On the way into town, the trio encounters a green-haired mom, blue-haired dad, and brown-haired kid. I guess the mom boinked the milkman. The family provides some Dialogue of Heavy-Handed Information to our heroes. The dad says something about how Liligue seemed like such a nice town. AwkwardExposition!Mom replies, “You mean, ‘if this town weren’t cursed by Darkness, it would be a nice town.'” Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what he meant. Whew, thanks for that explanation, as I’m sure I would never have caught on to the plot without that awkward dialogue.
I guess Tidus must live there.
Mary Sue can’t resist sticking her perfect Mary Sue nose into everyone else’s business. She asks the Unfortunate Dialogue Family just what in the hell is going on. Because the comment about Darkness was so ambiguous. The UDFamily is leaving town because of the bad shit. UDDad warns them not to stay. Not only are the town gates closed, but the Skygay won’t run until tomorrow, either. Even so, they’re out of luck — no one is allowed on the Skygay. Uh-oh! Apparently, some jerkwad named Gadan is in charge of it, and only people who give him special sexual favors can use it.
UDDad reiterates that this town is bad, bad news. I’m glad they clarified that, as the vagueness here is a little overwhelming. Mary Sue, perfect soul of virtue that she is, offers the UDFamily her help. They don’t want her pointless help, and proceed to leave this Town of Evil forever. They will have to find some other town where they can stand at the entrance and communicate their life story to everyone.
After the UDFamily walks off to start their new life, Ryudo announces that he’s not about to listen to a bunch of random townsfolk. “If I listened to every piece of good advice I heard, I’d have killed all of you already and run off with your gold.” I learn two things from this statement: 1) Ryudo can freaking hear me through the screen, and 2) He’s a dumbass because he doesn’t listen to me. I certainly scream loud enough at this game, that’s for sure.
Mary Sue is exhausted from the one minute trek from the campsite to the town. Tidink, the most widely-traveled ten-year-old ever (FORESHADOWING!), tells her about the local delicacy that is served at the inn. He can’t quite remember the name of it, but it’s probably something like monkey testicles or wombat penis.
After spending an inordinate amount of time upgrading armor and weapons, the group must stay overnight at the inn in order to open the pink town gate. I don’t even want to know the symbolism of that. The innkeeper mentions that they only have arum root on the menu, which is the local delicacy that Tidink mentioned. He asks if they’re still interested in staying, as if this particular dish could potentially cause them to refuse the only inn in town. Either arum root tastes like some variety of ass, or it really is a fancy name for genitalia. Since this so-called arum root figures prominently in the rest of the recap, I really have no choice but to go ahead and call it wombat penis.
The next scene fades in on a jaunty little tune. Ryudo’s character portrait has an extremely festive, open-mouthed grin, which I shall henceforth refer to as the Homosexual Anime Grin, or HAG for short. He’s just aching to suck down some wombat penis. The happy music lulls me into a false sense of security, only to spring another freaking ChoadChat on me. The group sits around the table, and the main “point” of this completely pointless scene is so that we can see the group’s reaction to eating reproductive organs. Kind of like watching Fear Factor, except with shittier dialogue. I think. Tidink practically chokes on his portion of the wombat schlong, bitching about how disgusting it tastes. I think we’ve run into the first male video game character to complain about having a penis in his mouth.
Ryudo says it’s “like eating sand.” I don’t think I want to delve any further into that. “I have never eaten anything like this before… It has the most disgusting texture…” Mary Sue complains. “It feels so rough in my mouth,” Tidink agrees. I think I’ll let those statements speak for themselves. Holy crap. Since this is ChoadChat, we get the wombat penis dialogue shoved down our throats. Pun fully intended. Ryudo is so turned off by the wombat winky that he refuses to stay in the inn any longer than necessary. After establishing several more times that wombat penis tastes worse than chocolate-covered shit (in case we missed the other fifty pieces of dialogue to that effect), Ryudo thankfully puts the ChoadChat out of its misery, mentioning that they’ll talk to this Gadan asshat in the morning. Yet another minute of my life I’ll never get back.
I never understood why people like this game, either.
The next morning, it’s time to explore the town. In the interest of thoroughness, I attempt to talk to each one of the sixty million NPCs in Liligue. But it’s a big place and the camera angles switch around too much for me to tell if I’ve visited the entire town. So you’ll have to forgive me if I miss some vital piece of information or witty comment. Sometimes I crack myself up.
The first person they encounter is a young, blue-haired boy sitting hunched over next to one of the ruined pillars. Mary Sue freaks out that this precious chyyyyyyyyyld appears to be in pain. She takes compassion to a whole new psychotic level. When the blue-haired kid whines that he’s hungry, Mary Sue announces that he’s in luck, as they just so happen to have food. She reaches into her nonexistent purse and pulls out an apple. Waaaait a minute. They have their own stash of food, and they still insisted on choking down that wombat wang? Methinks they do protest too much. The kid gags and runs into a house, possibly because Mary Sue just pulled the apple out of her ass.
When Mary Sue wonders who crapped in blue-haired kid’s cornflakes, a convenient Exposition!NPC in gay green overalls walks up and says, “Young miss, please do not give him any food. It is too much of a… temptation.” What, did this kid get caught having sex with a pie or something? The Exposition!NPC informs the group that the townsfolk can’t eat normal food — only the wombat penis is acceptable to their taste buds. Mary Sue is all, “What is going OOOOON?” But as the time is not ripe for a big revelation, Exposition!NPC randomly chooses not to answer her question. “[Mary Sue], don’t talk to strangers. Besides, they could be diseased,” Ryudo says. This only fuels the fires of Mary Sue’s bleeding fucking heart. With a melodramatic declaration of intent to help, Mary Sue runs into the house after the blue-haired kid.
