🙁
Of course, Stars of Destiny can’t be fired, to the dismay of future Tenkai Star Mitt Romney. (I would play that game.) So instead, Shu yells at him, “Oh, get over it! You can’t live in the past forever. Without their help, South Window itself could be destroyed!” Yeah, your precious fucking South Window! We can’t have that! Waylon reluctantly agrees to guide them to the Toran Republic, tells Barry they should head to Radat, and joins the party. Jesus, and this day started out so well.
Dammit, Shu.
Sheena joins up as well, though Barry throws her in the convoy so he can stock his party with as many badass hot dudes as possible. Oh, and probably Nanami. Flik and Bear assure him that the Toran Republic is trustworthy (true), and that Lepant is a good guy (fuck Lepant). On the way out of the war room, Waylon stops them to ask, “I must beg a favor from you, Lord Barry. Before we go to Radat, can we stop in South Window? I know that it’s selfish of me, but I must see it once more before we depart.” Note that he didn’t ask to go see, like, his wife–just the city neighboring their headquarters that he could have gone to look at wistfully at literally any time since he joined the Yaoi Army. I’m positive Barry would not have minded. But you know I’m going to make him stop there anyway.
Hee!
On the way out, Barry stops at Leona’s and picks up Bear and Flik, who teleported to the bar from the war room to drink and bicker with each other. He also recruits Luc for the trip, because he’s cute and he hasn’t gotten to leave his post at the stone tablets in a while. Even pasty mages need exercise. Once the party is outfitted to Barry’s liking, he teleports them to Kuskus for some blacksmithing services, and then, considerably poorer, he leads them in a brisk jog down to South Window City.
The Highland Army has pulled out of South Window for now, so Barry is free to run all the way through town to Granmeyer’s office building, where Waylon pulls out of him (figuratively–Barry is not that desperate) to pine for his old boss. “Lord Barry…” Waylon breathes. “After he agreed to surrender…. That’s when they took Lord Granmeyer’s head and mounted it in front of city hall. He was a gentle man. 3 years ago, when he retreated from a border skirmish with the Toran Republic, all of Tinto called him a coward.” I thought we’d just established that everyone in Tinto is a jerk, and at the moment, a coward. So fuck them. Anyway, he goes on, “As it turned out, surrendering to Highland was a bad mistake. If we had lived in a peaceful world, he would have been seen as a wise ruler. But gentleness has becoming a sin in this world.” Hoo boy. Way to ruin what passes for a stirring monologue in this game with a stupid typo. “But despite that,” Waylon says, “I’m proud of Lord Granmeyer. And I will do everything in my power to save the city of South Window. To get to the Toran Republic, we need to take a boat from Radat, and cross the mountain road from the small town downriver.” And with that additional reminder of where the fuck they’re going, he hops back into Barry and the Strings Theme of Very Sad Sadness gives way to the upbeat percussion of South Window’s normal music. Good, now we can all go back to not remembering who the fuck Lord Granmeyer was.
In Radat, Barry heads straight across the dam and down to the meager docks, where a serf in a straw hat immediately recognizes “Master [Waylon].” Right. “This is a pleasant surprise,” Straw Hat says. “Are you a member of the Yaoi Army now?” Waylon has always been a member of the Yaoi Army in spirit. Wink. “That’s right,” Waylon responds. “And in order to win the war, it is crucial that we get to a town downriver. Will you take out your boat for us?” Straw Hat is like, “Sure!” and without any further ado they board the Merry Go on a journey south to tiny Banner Village.
Just like every dude in this series so far.
Waylon tells Barry a-fucking-gain that they need to head through the mountains here to reach their destination. After checking the shops and empty barrels for rare stuff, talking to the locals about what a “dismal backwater” this is, and meeting a child dressed like Barry (more on him later), the party crosses into Creatively Named Banner Pass.
In a nod to the area they’re journeying to, the random battle music in Banner Pass is the battle theme from Suikoden, which gives it a kind of fun throwback feel without being obnoxiously obvious about it. This area has some fairly challenging random monsters, including man-eating tigers, fearsome samurai demons, and the scariest monsters of all: long-legged, pretty redhead ladies. But this is a pretty high-end party, stupid Waylon excepted, so they don’t have too much trouble. About halfway through the pass, the party reaches a cliff hung with several ladders, many of them leading to well stocked, conspicuous treasure chests. Now it reminds me entirely too much of the pointless miles of ladders in the Phallus of Nephilim and triggers some very unhappy thoughts. Fortunately, the pretty redheads don’t have flamethrowers and Barry’s ass is much better to look at than Shion’s.
Eep!
About two-thirds of the way through the forest, Barry randomly wanders off the beaten path and behind some trees, which would make him a witch in the Anal Attorney universe. He walks south for a bit until he enters a new screen with a tiny hamlet named Rokkaku Bukkake. The second he enters the town, a cute young ninja named Sasuke shouts, “A SPY!!!” The screen flashes white, presumably from one of Sasuke’s handy-dandy ninja smoke bombs, and the next thing he knows he’s in a wood-paneled room with weapons and a tasteful sumi-e scroll on the wall. Ninja boss Hanzo asks, “Do you expect me to believe you just accidentally stumbled across a town as well hidden as [Bukkake]?” It was off the clearly marked path! You can’t just find shit that’s behind trees! But then Hanzo looks him over and adds, sigh, “Well, on closer inspection, you’re just a harmless kid. Sasuke, Mondo, escort him back to the road.” Mondo, who is much older than Sasuke but still pretty bangable, goes, “Yes sir,” and after another smoke bomb flash, Barry is back on the main road, with no new cute boys for his army. Lame!
