In a tent somewhere to the south, Ridley is escorted in to face his Highland captors. Adolf giggles that Ridley’s friends abandoned him to die, which isn’t quite accurate, but Ridley rightly points out, “If you weigh my life against the survival of the Yaoi Army, it was the logical choice.” It was! Barry still tried, obviously, but it’s not like it was Shu out there. “No matter,” Adolf replies. “Sooner or later, I’ll see the Yaoi Army crushed before my very eyes. Barry will bow before me like the lowly mongrel he is.” If it were almost anyone else, that would turn Barry on. Ridley barks, “The Yaoi Army won’t be defeated!!! Lord Barry will never be beaten by the likes of you!!!!” That shit must be contagious–all he had to do was be in the same tent as Adolf to catch it. Adolf just laughs and has his men escort Ridley out to have his head chopped off. Then he turns to his generals. Leon echoes what Klaus already said–there’s no need for an actual strategy because they’ve got, like, more dudes. And they also have a “new bright, young general,” according to Leon, who knew him “from ago” (read: from Suikoden). Adolf is cool with that. “I don’t care about breeding,” he tells them, dropping the Anvil of Daddy Issues again. “A sword doesn’t need a fine lineage, it just needs to be sharp.” It’s not that they don’t need them, it’s that they don’t have them. Because they’re swords. Nice analogy, King Buttwipe.

AAAAAAAH!!!

The next morning, Tony the farmer wakes up Barry and scares him half to death about what he might have done last night after Nanami left. Downstairs, Shu is all ready to tell the gang about his cunning plan to defeat Highland with a 30,000 soldier deficit. The thing is, they can’t, Shu says. When Bear freaks out, like Shu’s strategy is really, “No, we’re fucked, sorry guys,” Shu explains, “Take it easy. We can win without defeating them. Our only goal is to take the head of [Adolf Hitler].” I see a concrete bunker in Barry’s future! “If we can kill [Adolf],” Klaus goes on, “Princess Jillian [oops] will become successor to the throne of Highland. Then we could forge a peace treaty.” Peace will surely happen with a weak little woman in charge! Shu tells Barry, Teresa, Flik, Bear, Valeria, and Luc that they will wait in an ambush, and once it’s sprung, Barry and Kiba should go after Adolf’s unit while everyone else frees Ridley. Finally, it’ll be time to face Adolf in “personal combat.” Kiba will be the bait that lures Adolf, human rageface comic, into position. Barry is ready to deploy, but Shu remembers one other detail and has Apple call Cocko into the room. Ugh, what? I don’t care what he’s being used for–this plan just went down a letter grade.

‘Flik had a girlfriend? Good one, Dick.’

Of course, Barry doesn’t get to find out, either, because a black screen whisks him away from Shu’s secret Cocko plan and onto the battlefield. Kiba’s unit appears just ahead of four Highland units, including Adolf’s. “Traitor!!!” he screams at Kiba, as if he didn’t serve Kiba and Klaus to the Yaoi Army on a silver platter. “You join the enemy and raise your sword against me! You spit on the royal name of the Blight Family!!!!!” Kiba yells back, like a boss, “How dare you!!!! You murdered your own King and sire and still you dare speak so!!! He was my true lord! You little bastard!” Nice use of Adolf’s trigger word, Kiba! High-five! Adolf vomits exclamation points in response.

Once Kiba’s unit is in position, the rest of the army springs out. Each of the generals, the first time he or she attacks Adolf, shouts a little something at him, I guess to send the message that they’ve all been personally affected by his madness and abuse of English. Flik hollers, “This is the end [Adolf Hitler]!!! Prepare yourself!!!” before firing a completely ineffective volley of arrows at him. Thanks, Flik! The second general to attack, Valeria, just introduces herself to him, because she’s only been part of this war for like five minutes, but to my immense surprise, she manages to take out half his unit. “Unfff…….” grunts Adolf, in the same way Barry did when he first laid eyes on Klaus.

