Army battle time! On the main screen, some random Imperial soldiers totally freak out over being attacked by “the guys who beat [Kwanzaa]’s army.” Yeah, they should be, because PUGGY!!! has a whopping 7635 members to the 6000 of the Imperial Army. There is nothing to distinguish this battle from the last one — PUGGY!!! is one of those leaders that uses the same strategy for everything. But it works, so what the hell. I forgot to mention during the last battle that whenever the two tiny sprite armies fight each other, the defeated sprites float up to heaven, complete with little angel wings and haloes. It’s difficult to take this war seriously when you see silly shit like that.

So PUGGY!!! makes angels out of the entire opposing army yet again. This is the first time Flik has ever beaten the Imperial Army, so he’s all, “WOOOOOOO!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” PUGGY!!! and the others smile indulgently at each other — Flik’s such a n00b. Cut to a stone bridge where the important characters are gathered. Bear’s all “Who’s yo’ daddy?” and Gremio’s all, “Phew! Oh, Young Master. Are you all right? Let me check you for wounds. With my tongue.” Pahn wants to go right ahead and attack Milich’s army. Mathiu, the guy who sent PUGGY!!! into two battles without giving him a real choice in the matter, advises caution. “Let’s sent a reconnaissance team to find out what they’re up to,” Mathiu Engrishes. “Wrong! The enemy is careless right now. It’s our chance to attack! Follow me, everybody!” Flik dumbasses.

Now let’s do a little critical thinking here. On one hand, you have Mathiu, the guy who, while grammatically challenged and a bit dramatic, hasn’t yet been wrong. Though he forced PUGGY!!! into battle, PUGGY!!! still won those battles. Then you have Flik. The guy who threw away a chance at promotion through his own incompetence (by his admission). The guy who took three months to hear about the existence of an army that beat one of the Imperial Generals. The guy who couldn’t find a giant penis-shaped building in the middle of a lake. Not to mention, he hasn’t learned the finer points of complementary colors.

Leaving prettiness out of the equation, who are you going to follow?

Suddenly, the army battle screen comes up again. Hey, wait a second! I can only assume that PUGGY!!! went against the advice of his strategist because he wants to get in Flik’s pants. I mean, Jesus, this makes no sense otherwise. And yes, I’m pouty because I at least expected a choice that isn’t a choice. Stop toying with me, Konami.

Battle at the effeminately-named Scarleticia Castle. The main battle screen comes up. A couple things of note — in this battle, the Imperial Army has 12000 troops (again with the nice round numbers) and PUGGY!!!’s army has 7635. This doesn’t look good. More importantly, we get a nice view of Milich’s castle. As expected, it’s pink. Also, it looks exactly like Agrabah. That is to say, penis towers. More penises than you can shake an extremely phallic stick at. Pink penises — I don’t think I could have designed a more appropriate castle for the Flower General. And to top it off, there’s a gigantic rose above the front gate. The good kind of flower and not a vagina.

Milich lisps threateningly, “What fools. I’ll show you how wonderful my Antoinette is.” I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but we can be absolutely sure that Antoinette is not a woman. Mathiu uses his Super Strategist Sleuth powers to detect that something is amiss. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go slap bandaids on all the burns I received from that pesky Foreshadowing Wizard zapping me with his wand, the jerk. He has anger management issues.

Sure enough, Milich’s first attack is Poisonous Pollen, which is PUGGY!!!’s undoing. The screen turns all green and wavy as PUGGY!!!’s entire army pretty much gets wiped out. And this is why you should listen to your strategist, poor reclusive pedophile or no. Back at the Garan bridge, no one says anything like, “Shit, our whole army just got wasted. Well, I guess we’ll have to spend the next several months replacing everyone we lost.” So I have to assume that this is the convenient, non-permanent kind of death.

From the ensuing conversation, we learn that the poisonously poisonous pollen came from Milich’s fabulous rose. Dirty Sanchez figures that Mathiu was right about the reconnaissance mission. Well, duh. Also, this mission is for figuring out how to neutralize the poisonous venom, and not for stealing the flower to use in a gorgeous Penis Castle bouquet. Really.

