Cut back to Vyse, Pippi, and Drachma. Vyse is flying the ship once again, and Pippi is narrating what she sees; namely, the Blackbeard. Vyse wonders what they should do, and Drachma says, “We’re vastly outnumbered. Don’t let them board us. We’ll fight it out from a distance. Ready the cannons.” And with that, it’s time for our very first ship battle. Hooray!
When I’m fighting in my non-high-tech pirate ship, I often have to input commands on a 3×3 grid.
The tense Don’t Fuck up this Ship Battle or You’ll Have to Play it Over and It’ll Take a Really Long Time music plays as the two ships face off. Drachma starts explaining the battle system, only he’s explaining it to the player, so it makes no sense in the context of the story. I mean, does Vyse really see a 3×3 grid on his screen where he inputs a command for each person? No.
The action mainly consists of the Little Jack evading or attacking the Blackbeard, and the Blackbeard either evading or attacking the Little Jack. Exciting stuff, huh? Well, it’s a lot more exciting to play than to recap. Partway through the battle, Baltor tries to get behind the Little Jack. As Drachma explains, the back of a ship is vulnerable because of the engines. Vyse tries to beat Baltor at his own game by maneuvering behind the Blackbeard. No, the ships don’t end up going in a circle chasing each other as you might expect. In fact, this gives the Little Jack the advantage, and that’s good. After a few cannon blasts from the Little Jack, the Blackbeard flies away, flaming. No, not like Squall — it’s actually on fire. Baltor, who also owns a copy of the “Big Book of Bad Guy Catchphrases”, swears revenge on Vyse. “This I swear on the code of the Black Pirates! You will rue the day you ever crossed paths with me! And somebody put out that fire!!!” He curses himself for throwing that last part in there. The book didn’t tell him to say that! Now he sounds like a big wuss. It just hasn’t been a good day for him.
You know what this victory means — Vyse and Pippi do the Ass Pirate handshake thingamabobber again. Drachma hits Vyse in the back of the head, ruining the whole effect. Vyse whines, and Drachma tells him to keep his hands on the wheel. Duh! “Yeah, you idiot!” Pippi chimes in. “Why don’t you watch what you’re doing? It’s a good thing Cap’n Drachma’s here to keep you in line.” Ah, friendship.
Come and get it, boys!
With that little obstacle out of the way, Vyse and the others escort the Nasr merchant to the edge of the kingdom. As promised, he gives them the Valuan passport. Vyse drools over the passport as Pippi clings to him. Oh, brother. At last, it’s time to go to Valua.
Because Valua is an evil and scary place, the surrounding skies are all dark and stormy, and there are freaky searchlights surveying the area. A ship at the border asks to see their passport and Vyse is all “Yeah, and we’ve got a real passport so look over it as much as you like.” Oh, that’s not suspicious at all, Vyse. After they’re cleared, Vyse and Pippi chat about how easy it was to get into Valua. They’ve conveniently forgotten that it wasn’t super easy to get the passport in the first place, but whatever. At that moment, one of the searchlights shines right into the ship. Pippi shields her eyes and wonders what it is. Well, duh again. Drachma puts on his Exposition Hat and tells them about how Valua is surrounded by mountains and there is only one entrance, a wall that rotates to open. The entrance, as well as the city itself, is really fricking big. The ships look like little specks passing through. Drachma also explains that the door only opens once a day. How lucky that they just happened to get there right as it was opening. What a coincidence. The other side of the door is lined with cannons. That’s bad.
Now that we’ve established that the city is impenetrable and full of scary weapons, we also find out that no one has ever escaped from the fortress. But, as Vyse says, “No one’s ever escaped, because I’ve never tried! I love a challenge!” I love to not put myself in extreme danger, but maybe that’s just me.
Everyone looks serious as the Little Jack dramatically passes through the entrance. Now it’s time to check in on Galcian and Squeifer. In fact, we get to meet all the admirals of the Imperial Armada. And boy, are they a strange bunch. At Galcian’s request, they’ve assembled in the big, evil chamber, and are seated around a long table. Galcian announces that he has captured a member of the Silver Civilization. That would be Fina, in case you haven’t been paying attention.
