Last time, Sam continued the journey full of filler as she met up with a non-wanktastic blond guy, saved a midget’s Hypello bitches from bandits, and poked around Guadosalam and the Thunder Plains. I’m getting all tingly just thinking about the excitement. Well, hold on to your hats, because the fun doesn’t stop yet.
Upon entering our favorite crystalline woods — that’s Macalania Woods, for those of you who didn’t read the FFX recaps — Yuna continues her insulting of Tightass’s intelligence, if such a thing is possible. It’s been two years since the fayth in Macalania Temple disappeared, she explains to people who didn’t play Final Fantasy X Tightass. They say it’s affecting not only the lake, but the woods as well. I’ll take their word for it, since the woods look exactly the same to me. Then again, I didn’t think Lulu looked pregnant nor Wakka fat, so clearly I am the unperceptive one here.
Following Rikku and Paine further into the woods, Yuna triggers a cut scene. Since you guys obsessively read and re-read the FFX recaps in order to keep your memory fresh, you probably remember my WTF reaction to the humanoid bird in a feather headdress playing the harp. Well, the bird is back, and many times more important than before, unless you consider the butterfly game from FFX important. Actually, I don’t know if this is the same bird as we’ve seen more than one pop up in various bands, and the one in FFX’s Macalania Woods had a female voice. I guess she could have gotten a sex change. Anyway, this particular bird has a name, Bayra, and despite the femininity of the name, it’s a guy. A guy with what sounds like a Native American accent, to go along with the headdress, obviously.
“The woods will soon be no more,” Bayra monotones, strumming his harp as he walks up the sparkly path into the treetops. I hope they don’t do a random drug test at work, because I think I just got high. Checking our favorite book of secrets, the strategy guide, I find out that Yuna must track down Bayra’s two buddies, as this is absolutely essential to the storyline. Well, what the hell, it’s better than saving cargo from ass bandits.
I immediately have to eat my words for several reasons. First, Yuna encounters a lone Guado on the path leading east. He/she moans that everyone hates the Guado. “Now we have fled Guadosalam, and the once proud Guado have been scattered.” My hope is that they’re scattered far enough apart that no one can accidentally breed. “Though Sin is gone and the Calm has come, my people’s suffering does not end.” Wow, what a whiner. You brought it on yourself, dude, for worshipping a pedophile. This isn’t rocket science, here.
Hey, it’s kind of like my job as a recapper.
I make Yuna leave this lameass alone before she gets the urge to solve all of his/her problems. As is par for the course for me, something much worse happens. Going back to the part where I said you’ve all read and committed to memory the salient points of my FFX recaps, I predict that many of you have blocked a certain part out of your minds. A part that happened within these very woods. No, not the drama queen Barthello meeting. You know what I’m talking about — the pond scene. For some odd reason, no one has bulldozed and burned the woods at that spot, attempting to sterilize ground zero of the wank. Nor has anyone blocked off the pond area to prevent hapless entrepreneurs from building something like a shop upon the spot, which would probably be akin to building on an Indian burial ground. This is bad.
My point in mentioning this subject is that Yuna encounters the second member of the WTF Trio standing next to the pond. This dude and/or others like him also appeared in Final Fantasy X. He’s the blue drummer guy with pointy things sticking out either side of his head. I don’t believe he was ever voiced previously, because I would have remembered that horrible Shrek rip-off accent. That’s right, blue drummer guy is fucking Scottish. And his name is Donga. I’m going to take that as a penis shout-out to the recappers, just because I can. “The end has come faster than I thought. What can we do?” he randomly says. I don’t know about you guys, but I think something might be going on with these woods. Strangely, Yuna doesn’t reply, but that’s okay, since he appears to be having a long distance conversation with either an invisible person or someone who can magically hear him from somewhere else. Either way, he tells Mystery Person that he’ll meet him/her right away. Then he disappears in a flash of glowy feathers, all the while beating his drum. That’s not a euphemism.
This scheduled meeting — which might be a simple trek to the local sex shop — will have to remain a mystery for now, since it’s time to track down the final member of the WTF Trio. My destination is nowhere near as traumatizing as the Wank Pond, but it’s in the middle of the God damn forest, and that means twisting pathways and random battles. Every other step. Although that may be underestimating the frequency.
The last member of the WTF Trio, Pukutak, is a small mouse-like creature with funnels for ears and a saxophone. You know, I play a number of instruments, and I don’t tote them around with me. It’s time to tone down the egos, guys. Pukutak’s unique speech impediment is a tendency to speak in rhyme while sounding like he/she just snorted helium. God, I just imagined what it would sound like if these three…people….things had a threesome. I think I will cry now.
