Two seconds ago, you finished Part 9 which involved a lot of irritated, wordy tangents from yours truly, followed by a trip through another boring dungeon. The heroes were just about to grab the Green Moon Crystal, the ultimate goal of this whole unfortunate venture. What will happen next?!?!
“Well, it looks like the Crystal is probably sealed in here,” Vyse says of the altar at the front and center of the ruined chamber. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that he would be able to make a deduction like that. Sure, it may seem obvious to us, but for Vyse to figure something like that out without actually seeing the Moon Crystal and having someone say, “Hey, the Moon Crystal is in that altar!” three or four times…well, we’ve really come a long way.
But before they actually bother with the Crystal — it’s not like they’re in a hurry or anything — Pippi has to examine the decor because she’s a girl and chicks dig that stuff. “Hey everyone… Look over here! The person on this wall looks like Fina!” The camera switches to a view of said wall and if I were Fina, I’d either slit my wrists or turn my shiny Pokemon into a spiked bat and bludgeon Pippi with it. Because while the subject of the hieroglyphic-style painting is wearing a dress similar to Fina’s, it also has gaping, empty eyesockets and a Barbara Streisand nose. I think it’s also supposed to be wearing a circlet around its forehead, but it looks more to me like a safari hat. To add insult to injury, there appear to be two half-naked legless babies, one on either side of “Fina,” floating around in gigantic diapers. How flattering.
Yup, that looks just like her.
“I wonder if this is that ‘Quetya’ the villagers were talking about,” Vyse muses, which once again shocks me to my very core, since this means that he not only acquired a functioning memory but was also able to use his reasoning abilities which until now lay dormant in his tiny brain. In short, because the Whoretekan villagers kept mixing up Fina with Quetya, and now the party is at some ancient sacred shrine painted with a butt-ugly person wearing Fina’s outfit, the figure in the painting must be Quetya. Of course, there’s always a chance that Vyse is wrong, but he’s not. Holy crap, for a single instant Vyse is a god compared to the rest of the mental midgets in this game. It’s safe to assume this won’t last, but there was no way I couldn’t spend a paragraph gawking over it. Which is kind of sad.
Fina reads aloud from the crazy rune symbols on a nearby pillar. It basically says that the Silvites sealed away the Green Gigas after the Rains of Destruction and stored the Green Moon Crystal in this spot. Which we already knew, right? I’m not going to go back and double-check. So assuming that we already knew this information, it would be the equivalent of me reading through a mess of kanji to come up with, “Suikoden is a game about gay guys.” And then my e-penis would shrink and I wouldn’t be able to impress that hot Japanese supermodel that I’m stalking. Anyway, I’m kind of a big liar here because we do learn one piece of new information about the Green Gigas — its name is Grendel.
More important than the fact that I remember something I learned in high school English half my lifetime ago is the very un-pervy nature of the Gigas’s name. Maybe my creativity is just failing, but I don’t see a clever way to make a phallic or otherwise sexual nickname out of “Grendel.” This is truly a dark day in the history of recapping. But never fear! We still have to meet the Gigas (SPOILER!!!) so there’s still a chance that something will spark my sick mind.
Fina surmises that it wasn’t some sad, Silvite-loving fanboy that carved the symbols into the pillar, but the Silvites themselves. Well, that would be the logical conclusion from the statement “We, who have come from the Temple of the Silver Moon.” Since Vyse is all smart now, he should have realized that already, right? Not so fast. “These are the ruins of Ixa’taka, right? Why would Silvites come here?” he durrs. As much as I would not weep if all of Ixa’taka were ruined, these are actually the ruins of Rixis. In addition, I think we already know why the Silvites came to Rixis — to seal away the fucking Gigas. That’s what it said on the God damn pillar! Pay attention!
I don’t know why anyone would want to come to this steaming shit pile of a continent either.
