Due to a number of new games breaking up my regular recapping schedule as well as my own unplanned site breaks, our poor Lubrication Army heroes have been left in limbo for over a year. To refresh your (and my) memory, they spent the last two recaps searching for a way to neutralize Milich’s poisonously poisonous flowers, which inevitably resulted in recruiting a multitude of worthless dillholes. Eventually, a very lucky sextet got to visit Milich’s extremely fabulous Phallus Palace, but Gremio missed out on the trip due to his mortal mastication by man-eating spores.
Yes, man-eating spores.
PUGGY!!!, having lost another individual close to him, has magically unlocked the next Soul Eater spell, Black Shadow. That’s right, about ten hours into the game, my hero actually has a move he can use in battles where instant death doesn’t work. PUGGY!!! wonders who he can kill next to get even better spells. Hey, if Odessa’s death counted, he could probably knock off Mina or Onil to power up the Soul Eater. Hell, it’s worth a try.
‘God, I’m so sorry for harshing your buzz with my silly little problems like my cursed rune and my gay lover dying.’
PUGGY!!! files this idea away for later. Right now, he has unfinished business. And by that, I mean completely new business that he has never attempted before.
PUGGY!!! has randomly received word that a group of pirates live somewhere out on the lake at someplace called Pirates’ Fortress. Furthermore, his sources tell him that Tai Ho knows these guys and can convince them to join the powerful Lubrication Army if only PUGGY!!! and crew can beat them in five rounds or less. Hmm, that sounds somewhat challenging, not that PUGGY!!! would know. Well, he’d better put together a good party and not one that would suck and cause him to not win within five rounds or something crazy like that.
PUGGY!!! opts to put some powerful runeage in his party — unfortunately, since Luc is on his shitlist for being a pissy little bitch, PUGGY!!!’s stuck with Hellion and Cleo for this task. Two chicks — not cool. To add insult to injury, PUGGY!!! has to trade out the flamboyant Flower General for Hellion. And if even that weren’t bad enough, he has to trade out Flik and Bear for Tai Ho and Yam Koo. It hurt me to type that. Severely.
Next comes the tedious and depressing task of purchasing armor for this ill-equipped bunch. My distinct lack of cash makes this even more difficult. It’s not that I want to spend money on Tai Ho and his stupid shitstick brother, but still.
Once PUGGY!!! makes all his unfortunate purchases and fights with the horrible item management system for a while, he decides that taking his current party directly to the pirates’ lair would be suicide. Not that he would know, given that he’s never fought the guys before, but surely even one of the ax-wielding bunnies could cut a path through Hellion and Yam Koo. I can’t say that would make me cry, but it won’t help PUGGY!!! recruit the pirates. My point is, the group needs to do some leveling and PUGGY!!! knows just the place.
This plan doesn’t take into account PUGGY!!!’s severe procrastination problem. He’s already several levels into a procrastination session, since he’s currently putting off consulting with Mathiu regarding the Imperial Army’s imminent attack. That doesn’t mean he can’t take a nice stroll around Penis Castle, just to see how his beloved troops are faring.
He finds Casio standing around strumming his instrument on one of the natural balconies on the outside of the wang. For a moment, PUGGY!!! stands in place, paralyzed with shock. Why would Casio, accustomed to the splendor of the Phallus Palace, just be standing around on some boring-ass rock platform? Not that Penis Castle comes close to the opulence of the Palace — much to PUGGY!!!’s dismay, of course — but surely Casio can find someplace a bit more fabulous. A moment later, PUGGY!!! shrugs — who is he to question Casio’s penisy preferences? He talks to the effeminate minstrel (I realize that’s redundant) to learn of a new feature — the jukebox. Basically, PUGGY!!! can choose from a selection of background tunes and Casio will “play” them. What this really means is that a particular background MIDI will play while Casio stands in a spotlight in the lower corner of the screen, strumming his instrument like he’s actually responsible for the music. PUGGY!!! may not be a musical expert, but he’s pretty sure that the various piano, strings, brass, percussion, and organ sounds are not coming from Casio’s dinky harp.
PUGGY!!! listens to part of one song, then quickly walks away from Casio’s sad delusions. Crossing over a bridge to the left, PUGGY!!! enters Kwanzaa’s tower and heads upstairs. On the “roof” of the tower, he finds something that almost brings tears of joy to his eyes. Someone has built a rose garden up here, complete with an arched trellis and ornate table and chairs. PUGGY!!! spies the likely culprit sitting at the table. You’ll never guess who it is. Are you ready? It’s totally Chandler the Item Shop Guy!!!! I’m kidding, obviously anyone who has more than a single brain cell knows it’s Milich Oppenheimer. Tarnishing the scene like a smearing of feces is that pathetic fag hag, Esmeralda. Why Milich, one of the Five Great Imperial Generals, doesn’t chuck her over the side of the tower, PUGGY!!! doesn’t know. The bitch further raises PUGGY!!!’s ire by whining, “I’m sick of this run-down place.” Oh, no she di’in’t. No one talks about Penis Caslte that way. Certainly not a lame, saggy-teated bitchbeast. PUGGY!!! attempts to calm down, reminding himself that he can’t afford to do away with any of his precious 108 stars yet…although he moves Esmeralda up to the top of his “Kill For Rune Power-Up” list to make himself feel better.
