“Something wrong?” Wakka wonders as the Ambiguously Lesbian Trio approaches him. Yuna chirps that they wanted to check on his stoned ass. “Is there something in this cave?” Rikku wonders. Whereas that seems like an extremely retarded question to ask, this is Wakka, and it’s perfectly believable that he just needs a place to be alone with his habit. Wakka stammers that there may, in fact, be something there besides a contact high. “Who knows, maybe it’s not here, ya? But I thought, ‘what if…’ Maybe it’s for real. Then again, maybe it never was. Been so long, I’m not sure anymore.” Paine translates this drug-induced talk, causing Wakka to clarify that he’s not sure if he wants to know if this particular object is here in the cave.

‘…what kind of fanfiction people write about me and Tightass.’

Rikku gets irritated with Wakka’s waffling and asks him flat-out just what the hell he was looking for. It turns out that all Wakka’s babbling is his way of saying that there’s — surprise! — an old sphere hidden in the cave. Wait. Stop the presses. A sphere? Holy plot twist, Batman! Rikku wants to know what’s exactly on this sphere, completely unable to put two and two together regarding the earlier conversation about Wakka’s parents and his mysterious disappearance. Wakka tries to be all secretive so that we can be “surprised” later, but it’s completely obvious that he’s looking for a sphere of his parents.

As soon as she hears that there’s a sphere in the cave, Paine heads deeper into the tunnel. Hee. Wakka tries to get all up in her shiznit, but she reminds him — in a monotone — that the three of them are sphere hunters. Or maybe she’s reminding the other two girls, who are standing there completely oblivious. The second explanation is probably the correct one, as Yuna and Rikku immediately perk up. “All right, Gullwings…” Yuna tries to sound all cool. “Time for business!” Rikku finishes in the same tone. Meanwhile, they’re no closer to actually getting the stupid sphere. Get used to this kind of nonsense. Wakka just watches them go and sits back down to his blitzbong. “The Gullwings, huh?” he says to himself, amused. Even Wakka doesn’t take them seriously.

The cave is pretty straightforward, meaning that there is one small side corridor on the way from Point A to Point B. So I’m torn between ripping on the game designers’ laziness and enjoying the fact that I don’t have to get lost every two seconds. Of course, there’s no reason why I can’t do both. When the three girls reach the fork in the path, the walkie-talkie sounds again. “This is Brother. You all right, Yuna?” She replies that she has, in fact, not died horribly in the last ten minutes. “Just ignore him,” Rikku advises. Great advice, if she were referring to Tightass. Honestly, these people act like Tightass is some sort of Greek God, while treating Brother like a piece of vermin. Am I the only one who thinks that Yuna would be better off with Brother? I mean, the guy’s a spastic nutball with freaky tattoos and is obsessed with his cousin, but he’s a 100% improvement over Tightass. Not that I would do him, but I’m just sayin’.

The side corridor leads to a chest which contains a freaking potion. The game designers were laughing at all of us when they put that in, I just know it. Dicks. Speaking of dicks, to draw our attention away from the fact that the cave isn’t all that impressive, the game designers threw in a series of phallic pillars for Yuna to jump on. I wish I had rephrased that.

There’s a save point just before the end of the corridor, which confuses me because the monsters weren’t that difficult and I think I can find my way out after grabbing the sphere. Oh, right. I totally forgot about the possibility of a boss battle because I’m a fucking moron who has never played a video game before.

A few steps away from the save point, a sphere sits right in the center of the dead-end room on a pretty pedestal. Even Yuna can’t miss it there. So kudos to whatever person stuck it there in this tiny monster-infested cavern. Although the room is obviously completely empty, as soon as the cutscene begins, a ginormous dragon stands directly behind them. I guess it followed them across the penis pillars or something. I wonder if it ate Wakka. Seriously, where the hell has this thing been hiding in the tiny cave? “Find a sphere and the fiends appear,” Paine quips. This “witty” line brings us into battle.

