After fifteen minutes (which includes two random battles), I make a pit stop at Whorteka to stock up on supplies and check in on Elton’s unfortunate children. The three youngsters outside continue their dangerous bouncing, squeeing all over the place that their daddy is home and Vyse is such a great guy for releasing him. They must have that one syndrome where they actually come to care about their abuser. I don’t really want to pursue this line of thought any further. Elton’s “wife” is a bit more subdued in her thanks. Hans, on the other hand, looks like he wants to give Vyse some “special” type of thank you, although he says, “Mr. Vyse is really great. He barged his way into the Valuan mines and rescued my father” as if he’s talking about Vyse, rather than to him. I’ll just assume that’s a fuck-up on the part of the translators rather than some sort of conversation Hans is having with one of his other personalities. After explaining that his daddy is training him to be a “ship’s engineer,” Hans breathily tells Vyse, “Someday I’d sure like to work on your ship.” For a moment, Vyse is just a wee bit tempted — Hans does look rather like a girl, after all — but no! He’s straight! Leave that homo stuff to the other video game heroes!
Yes, I’m sure the massive purple whale is just hiding behind a tree somewhere.
Taking a huge risk, Vyse enters the cockpit of the crashed ship to speak with Elton. Yes, I know that’s not the correct term — I just wanted to type “cockpit.” Anyway, Vyse naively expects some sort of swank prize for rescuing the guy. Maybe Elton suspects he’s being watched by the authorities, because he gives Vyse a legit gift rather than…well, what he really wants to give him. The gift in question is “1 ‘Twin Propellers'” which may or may not be just one propeller. More importantly, I have no idea what it actually does, but it’s probably a ship part that I’ll totally forget to equip in the two years until my next recap. In fact, as I watch my recorded footage, I see that I unsuccessfully try to locate this new item in my inventory. Ah well, hopefully it’s not important.
Hee…’taking advantage’…’huge’…’hard’…’fruit’…
Vyse gets lost in Whorteka for a while, and when he finally makes it back to the Little Jack, it takes him nine more minutes (including three random battles) to find the Great Bird. Normally, I might entertain you all by making up some sort of soap operatic backstory surrounding the monsters in this area, or maybe I’d re-create the brainstorming session where the game designers discussed their various ideas for fulfilling their personal vendetta against me. You’ll have to forgive my laziness — sometimes I just don’t have the energy to make this shit interesting for you. Anyway, the Not-So-Great Bird is not a statue — which I admit is what I expected — but a design etched into a grassy green area on one of the islands, kind of like a bird-shaped crop circle. Would it have really been that difficult for someone to throw me a bone on the matter? And I don’t mean like that, so you can just forget about sending me the webcam photo of your wiener. I’d probably just get jealous anyway.
It turns out that the Less-Than-Great Bird is a Discovery, another one of those gameplay features that I pretty much forgot about since I last played this game. When I officially “discover” it, I receive a little triumphant musical motif as well as a detailed explanation about the origin of the Not-Even-Mediocre Bird. The only remotely interesting information here is that there were once other animal crop paintings that are now covered in forest. Looking on the bright side, I suppose it’s fortunate for me and my blood pressure that the bird still happens to be visible. More importantly, this piece of info makes me realize that some Ixa’takan prankster probably drew a giant schlong in the grass at some point. I imagine that the horrified elders probably tried to cover it up by calling it the “Majestic Snake” or something.
Vyse and Pippi notice a shiny object in the bird’s eyeball. “Let me go down and see what it is,” Pippi suggests, the black background behind the text sneakily obscuring this particular animation. It only takes Pippi a split second to inform us that she made it all the way to the ground and swiped the gem she found there. And still, with that superhuman speed, the random battles manage to last an eternity. Sigh. “I’m sure they won’t miss a little, itty-bitty gem, would they?” she rationalizes. Because she likes treasure, you see. I’m not even going to argue the ethics here, and not just because I need this gem to continue. See, I’m still bitter at these Ixa’takan asshats for making my life difficult. Getting their valuable ancient treasures stolen is the least of what they deserve. Pippi foreshadows that the bird’s eyeball jewel might even become useful someday. That would be the twist to end all twists!
Vyse spends the next five minutes searching for the Golden Showers Man. After all, since the bird was visible on the landscape, surely something with “golden” in its title should be at least as noticeable, right? Only bad things can happen when I try to think logically. In reality, the fancy gold statue is completely invisible until I press the action button when my compass starts spinning wildly. Then, it pops out of the forest, swelling to its full size, a shiny golden protrusion extending straight forward from what appears to be its midsection. Does this sound like something that you wouldn’t notice right away?
The Informational Text Card describes this impressive landmark as “A golden statue that stands quietly, as if pointing something out.” I think we’re supposed to believe that the pointing is done with a finger — to be fair, the picture makes it clear that the…extended object is not located in the exact center, but off to the side, like a hand would be. Still, even if I try to view this thing from a “normal person and not a 12-year-old gay British homo with sexual issues” standpoint…it still looks like an erect dick. See for yourself.
…
In addition, I find out that “male statues” are usually located inside temples, while “female statues” can be found “near holy lakes and trees.” Except that the statue I’m looking at right now is nestled in the forest, which if I’m not mistaken, is made up of trees. Maybe that penisy-looking object is really a strap-on. Or this is a transgendered statue. I don’t know. I guess I should continue on with the actual plot now instead of blabbing on about penises. You guys need to stop me when I do this, or I’ll end up talking about wangs all day.
