In the first half of our Double-Ended Suikoden Adventure, PUGGY!!! attempted to gain the talents of the renowned pharmacist Liukan in order to brave Milich’s flamboyantly frightening flowers. Unfortunately, Liukan ended up in the supposedly secure Soniere prison, courtesy of the Flower General and his freaking dragon. But Mathiu has a plan! When we left off, PUGGY!!! was in the process of carrying out that plan. Only he got sidetracked in his frenzy of recruitment.

PUGGY!!!, still in the town of Antei, finally heads on over to yet another tiny hut just behind the inn. This is where he meets up with Mathiu’s friend Kimberly and delivers the letter. Kimberly is a blonde in what looks like a purplish, cleavage-baring robe. I think she’s supposed to be hot. I know I throw around “hot” or “not hot” or “very much not hot” in the Suikoden recap a lot. To be honest, between the asstastic character portraits and the lack of detail in the sprite faces, I can’t always judge. So I have to use other information to tell me whether or not the game designers intended a character to be attractive. If the character makes an appearance in another Suikoden game with less crappy art, is he or she hot? Is the character clearly supposed to be ugly, like Krin? Is the character old? Is the character fat? Is the female character someone very important? Are the boobies showing? These are the very technical clues I look for as a recapper.

So, Kimberly. The boobs and the fabulous hair make me think she’s supposed to be hot in spite of the shitty portrait. As she reads the letter, she lets loose with an uncontrollable string of ellipses followed by three question marks. “Oops, I forgot to mention that I can’t read. What’s it say?” she dumbasses. Well, at least she won’t be sneaking peeks at all the love letters PUGGY!!! receives at Penis Castle. Irritated, Gremio offers to read it. Cue Black Screen of Explaining Shit We Already Know. When we return, Kimberly makes a comment about Mathiu being “up to his old tricks.” I’ll leave that one alone. Gremio’s all, “Hurry up and join us so I can get some alone time with Young Master.”

But Kimberly has a decision to make first. She walks slowly past the front row of the party — PUGGY!!!, Bear, and Flik. After examining each one, she stops in front of Flik. The Suikoden Porn Theme starts up. Uh-oh, Flik. “Hey, you there,” she says seductively. “M-me?” Flik squeaks several octaves higher than normal. “Yes, you. You’re a handsome fellow. I’ll join up if you promise to take me to dinner,” Kimberly winks. And since we all know that they’ve censored the shit out of this game, “dinner” can only mean one thing.

‘And he’s standing right over there.’

Flik’s all, “Lady, I’m only straight for Odessa. Bear, heeeeeeelp!” But Bear isn’t about to save his pretty boy from this scary lady. “Do what you want with him,” Bear tells her. “[Bear]! You!” Flik shrieks, hopping up and down in anger. How could Bear treat him like an object to just pass around? That bitch! Given permission, Kimberly advances on Flik, who tries to hightail it the fuck out of there. The Black Screen of Icky Hetero Man-Rape protects our virgin eyes.

We rejoin Flik and Kimberly as they sit across from each other at a table in Kimberly’s microscopic residence. There’s a pitcher and two cups on the table. Even my naïve self knows that’s booze. And we can only imagine that these two have been at it for a while. Drinking, that is. “Come on, fill my cup, handsome,” Kimberly slurs. “Y-yes, ma’am,” Flik squeaks. Oh, dear, something has clearly cowed him by this point. He fills her cup and she chugs it. Noting that it’s Flik’s turn to travel further down Alcohol Lane, she says, “You’re cup’s still full. Come on, drink up. Or can’t you drink tea with a beautiful woman?” Oh, boy, this statement is like one of those puzzles where you have to spot all the things wrong with it. And shame on you, game designers, for trying to trick me again. Tea, indeed. Asshats.

Flik stammers a bit, then finally accepts the drink. But he can’t keep up this hetero façade for long. “………….good grief,” he sobs with his head in his arms. Bear is so going to pay for this. Flik is going to have a “headache” for the next two weeks. Okay, one.

The morning after, Kimberly faces the entire party again and announces, “Well, I’m going to go ahead to Penis Castle or whatever.” Or whatever?! How dare she just brush off the fabulous Penis Castle like that? Blasphemy! “How can you stay out all night and look so well?” Flik asks, clearly trying to make Bear jealous. Kimberly says something that doesn’t make any sense, then wonders, “Say, PUGGY!!!, you’re planning to recruit Tesla too, right? He’s here in this town. But I believe he’s using the name of Albert.” Well, that makes my job a bit easier for once. I hope poor Flik doesn’t have to put out any more for that info.

PUGGY!!! walks about twelve feet north to a house three times as big as Kimberly’s. This one has a whole three rooms, so we’re really talking ritzy, here. A lone man stands at the end of a hallway that leads to nowhere. This, of course, is Tesla in “disguise.” “Albert” volunteers that he’s “just a normal, quiet, ordinary citizen of this town,” which doesn’t sound the least bit suspicious. Bear’s all, “Drop the act, bitch, we fucking know you’re Tesla.” Oh, but Tesla is going to carry out this pathetic charade until the bitter end. An extended sequence — or at least it feels like it — ensues, with Bear bombarding Tesla with questions about his made-up family until he’s so flustered that he accidentally answers when Bear calls him Tesla.