Shu shouts at Adolf that he’s surrounded, but he just does his Kefka laugh and assures them that they don’t have him over a barrel at all. He teleports out like it’s nothing, deals damage to every unit on the field (which kills poor Valeria) and reappears at the edge of the screen. Pretty much everybody screams like a sissy at this. “You fools thought you could take my head?” he taunts. “Remember well, Barry!! You weren’t even able to wound [Adolf Hitler]!!!!!!” But he did! Or Valeria did. Whatever! Dick. Shu orders the retreat, all emo that his brains were not able to defeat Adolf’s brawn.

Back in the war room, Bear walks in to report that the wounded are being treated and there were fewer dead corpses resulting from Adolf’s cheat code bullshit than he thought there would be. Everyone has a nice ellipses-ridden pout, since they just blew their best possible shot. Nanami joins Barry to go for a walk downstairs, since they probably won’t have another chance before they’re captured by Highland and executed while Jowy makes out with Richard and Julia in front of the gallows.

But downstairs, he finds a “surprise”: Ridley, accompanied by Cocko. Nanami bluntly cries out, “Ridley!!!! Ridley! You’re not dead!!!!” She is the best sometimes. Ridley duhs that Cocko helped him escape, and I can’t decide if I buy that or not. Yeah, he’s a useless shitstick, but he has wings, and nobody would look at him and worry about taking him down as a possible threat. Anyway, Ridley is back, and he has a message for Shu. The three of them high-tail it back to the war room. As soon as they walk in, Bear too flips out in a less-than-tactful fashion: “Ridley, you’re not dead!! How did you get here!!!!” Ridley answers that he both got help from Shu, in the form of Cocko, but also from another person: “Lord Shu,” he says, “I have a message from Leon Silverburg, strategist of the Highland Army.” Oh snap.

No.

It gets even oh-snappier as Shu reads the message: “Tonight…. [Adolf Hitler] will lead a night raid. This will probably be our last chance. Deploy all the troops. Lay an ambush for [Adolf Hitler] and kill him.” Exclamation points pop up all over the room. Kiba states the obvious concern, that it’s a big fat trap, but it’s almost too obvious to be a trap. Shu looks at it as high-risk, high-reward, and asks Barry to make the call. Given that the call is either “Do as Leon says” or “Wait around to die, and maybe have one last orgy in the bath house,” it’s a tough decision, but Barry knows what must be done. Not yet, of course! Oh my, no. Barry has some leveling to do!

This battle with Adolf is probably the most difficult in the game, not only because Adolf is a god mode motherfucker, but because it is necessary to prepare three separate parties to face him. That’s 18 people! And yeah, there are dozens and dozens of assholes hanging out at HoYay Castle at this point, but most of them are useless and even more of them are under-leveled. But this is why God (or Lepant, for all I know) created Banner Pass. One trip to Gregminster and back gets even the shittiest of Barry’s comrades-in-arms leveled enough to at least contribute, if not singlehandedly mow down Adolf like a field of weeds. This is also where Barry’s endless visits to Barbara come in handy–her warehouse is currently full of the best gear Barry could strip off his army members, and what he didn’t need, he sold, so he’s also sitting on a boatload of potch to spend on blacksmithing, runes, and whatever gear Team Storm Adolf’s Bunker is short on. Essentially, I’ve been hoarding since about part seven just for this moment. Because I don’t want Barry to merely survive the battle with Adolf like a weak, mewling baby. I want him to destroy that son of a bitch.

