The first random battle Vyse runs into on the way down the next ramp is against a trio of Dung Flies. Complete with dung. That’s right, the little flies are practically unnoticeable beneath their gigantic pieces of spherical shit. The pieces of shit in question have what looks like white designs painted on them. I think random monsters have reached a new low. With the Dung Flies defeated and swords, boomerang, and Timmy full of poop, Vyse and the others continue on. And I don’t even want to know what shit has to do with fire.
Loading ...Eventually, the stone pathway turns into a catwalk high above a watery floor. Wait — water? In a fire temple? Look out — the dungeon streams are crossing. Vyse descends a rather cool stone ladder to the next catwalk. Lather, rinse, repeat. Next, he has to play Indiana Jones as large spherical boulders (God, I hope those are boulders) chase him down the next ramp. A puzzle room greets him at the bottom. As I noted before, the puzzles in this dungeon all involve the keg stones. In this case, Vyse must push them into a series of three holes in the right combination. Is it just me, or do a lot of puzzles in RPGs involve sticking something into something else? Game designers must go through, like, twelve RealDolls in a year, the horny motherfuckers.
More descending into the earth. Someone needs to install some damn escalators in this place — this is getting fucking ridiculous. Vyse reaches a series of rooms with coffin-like stone boxes full of treasure. Unfortunately he has to fight monsters that pop out of every single one. The monsters in question are called Magma Tikis, and, as you would expect, they kind of resemble very primitive stone dolls. With bobbleheads. That shoot fire. You know, the usual. I think this might actually mark the first time I’ve had to fight fire monsters in the fire dungeon, which must be some sort of record. The game designers need to be careful, or we might start thinking this is the water or lightning dungeon. Since we’re morons and all.
After Vyse solves another puzzle that involves red and blue stone kegs, the entire floor moves down a level. This still doesn’t make up for all the walking I had to do, but nice try, ancient civilization. On cue, another boulder hallway leads down. Good God, Vyse is going to emerge in China. He takes a quick sidestep to retrieve a stupid cham for Timmy only to get royally rammed with a shit boulder. No biggie — that should only take off a few HP, right? Not so fast. The next battle finds Vyse and company with only a fraction of their HP, but that’s not cheap at all. Fucking son of a bitch boulder.
I’ve seen this movie, too.
The next room has more catwalks and more stairs leading down amidst a gigantic freaking magma waterfall. Er, magmafall. Whew, just in time to remind me what dungeon this is. And I’m assuming that this magma signals my arrival at the earth’s core. Down, down, down some more to a lake of lava. On the very lowest walkway, a series of fiery spheres fly out of the lava to land on the other side. Again, I’m very leery of spheres in this dungeon. Just…no.
Another God damn ramp leads down to a pedestal in the next chamber. A switch on the pedestal releases water from some ducts overhead. Ah, so I’m thinking again that this is the water dungeon, right? The poor game designers — when they play the Shove the Dungeon Theme Up the Ass game, I give them shit, and when they add some variety, I also give them shit. They just can’t win, those poor sex-deprived bastards. Of course, they deserve it for the various horrors (and whores) they’ve inflicted upon us over the years.
Anyway, the water here is about as useful as a woman in Penis Castle at this point. So Vyse treks up and around the room to reach the third and final puzzle. This one, again involving red and blue stone kegs, releases lava into the depression between the entrance and the exit. Using the same problem-solving skills as Twink in the Dragon Phallus Shrine, Vyse again releases the torrent of water to turn the lava to stone. It’s a good thing those ancient people stored that copious amount of water in the desert all these years, because it would sure suck to come this far and run out of water. It kind of makes you wonder why these ancient puzzles always work so damn well.
The hardened (hee…”hard”) magma serves as a bridge to the other platform where a save point glows innocently. The group heals up for no reason whatsoever, and heads into the next room where surely nothing will happen. But uh-oh! A truly awe-inspiring penis bursts out of the magma whirlpool in the center of the chamber, roaring its anger at the world. Boss battle time! The Flame Penis, as you might expect, attacks with fire. Take a moment to compose yourself. One particular attack makes Vyse hard as a rock. He gets petrified, you sick bastards. Only the attentions of one of the girls can make him soft again. Meanwhile, Fina cannot handle the pounding from such a giant and violent schlong, so she ends up expiring near the end of the battle. And thanks to my skillful planning, the party has no revival items. So….shit.
PENIS!
Finally, with a giant roar and explosion, the Flame Penis goes limp as its soul ascends to Penis Heaven where its shaft shall be adorned with little angel wings. Fly, penis, fly! It is useful, even in death, however. And not just as a giant dong for the ladies. Its flaccid body acts as a bridge to the far side of the room. There, a door leads to another chamber. Would it be insulting your intelligence too much to say that the Red Moon Crystal is there? Because it is. And it has been thoughtfully placed in a fancy little holder to add to the lovely décor of this otherwise-empty room. The Crystal itself is an upside-down tetrahedron. That’s right, it’s a 3D version of the gay pride triangle. Except it’s red instead of pink.