Now that the jig is up, Tesla’s character portrait magically appears. I’m not really sure why they bothered to hide it, because it’s not like his identity was hidden or like we would have recognized him from the portrait even if it was. Either way, Tesla kind of looks like Matthew Perry with a pointy beard and fruity little mustache. Unfortunately, we already have a character named Chandler, so he’ll just have to stay Tesla. He continues to whine about his desire to live a normal life away from the hedonistic pleasures of the Lubrication Army until PUGGY!!! beats him into submission and carries his unconscious form to Penis Castle. Not really, there’s just more talk. Sorry for getting your hopes up like that. “My god, how unlucky I am,” Tesla drama queens, like it’s soooooo horrible to live in a castle surrounded by pretty men.

After Tesla’s immediate Black Screen-assisted departure, the rest of the group continues to hang out in the guy’s house, wondering if they can trust him to travel straight to the schlong. More yapping about inessential shit, then Flik chides Bear for scaring poor Tesla with his gay pheromones. Obviously Tesla is deeply in the closet. Gremio, the opposite of Tesla, is bored like me and once again just wants to return to Penis Castle. You don’t have to ask me twice.

Back at his long, hard lair, PUGGY!!! takes care of some business before furthering the plot, as usual. He attempts to get some items appraised by Jabba the Not Hutt in his shop which is located between Chandler’s item shop and Jeanne’s new rune shop. Penis Castle is becoming quite a center of commerce. This is good. But oh no! PUGGY!!! is totally broke after spending all his money on sex toys Pahn’s stupid weapon. The group tension mounts. Hee, I said “mounts.”

*backs away slowly*

Continuing to shirk his duties, PUGGY!!! decides to explore the new phallic tower on the west side of Penis Castle. Only Kwanzaa and Valeria seem to be in residence. Not together, of course — that’s just crazy talk. PUGGY!!! continues to the northernmost phallic tower. Varkas and Sydonia apparently decided to stop hanging out like braindead stoners in the middle of PUGGY!!!’s first floor and actually found themselves a new place. Good, good. Not so good is Varkas’s whining about missing his bandit life. Well, no one’s holding a gun to your head, Varkas. Honestly, these ungrateful assholes.

‘He used to send me roses and chocolates all the time, and now he won’t even look at me!’

Well, that’s enough fucking around. PUGGY!!! heads to the meeting room where Mathiu, Kimberly, and Tesla are just standing around shooting the shit. “Commander PUGGY!!!, you’re back,” Mathiu unnecessarily notes, putting him into the Captain Obvious competition with Gremio and the others. It’s only been a few minutes since PUGGY!!! recruited Kim and Tes, but they’ve already fulfilled Mathiu’s request to the utmost of their skills. Christ. “I’m a perfectionist,” Kimberly notes. Which can’t be true, because perfectionists take a long-ass time to do anything. Poser. Unlike Kimberly, Tesla totally has performance anxiety. I’m sure he’ll find someone in the castle who can cure him of that later. And I’m talking about buttsex again.

At this point, I’m not the only one who’s totally confused — Gremio wonders what the hell these two did. It wasn’t a tag team lap dance for Mathiu, as it turns out. “Commander PUGGY!!!, what you see here are forged Imperial papers,” Mathiu explains. “Milich’s signature, the Official Imperial Seal, it’s all there, perfectly forged.” Again, Christ. Anyone with an IQ greater than 10 could figure out what to do with these, but Mathiu explains it to us anyway — use the papers to get into Soniere Prison and break out Dr. Liukan.

PUGGY!!! doesn’t say this to Mathiu, but he secretly likes the idea of visiting a prison with his attractive male friends. It provides all sorts of roleplay fodder. He figures they have some time — it’s not like Liukan is going anywhere. After teleporting to Rikon, PUGGY!!! heads west and south to Milich’s prison. A lush, finely kept lawn fronts the foreboding fortress, feasibly foreshadowing some forthcoming fabulousness. Before handing over the forged papers, PUGGY!!! takes some time to chat with the two imperial guards at the door. “This is Soniere Prison. Enemies of the Empire get thrown in here,” the first one says. Booooring. This guy has no imagination, and that probably includes his bedroom activities as well. The other one informs PUGGY!!!, “It may be just a rumor, but they say there’s a monster at the bottom of the dungeon. Some guy is supposed to have gotten an ‘opal’ from this creature.” Now that’s more interesting. Plus it has to do with fine gemstones, and PUGGY!!! has no problem with that.

PUGGY!!! would like to show the second guard the monster in his pants, but alas, Gremio’s looking all impatient and shit to get inside and get the action started. The guards get all up in PUGGY!!!’s face when he tries to open the door, so Bear presents them with the fake orders from the Flower General. That’s all it takes to gain entrance to the prison. Even with some authentic-looking orders, you’d think a bunch of strange, non-uniformed individuals might raise some suspicions. Then again, it’s probably not all that unusual for a group of young, colorfully-clad men to show up at Milich’s prison. Just a hunch.

PUGGY!!! has some of these in his toy stash.

The upper floor of the prison appears to be living quarters. It doesn’t quite have Milich’s fabulous flair in the décor, but there is a room with numerous beds, as you would expect. For that. There’s also a kitchen/dining room, and a winding hallway that leads to a stairway to the lower level. And how could I forget the random battles? When breaking into an Imperial prison, one might expect a buttload of guards to attack. But no, it’s just a bunch of random, crack-induced monsters — red, dildo-shaped jelly things, something that looks like a playing card and a jester mated, and a snake charmer and his pot. The pottery kind of pot, not the kind you’re thinking of. If there’s a happy medium between “boring” and “products of a bad acid trip” when it comes to monsters, the Suikoden game designers have not stumbled upon it yet. Oh well, at least the monsters drop the fabulous opals, just like that sexy guard said.