Noooo! The Lubrication Army needs you!
Milich, on the other hand, has…well, I was going to say “much less of a stick up his ass,” but that’s not entirely true, if you get what I’m saying. He’s much less of a whiny shitstain, at any rate. “Why Master PUGGY!!!, are you here to get some fashion tips from me?” he winks. Not that PUGGY!!! needs any fashion advice, but the offer sure is tempting. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t actually let me play Pretty Pretty Dress-Up with Milich, probably because the game designers knew that no one would ever bother to advance the plot if they had such a minigame option. Hence the existence of The Game That Shall Not Be Named and the like.
The Suikoden Theme of Gay, which started playing at the beginning of PUGGY!!!’s dialogues with Milich and Esmeralda, continues in the background as he leaves Buttsex Garden and heads back to the castle proper. I’m sure this is one of the many sound-related bugs in the Suikoden series, but PUGGY!!!’s not going to complain.
PUGGY!!! makes one last stop at the vault before leaving, both to visit the hunky vaultkeeper Rock and to drop off the unnecessary shit clogging up his precious inventory. Oh, and to pilfer better armor from characters not in the party. This proves to be more trouble than it’s worth, given that the game designers succeeded in making the equipping process as painful as possible in many different ways. Finally, PUGGY!!! gives up, especially since all this effort is going toward beefing up Tai Ho, Yam Koo, and Hellion. Boy, is this footage a riot to watch.
Now that he’s put more time, effort, and money into this endeavor than it could ever warrant, PUGGY!!! finally heads off to build levels. Which means even more time and effort (though not money) into this shit. Sadly for PUGGY!!!, this annoying bullshit has fried his brain to the point where he forgets that he has a magical teleportress in his castle, so he ends up taking his boat to Teien and hiking to the Phallus Palace from there.
My heart bleeds for you and your dinky little workspace that’s at least ten times the size of anyone else’s.
Four minutes of random battles at the Phallus Palace later, Tai Ho, Yam Koo, and Hellion achieve levels very near to those of PUGGY!!! and the other characters that have fought significant numbers of battles — random and otherwise — throughout the course of the game. Don’t get me wrong — I love Suikoden’s speedy leveling system in ways that may be considered illegal in some countries. Especially in situations such as this one where I don’t want to waste hours of my life leveling pointless asswipes. Still, you have to admit that there are certain reality issues involved in a system where some wussy assholes can tag along for a few battles, sit in the back row doing nothing, and suddenly become as battle-hardened as the party’s resident studs.
Anyway, PUGGY!!! mysteriously manages to locate this secret Ass Pirate lair in the middle of the lake and simply walks in the front door. Tai Ho suggests to Anji the Ass Pirate that he join the elite Lubrication Army — clearly, the fact that Anji makes no reference to having beaten PUGGY!!!’s ass at any point in time backs up my assertion that this is PUGGY!!!’s first encounter with the trio. It’s not lazy writing or anything.
PENIS!!!
It goes without saying that Tai Ho and Yam Koo contribute nothing whatsoever to the battle. It’s the women (and PUGGY!!!) who save the day with their assrapingly strong spells. In light of this, PUGGY!!! is willing to admit that women aren’t completely useless. Well, okay, they still are, since all they really did was ensure that Anji, Kanak, and Leonardo — speaking of useless — agree to join the Lubrication Army. With a sad sigh, PUGGY!!! wonders where he can find pirates that look like Johnny Depp.
Now that PUGGY!!! has finished jumping through hoops to recruit these three completely not-hot guys, he can follow-up on Mathiu’s urgent summons. In the war room — which no one has seen fit to decorate, not even that lazy Milich — PUGGY!!! finds Mathiu and a rather intriguing young lad with short black hair and pink hotpants. Mathiu notices PUGGY!!!’s obvious interest and says, “Commander PUGGY!!!, this fellow here says she’s Kasumi the Ninja from the hideout at Rokkaku.”
Wait a minute, hold the phone.
Now PUGGY!!! knows that Mathiu is fucking with him. “Fellow”? “She”? Well…which is it? Those couldn’t possibly be…boobs under that pink ninja garb…could they? Has PUGGY!!! been checking out girl ass for the last thirty seconds? With trepidation, PUGGY!!! approaches Kasumi and presses the X button.