Once again, the landmark yields up an eyeball gem, with more of the same theft rationalization from Pippi. I was going to say that personally, I’d steal that giant golden wang, but you guys would probably take that the wrong way. Also, don’t act like you wouldn’t steal it, too. Even though the Informational Text Card gives me a gigantic hint about the “finger” that’s “pointing something out” it’s kind of unnecessary in this situation. After all, I want to see what has that statue so gosh darn excited, so naturally I’m going to fly in that direction. Wow, I just got that “famous last words” feeling even though I know that nothing particularly heinous — such as Shion fellating Tai Ho — awaits me.
Straight ahead of the erect statue is an island full of phallic rock pillars sticking out of the forest. At the base of one of the shafts, Vyse and company spot a gray statue, which the game triumphantly informs me is the “Gates of Rixis!” And I didn’t even run into any random battles on the way or get lost. Is someone recording this? I’m also curious whether this particular landmark existed before I found the other two, since I didn’t see it on my half-hour-plus jaunt around the place.
Even if it had, it wouldn’t matter since the stones that make up the statue “have been fitted so tightly together that not even an insect could crawl between them.” I’m sure there’s an asscheek joke somewhere in there. Vyse lands the Little Jack, and suddenly the statue — which was clearly protruding from the side of the rock column on the world map screen — is now in an alcove cut into the rock column. And the statue itself suddenly has two smaller statue faces located on either side of it. Don’t the world map designers and the dungeon designers ever talk to each other?
Vyse approaches the left face statue (which has one open and one closed eye) and examines it, commenting, “There’s an indentation just big enough to fit a small gem.” This dialogue is totally contrived because we know that Vyse would never be able to put two and two together regarding the gems already in his possession — it would probably be more in character for him to say something like, “There’s an indentation here. DURRRRRR!!!!!! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s go sailing around the world on an adventure and discover new lands!” But whatever — he can be inconsistently intelligent. It gives me a respite from my constant headdesking.
In fact, the game holds my hand here as well, giving me an automatic choice to plunk one of the recently discovered gems into the orifice. Vyse places the “small gem,” which turns out to be a honking orange thing about half his height and twice his width. How — and more importantly, where — was he carrying that thing? I think you know what I’m implying. And then he repeats the process with a monstrous blue gem in the other small statue’s eye. My goodness.
This causes the giant central face statue to spin around, Linda Blair-style, to reveal another face, this one with a giant blowjob mouth that serves as a cave entrance. The cave in question contains a decorative glowing platform with a spinning, pointed base that looks closer to the “futuristic” end of the spectrum. As soon as Vyse steps on it, the platform rises, fading into darkness…
…And fading back in at the stop of the cylindrical stone shaft. By my calculations, Vyse and company are currently inside the giant stone column behind the statue. However, as the group emerges from the smaller shaft into the larger shaft, the surroundings appear somehow lit. I’m not sure if this is the sun — I don’t remember if there was an opening in the top of the phallic stone pillar — but it’s impossible to see the source of the illumination anyway — everything is shrouded in a thick, concealing fog.
I’m sure you won’t even notice the lack of oxygen to your brain.
The game designers try to explain the fog, since — as Pippi comments — there wasn’t any fog at the shaft’s base. “The air is thin… It’s a little hard to breathe. We were going up for a long time. I think these mists are actually clouds,” Vyse says. Which is actually consistent with the outside of the structure — the tip did penetrate a layer of clouds. Take a moment to appreciate the continuity here — it’s not like this is a common occurrence. Now that we’ve established that we’re in the clouds and are not in the foggy depths of Silent Hill with the imminent threat of Pyramid Head rape, Vyse continues to comment on the surroundings. Namely, that the Lost City of Rixis is just a shitty bunch of ruins and not the fabulous golden paradise that the rumors promised.
Before Pippi can throw a giant shriekfest, Fina starts in on the history lesson, reminding us what we already knew about the Lost City of Rixis and its former status as the Green Civilization’s capital. And here I thought we were just doing all this work to find a random Podunk town. It turns out that the ruined stone buildings — which the camera helpfully pans over — didn’t just fall down by themselves. Tragically, the Rains of Destruction are responsible for this mess. And now some massive craters come into view so we can all reflect on the terrible events that occurred in this fictional game and become appropriately saddened.
Or, we could make like Pippi and throw the aforementioned shriekfest — complete with Angry Eyes — over the lack of gold. Should’ve stolen that giant golden wang, Pippi. See what happens when you don’t take my advice? Drachma supposes that the tales of the Lost City became “exaggerated” as time passed, and that’s why everyone seems to think that the whole damn city is shinier than Liberace’s piano. But I wouldn’t call it “exaggerated” so much as “completely fucking wrong.” Poor Pippi. Not only is she faced with the disappointment of a boring ruins dungeon that isn’t made out of anything remotely resembling a precious metal, but she also missed her chance to “slap that dirty old man silly.” Don’t feel too bad, Pippi — he probably would have liked that.
A moment later, Pippi spots something in the distance, on the other side of one of the craters. The camera lingers on it long enough for us to see that it’s a person, just standing there. But Pippi still thinks she’s in Silent Hill, and starts freaking out over this single, stationary individual. When Vyse and the others turn to look, the camera shows us that the figure has disappeared. There are two possible conclusions: Pippi smoked a giant crack rock back at the entrance, or we’re smack dab in the middle of another tired “comedic” cliche. It could really be either. Everyone thinks Pippi’s been diving into the crack stash, but Vyse is polite and calls it her “imagination” instead.