When Vyse admits that he made it through South Ocean without committing suicide, the young man totally jizzes himself over Vyse’s immense studliness. He also introduces himself as Hans, adding to the masculinity quotient. Then we get his riveting backstory. Apparently he and his companions are Blue Rogues — just like Vyse and Pippi! — and their captain is a man named Centime. Take this moment to be all impressed that the game designers stuck with their currency naming scheme. Then take another moment to realize that this is the most useless crew ever. According to Hans, a “hurricane” caused them to crash land on the island. I’m assuming he means one of those irritating tornadoes. Doesn’t there have to be an ocean or something to produce a hurricane? And not an ocean made of air.
“Centime… He’s the Blue Rogue that takes in orphans and trains them,” Drachma notes. And you know I just interpreted that with the most sinister connotation possible. “I also heard that he’s a brilliant engineer,” Drachma continues. That’s rich. “Yeah, the guy’s a raging pedophile, but he’s sure good at building stuff!” What an endorsement.
Loading ...Unfortunately for the perverted Captain Centime, he’s been kidnapped by the Valuans and his talents are being used for eeeeevil. And I’m talking about his engineering talents, not his molestation ones. Although I can’t say for sure the Valuans aren’t using those. Basically, the Valuans are making him build — most likely phallic — weapons. And without his sugar daddy around, Hans can only mope around and attempt to fix the ship.
“Oh… I hope he returns soon…” Fina dumbasses, like the Valuans are just going to let the guy go. Strangely, Vyse is not all, “As the good guys, we must venture forth to save his ass!” Instead, Pippi takes this opportunity to mooch Moon Stones off of Hans. With the camera still on Pippi, Hans says from offscreen, “Of course. We’ve got plenty to spare… Here, take these.” For some reason — most likely the prepubescent gay recapper with sexual issues thing — I think that he’s going to be holding out his…well, his own personal Moon Stones, if you follow me. But that’s utterly ridiculous, as we all know. I mean, Hans is gay. He’s not going to be presenting his testicles to some girl.
Indeed, he appears to be holding out an actual Moon Stone. When the camera switches to Vyse a moment later, Vyse is now in possession of the Moon Stone. Such a sneaky lack of animation, I probably wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t a recapper. Vyse thanks Hans profusely as everyone else stares hard at Vyse’s Moon Stone like it is a set of testicles. Hans then ends the conversation, insisting that he must get back to work. And in this case, “work” means “standing there doing nothing.” Not that I really want to spend any more time talking to him, but I feel a bit insulted that it was such an obvious brushoff. Jerk.
With stones in hand, Vyse heads back to the Little Jack, miraculously not getting lost on the way. Once back in the air, he heads north just like the elder told him, and miraculously doesn’t not get lost along the way once again. Is someone recording this?
Apparently, “a small hut in the middle of the forest” actually means “a small island with a huge-ass tree floating above the forest.” It’s not all that inconspicuous, really. Which is probably why I was able to find it. Damn it, now I’m not cool and 1337. Anyway, as I was saying, the actual forest is on the rather large island below. This becomes important in a bit.
A short distance away from the king’s island, we cut to the bridge of the Little Jack so that we can watch Pippi and her perky boobs looking out the window for thirty seconds. Finally, she wonders, “What’s that smell?” I would guess it’s the digestive result of the crew stuffing their faces with all those ripe tropical fruits, but that only happened in Pippi’s sad imagination. Fina elaborates for us, “It smells like something is burning.” I’m trying to think back to when we last saw anything flammable, but it’s slipping my mind. Good thing Vyse is there to inform me that it’s “The forest!!!” that’s currently more flaming than the cast of Wind Wanker at a disco.
That’s just the game designers and their ‘herbs.’
