This exposition of sorts is interrupted by a loud, attention-getting coughing-screaming combo from another person on the bridge. Why, it’s Brother, Rikku’s, uh, brother. I honestly can’t remember if he looked like this much of a freak in the previous game, so I’ll go ahead and describe him. As before, he sports a blond mohawk. Possibly as before, he also sports a baggy pair of painter pants held up by suspenders (no shirt), a lot of eye makeup, and a huge chest tattoo matching the decals on the flying El Camino. Very classy. “Dancing Yuna?” he exclaims. “I want to see!” Keep in mind that this is his cousin, folks. Yuna smirks at him and says, “It’ll cost you!” Yuck again. But for what it’s worth, Brother isn’t the biggest creep in this scene. Yeah, he’s hot for his cousin, but so is Rikku and no one has a problem with that. And Yuna is the one offering to give the guy a lap dance for a fee. Oh, that’s right. Yuna has chaaaaanged, which means it’s acceptable for her to be a skankoid now.

Brother thrashes around wildly–perfectly normal body language for him, we’ll see–as he rummages for Gil to tuck into Yuna’s cleavage. Paine watches this entire scene with disgust and tells Brother, “She’s kidding.” You think, Paine. Brother is crestfallen, but a beeping alarm soon goes off all over the bridge, so he tries to forget his loss and jumps into his captain’s chair.

The alarms were apparently meaningless, as I now have control of Yuna and no one she speaks with is particularly alarmed or even remotely busy. Yuna first talks to Rikku, who asks if she’s having a good ol’ time. You better believe Yuna is. But saying “You bet!” isn’t enough: this simple question spurs on another fit of Wankese. Jeanne, when you recapped this stuff, did you start getting chest pains? Just asking. It all began when I saw this sphere of you, she says out of nowhere, employing the use of her Exposition!Implants. At least, it looked like you. I couldn’t say for sure. We’ll get to said sphere in a minute, once Yuna’s done inflicting Wankese upon me. Let’s just establish for now that Yuna’s Wankese is actually her talking to Tightass, because this is a flashback and Yuna is actually talking to Tightass himself she’s deranged and likes talking to ghosts. I thought I might find more spheres like it if I joined the Gullwings. So I did. You, like me, may be asking at this point, “But Yuna, what, pray tell, are the Gullwings?” Yuna’s got some Wankese for US, too! Oh, in case you’re wondering, the Gullwings are sphere hunters, she says, which helps a little, and sphere hunters are, well… I prepare myself for an epic bit of exposition, perhaps with anecdotes about the first sphere hunters and their lame outfits. But, with a familiar braindead giggle, Yuna finishes her “thought” with, This! The camera pans around the flying El Camino in order to show us “this.” Yeah, Brother doing gorilla impersonations in the captain’s chair really explains the whole sphere hunter thing. But thanks. Airhead.

We fly all over Spira, Yuna continues, shattering my brain into a million pieces. I’m really enjoying myself. This brings the “conversation” back to Rikku, who says, “Glad to hear it. For a while there I was starting to feel like a kidnapper.” Yuna dismisses this idea. So was there some point before this where they had Yuna bound and gagged in the engine room? Could we go back to that? Please?

Rikku is out of interesting things to say, so let’s check out this sphere Yuna mentioned, shall we? To see it Yuna must speak with Shinra. I know you fanboys are foaming at the mouth because I haven’t mentioned the Final Fantasy VII reference yet, so here you go: “Shinra” is a reference to Final Fantasy VII. Happy? Shinra’s greeting to Yuna is, “I know everything.” He doesn’t, by his own admission several times in the game, but whatever. Yuna thinks even this little rodent is fit for more Wankese. Shinra’s an Al Bhed. He’s a real whiz kid. Whew, that’s it. But the Wankese is immediately followed by my second-favorite Final Fantasy institution, the Tutorial. Before tackling any of those, however, Yuna selects “Treasure Spheres.” Only one is available for viewing, called “Journey’s Start.” So the Gullwings didn’t locate any spheres until Yuna came aboard, and now they only have this one she brought with her? Awesome sphere hunters here.