Obviously I’m not going to describe this grind in detail–I trust you all remember what Banner Pass is like from the last freaking recap. Nor do I think Barry’s adventures in menu management and blacksmithing are especially worth additional commentary. So let’s skip ahead to Barry’s next visit to Gregminster. Barry pays Gordon, the creeper trading post guy, another visit, this time to talk Yaoi Army business, not look at cute peeing boy statues. Gordon considers Barry’s proposal. “I’ve been thinking about leaving this shop to my son and opening a new one,” he admits. “And I heard that Shu, the famous trader, is in Jowston… I’d be happy to set up shop with you, but first, Lord Barry, I’d like to see what kind of business sense you’ve got.” Right. He needs to test Barry’s business acumen before he’ll consider opening up a store in the most happening location in the City-States, which he apparently wanted to do anyway because he’d get tons of business from a certain fine-ass strategist. But to the point, he will agree to join the cause if Barry can make 50,000 potch by trading. Fortunately, for once I planned ahead and Barry already did this. It’s amazing how quickly Barry can get to 50,000 potch just from fleecing Kobolds for broken snow globes and selling a few shitty old copies of The Fountainhead to the libertarian hermits living in Forest Village. “You have incredible business sense!” Gordon gushes. Um, not like that. I hope. “It’s time for me to leave this shop to my son.” He calls over his son, Coates, to give him the news. “I leave Gordon’s Mercantile to you, my son! Don’t disgrace the family name!!” Coates’s sprite, facing the wall, promises he won’t. Is he not allowed to look his father in the eye? Is Gordon a translation error and he’s really named Gorgon? (Sorry. That was terrible.)

Now that he’s secured Gordon’s support–guaranteeing a thank-you blowjob from Shu later–Barry talks to Lorelai again. Now that he’s gone on a recruiting binge, Lorelai considers him more carefully, walking in a circle around him for what feels like an hour. Finally, she says, “Fine… Rumors tell of Sindar ruins near the city of Muse……and the goddess of victory does indeed seem to be smiling down on you.” Barry cares even less about the goddess of victory’s opinion of him than Lorelai’s, but he does have an evil murderous bastard to dispose of, so welcome to the team, Lorelai! The Yaoi Army totally needed more mulleted ladies.

All told, it takes a little under an hour of game time for three fierce units to be fully equipped and leveled to take on the over-punctuating scourge that is King Adolf. Yes, I’m sure Clive is not thrilled about this less than prudent use of time, but the first time I did this I was completely blindsided by this fight and had not prepared at all. It was not pretty, and as a result I am not fucking around with this. So Clive can suck Barry’s balls.

‘Sure thing. Just send him to my room for some training.’

Once he’s looked over everything a few times to make sure he’s good to go, Barry returns to the war room and asks Shu to deploy. Shu says they’ll place the army at various spots in the woods in ambush. Once the exits are sealed, Barry is to lead the unit that will defeat Adolf. Luc, Hump, Valeria, Clive, and Shin comprise his group. In the vanguard group, led by Flik, Barry includes Shiro, Kinnison, Hix, Tengaar, and Nina, the latter three of whom are solely to piss off Flik. I’m mean. Finally, Bear leads his group of Viki, Lorelai, Nanami, Camus, and Miklotov. The entire team is way too estrogenic for Barry’s tastes, but he’d rather have useful girls than annoying boys like Cocko and Tai Ho.

The assembled generals make various encouraging noises once Barry’s assembled the Kill Adolf Hitler Squad. Shu orders, “Okay, let’s go, but don’t use torches. I want our eyes as adjusted to the dark as possible. But leave the castle’s torches lit.” Out in the woods, in the dark, with only the faint light of the distant castle to see by? Sexy.

Ellipses! He must be hurt.

A black screen ushers in the night, and sinister music plays to accompany Adolf, on horseback, and his men as they march through the trees. At a fork in the path, Adolf tells his boys, “Look, the torches in HoYay Castle are burning. They’re probably in there trying to figure out how to run away.” Or they’re having an impromptu cooking competition. You never know with that wacky place. Suddenly, a scout runs back to shout, “I have a report!!!! The advance forces are under attack by the Yaoi Army!!” And another scout returns from the other direction to announce that they’ve been flanked on the back side too. Hot. Adolf yells at his men, calling them “useless fools,” like this is their fault. But those same useless fools leap to protect their abusive liege lord when a volley of arrows flies in from the south. Not soon enough, of course, to keep a few from sticking in Adolf and killing his poor horse. But they’re trying. For some reason.