“Wow… So this is a Moon Crystal,” Vyse duhs. It would be so awesome if Fina was all, “No, this is the key that leads next door to the real Crystal,” but no. Pippi practically creams over it, because it’s such a beautiful treasure. Then we get more history lessons from Fina. She explains how the Moon Crystal was created from distilling a Moon Stone. Does that mean they made beer out of it? Because that would also be cool. The Moon Crystal, in addition to being the key to activating the Gigas and, like, the most rarest thing ever, is also “the most concentrated source of energy that you will ever see.” Christ, the thing is like an inanimate Mary Sue.
Vyse wonders, “So this Crystal is powerful enough to control one of the Gigas?” “Nah, we were all just making that shit up to mess with you,” Fina doesn’t say. She reaches forward and grabs this most concentrated form of energy, which conveniently is not concentrated enough to melt the flesh off her hands. It also gives her the amazing power of blabbing on and on about how cool this shit is. It’s bright and shiny and powerful. We get it. “Between the power of these Crystals, and the destructive forces of the Gigas, it’s easy to see how so much of the world was destroyed,” Fina duhs in what might be the most obvious statement ever. It’s like saying, “Gee, since guns are so lethal, I can see why they kill people.” Yes, yes, I know that people kill people, but you catch my drift.
She anvils some more about how the Old World people used their power for evil instead of for good, blah blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. “There’s no way we can let Valua get their hands on one of these!” Pippi contributes to this intellectual discussion. Vyse grins smugly and points his thumb at his chest. “Fina, leave it up to us. We’ll keep it safe. The Valuans are going to have to take it off of my dead body before I hand it over to them. Seriously, no one could possibly trick me into handing it over without a second thought because that would be totally ironic that I’m making such a big deal about keeping it safe and then I go and do something dumbassed like that. Hey, let’s go find Bellena!” Vyse sort of says.
Then we find out his real reason for wanting to keep the world safe from Valua and the Gigas. This comes way out of left field, and in fact, I think the game designers may have made an error in characterization here, as we have never heard anything like this from Vyse anywhere in the first several hours of the game. “There’s so much of the world that I still have to see… I’m not going to let them wake some ancient guardian to destroy half of it now…” Vyse reveals. Who would have thought that he wanted to see the world? Man, these plot twists.
Fina thanks Vyse for the offer, absolutely sure that no turn of events will prove him unable to keep his word. The screen fades out, as the random Captain Obvious text informs the slower people in the audience that the Red Moon Crystal is now in our possession. A door at the side of the chamber opens, allowing the group to exit. “But wait!” you say. “They’ve been descending quite sharply throughout this entire dungeon. In fact, there was not a single uphill slope between the entrance and this exit. Holy shit, they’re going to step right into a batch of magma!” Not so fast. The door from the Crystal chamber leads them directly outside, and they emerge right behind one of the smaller penis statues next to the entrance. Unless M.C. Escher designed this dungeon, that is simply not possible. The game designers are trying to lure me into accepting this dumbassery by holding the sweet, sweet fruit of not having to backtrack in front of my face, but it’s not going to work this time. For shame, guys.
Vyse avails himself of the save point for no reason at all, then heads down to talk to the completely innocent Bellena. There’s some “Cool! You’re not dead!” and “I’m so fucking awesome because I defeated a penis monster and got a shiny gay stone!” type of banter. “Um, would it be alright if I took a look at it?” Bellena wonders, referring, of course, to the Moon Crystal. “Sure, you can take a look, but I hope you won’t take offense if I don’t hand it over. You see, this is a very powerful artifact, and the destruction it could rain upon the world if it were to fall into the wrong hands is beyond measure. Since we just met, it would be silly for me, the person entrusted with this artifact, to just hand it over like it was a God damn stick of gum. Sorry,” Vyse would say if he wasn’t a complete fucking idiot. Yup, he does hand it over. Bellena’s boobs must be using Jedi mind tricks on him.
After gushing over its shiny shininess, Bellena breaks out with the, “I’m sure that Lord Galcian will be very pleased.” Because he and Squeifer can use it on their Gay Pride Parade float. Vyse uses a flurry of exclamation points and question marks — along with a pronounced blow job face — to convey his shock and surprise. Bellena, in Evil!Laughter mode, calls out some guards, who have been hiding behind some pillars. I bet that got boring: “Are they back yet?” “Nah. You want to play cards?” Vyse wonders who Bellena really is. For all he knows, she really is Bellena, the ho-slut dancer who is working for Galcian the Hobbit-Dicked. But of course she’s someone else.
You’ve shown us quite enough already.
The ending of my last recap aside, let’s think back to any other redheaded female characters working for Valua, who may be in the business of espionage, and who also, just for kicks, might have a really similar name to Bellena. While you’re thinking really hard, I will describe the big reveal. “Bellena” throws a diaphanous arm cloth up in front of her scantily-clad form, the screen goes black for a split second, then “Bellena” stands there, fully clad in her armada uniform. I realize that it would have been anti-climactic to have her stand there and pull on the uniform piece by piece, but still. How the fuck does that quick-change make sense?
Loading ...The camera makes sure to pan up the form of this completely surprise individual. “Let me reintroduce myself. I am Belleza. The Fourth Admiral of the Imperial Armada!” Cue surprised gasp from everyone who has no deductive reasoning skills. Vyse is mad at her for tricking them, but not at himself for being a dipshit. And now that the Moon Crystal is in the hands of the Valuans, and the world is in danger of annihilation via Gigas, Fina can only wonder if Belleza was lying to them about her tragic childhood. Because that’s what’s really fucking important at this point.