Kill myself for looking/sounding too much like Tightass?

Anyway, the sphere. If you watched Another Story, there’s nothing really new here. The scene which plays out in the sphere is basically the same, except it’s been touched up. Instead of Tightass’s character model screaming in Japanese, a new character model only resembling Tightass screams in English. I’m not sure it’s James Arnold Taylor voicing this guy until he screams, “If she was your girl, what would you do?” because it’s that perfect blend of Tightass’s whininess and misplaced righteousness. Doppelwank goes on that he only used the “weapon” to save “the summoner.” I’m reeling from the specifics. Then he whines and screams some more, the end. As much as that behavior suits Tightass, this guy is very, very clearly not him. Yuna, being his ONE TWOO WUUV and all, should see this right away, but she doesn’t. Probably because she keeps telling herself that Doppelwank is Tightass just so she can preserve her deluded fantasy, but we also have to consider that Yuna’s a moron.

Now Yuna can partake of Shinra’s smorgasbord of tutorials. She chooses the one tutorial she must actually complete (to get an item), the Garment Grid tutorial. This is so we can understand the whole Presto Chango series of shenanigans that went on earlier. Right? Right?

The basic idea behind Garment Grids is this: different outfits are trapped inside spheres, called dresspheres. To use dresspheres and play Pretty Princess Dress Me Up, the spheres must be equipped to a Garment Grid. The tutorial shows me how to equip the Grid with the dresspheres currently in the party’s possession: Gunner, Thief, Warrior and Songstress. A Garment Grid can only be equipped one way; therefore, it’s not like the girls have three copies of the same Grid. No, if they only have one–like they did in the previous scenes–they must all be using it. So the entire idea that Lesbianc stole Yuna’s Garment Grid is right out the window, since all three girls were sharing the same one. Well, there goes any logic behind the first major event of the story. This game’s off to a fine start.

Shinra walks me through equipping the Vanguard Garment Grid, and equipping the Warrior dressphere to Yuna. It’s all very automated and easy, and following the tutorial, Shinra gives Yuna said Vanguard Garment Grid. So theoretically, if I left it alone, Yuna would now be a Warrior, in her own Warrior outfit. She certainly wouldn’t look exactly like, say, Paine.

You all see where I’m going with this, right?

So let’s rewind a bit. In Luca, Lesbianc was on the stage, in the guise of Summoner!Yuna. There is absolutely no precedent for this, since a) Yuna doesn’t even look like that anymore (she changed her hair), and b) there is certainly no Summoner dressphere, what with the epic purge of the world’s aeons at the end of the last game. Of course, even given that, she still wouldn’t look like Yuna. By way of the game’s mechanics, Lesbianc would look like herself, but in a Summoner outfit. Then she changes into Britney Spira, once again looking like a double of Yuna, and not like a skanky Céline Dion or something.

So why is it that Lesbianc is special and gets to look just like Yuna instead of getting her own fucking outfits? It couldn’t be that the game designers were so absymally lazy that they shot the entire premise of their game in the foot just so they wouldn’t have to do any additional designs for Lesbianc, and so they could have an OMG SPESHUL concert starring Yuna. That would be half-assed and embarrassing, problems we never see manifested in Final Fantasy games.

I need to stop thinking about this. Alcohol will help.

 Loading ...

