of them just got here. Which is certainly possible, but were they carrying the weapons around for the last however many hours? Or were the weapons just laying on the floor all this time? I don’t think we’re ever going to solve this mystery without devolving into some fanwanking, so let’s move on.
Zell obviously jumps these guys like they’re hiding hundred dollar bills in their asses. Again, two armed and armored soldiers are obviously no match for the unarmed kid in the skater shorts. Four punches later, those fuckers go down. Not like that. This is a prison, but come on. After Zell gathers up the weapons into his magical bottomless ass, he and the Moomba do this unison pose and head bob thing. Are they laughing? Whatever, it’s just bizarre.
Cut to the Black Screen of Torture. “(…Don’t hit…my face.)” Squally pants. He doesn’t want to damage his girlish good looks. “(…Stop grabbing my…leg.)” Oh my goodness. Come on, fade in, fade in, please let that be Seifer. “Laguna!?” someone shrieks, confusing and scaring me. Someone disturbingly screams Laguna’s name a few more times, causing me to shudder. Squally’s internal monologue text boxes indicate that he is confused as well. We fade back in to find out who the Laguna-obsessed perverts are. Moombas. You heard that right: Moombas. I’m not liking this.
Something I never needed to see.
Apparently, these Moombas only know the word “Laguna” and I don’t really want to know why. But they seem to be finished with whatever they were doing to Squally. One of them runs over to the controls, releasing Squally from his bonds. Unfortunately, he was a ways up on the wall, so he doesn’t exactly land gracefully. Hands and knees again — his usual position. Some more shrieks of “Laguna!” fade us on out. I’m sure that the Moombas’ knowledge of Laguna’s name is only an extreme coincidence and has no plot relevance whatsoever.
I’m getting dizzy and nauseous from this constant back-and-forth. Zell saunters back into the cell with the weapon stash. And the Moomba, thank goodness. He then magically and invisibly teleports the correct weapons to his cellmates with a cry of “Voila!” Following this is a completely pointless sequence where each party member, in turn, grows to about three times his or her size, spouts some “Yay, let’s fuck some shit up!” battle cry, swings his or her weapon around, and returns to regular size. The Moomba copies this as well, for our requisite cute comic relief animal moment. Incidentally, the size expansion thing is an actual fetish, too. The more you know.
As soon as the party members junction the shit out of themselves, some voices pipe up from offscreen. It appears that Mean Guy is back with some sockpuppets friends to make good on his earlier threats. Man B, one of the friends, is reluctant to get involved in abusing prisoners, since Mean Guy’s vendetta has nothing to do with him. However, Man A seems to have the same small penis and roid rage issues as MG, so he has something to prove. Mean Guy steps into the frame, stammering, “T-These are the prisoners. Lieutenant Biggs, Private Wedge.” It’s the return of our wacky comic relief duo! So much comic relief crammed into one scene, it’s almost too much comedy to handle!
Biggs and Wedge — still in the same uniforms despite their demotions — enter the frame at that very moment, and the two of them, Selphie, and Zell all scream in unison like cats getting raped. Quistis is probably wondering what crawled up their asses and died. Unsurprisingly, Biggs still has a bug up his aforementioned ass about his last unsuccessful encounter with the overpowered teenagers. He starts babbling about having no trouble fighting unarmed prisoners, which is the ironic cue for the SeeDs to whip out the recovered weapons and swing them around obnoxiously. Uh-oh, spaghettios! Biggs stammers — what else? — comedically for a while before going, “Aw, fuck it” and attacking anyway. Boss battle!
Or not so much. The music indicates that it’s just a peon battle. According to our favorite GF Stratguidos, there are several battle actions that will result in more of the buffoonish comedy that we just can’t resist! Except I totally can, because I instead spend several years drawing sweet, sweet magic before smacking the shit out of these two weenies. The battle ends with Biggs and Wedge once again lying facedown on the ground and Mean Guy and his tiny wang off sipping martinis somewhere.
Maybe Squally, if you ask him nicely.
After spending several more minutes junctioning, Zell, Selphie, and Quistis are out the door faster than you can say “prison rape.” Then, you’ll never guess what happens. Seriously, this is so fitting and hilarious — Biggs regains consciousness and hits some button on some unseen remote thingy. Just like earlier! Boy, those SeeDs are so in for it!
Outside the cell in the circular area, Zell wonders if the Moomba knows where Squally got off to. Or didn’t get off, as the case may be. God damn game designers. On cue, a second Moomba comes racing down the stairs, screaming about Laguna. “Laguna!?” the second one shrills in return. The two of them run back up to the 8th floor. Zell’s all, “Laguna? WTF?” But he follows them anyway, because, in his words, “I don’t know why, but I feel kinda lucky!” Maybe that’s due to the fact that every situation in the prison thus far has been totally contrived and simple. As for me, I wouldn’t follow after two Moombas who were all excited and chittering about Laguna — I’d be hauling ass in the opposite direction.
Zell and the others decide to follow the furry Laguna worshippers a split second before an alarm begins blaring. An expositional intercom announcer informs the entire prison that there’s been an escape so they’re letting loose the endless host of monsters they apparently house inside the place. And the monsters are given permission…TO KILL. As opposed to maim slightly. Seriously, this dialogue. The good news is, they’ve turned off the anti-magic field. Which will surely not give any sort of advantage to the escapees.
To the 8th floor! In addition to all the other shit taking place, it appears that the locks have also been disabled on all the cell doors. That’s the only reason I can figure for Zell and company to be able to enter various cells along the way. One on the 8th floor contains a guy selling items, if you can believe that fantastic coincidence.
9th floor! Can you feel the excitement? This floor has a barrier next to the stairs so that the group has to run around the entire perimeter of the room to reach the staircase leading up. Like I mentioned earlier, Stratguidos the big fat liar told me that if I treated the Moombas with the upmost respect and generally fought for justice, some random Moombas would pop out of the woodwork to remove certain stairway barriers and do other cool shit. Yeah, not so much. Eat a bag of veiny, dried-out dicks, game designers. I figure I might as well blame them. And yes, I’m still bitter.
10th floor! Blah blah, random battles, blah blah card playing asscandle in one of the cells. This dude offers to upgrade my spiffy [Battle Meter] if I beat him at Triple Triad. Now, I know that I made all those sexy promises regarding turning Squally (or the current party members) into the world’s finest card player, but the truth is that I kind of let that fall by the wayside. Don’t judge me. So instead of collecting all the awesome cards up to this point, such as Quistis, Mog, or even Rinhoa’s dog, I slacked off and only got the ones which were handed to me after certain battles. Unfortunately, the other player gets one of my cards if I lose, and I would then have to a) play again and again in an attempt to win the card back, possibly losing many cards and my sanity in the process or b) reset the game and have to go back to the point right before Laguna took his stupid nap. This suddenly makes that [Battle Meter] upgrade seem a lot less appealing. But we still wantssss it, precious.