As each of the admirals speaks, his or her name and rank is displayed on the screen. That makes it easy for me to recap. First we have our old friend Fruity, the 1st Admiral of the Armada, who brags about being the one to find Fina. He tells his evil lie about his Vice Captain betraying him and causing the girl to escape. Oh, Fruity, you little shit. The 2nd Admiral of the Armada is Gregorio, an old guy who nevertheless looks big and imposing. He says the empress must be pleased that the girl has been captured, and perhaps the girl will be able to give them the information they need. Does he mention what that information is? No, he does not. Because that would mean that something might actually be explained in a timely manner.
Vigoro, the 3rd Admiral, is a big musclehead who wears an open shirt that exposes his chest, and has a pointy, sculpted hairdo. “You said the citizen of the Silver Civilization that you found was a woman?! Now THAT’S something worth getting excited over. How old is she? Is she good looking? Does she wear leather? I like my women wild and crazy!” His appearance combined with the fact that he’s trying really hard to prove that he likes women makes it obvious that he is gay. Unlike Fruity, however, he’s in major, major denial.
His obnoxious comments are answered by a woman: Belleza, the 4th Admiral. “You’re out of luck, Vigoro. The girl is the exact opposite. She’s very shy and demure. And she doesn’t have a penis.” She also says that Fina is currently being brought to Empress Teodora. She knows this before the 2nd and 3rd Admirals do because she is the espionage expert. This little tidbit of information is explained to us by De Loco, a very creepy man with purple hair and red sunglasses who lives in a bubble. Yes, you read that right — a freaking bubble. De Loco is the 5th Admiral of the Armada. He looks like a child molester. And while he has his turn wearing the Exposition Hat, he also informs us that he is the head of weapon development.
Now that all the admirals have been introduced, Galcian announces the nefarious plot that we’ve all been waiting for — the gathering of all six Moon Crystals. We don’t know why they want to collect them yet, but we at least know what the rest of the plot will be. Namely, Vyse and his pals trying to gather all the crystals before the bad guys do. But oh no! The bad guys get a hold of all the crystals right at the end and one of the bad guys, who may not have been the main bad guy up to that point, will use the power of the crystals to morph into his final battle form and that will be bad. Sorry for giving it all away like that, but don’t act like you didn’t see that coming.
Galcian thinks that Fina will aid their search, willingly or no. Then he humiliates Fruity in front of all of his colleagues by announcing that Fruity lied in his report and is no longer the Commander of the Mid Ocean Fleet. “And for an indefinite period of time, you shall be confined to Ixa’taka,” Galcian finishes. Oh, no, not Ixa’taka! Anything but that! Yeah, I don’t know what it is either. Fruity tries to play dumb, but Galcian has his number. “Your ship and your crew were released by the [Ass] Pirates and returned recently. They filed a full…and ACCURATE…report.” How nice of those Ass Pirates to let those people go. And how nice of the armada to capture and plan to execute the Ass Pirates as a reward.
The meeting is adjourned, and we rejoin our heroes on the Little Jack. Drachma explains some more stuff about the city. The Yellow Moon causes the thunderstorms that blacken the sky, a fact that I’m sure will be of interest later. Or not. We see the glowing spires of the Imperial Palace, and the lights of the Upper City. Drachma says that everyone in Valua is either very rich or very poor. The rich people (aka the snobby bad people) live in the shiny Upper City, and the poor people (aka the downtrodden good people) live in the non-shiny Lower City. Why the heck are there no middle class people? They need somewhere to live, too, damn it. Drachma tells Vyse to land at a port in the Lower City.
The We’re Really Poor and Our Lives Suck music plays as Vyse, Pippi, and Drachma disembark. We get some more information drilled into our heads about how much Lower City sucks. Not only does Pippi say this out loud, but the camera pans over some nearby buildings. It’s dirty and smelly. We get it. Drachma plans to go get the ship fitted with the Harpoon Cannon, and Vyse and Pippi are going to check out the city. They agree to meet back at the inn later.
The first stop is a save point, which means that this recap is at an end. Just pretend that something really cool happened in it instead of the constant game-prolonging misdirection.