The view changes so we can see the vast expanse of lush green forest dotted with evil spots of fire and black smoke. Another view gives us a close-up on a mechanical arm holding a magnum-sized flamethrower. We see it in action, making me realize that I totally need one of those. You may be wondering just what is attached to the other end of the mechanical arm. You’re in luck, because the camera pulls out a moment later to show us, complete with informational text box. See, this may be a bit of a shock to you, but the arm is part of yet another phallic Valuan ship, this one belonging to De Loco. It has the vaguely penisy name of “The Chameleon,” but that has to change. Unfortunately, I don’t know off the top of my head any really creative lizard-related terms for penis, besides just “lizard.” Urbandictionary.com doesn’t help me with this either. In fact, it confuses me further, since according to them, “lizard” is slang both for male and female genitalia. Sure, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I’ll just have to improvise here. But then I consult with John, and he reminds me of something we discovered near my parents’ house: the Red Lizard.
PENIS!!!
You see, there is this house in the area where…okay, I know I’m going to offend someone here, but the truth is, I think the residents of the house would be more at home in, say, a trailer park. In the South. These people have a lot of vehicles, and their parking spots aren’t limited to the driveway — nope, the whole yard is fair game. Not to mention the street. And half the cars are Camaros. In horrible, unspeakable colors. Including rust. And by that, I mean actual rust. Now, they branched out a bit a while back and got themselves a truck. A beat-up, red pickup truck, to be exact. And since these individuals have never been the type to splurge on an impressive custom paint job, they chose instead to write the name of the truck on the bug shield using a paint marker and almost unreadable handwriting. The name of this truck is, of course, the Red Lizard. I realize that De Loco’s ship is not red, but just go with it.
We see several more shots of the Red Lizard causing burning mayhem with its special attachment, just in case the concept of fire + forest = bad was a little too advanced for us to grasp right away. But hey, fire is cool, so I’ll just sit here and enjoy the show. After a while, we cut to the interior of the Red Lizard to see De Loco himself.
Now, we only briefly met this guy before, so I’ll refresh your memory. Pay attention, because this might go over your head: De Loco is fucking crazy. Just in case the name wasn’t enough to clue you in, the game designers thoughtfully gave him a hideous purple bowl cut, red sunglasses, and encased his head in a phallic glass bubble with a God damn smiley face on it. I know, this is some seriously subtle character development. Thankfully, the game designers didn’t stop there — they also made him a total spaz and added in a freakish mad scientist giggle to complement the many layers of his personality.
De Loco sits in his captain’s chair or whatever giggling incessantly and screaming, “Burn! Burn! Buuuuuuuuuurrrrrrnnnnn!!!” He Sekhmets for a while about the fabulousness of his Flame Cannon and how it burns shit. But his Sekhmetting doesn’t stop there. “After I burn down the forest, I will be able to find the Lost City of Rixis, and the Moon Crystal will be mine!!!” Well, that’s nice of him to keep us informed. I guess I know where we’ll eventually be headed.
He’s writing a flame mail to VGR!
De Loco’s very own Vice Captain of Exposition breaks into the announcement of this dubious plan to inform him about the approaching ship. That would be the Little Jack, for those of you unable to follow this complicated plot. “Vyse is here?! He’s the kid that escaped from the Grand Fortress and defeated Belleza!” De Loco duhs, showing us that the Valuan communication system must be fabulous, since Belleza was defeated only half an hour ago and De Loco has been in the Ixa’taka region for at least a few days. This news pleases De Loco, possibly in that way. “Perfect!!! PERFECT!!! He’s just in time to feel the heat from my Flame Cannon!” De Loco screeches. Oh dear.
De Loco follows this with some ca-raaaaaaazy puns involving food and fire, then develops his complex character further by hoping that Vyse dies slowly. Oh, the shades of gray.
We cut back to the Little Jack fighting its way through the smoke and flames. On the bridge, Pippi squeals, “The forest! This is horrible! What kind of twisted psycho would do this?” Vyse is all, “I am strong manly man! I will fix this problem with my cool skills of studliness!” Since a ship battle is now imminent, Drachma must bestow his captainly wisdom upon us with gems such as “Don’t get hit by the flamethrower.” Shit, my plan was to try to get hit with the flamethrower. Thanks, Drachma!
And we end the recap on this exciting cliffhanger! Will De Loco burn the shit out of the Little Jack? Will Vyse end up saving the kind and courteous denizens of Ixa’taka? Is the king hot or not? Find out…now!