The clone expresses disbelief, more over the “son” part than the “Lepant’s my dad” part. But PUGGY!!!’s heard enough — he has no time for the courting rituals of two women. Though he at least thinks that Lepant should know what his daughter is up to, in order to rub his face in what a bad parent he is. So it’s back to Penis Castle — again — to change party members.
You tell me — who is item may I detach?
Penis Castle has grown larger since PUGGY!!!’s last visit. The bad news is that certain people have relocated within the castle and PUGGY!!! has to hunt a bit to find them. Unfortunately, Lepant is still perched up in his tower, laughing at PUGGY!!! being stuck in the main shaft with all the other lamewads. For revenge, PUGGY!!! finds Mathiu and forces Lepant to join his party. Let’s see him be all smug when he’s out fighting caped squirrels and bunny rabbits. PUGGY!!! also puts the festive Juppo into the party, just because.
In Kaku, a young girl in front of the inn greets her Uncle Juppo. Her name is Meg, and as far as I can tell (and if the sequel is any indication), she’s dressed in a jesterly little outfit, complete with jailbait-short skirt. Juppo seems surprised to see this young lass. “Hee hee. I was hoping to learn some tricks from you,” she squeals. Pedophiles everywhere snap up this game, driving the price way up. At the mention of these “tricks,” Juppo becomes uncomfortable. “I told you not to tell anyone,” he hisses under his breath. Meg is determined to join the Liberation Army, just like her dirty uncle, though he is less than thrilled at this prospect. He’s either worried that someone will find out their little secret or that she’ll stumble upon one of the many instances of gay buttsex occurring in the castle and become a squealing yaoi fangirl. His protests don’t matter — PUGGY!!! agrees to accept this young girl into his castle of iniquity in order to complete his collection. Not like that. Ew, she’s a girl.
‘I said shut up!’
Back to Seika. Sheena is still trying to woo her lady — using the same exact dialogue as before, no less. Only this time, when she gets to the part about her rich family, Lepant steps out of PUGGY!!! and throws a shitfit. Sheena’s all, “Oh crap.” Apparently, Sheena told her dad that she was going on a journey to learn about the world. “Is chasing women learning about the world?!” Lepant roars. Before Sheena can find a way to convincingly answer yes, Lepant says that he’s going to take her to Penis Castle and “beat some sense into [her].” Wow, less than five minutes, and we’ve already found two disturbingly dysfunctional families. “Ouch! OK, OK, I’ll do as you say, so don’t pull my ear!” Sheena whines, narrating the action for those who can’t translate sprite body language. And with that, Sheena joins the Liberation Army. Yay, another icky girl.
Since Lepant left the party with his lesbian daughter and since I want Juppo in my battle party as much as he wants to screw an adult, I must return to Penis Castle for the fiftieth fucking time. Juppo gets kicked out on his pedophilic ass, and Cleo and Viktor join the elite reconnaissance squad. From this point on, to make things correspond better with Sam’s Suikoden recap, I will be calling Viktor “Bear.” Except that I don’t refer to him for the rest of the recap. Just go with it.
With everyone and their family recruited for now, PUGGY!!! deigns to help out Linkolas. To Forest Village they go! Amazingly, PUGGY!!! finds his way there without any accidental detours. As the party enters the village, some random clone comes up to them and randomly informs them that elves have been spotted coming out of the forest. Random News Guy spots the extremely obvious elf in the party, then proceeds to shout this information for everyone in the village to hear. Dick.
Linkolas deduces that they should get the fuck out of there before the shit hits the fan. Conveniently, he knows a “secret elfin trail” through the woods, which no yucky humans can find without an elf guide. PUGGY!!! takes a chance by staying in the inn before they head out, which turns out okay since the clueless clone inside magically does not notice Linkolas, as she’s too busy talking about elves. I know.
The game designers threw in some “realistic” shading on the forest path to give a true woodsy ambience. Gremio is unimpressed by their surroundings, although he considers pulling Young Master or perhaps Linkolas behind one of the trees for a romantic interlude. His plans are cut short when Linkolas stops to explain just why they need him along. Apparently, the forest is under a spell (translation: a wizard did it) and only elves can find the way or something. “Please stick together,” he warns just before everyone merges into PUGGY!!!. Well, that’s one way of interpreting that statement, I guess.
PUGGY!!!’s favorite monster in these woods is a young man with fairy wings, tights, and a leafy tunic. He controls the masculine holly monsters of the forest, and PUGGY!!! sure wouldn’t mind giving the lad a taste of his berries, if you follow me. Alas, Gremio defeats all the pretty fairy boys out of jealousy, making PUGGY!!! sad.
Don’t wanna know.
Upon reaching a log bridge over a waterfall, the party hears a magical teleportation sound from behind them. A strange girl with long black hair and a white robe appears out of nowhere. She has no idea where she is, but she obviously made a mistake during her teleportation. Her name is Viki, and now that she has ended up somewhere totally unexpected, though convenient, she needs a place to stay. As opposed to, you know, trying to teleport to the right place. But this is the game designers’ half-assed and overly contrived way of introducing the teleportation ability to Penis Castle, so never mind all that “sense” crap. PUGGY!!! grudgingly allows yet another chick into his army of manly men. Ironically, Viki teleports herself to Penis Castle just fine.