The dragon seems to shrink a little on the battle screen, making this a tad anticlimactic, and possibly explaining how they managed to not notice it before. Speaking of anticlimactic, there is no secret to figuring out this thing’s weakness. You see, it’s your garden variety dragon. Dragons breathe fire, fire is weak against ice, duh. Since this is a little too deep for us to figure out, the thing is also called “Flame Dragon.” My brain hurts. Paine the Black Mage casts Blizzard, Rikku the Warrior uses Ice Brand, and Yuna stands there showing off her boobies to the flaming dragon. This bold strategy quickly turns the battle to my advantage, and it’s over before anyone can spout a lame battle line. Well, before they can spout more than a couple lame battle lines, anyway. Paine does say “Ice Ice Baby” before performing her ice magic. Christ, what is it with the translators and old crappy songs?

After the battle, Yuna walks toward the sphere as the camera tries to do an arty shot from below. Thankfully, we’re on the skirt side, so this isn’t just some excuse for an ass shot. Well, color me surprised. Yuna grabs the sphere and says something triumphant, as we find out that this is the White Mage dressphere. I guess they’re not even bothering to run this through Shinra anymore — now the girls automatically know whether or not something is a dressphere. Makes it easier for me, I guess.

The girls return to Wakka, sphere in hand. Yuna wants to watch the sphere, never mind Wakka’s feelings on the matter. She’s different now, so she doesn’t care about anyone. Except that the game designers totally want us to think that she does. Whatever. Anyway, the sphere simply shows the Besaid waterfall from different angles. One of these angles is from the bottom, so we can clearly see a treasure chest. Yes, the treasure chest that Yuna already opened. I think it also shows a treasure chest on top of the cliff, so this sphere may not be a complete waste of time. I’m trying to be optimistic here.

Rikku, clueless as ever, wonders if this is the sphere Wakka was looking for. As it turns out, no. The scene cuts to the group walking along the path near the falls. “So, what sphere were you looking for?” Rikku wonders. The dumbass…it hurts. Wakka has to explain in tiny words that he was hoping to find a sphere of his parents that his brother Chappu told him about. Wakka reminds us of his brother’s tragic backstory. “Sin got our parents not long after Chappu was born,” Wakka informs us. A while back, Wakka and his brother got in a fight, and Chappu claimed to have found a sphere with their parents on it. But like all jerky little brothers, he refused to tell Wakka where this supposed sphere was. “And you never asked him?” Yuna wonders. Wakka explains that he was too stubborn to let Chappu win the argument. “So I went on without asking until I just forgot about it.” The conversation with the Dullwings the day before suddenly reminded him of this sphere. Since Chappu used to play in the secret cave, Wakka figured the sphere might be there.

Okay. There are so many lameass holes in this story, I don’t even know where to begin. Obviously Chappu’s sphere story is complete bullshit, unless he was enough of a dickhole to actually find a sphere of their parents and hide it from Wakka until he could bring it up in an argument. Which is a possibility, since Chappu was similar to Tightass and all that. In addition to that, Wakka just let it go? And didn’t even remember it until Rikku brought it up? And Chappu used to play in a cave that people of the island have only heard about? Except that Yuna has never heard of this cave? And Lulu didn’t know about it either despite being practically engaged to Chappu? And wouldn’t Chappu have found that treasure sphere? And why in the hell did someone bother to build a sparkly pedestal for that random thing? Oh crap….falling into plotholes…….need life preserver…….help……

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Wakka, upon entering this secret-or-not-secret cavern, suddenly became less enthusiastic at the prospect of finding this supposed sphere. “See, I got this picture of my parents in my head, ya? Strong and kind…Whenever things got tough, those are the parents I imagined,” Wakka explains. He doesn’t want his made-up little fantasy to suffer from a harsh dose of reality, so he’s not sure he wants to find out the truth. Particularly in light of the fact that instead of Super!Parents, his folks were most likely losers. Hey, this is Spira. You do the math. While Wakka sat there smoking thinking about this dilemma, Yuna and the others arrived. “That’s our Wakka,” Rikku says fondly of their favorite slacker.

