As it turns out, no she wasn’t. “I told you the truth. I never said my father was from Nasr. He was a Valuan soldier and he did die in battle,” she explains. Ooh, tricky! Belleza is determined to prevent any more wars because she doesn’t want anyone else’s life to suck as much ass as hers did. “Countries go to war arguing over borders and resources. If the world was united under one rule, there would be no more war,” Belleza says. Shhhh…don’t let Bush hear you say that! So this is the Shades of Gray motivation of this particular non-main villain. And I’m sure that once Empress Saddam takes over the world, no one will get hurt at all.
Belleza holding up the moonstone and making this declaration triggers an all caps scream from Fina. We see a close-up of a platform with a tetrahedron-shaped depression in the center. Now what could fit in…oh. Belleza sticks the Moon Crystal in reeeeeeal nice. Now might be a good time to explain what happens when a Moon Crystal loves a stone platform and they want to make little Moon Crystals and stone platforms. What actually takes place is, of course, the activation of the Red Gigas. Apparently Empress Saddam gave orders to the officers of the Armada that stated, “Just activate these powerful killing machines for any old reason, even if it’s just to kill a few kids. Don’t worry your silly little heads about possibly destroying parts of the world we want to rule.” And the Gigas also speaks English, apparently. Belleza orders it to awaken and listen to her commands like she’s talking to her house servant. “Umm… Fina? What did she do? This is bad, right?” Vyse wonders stupidly, as if Belleza didn’t just blatantly say that she was activating the Gigas. Note: that’s not a sexual euphemism. It’s probably just me, but whenever Vyse says something that blatantly moronic, I kind of picture him speaking in a stereotypical retarded voice. Like this.
Anyway, the Gigas’s name is Recumen. Because a bunch of anti-VGR fanboys out there already think I’m a preadolescent horny gay boy who can’t get any, I may as well live down to their expectations and call it Recummin. This is also foreshadowing. Despite her little speech about not wanting people to suffer, Belleza orders Recummin to “engulf these three in [its] flames.” Bitch. As a large white pillar of light shoots up out of the pedestal, Belleza and the soldiers run away like Seymour upon discovering his blind date has finished puberty. The pedestal, incidentally, is smack dab in the center of the large, squat penises — this becomes important in a moment.
Fina tells the immobile Ass Pirates that they need to make like trees and get the fuck out of there. “Fina! What’s going on?” Vyse wonders, standing in place. “You fucking dumbass. She just summoned the Gigas which she explicitly mentioned twice within the last thirty seconds,” Fina says. “… She what!?” Vyse screeches, determining that they need to run. Good thing for these Mensa members that the Gigas takes an eternity to awaken.
The camera pulls out to give us a full shot of the area around the pedestal, as the Moon Crystal continues to give off its orgasmic shaft of light. Unsurprisingly, no one thinks to, I don’t know, grab the Crystal out of the platform. Instead, they leave it there, just as Belleza did for some reason. When the light beam stops, the ground shakes, causing the smaller pillars around the pedestal to topple over. The penis statues — which we now see have simple facial features — start to turn and shed their stone covering. Uh-oh, schlongettios.
The next scene features Vyse, Pippi, and Fina running as fast as their little legs can carry them across the desert. It’s apparently better to die a horrible, slow death from dehydration than it is to be killed instantly by a giant monster. Speaking of the giant monster, the trio stops and turns around to watch it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. We are treated to our very first view of the fabulous Recummin. Incidentally, the pedestal area is completely gone. Where the Moon Crystal went…well, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. The game designers certainly don’t fucking know. Why make sense when you can just design another giant phallus monster? Because that’s what Recummin is. The shock hurts, I know.
The four penis statues turn out to be the four heads of four long dongs. The quartet of red wangs rises up out of the ground, headlight eyes blasting…light in all directions. I hope that white stuff is light. The camera zooms back out to show the Ass Pirates and Fina gaping at the four writhing wieners. I guess it is pretty impressive. “Yes, that is the Red Gigas, [Recummin],” Fina confirms, like it’s possible for some other giant penis monster to awaken via the Red Moon Crystal. Well, this is Skies of Arcadia, so who knows? Pippi contributes, “So those weren’t statues in front of the Temple, they were its heads!” You bet they are.
Close-up on one of the heads searching from left to right. When it faces directly toward the camera (which is totally creepy, by the way), we cut back to Vyse who orders them to run. I think this at least merits a minor “DURRRRRR!!!!!!!!!” How did these people manage to not die out from natural selection? So they run like all fuck while a big ball of light forms in the mouth of the head that faces them. And of course we couldn’t have a tense running sequence if the helpless Mary Sue didn’t fall the fuck down. Good God. I’ve had to sit through several nonsensical sequences, retardation to rival that of King Wanker, a huge monster with four times the penis content as usual, and now a cliché Mary Sue moment? Are you guys trying to kill me here?
Fina’s all, “Just leave me! Save yourselves!” And I kind of wish they would, just for a change of pace. But no, Vyse has to be the big protective man, throwing himself over the two women (and likely copping a feel or two in the process), never mind that the Penis Ray of Doom could cut through that meat shield in no time. Speaking of said Penis Ray, it shoots out of one of the heads from left to right, throwing up sand and fire everywhere. Now that’s a money shot. The trio braces themselves against the sandstorm, receiving a nice blast of grit right in their open mouths.