PUGGY!!! wishes he could teleport right now, but he’s forced to trudge the rest of the way through the woods. Lame. In addition to the gay holly princes, PUGGY!!! also encounters groups of “fierce” kobolds, who attack without provocation. As you’ll recall from Sam’s Suikoden recaps, kobolds are brain-damaged dog people who think they’re pretty badass. Kind of like Tidus. Obviously, PUGGY!!!’s group has no trouble with them.
Speaking of kobolds, the party eventually emerges into the creatively-named Kobold Village. Appropriately, all the buildings resemble doghouses. Because they’re dogs. But, as Linkolas notes, the puppies have all deserted the place. He somehow neglects to mention that they just fought a whole bunch of them in the woods. Then again, Linkolas does not exactly strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer, if I may make a gigantic understatement.
At that exact moment, a kobold with spiked hair rushes onto the screen. He has a character portrait, so draw your own conclusions. His name is Kuromimi, and he barks at them (because he’s a dog — get it?) before accusing, “You humans take away friends.” Everyone looks confused. “Not forgive,” he Ronsos. He growls and sniffs some more, because Konami is so subtle with their animal-based characters. “But no time now. Kuromimi fix everyone sickness,” he finishes before running away faster than a California Condor that just spotted Cronabe. “He’s saying his friends were taken away and everyone is sick,” Gremio states the obvious. Yeah, Kuromimi’s English skills aren’t very advanced, but Jesus, Gremio. I think he and Linkolas are competing for the Captain Obvious award of the recap. Linkolas inches closer to the prize by noting that something happened in the village. The game designers, unable to kill me (permanently) by wankery have apparently opted to kill me via inanity. And they’re doing a good job — I can feel my brain straining against my skull as we speak.
Linkolas tells the group that the also-creatively-named Village of the Elves is to the east. For once, his explanation is necessary and helpful. Holy crap. TinySprite!PUGGY!!! winds his way through the overworld map forests until he finds a rather unusual tree. See, all the towns and castles have tinier versions of themselves on the map. Since the elves obviously live in the trees, their village avatar is a tree with little houses in it.
PUGGY!!! finds a very welcome save crystal at the base of one of the trees, and gleefully partakes of it before climbing a nearby rope ladder to Lothlorien this completely unprecedented elven city. Obviously, an ethereal choir would be out of place here, so don’t imagine one singing at all. PUGGY!!! winds his way between treetop houses and shops to find himself at a tense confrontation between a group of elven clones and a hot redhead with the Mary Sue name of Valeria. One of the elven dudes is the village chief, I think, because he looks different from the rest. And I’m not being racist here — these guys make the freaking Rito look like the cast of Chrono Cross. Valeria, another human, accuses the elves of being giant dickheads. In return, they show their Evil Racial Biasâ„¢ by throwing out random insults against humans. You see, in this shocking turn of events, elves consider themselves superior to other races. I’m not sure where they got this, seeing as how elves are usually portrayed as kindly and humble in all other fantasy literature, but clearly the game designers are thinking outside the box here.
Valeria has come to warn the elves of the same danger that Linkolas brought to PUGGY!!! — Kwanzaa Rosman has come up with a diabolical plan to wipe out the jerkheaded elves. These guys don’t seem too concerned — after all, how could a mere human hope to accomplish this? This is our first clue that Linkolas, instead of being a messenger sent by the village, is a rogue humanlover. Valeria informs these elven assholes that Kwanzaa is going to burn down the entire forest, which also happens to be her home sweet home. Although these elves would have no trouble verifying the truth of this rumor and killing off the culprit, since they’re so damn superior, they would rather lock up the person who is trying to help them. Because she’s a human and elves hate humans. I don’t want you guys to miss out on these subtle plot points.
Loading ...PUGGY!!! apparently did miss this, however, as he continues on his merry way through the village instead of leaving these creeps to their deserved fate. The NPCs surprisingly don’t seem too happy to see these gross humans in their lovely little village. Still, one of them manages to give PUGGY!!! some slightly pertinent exposition. You see, the elves have two enemies trying to steal their land. One is Kwanzaa in his nearby castle. The other enemy is the dwarves, who live in — wait for it — mines. Yes, elves and dwarves hate each other, the elves live in the trees, and the dwarves live in mines. Fuck, where do they come up with this stuff?
That’s not a wound, dude.
In yet another burst of creativity, the game designers located the elder’s house at the north center spot in town and made it bigger than the other houses. My head is going to explode if they keep tossing this strange stuff at me. A lavender-haired young elven girl rushes forward to tell Linkolas how much she miiiiiiiiissed hiiiiiiiiim. Oh Christ, Linkolas has a beard. She manages to totally miss the fact that his band of helpers consists mainly of men. Of course, she managed to miss all the other signs, too, so I shouldn’t be surprised about her faulty gaydar. Plus, she’s a beard, so faulty gaydar is part of the job description.
‘Because I’m gay.’
His beard, named Sylvina (another forest-related name — GET IT?!), whines about how he left and didn’t take her aloooooooooong. “I didn’t go out to play, you know. I didn’t take you because I didn’t want you in danger. Yeah, that’s it,” Linkolas tells her. Gremio totally backs him up, hoping this might get him a little elven tail later. Completely clueless in other ways as well, Sylvina wonders if Linkolas did something bad, since her grandpa — the village chief, of course — is pissier than Auron after being stuck with Tidus in a minivan for a week. God damn, no wonder Linkolas states the obvious all the time, with intelligence-impaired little twits like this yapping at him constantly.