Fina expands on this. “But even after the Rains fell, Grendel still terrorized the lands for many generations to follow. The Silvites came here to contain him.” Well, the writers aren’t going to get away with such a claim without me picking it apart. The Gigas, we have previously learned, are powerful enough to be called “weapons of mass destruction.” Fina freaked like a Gamefaqs fanboy reading a yaoi fanfic the very first time they were mentioned. We are currently traveling all over the damn place collecting the Moon Crystals so that the bad guys can’t get to them first and summon the Gigas, because that would be Really Fucking Bad. Plus, we’ve already fought one of the Gigas, which wasn’t the most impressive thing in the universe — except for its massive quadra-schlong — but still had quite the destructive jizz-beam attack. Despite all this, we’re supposed to believe that this fearsome, terrible Green Gigas terrorized Ixa’taka for generations — as in at least forty years if we’re assuming a bare minimum of two generations– without pulverizing the land and its inhabitants into dust. The worst ruins we’ve seen, the city of Rixis, still has walls standing and magical platforms functioning. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think Grendel quite measures up to what we would normally consider a weapon of mass destruction. I’m not quite ready to write all the Gigas off without further evidence — it might be that Grendel is the crappy, ineffective Gigas that only got into the club because his dad was once the president of the Gigas or something.
Needless to say, I’m not exactly concerned about my chances of survival in the inevitable battle with Grendel.
Even though I just went off on that big rant, Fina isn’t done with her story. She exposits that Grendel destroyed the entire Green Civilization except for “a few primitive tribes of scavengers.” Keep in mind that these scavengers were, at the very least, the grandchildren of the people who were kids when Grendel started its attack. Anyway, Drachma has to contribute to the conversation so we don’t forget he’s there, and he comments that the Ixa’takans considered the Silvites gods because they saved them from the scary, yet sadly incompetent, Grendel. We cover once again that this is why the people of Whorteka thought Fina was “Quetya.” I think we’ve got it now.
But what we don’t have is the very goal of this annoying, battle-ridden, platform-riding trek — the Green Moon Crystal. It’s not in the altar, and it didn’t just get knocked down between the altar and the wall. Although that would be kind of funny. A lot funnier than where it really is. Unbeknownst to our protagonists, the camera zooms out far enough for us to see the lower edge of a robe, worn by some guy hiding around the corner. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out — obviously it’s the guy the group chased up here. Drachma, his senses sharp even in his extreme old age, detects the presence of this stranger. “Don’t let him get away! He might have the Crystal!” Drachma bellows. The robed stranger, all “Oh shit!” starts running down the temple stairs as fast as his long skirt allows.
Now, if this guy — let’s call him Peter, since I’m tired of trying to find ways to refer to him — did steal the crystal before everyone showed up, then he’s an imbecile for sticking around long enough to be discovered, rather than escaping while the others were occupied with fighting the enormous gay bird. Not that “imbecile” really has much meaning in this game anymore. As it turns out, Peter doesn’t have the crystal hidden on his person, which causes me a great deal of relief since there’s really only one place he could hide it. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
So back to the heart-pounding “chase” scene! Drachma ejects his mechanical arm toward Peter, but misses spectacularly. Vyse to the rescue! You guys should know by now that no matter how much stupidity we’ve seen, there’s always something that further transcends the very limits of stupid. This next sequence is a perfect example of this concept. The temple staircase has flat, slanted sides, which Vyse freaking surfs down, quickly catching up to the fleeing Peter. This type of physics-raping sequence is always retarded, no matter whether it’s Vyse, the FFX cast, or Legolas as the perpetrator. I suppose to make myself feel better, I could fanwank that Vyse rigged his boots with some sort of magical pirate skis the same way he rigged his telescope eye patch, but I am just not that good at fooling myself. At last, Vyse launches himself off the railing, knocking Peter to the ground and straddling his ass. At least buy him a drink or something.
Jesus H.
When we return from the Black Screen of the Rest of the Party Walking Down the Stairs, the entire party is standing around, staring at Peter. Peter has not recovered from Vyse’s sexual assault, and remains on all fours, hanging his head in shame. The March of Ominous Plot Information accompanies a verbal reaming of Peter by Pippi. Jesus, this guy is going to need tons of therapy. Pippi realizes just now that Peter is not actually a ghost, but I guess I should give her credit for figuring something out without one of the male characters specifically telling her “This guy is not a ghost.”
When Drachma inquires about Peter’s true identity and goal, Peter collapses on the ground, begging Drachma not to kill him. It’s not like Drachma is exactly the soft cuddly puppy type, but Peter’s response is just a wee bit over-the-top. If I were Drachma, the whining and groveling would incite more of a murderous rage than the constant running away. Turns out that Peter’s actually an Ixa’takan high priest whose job is guarding the ruins — and according to him, he’s been in the ruins for quite a while. “If anyone tries to loot what’s in these ruins, or steal the Sacred Green Stone, I contact King Ixa’taka.”