Bear announces that he will accompany PUGGY!!! on this mission. Flik immediately decides that he wants to go, too, in order to see if PUGGY!!! has what it takes for Flik to accept him as a leader. I think we all can read between the lines there. “Young Master, I’m going too, of course,” Gremio says, a little jealous of the thought of PUGGY!!! leaving with these sexy men. “Gremio…you stay,” Bear says suddenly. Gremio’s homosexual hackles immediately go up, as he insists that he must “protect” PUGGY!!!. Bear, in turn, informs Gremio that PUGGY!!! is now a man, and no longer needs him. Ouch.

Gremio tells Bear to back up off his man, bitch, as PUGGY!!! will always be his sexy boytoy. He raised him for that purpose, after all. Bear pulls out this ridiculous spiel, which I have to recap verbatim. “After leaving my village behind, I traveled all over the place. I met all kinds of people, and experienced many things. That’s why I sometimes have hunches. Gremio, stay here.” So is Bear trying to say that in his travels he has learned ways to please PUGGY!!! that Gremio could never hope to match? I’m wondering why he’s being so damn stingy — Penis Castle is about sharing your pretty men. Either way, the Foreshadowing Wizard is seriously getting annoying with all that zapping and stuff. I mean, unless all these completely subtle and not-at-all random warnings to Gremio are for no reason whatsoever.

Speaking of the Wizard, PUGGY!!! has the choice to take Gremio or leave him. And by choice, I mean “choice.” No matter what, Gremio is coming along. That bitch Bear is not going to steal his PUGGY!!! away. When PUGGY!!! agrees to take Gremio, Bear chides, “PUGGY!!!, kindness alone does not make a leader.” I’m getting just a little bit sick of people getting on my ass when I don’t really have a choice in the matter, so shut up, Bear.

Milich’s gay castle will have to wait until the next recap. Now that PUGGY!!! has some freedom, he’s going to indulge his recruiting habit some more. But he can stop anytime he wants! First destination: Kaku.

Every so often in life, something happens that truly makes you believe in the existence of true evil. One of these events occurs at this exact moment in Suikoden. For in the dark basement of the tavern, a gay pirate named Gaspar offers to join PUGGY!!! if the youth can win 5000 bits from him in…I can barely say it…The Game That Shall Not Be Named. Well, I might as well just bend over and let Konami have their wicked way with me, as anal violation seems to be their favorite extracurricular activity. And heck, it would hurt less than suffering through another eternity of this rigged hell.

But the recap must go on! Plus, if I wasn’t in pain, you guys couldn’t get your sick jollies. So here we go. To add insult to injury, Gaspar wonders if PUGGY!!! needs him to explain the rules, as if all the different ways I can lose aren’t permanently scorched into my brain. PUGGY!!! bets the entire 5000 bits in a futile attempt to get this over with, as Gaspar smugly announces that he’ll start. I peer between my fingers at the result, wondering just how many hours I’ll have to burn just to get this dickcheese in my party…

…And Gaspar rolls three ones.

I blink in confusion. But three ones means….

Holy crap, PUGGY!!! not only wins, but he gets paid triple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I felt that such a momentous occasion merited the Excess Suikoden Punctuation. Still in complete shock, I wait for something unlucky to happen, like a power outage or a meteor hitting the earth. Because if I can win at TGTSNBN in one try, anything can happen, really. Even Squall becoming straight.

Seriously, holy crap.