Yuna slowly backs away from Shinra, Boy Genius, and all his scary tutorials, and talks to Paine. Paine doesn’t even get a word in edgewise before Yuna starts in with the Wankese. God help me. This is Paine, Yuna explains for those of us who went to the bathroom during the concert scene. I look up to her as a sphere hunter…and also as a friend. Paine looks wholly unapproachable as Yuna adds that Paine’s all quiet and mysterious and GAWTH. I heard she joined the Gullwings shortly before I did… she continues. God. Couldn’t Yuna just ask Paine about these things? This whole sphere hunting fad has been going on for two years at the most, which isn’t really long enough for there to be a rumor about Paine’s joining the group. We’re not talking about the date of Christ’s death, here. And, according to Yuna, Rikku doesn’t know much about her either. But what those two don’t know could probably fill the Grand Canyon. Paine finally notices that Yuna is staring at her creepily, and scowls, “What now?” Yuna squeaks “Nothing!” and runs away.

Back in frightened mouse mode, Yuna runs back to the front of the ship and speaks to Brother. In a terribly pathetic voice, Brother begs for Yuna’s personal validation: “Yuna…has my talking…gotten better?” Oh, the poor sod. In Wankese, Yuna affirms that Brother is indeed better with zee Eeenglish. He told me that he practiced just so that he could talk with me more. Now, let’s remember that she’s supposedly talking to Tightass. Wouldn’t he go all Jealous Alpha Male at this point and freak out that Brother’s been getting all up in his Koolaid? I mean, he did pretty much consider Yuna to be his arm decoration.

Not going to worry about it, because Tightass is dead!

For Yuna’s “efforts” in talking to Brother, she gets a little tutorial box about learning Al Bhed–all over again, God dammit–and a few Al Bhed primers. She next speaks to Buddy, the ship’s navigator and apparently Brother’s bestest pal. Buddy still hasn’t found any new spheres to hunt, which pisses Brother off, and they argue in Al Bhed. Yuna zones out while delivering some Wankese about Buddy. Buddy says he was aboard Cid’s airship with us two years ago. When I told him I didn’t remember, he seemed disappointed. Thus begins Yuna’s horrible web of deceit, in which she tells everyone she meets that she remembers them, even when I’m she’s quite sure she’s never seen them before. Because God knows she doesn’t want to disappoint anybody.

After getting one more Al Bhed primer from listening to Buddy, Yuna leaves the bridge and heads for the lift in the back. The elevator menu informs me that the name of this ship is the Celsius. Obviously this name isn’t good enough for me, so it will now be known as El Celsioso. Yes, Spanish speakers, I know “Celsioso” isn’t really Spanish for “Celsius,” but “El Centí­grado” just doesn’t pop, you know? Navigating the complicated four-choice menu, Yuna chooses the “Cabin” option.

For 50 cents an hour. You were thinking it, too.

Down in the cabin, Yuna chats up a Hypello behind the bar. He asks “Mish Yoona” if he can do anything for her. Oh, those wacky Hypello accents! Yuna scores a major non-obvious by noting, Our barkeep’s a Hypello. That’s probably all we need to know about the guy, but Yuna continues: No one knows his real name, so everyone just calls him “Barkeep.” Again. Couldn’t they ask him what his name is? Christ, don’t these people talk to each other?

Barkeep, whom I’m going to name Steve, just so he can have the small dignity of a real name, offers Yuna the choice of shopping or resting. Yuna decides to take a little cat nap, which “treats” me to a short scene of her groaning and stretching as she gets out of bed. Uck. As our heroine returns to the bridge, Brother’s magnified voice echoes throughout the ship. He says something in Al Bhed, and then screams, “Gullwings, report to the bridge!”

All the other important Gullwings are waiting on Yuna when she runs in. Apparently Buddy’s found a sphere at “those ruins they found at Gagazet.” Rikku pumps her fists and jumps around in glee, because that’s what Rikku does. Brother tries and fails to be impressive and authoritative by shouting “Next stop! Gagazet!” in Al Bhed. A menu screen pretty much just like the one used in Final Fantasy X’s airship displays a list of locations. The only option at the moment is Mount Gagazet. I breathe a sigh of relief, since I was afraid someone would want to run back to Luca and play Pop Princess again.