That dirty little pigfucker!
We never find out exactly how Peter is supposed to contact King Ixa’taka — I’m thinking cell phones — but that’s not the important thing here. Once again, Pippi manages to put two and two together which just might be a record for her: “Wait a minute… you mean to tell me that the king knew where the Lost City was all this time?” Yes. Yes he did indeed. Peter makes it sound like they only discovered it relatively recently, even though they’ve known about the riddle for generations. So it’s not like this isn’t still stupid. “And here, we found the Sacred Green Stone. The king and Isapa were very happy because we could use the Stone to stop the Valuans.”
That’s right. This time it won’t be the Valuans responsible for unleashing the Gigas, but the fucking douchenozzle king and his cohorts. Now I’m just pissed off. There is a spectacular, record-breaking amount of retardation at play here, and every bit of it has involved — and will continue to involve — more work for me. If King Dickcheese had told Vyse upon their first meeting, “Yeah, sorry, but no one in the world knows about this Rixis place” then…well, okay, there wouldn’t be much of a game plot there, but it would have made some sense in terms of his objective. But no — he had to be all, “Uh, go save Isapa and he’ll give you the directions…yeah,” just so I was forced to endure that stupid mine cart dungeon and its fifty asszillion random battles. At that point, Isapa could have just made up some false riddle to throw Vyse and the others off the scent. Which, again, wouldn’t have forwarded the plot any, but would have kept King Dickcheese’s plan a secret. But the Ixa’takans, after discovering Rixis, left Peter there among the monsters and Zivilyn Bane and placed the jewels back into the Big Assfucking Bird and the Douchebaggy Golden Guy, just so that I could go on that little scavenger hunt and retrieve them. This was followed by that awesomely fun trek through the ruins, only to find the conspicuous Peter the Priest and not the Moon Crystal. To summarize — pretty much everything I’ve done in Ixa’taka: a) proves that the king and probably all Ixa’takans are among the dumbest idiots we’ve encountered in the game, and b) was completely pointless, on top of being irritating.
I knew it! I should have let De Loco burn the entire fucking place to the ground!
After Vyse gasps in shock at this piece of news, the action cuts to King Dickcheese and his loyal fucking assfuckers standing in front of a stone pedestal in the deep jungle somewhere. “Isapa, now that you are free, and the Valuans are busy looking for Vyse and his friends, we can summon the mighty Giant,” KD exposits, holding aloft the shining green stone. I like how the game designers are trying to make it seem like the last several hours of the game weren’t totally pointless, but were part of a calculating plot to get Vyse out of the way. Whatever. Like anyone buys that.
And you’d want to do that why?
We are treated to a close-up of KD as he lowers the crystal into the pedestal, commanding Grendel to rise up and smite the Valuans. Seeing him and his stupid outfit again just makes me want to stab him to death with his ugly hat horns. Fucker. Don’t mind me. Anyway, the earth starts to rumble and some birds fly off in panic. “Vyse… Please forgive us… There is no other way for us to save the forests and people of Ixa’taka,” Isapa monologues from the background as the camera continues to focus on King Dickcheese and his vapid ass-face. Because the last time Grendel got loose, it was such a good thing for the people and forests of Ixa’taka. If it were up to me, Vyse would never forgive these inexcusably idiotic assholes. I hate Ixa’taka.
The scene fades out on a massive green jizz-beam fountaining up from the pedestal, and back in on our gathering of heroes, still surrounding Peter at the base of the temple. The ground is shaking here, too — I thought they were on a floating island above the main island. I may be wrong (possible) or the game designers just wanted to inject some drama at the expense of believability (just as possible). “What’s that rumbling sound?” Vyse wonders. You can’t blame him — it’s been a whole 45 seconds since he found out about the king’s plan and his memory doesn’t last that long. But he’s quickly reminded of the dire situation when a light shaft bursts out of the clouds several miles away and a deafening roar resounds through the sky. Well, the roar is a bit girly, so it’s not all that frightening — I’m just trying to add to the atmosphere. “Someone is summoning Grendel!” Fina shrieks. Oh, so that’s what’s happening!