In our last installment of “Square and Disney Smoked Crack and Made a Game,” Junior was planted on his ass in the middle of Traverse Town. There he met Leon/Squally/Angel and his pair of platonic bitches, Yuffie and Aeris. With their help, he then met up with his own set of sidekicks, the heart attack poster child, @%$#!!!, and the original kind-hearted dumbass, Goofy. The three defeated the Purple-Helmeted Warrior and Junior decided he would rather go on a road trip with the Odd Couple than actively search for his friends. This is the first of many, many indicators we’ll receive that Junior has the attention span and focus of Selphie when a train’s going by.

After the mindlessly happy “All for one, one for all” bit at the end of part 2, a new scene opens up in a dark place not unlike the inside of Junior’s feeble brain. A group of sinister villains is standing in a circle, scoping a holographic projection (I guess) of Junior, @%$#!!!, and Goofy. Despite the fact that they’re all shadowed, I’m supposed to recognize each one of them, and I do. Good thing I did nothing but watch Disney films as a kid, instead of other, less wholesome activities like going outside and making friends. Thanks, Mom. James Woods’s voice comes first, letting us know it’s Hades speaking, and he’s incredulous that our spiky-haired Square prototype could possibly defeat a Heartless. So am I, my good man, so am I. A dude with a vague Arabian accent, Jafar, tells him it’s the Keyblade that makes Junior powerful, because without it Junior would be a helpless prat. So far this is the most intelligent group of villains ever to grace an RPG. Unfortunately, the next villain with the stereotypical fat bitch voice brings the entire group down. This is Ursula, and she wants to turn Junior into a Heartless. Lady, have you ever seen a Square plot before? You should know that isn’t ever going to work. Ever. Jeebus. The camera next pans to a guy with an extraordinarily gay voice. It took me a second to recognize him the first time I played this game, since I didn’t remember Captain Hook sounding so completely fruity. Add to this that it’s nearly Super Bowl Sunday, and so I was reminded that the Cap’n looks quite a bit like the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo featuring the really gay pirate (see below). Captain “Hook” (something tells me the name isn’t all about his missing hand) says, and I quote, “Swoggle me eyes, they’re all bilge rats by the look of them.” When he says “by the look of them,” his voice takes on a whole new level of wrong. Seymour wrong. I don’t even want to know what he would like to do to said “bilge rats.” A Cajun voice speaks up next to tell Captain Gay Pedophile that he’s significantly less than all that himself, and I have to agree with him. This villain is Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas. He sticks out like a sore thumb among all these real Disney villains. Oogie does the fat-man chuckle as he ponders the general evilness of their scheme, which is still a mystery to the rest of us. The final villain of the group, the super-evil Maleficent, tells them all to can it. She engages in the dramatic, lacking-in-sense exposition monologue that Square villains are so fond of–the general gist of it is whether Junior will go with the light metaphor or the darkness metaphor. Hmm. It would be awesome if the game’s hero actually became dark and sinister, which means it won’t happen. Light it is. There’s your game ending in a nutshell. You can all stop reading now.

Separated at birth?

Hey, I was being sarcastic! Get back here!

And now we’re back in Traverse Town. Squally, Yuffie, and Aeris are giving our non-hero a few pointers on surviving in the worlds he’s going to visit. Aeris tells Junior, “This is from all of us,” and hands him 100 munny. Not to be ungrateful, but that’s it? I made more munny than that fighting monsters for two minutes and that’s all the three of them could scrape up? Squally must have spent the rest of their savings on eye makeup and roses for Seifer. From Squally and Squally alone, Junior receives an Elixir. God only knows why our favorite brunette bishounen is handing out special gifts to little boys, but I like Squally and I’d rather not approach that subject. Moving on. After some final words of encouragement from the Final Fantasy Throwback Twentysomethings, Junior turns his attention to @%$#!!! and Goofy. Even more gifts come the wanker’s way when the they give him Fire magic and the ability Dodge Roll, which allows me to press square and make Junior roll out of harm’s way, even though simply jumping out of the way is just as effective and requires no ability points. Thanks, game designers.

Before departing to the gummi ship, Beelzebub unfortunately reminds me that he’s in this game by exclaiming, “Well, I see big adventures coming their way!” What an utterly pointless thing to say. This segues into Beelzebub’s actual function in the game, which is a journal accessible from the menu. Basically, he has profiles on all the characters and short summaries of the story events. I get the feeling the purpose of this is to get the little children playing the game to practice reading, so their parents can see Kingdom Hearts as a valuable educational tool, and not just a lesson on why smoking crack is a bad idea.

Hey, jerk, leave the recapping to us!

I have Junior and his new buddies do some shopping and item collecting throughout the town, making sure to stop at Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s item shop. Sure enough, they do recognize their “Unca [@%$#!!!].” Let me get this straight. They’re from Traverse Town. @%$#!!! is from Disney Castle. No one is supposed to know about the different worlds, but @%$#!!! is still their “Unca” in this game and they know him. What the hell did they do, hijack a gummi ship so they could go to the creepy porno-music town and open an item shop? Or do they just recognize him as their “Unca” even though they’re ostensibly from different worlds and have never met? Did the game designers have any inkling of continuity in mind when they made this? I’m getting a headache.

Whatever the deal is with that, it’s time for me to stop worrying about it and get the hell out of Dodge. Junior uses the save point in Cid’s shop to board the gummi ship. There, the gang meets up with the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, who explain to Junior (and me, except I don’t care) the operation and customization of gummi ships. It’s probably really simple to those who care about it, but since I let it go in one ear and out the other, I never really get to understand how the customization stuff works. Not that it matters, because you can get through the entire game using the same, unaltered, crappy ship. Again, big kudos to the game designers for not having their heads up their asses in the mini-game department. Sigh.

…Whatever.

The amount of Heartless in each world is represented by a number of stars by the name, and I choose to send the threesome (ew) to the one-star world. Traveling by gummi ship is as pointless as betting on pro wrestling, and it’s obvious from the start that the game designers who designed this mini-game were stoned, had lazy eyes, or both. The crosshairs don’t line up with the targets correctly, meaning that I can shoot directly at a target right in front of the ship and it won’t have a scratch (and therefore the ship runs into it and I feel like a dumbass) but a shot two inches onscreen to the left of a target will hit it, no sweat. God, I hate gummi ships.