So Gaspar, impressed with PUGGY!!!’s luck (yeah, me too, buddy), hauls his ass pirate ass to Penis Castle, where he’ll fit right in, especially if he ditches that godawful game. The guys in PUGGY!!!’s army prefer consensual buttsex, after all. Saving the game as if his life depends on it, PUGGY!!! heads to his next destination, Seika — a.k.a. Mathiu’s hometown. PUGGY!!! marches right up to Mathiu’s abandoned house/school/pedophilic playground, where he finds his luck has completely run out. Well, it was only a matter of time. For there stands Apple, Sam’s most favoritest character, in her trademark yellow raincoat and glasses. And she doesn’t even have the advantage of a Suikoden II-style character portrait. In fact, her character portrait here…well, it makes her look retarded. No offense to retarded people. I think it’s the pumpkin head and the awkward posture. I don’t know. Regardless, Apple gives PUGGY!!! a total dressing-down over “forcing” Mathiu to go to war against his will.

PUGGY!!! slaps Apple in the mouth (holding back women’s lib, exhibit F), letting her know that he didn’t exactly abduct Mathiu at gunpoint. Apple doesn’t believe him, but makes the logical decision to go ask Mathiu herself. Whoa, Apple just made an intelligent choice? Okay, something’s going on here. Winning at TGTSNBN, Apple not being a total moron…are we in Bizarro World? Well, I don’t want to screw Tidus, and I definitely don’t have the urge to post all over the internet regarding my admiration of Rinoa as a spunky and unconventional heroine, so I think we’re okay. Whew.

Apple continues to cop a ‘tude with PUGGY!!!, but joins the army anyway. Lucky PUGGY!!!. Well, that’s what you get when you go around recruiting just any old lameass. It’s called standards, PUGGY!!!, and they come in handy sometimes. Hoping that he’s reached the limit of assitude for now, PUGGY!!! continues to Garan. A lone man stands on the bridge, just asking to be sucked in to the homoerotic pleasures of the Liberation Army. Strangely enough, this guy knows PUGGY!!! already. In fact, he’s the dude who trained PUGGY!!! to use his staff. And I mean it like that. His name is Kai, and with his balding mullet look, he’s not the least bit hot. Still, his vast knowledge of phallic objects more than makes up for this. He doesn’t think that Teo will approve of PUGGY!!!’s current occupation (ya think?), but Kai isn’t going to pass up the chance to immerse himself in a castle full of pretty boys. “The Master Stickfighter is as good as 100 men,” Kai comments upon joining. I think that pretty much says it all.

On the way to his next stop, Kobold Village, PUGGY!!! and party are attacked by several groups of Kobolds. Since we’ve already established that the Kobolds are back to normal, we can pretty much assume that the game designers were too lazy to change the local random battle monsters. Or maybe it’s time for some fanwanking. See poll.

In one of the doghouses, PUGGY!!! encounters a Kobold who calls Kuromimi “Big Brother.” Because of the lack of character portrait earlier, I don’t know if this is the same Kobold that appeared with Kuromimi’s mom, but it’s not like any of us really care. Unlike Kuromimi, however, this Kobold’s character portrait is cute and doesn’t resemble a diseased fox. Gon, the Kobold in question, wants to be just like Kuromimi, even if that means hiding out in a giant penis with a plethora of gay guys. Obviously, PUGGY!!! has no problem recruiting this Kobold, considering that no one could be worse than Tai Ho and Apple.

In the Kobold Village inn, PUGGY!!! finds a strange tiger man eating at the single table. Now, I don’t know if this is a human wearing a tiger mask, or if this is another bizarre Suikoden furry race, and frankly, I don’t really want to know. His name is Fu Su Lu, and according to him, he’s “strong as 100 men.” PUGGY!!! likes the idea of 100 men, so he’ll do anything to recruit this guy, even pay 10000 bits for his meal. Fucker. Seriously, what kind of shit is he eating, beluga caviar on California condor and whale penis omelets? Fu Su Lu insists that he’ll work for his meals at Penis Castle, and we all know what that means, don’t we?

His work done for now, PUGGY!!! returns to Home Sweet Schlong to save his impressive progress. And that’s where I’ll be stopping this recap. Join PUGGY!!! next time as his thus-far-shitty Soul Eater rune gets a much-needed upgrade. You know, the rune that started this whole mess? Remember that? Yeah. Well, toodles!