Good, maybe she’ll catch it and die.
The whole happy family sits around a fancy table. Red-haired Ma is fed up (so to speak) with eating only the — say it with me — wombat penis. According to her, man (and woman) cannot survive on schlong alone. Her husband, whose name is given only as Engineer, gets all up in her grill about her whining. “SHUT UP! You ask for too much. Here, eat THIS!” he wanks, like she’s so out of line for wanting to eat something besides dick. But Engineer proves to be all talk, as he can’t eat whatever “THIS” is either. Like the UDFamily at the entrance to the town, Ma wants to leave this godforsaken place and start a farm. Just as long as they don’t have to, under any circumstances, eat any part of the reproductive system of the animals. Or the ass, for good measure. Engineer isn’t convinced that their eating issues will go away, even if they leave town. Because the town would only be at fault, say, if some evil force were emanating from directly below it or something crazy like that. And what are the chances?
Mary Sue has had enough of the spotlight focusing on someone else. She tromps right over to the stricken family, demanding that they tell her everything, since she’s Mary Sue and can solve all the world’s problems. Engineer tells her to get the hell out of town. But Mary Sue listens to no one, not when she can be the center of attention! Finally, Ma spills the beans: “…The people in this town have lost their sense of taste.” Ah, so that explains why they chose to be in this game. “Their sense of taste?” Mary Sue Shions. Ma turns out to be a serious Mary Sue enabler, as she unloads steaming heaps of exposition on the party. The Skygay allowed Liligue City to become a center for trade. The Skygay workers, including Engineer, all became richer than chocolate-covered cheesecake. Mmmm…cheesecake. Anyway, it was ten days previous that everyone’s taste buds started malfunctioning. “It was like eating sand or rocks,” she explains. I’m confused here. Did food lose its taste, or did it become like sand and rocks? Those are two completely different problems. Ma goes on to say that soon the entire town could only eat the wombat penis, as it lacked flavor to begin with. Even though it has a disgusting texture, and if everything has no taste, they could at least pick something with a decent texture. But I’m trying to make sense of this, and that only leads to heartache.
But that’s not the only problem they have! Even if they eat as much tasteless, sandy, rocky, penis-textured food as they can, they never get full. Yeah, I know how that is. Except for the tasteless, sandy, rocky, penis-textured part. Tidink mentions that he knows of no disease with those particular symptoms. “Ask [Mary Sue]. She doesn’t seem to have much taste in anything. Bonnets included,” Ryudo snarks. I love him for a moment, but then I realize that he gets with her, so he has no taste either. Ass.
Yes I am, and you can help by not saying or doing anything ever.
Ma brings up the possibility of a curse. “I don’t remember anyone doing anything against the will of Lord Granas,” she says, like she’s got a host of video cameras recording the entire town population. Someone could be rubbing a statue of Granas in their buttcrack every night for all she knows. “You must be miserable. I wish there were something I could do…” Mary Sue wanksts, because it’s all about her. Ryudo’s all business, though, because he is cynical and cares nothing about anyone or anything except money. He asks Engineer how they go about catching a ride on the Skygay. Engineer tells him to visit Mr. Gadan in the centrally-located mansion. Coincidentally, that’s what Ryudo was going to do already. But it’s been a few minutes since that particular dialogue took place, so clearly the game designers figured I would have forgotten.
Loading ...Because I hate myself, I continue to talk to this whiny family. Ma says that she and her money-grubbing husband will be fine, but their pooooooooor chyyyyyyyyyyld is so weak and fading fast. It’s called natural selection, lady. She also informs them that it’s not a disease, and her friends who left have all recovered. But if they leave town, Engineer might be out of a job. Even though everyone feels like shit and their kid is dying, Engineer can’t give up the cold, hard cash. So it looks like Engineer is just a greedy dickhole after all. But I could just be reading into things — hopefully the game designers will help me figure out the true motivation behind all the people staying in town. Really, I’m completely stupid and I need it pointed out to me at least fifty times.
For the sake of my sanity and my eyeballs, I will skip over the melodramatic conversation between Mary Sue and the wussy kid. I’ll sum it up in one word: wankst. Like, Tidus levels of wankst. Speaking of which, Engineer whines about how no other town in this entire universe needs the skills of an engineer, so there’s no possible way for him to afford food if he leaves. Buddy, it’s called prostitution — look into it. Ryudo and I are fed up to the gills with this mopey shit, and so Ryudo wants to move on with their mission. Mary Sue is all, “BUT I HAVE TO HEEEEEEEEELP EEEEEEEEVERYOOOOOOOONE.” Ryudo kicks her in the head, then throws Tidink out the window. He forms a new party full of pretty young men who like to make out with each other, and some sarcastic assholes for good measure. Then they all come out of my TV screen Samara-style and serve me chocolate torte and booze. After that, they go around and take away internet access from anyone who equates negative comments against their favorite video games with personal insults against them. Then, Squall and Seifer show up……uh, where was I? Oh yes, stupid video game.
Well, that’s a good place as any to split this recap in half. So why don’t we view this as an exceptionally shitty cliffhanger (just like most other video game cliffhangers) with a nifty game plot idea at the end? I’ll be waiting for you in Part 4.