Eventually, the party reaches a save point, and Barry learned his lesson from last time, so he makes sure everybody is healed up before moving on. And two screens later, as Barry enters a wide clearing in the forest, a spiky, lime-green ball with fuchsia spots rolls out of the trees, and unrolls into a giant, angry caterpillar–though given its color scheme, it could have turned into an Anal Attorney character and I wouldn’t have been surprised. It stares hungrily at poor Barry, and it’s time for a boss battle. The creature is just called “Worm” on the battle screen, even though it is very clearly a caterpillar. The party front-loads its best attacks, meaning Waylon just buffs the party with his Earth Rune because he’s awful. The offense, though, includes Barry and Nanami’s Family Attack unite, which unfortunately carries the risk that Nanami will take the turn off, letting Barry unleash a flurry of strikes and kicks while she waves fans to cheer him on and then eats a picnic lunch without him. No, really. And this is one of those times. They both hop back into formation, with Barry glaring daggers at his layabout sister.
‘Nanami, if that’s Fifty Shades of Grey, please do not tell me.’
Luckily, in a boss fight situation, Luc is so great that he makes up for Nanami’s random laziness and Waylon’s non-random terribleness, though I nearly have him kill everyone by accidentally using the Blue Gate Rune’s Empty World attack, which does way more than 90 damage to allies, for the record. Well done, me. But Flik lays waste to the caterpillar with his Lightning Rune before it can take another turn. Whew!
Whoops.
A couple screens past the caterpillar’s wiggling grounds, the party finds a wooden gate guarded by two Suikoclones in charcoal-gray uniforms, led by a man in yellow pants, a green turban, and a red sash. Thank God this is Varkas, and not some other unfortunate Portrait Person they made wear the same horrendous outfit. “Hey, who are you?” Varkas asks. “Where do you think you’re going?” Instead of just having Sheena answer him, which would be smart and easy, Waylon states that they are going to the Toran Republic. “Then it seems we have a problem,” Varkas replies. “I am Varkas, chief of the Border Patrol. I cannot allow outsiders to pass through here.” I’m sure it’s supposed to be ironic that Varkas, a mountain bandit, is now working for the man, putting boots on the ground at the border to protect the Toran Republic from jerb-stealing immigrants, but I doubt anybody cares enough about him to note this. Only after Varkas has asked them again what they’re doing there, even though Sheena is standing right in front of him, does Sheena walk all the way over to him and whisper in his ear, “Chill out, Varkas. This is Barry, the leader of the Yaoi Army. He just needs to see my Dad.”
Varkas, to his credit, does not jump in shock at seeing his boss’s daughter with these foreign ruffians, nor does he automatically usher them through like a whipped cur. Instead, he Engrishes, “I understand the situation. But I can’t let State citizens to freely enter the Republic. Allow me to escort you to Gregminster, the capital of the Toran Republic.” Yes, this is presumably because they didn’t want to include the entire world map of the last game just for Barry’s walkabout pleasure, but let’s pretend it’s because our hero in the skimpy red silk bathrobe is a potentially dangerous criminal. It’s admittedly better than him being “just a kid.”
After Barry agrees to this escort, a black screen transitions the party directly from the border to a waiting room inside the still very-orange Gregminster Castle. Everyone else is still stuck in Barry’s anal cavity, but Waylon and Sheena get let out for air. Waylon is not exactly grateful for this, since he whines, “To think that we’re in the Scarlet Moon Empire…I mean, the Toran Republic. It makes me nervous.” Sheena ignores him, since she’s mopey about her dad keeping her waiting. Right when Waylon becomes so nervous that he might wet himself, a maid asks them to follow her, and he just has to hold it. Barry will fire his ass from the Yaoi Army in a second, damn the fucking Stone Tablets, if he pees down his leg in front of any hot guys.
‘Totally.’
Like his predecessor PUGGY!!! had to years ago, Barry is asked to walk into the throne room to meet someone way more powerful than he is. But instead of being backed up by his cool, together dad, he has a bureaucrat who now smells like urine. Fantastic. When he walks into the throne room, President Lepant is hanging out on Assarosa’s old throne, and is flanked by his own Buttsex Knights, Alen and Grenseal. Man, PUGGY!!! must really not have wanted the responsibility of leadership if he let Lepant keep all his hot boyfriends. “Well met, Yaoi Army Leader Lord Barry,” Lepant says in greeting. Lepant is still a ginger in his new-and-improved portrait, but they managed to not spill the orange paint all over his face this time. Anyway, Lepant asks what Barry wants to discuss, and Barry trips over his own tongue and replies, “Forging an State with you.” Barry! C’mon, dude! Lepant is gonna laugh at you!