“The sphere might still be somewhere on the island,” Yuna morons. “Should we look for it?” Wakka declines this offer, since he’s totally over the potential existence of this sphere. “What’s past is past, ya? Can’t let it get to me. I’m going to be a father soon. Gotta pull it together!” Wakka states, sounding almost…intelligent. Holy crap. Rikku runs up to him and waggles her ass as she says, “That’s right, Dad.” A very prominent penis post stands erect in the foreground. So many levels of wrong, so much fanfiction I don’t ever want to see.

“But, uh…Just how am I supposed to pull it together? Sure wish I had something to go by, you know?” Wakka suddenly whines. Aaaaand, we’re back to square one. Rikku shakes her head in exasperation. With that, the intercom beeps. “You read me? You guys about finished down there? Brother’s starting to get on my nerves,” Buddy complains. Yuna assures that they’re about to return. Brother cheers. Mission Complete!

Ah, Paine. So blissfully, blissfully ignorant.

Now that several years of my life have been shaved away, Yuna and the others return to El Celsioso. Although I’m at a good stopping point story-wise, I still have some time to kill before I reach a full hour. Because I feel somewhat guilty at forcing Kelly and Sam to help me recap this trainwreck, I decide to be masochistic and take on the next — optional — part of the game: Luca. The map screen refers to “Yuna’s” concert as it promises to give us the “real story behind the music.” Does this mean that they’ll explain that whole thing? I’d like to see that.

An unintentional lesbian joke from Brother.

The camera pans over the balcony in Luca where the horrific Tightass laughing scene took place. Yuna finds herself surrounded with adoring fans, all of them sprites reused from the previous game. One brain-damaged moron shrieks, “Lady Yuna, your concert was incredible!” See, it’s supposed to be all ironic and shit because that wasn’t actually Yuna. Tee hee! Rikku sets up an autograph line for the reluctant Yuna, who trots to the edge of the overlook to spew some Wankese. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them it was just an impostor. The whole mess started with the Garment Grid… Oh, Jesus. I’ve got a one way ticket to the Land Where Nothing Makes Sense (tm Sam). That’s the invention that lets us harness the dresspheres’ power, she explains for those of us who have had our heads up our asses for the last hour and a half.

The Mission Time screen comes up, informing me that my objective is to “Learn the whole story behind the concert.” Like Wakka, I’m not sure if I even want to know anymore. And when I’m sharing thoughts with Wakka, something is seriously wrong.

Well, I might as well jump right into this hellhole. The flashback opens with a grainy screen showing Yuna’s first official appearance. I think it’s supposed to look like we’re watching a sphere of that previous scene, but who the hell was taping this shit? You know, I’m going to say that some guy — let’s call him Sphere Recorder Bob — is following the girls around, recording everything that we see in this game. It makes it a little more personal than just referring to “the camera” all the time. Sphere Recorder Bob likes boobies and buttcheeks a lot, doesn’t he?

So anyway, we’re seeing Bob’s grainy footage as Yuna wankovers, Believe it or not, this was the easy part! Yeah, it’s really hard to believe that shooting at two guys and missing is easy. Cut to another flashback. This time, instead of the grainy “film” stuff, the picture just looks washed out. Rikku and Paine stand at the top of some stairs as we follow the POV of someone walking up the stairs with a bloopy sound effect. Yuna wankovers that they chased Lesbianc and her bitches to Luca. Some guys run down the stairs, creaming their shorts over the prospect of getting tickets to “Yuna’s” concert. “Looks like your impostor’s pretty popular,” Rikku says to the bloopy stairs person. “I doubt anyone would believe ours is the real Yuna,” Paine agrees in a monotone. Holy shit, you guys — the person on the stairs is Yuna! Sphere Recorder Bob quickly runs up the stairs and cuts dramatically to a shot of Yuna, dressed in a giant moogle suit, making her way up the stairs. I start to make a snide remark about how the fanboys can’t ogle her boobs now, but then I realize that someone somewhere is even more turned on by Yuna in a fursuit. The shuddering will never stop.