*puff*
Pukutak speaks to the same unseen individual as Donga. Well, I’m assuming, anyway. It’s entirely possible that he/she is making a completely separate date to, say, the local Mexican restaurant. With the arrangements made, Pukutak squeaks up the nearest tree branch path, pausing long enough to lament, “These woods grow lonely day by day.” Which is kind of ridiculous, as the woods weren’t exactly party central before, even with the pilgrimages. Plus, the Guado are there. Not that they’re good company, but still.
By now, I believe the point has been well and truly made — the woods are starting to suck ass for whatever reason. Why this has taken two whole years from the fayth’s disappearance or why there is no physical manifestation of this mysterious problem, we never find out. Just….look over there!
It’s finally happened — the girls get attacked by a giant ball of spooge.
This absolutely riveting plot point will have to wait till later, as I’ve exhausted this plotline for Chapter One. Am I evil for secretly hoping that someone else has to deal with it by the next go-around? Maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud. Now I’ll get stuck with the Sphere Break tournament or the God damn Gunner’s Gauntlet.
Luckily for all you fans of this fine forest, we’re not done here yet! And the best is still to come!
NO!
In the other spring area, where the FFX party fought the blue blob and watched the first nauseating Jecht sphere, Yuna finds someone I hoped I’d never see again: Tromell Guado. Trudging past a pair of — you guessed it — whiny Guado, she hits the pedophile jackpot. Unfortunately for Tromell, Yuna is no longer a minor. That doesn’t stop him from slobbering all over her ass, however. “High Summoner Yuna. Forgive me for the grief I have caused you,” he whines. I would like to point out here an interesting tidbit I noticed on IMDB — Tromell Guado and Captain Hook have the same voice actor. I don’t think this is a coincidence, if you follow me.
A screaming beatdown brought on by Tromell’s jerky behavior and general creepiness in FFX would be out of character for Yuna, I admit. But that doesn’t mean she has to try to become Tromell’s best fucking friend. “How have you been?” Yuna inquires, thrusting out her chest to no effect. Not only is this inquiry completely lame, it’s also stupid. Hello, every damn Guado in this forest has been a whiny asshole. You don’t ask whiners how they are — that’s just asking for trouble.
Indeed, Tromell takes this opportunity to wax dramatic about how much the Guado’s lives suck ass now that “Lord Seymour” is gone. Obviously, Tromell regrets following that psycho pedophile, but just the way he says Seymour’s name sounds like he still half-worships the guy. Yuck. The conversation ends there. Or it would, if the buckfutter strategy guide didn’t tell me I had to keep talking to this jackwad.
Hell, none of the living in this game are much different than the dead. Hello — unsent?
This time, he reminds us that Seymour wiped out a buttload of Ronso. For some reason, this pissed off the remaining Ronso, who decided that Spira would be better off without this race of poonty pedos. Good for them. “We Guado sealed ourselves away in Guadosalam and strengthened our defenses…But soon we no longer had the strength for even this,” he explains. And that’s why they escaped to live right out in the open in Macalania Woods, where the Ronso apparently could not find them. But of course Tromell has to describe it about a million times whinier than that. Yuna is all, “OH NOES” because she is stupid.
“High Summoner, do not trouble yourself to show sympathy for the Guado,” Tromell says after I am forced to talk to him again. But he says it like he is trolling for sympathy. After explaining in detail the sins of the Guado which we already fucking knew, he says, “Lady Yuna, I cannot ask that you forgive us…only that you forget us.” Well, I would really like to, believe me. The things I do for that precious 100%.
After all that “Woe is me, my life sucks, you hate me, let me die in peace” shite, Tromell decides to engage in some friendly small talk like they just met up at the local item shop. He wonders what Yuna’s doing traipsing about the woods. He stops short of asking her what she’s doing all dolled up like a hoochie, but you know he’s thinking it. “Well, I’m a sphere hunter now,” Yuna chirps. “A sphere hunter?” Tromell wonders. “We hunt spheres,” Rikku elaborates. He’s a pedophile, not a drooling vegetable, Rikku. Jesus. Well, it just so happens that Tromell is hiding a sphere inside his giant sleeve. “Score!” Rikku squeaks, willing to take the proverbial candy from the dirty old man. Yuna’s day is well and truly made. So is mine, as I can now leave Tromell to his pity parade and go do something else tedious that at least doesn’t involve someone creepy. Or as creepy at least. This is Spira, after all.
It appears that Tromell has been carting around Paine’s special dressphere, Full Throttle. I’m surprised that he hasn’t been holding on to something skimpy and sexy for Rikku rather than this legal lesbian — at least that would be in character. Anyway, I haven’t used special dresspheres myself, but they’re essentially giant fucked-up-looking “outfits” that the girls use alone in battle. And they can only be equipped after all the other dresspheres in the garment grid have been utilized in a battle. This would suck if not for Tromell’s second gift — the Unerring Path garment grid, which has two slots. I tuck these two items away, possibly to use them later, more likely to let them take up space in Yuna’s sack.