Vyse wonders how they managed to miss the main bukkake blast. “…something hit it in the head!!!” he realizes. That’s our cue to wrap up the random Drachma plotline from the end of the last recap. For surprise of surprises, the Little Jack has shown up to fight penis with penis. “I can’t leave you three alone, can I?” Drachma bitches. He orders them to hop on. The ship. I realize this is rather difficult, what with the ship all the way up there, but that’s no excuse to stand there grinning like idiots and making small talk. “Hurry, maybe we can take that thing out in the Little Jack,” Vyse suggests. Yes, because what the people of the Old World couldn’t accomplish with their advanced technology, a crappy old ship with a phallic cannon can. Although impressive, the Little Jack’s Harpoon Cannon is Galcian to Recummin’s Peter North.
Cut to Belleza so the game designers don’t have to show the trio actually boarding the ship. She’s standing somewhere in the desert, accompanied by a rather penis-colored soldier with a more penisy helmet than the usual zippo soldiers. Soldier Schlong informs Belleza that Vyse and the others have been rescued by the Little Jack. “Ready the Lynx. I want to make sure they don’t escape,” Belleza orders. For a moment, I think that Belleza is going to unleash a psycho furry on them, but she’s just talking about her ship. She’s also a tad excited at the prospect of seeing Vyse in action. Obviously she wants him, as he is the main character, and if any game is going to break out of that mold, it sure as hell isn’t going to be this one. Plus, she’s used to dealing with various combinations of small penises and homosexuals, so Vyse has to be an improvement, intelligence issues aside.
Back to the bridge of the Little Jack. Pippi is super thrilled that Drachma came back to save their sorry asses. He tries to play it cool, like his whale search just happened to bring him to the desert when he left there not too long ago. “And I wasn’t about to watch the three of you get roasted by that… penis schlong cock wiener that thing…” Drachma tries. Pippi doesn’t buy it and gives Drachma shit, while Fina giggles and tells her to play nice. It’s so cute and humorous, you’d think that they weren’t about to get fried by Captain Dong out there.
But Vyse can’t keep his mind off that QuadraWang. He wants to know what they should do. Drachma doesn’t suggest inviting a bunch of his Ass Pirate buddies over for a little oversized sex toy action. Instead, he decides, “…let’s treat it like a practice run for when I finally do fight Rhaknam.” Surely there is nothing comparable between a giant destructive weapon and a flying whale. That would be an ironic plot twist that would shock and awe us. He suggests that Vyse try to avoid a direct hit from the Penis Ray. Shit, and here I thought it would be a good idea to get hit as much as possible. Since Vyse has the intelligence of a retarded amoeba, I can’t really blame Drachma for stating the obvious.
Speaking of the obvious, the random text informs me that Drachma has joined my party again. That’s really a great segue from the Exciting Pre-Battle Talk to the Exciting Ship Battle. As the “Let’s Shoot Phallic Things Into Phallic Things!” music starts up, the camera pans up the entire, um, length of Recummin, including its four phallic legs. I’m not sure if legs can count as phallic, but I guess they don’t refer to the penis as the “third leg” for nothing.
‘Maybe we should call Lorena Bobbitt.’
As the dinky Little Jack hovers before this massive specimen of manhood, Vyse asks Drachma how they should proceed. Drachma’s all, “I don’t have a fucking clue. Let’s just hang around and see if it fucks us up.” So I do. I’m not exactly sure if there is a good battle strategy for this portion, so I fly around building up spirit points for the Harpoon Cannon, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the Penis Ray of Doom, and healing like crazy. Meanwhile, Recummin slowly ambles across the sand, without a penisy care in the world.
The first time the Penis Ray hits the Little Jack, Drachma and Pippi freak at its awesome power. Drachma has never seen anything as phallic destructive. Shit, these things destroyed the world. Was that not enough of a hint? Of course, it’s not like the Gigas is leveling mountains and blasting huge holes in the earth, which is what I would expect from the stories.
After a few rounds of this lame stuff, the group decides they need a different plan. “If you remember when I saved… I mean, when I picked you kids up, I attacked it with my cannons and it threw it off balance,” Drachma reminds them. His idea is that if they shoot it in the head right before it attacks, they can avoid the damage. Since this requires the Harpoon Cannon and the little Harpoon Cannon icon hasn’t showed up so far, I can only assume that these people, and not me, are the dumbasses. That’s kind of a relief.
The Little Jack, living up to the first part of its name, shoots off its relatively unimpressive Harpoon Cannon, hitting the Gigas square in one of its heads. More humiliated and surprised than hurt in any way, Recummin shoots its Penis Ray way off target. Now that’s embarrassing.
Although Vyse is thrilled beyond belief that they caused the penis to shoot its load somewhere else, he realizes that they don’t have much of a chance of defeating this juggernaut. They need a new strategy! And that new and improved strategy is…..shooting it in the head with the Harpoon Cannon. To be fair, I had a choice between attacking the penisy head and the penisy feet, but I’m pretty sure attacking the feet does nothing. So heads it is.
Penis vs. Penis
Ten years later, after causing the same misdirected money shot, some more dialogue takes place. Once again, they determine that their Harpoon Penis is no match for the Lord of the Wangs. I know! Let’s try to hit it in the head with the cannon! I’m just kidding. You may come down from the ledge now. I have a choice between “End this obnoxiously long and fruitless battle” and “Hey, I have nothing better to do and I’m a moron. Penis Cannon, fire!” I won’t insult your intelligence by pointing out my choice.