PREPARE YOUR BALL OF YARN

Near the Evil Cat Island Hot Spring, one of the Catclones says to Marvy, “We have this wonderful hot spring, but there are many here who dislike hot water. They should take baths more often. At least once a year, you know?” Cat humor!

I have a suggestion.

Back at the astoundingly dull human settlement, Marvy finds absolutely nothing of interest. I mean, everything is the same dishwater gray color, even the people, who all make sure we know their lives are a never-ending cycle of spiritless tedium. It’s like they went out of their way to make the non-evil cat area as boring as possible. And isn’t crushing boredom what we’re all looking for in our games? The highlight of the entire village is a group of old ladies who are talking about the current trend among the human men on the island: growing long beards. “Day after day, all the men talk about how long their silly beards are…” one wife bitches. “My husband spends more time looking at his beard than he does looking at me! I’m bored…” But…you are his…you know what? Forget it. Marvy has better things to do than try to figure this out.

For the record, though, the male Suikoclones in the village do, in fact, have long, gray beards. I’m actually kind of impressed they bothered.

Sailing east, the party finds another drab, podunk shitheap, Na-Nal Island. Surprise, it’s overcast here, too! It’s overcast everywhere. The trading post, for some reason, is out on the docks instead of in town, I guess so visitors can trade right off their ships? Whatever. Marvy buys some more Crystal Balls to sell back to the cats and takes off. But amazingly, Na-Nal manages to be even shittier than Nay, via a random battle-infested beach.

Marvy does his stilted stick-in-the-ass run all the way over to a beached ship hull, where he finds a treasure chest. Inside is a cousin of the Sea Furry Marvy encountered near Middleport. But this one is shiny and golden–the blonde sexpot of the family, if you will. Paula actually levels up from Keneth doing all the work to kill it, because Paula is terrible, and Marvy receives 1000 potch and a treasure map. Seems like an awful lot for something that could have been killed with a bottle of Drano.

The village of Na-Nal is as dreary as the beach, but the well-kept foliage near each building lends the weak impression that this is supposed to be a quaint farming and gardening community. This must be what it’s like to live in Portland. Marvy, sick of the constant clouds and vague threat of rain, enters the inn, where he finds a young lady in clown clothing who is clearly supposed to be this game’s Meg. Her hair is somehow even worse than Meg’s–it looks like the same hack who butchered Louise’s bangs has at least one more client. As an aside, I wonder why this series, among at least 108 characters that hang around the hero’s phallic castle, has never had a stylist. Can you think of a more necessary service for the Stars of Destiny than a person who will fix their terrible fashion, hair, and makeup, preferably while gossiping and giving sassy life advice?

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Meg’s ancestor, named Rita, has a game she wants Marvy to play with her, one she invented herself. She is not, thank God, yet another NPC obsessed with The Game That Shall Not Be Named; Rita’s game is a perversion of mahjong she modestly calls Ritapon.

Once Marvy checks his terror at the door and agrees to play, a green felt playing surface slides into view. “Hey there!” Rita chirps, delighted that she’s found a new sucker to con out of his life savings. Rita asks Marvy if he wants to start playing or hear an explanation first, and Marvy asks for the tutorial, even though I actually don’t need it–for once, I can explain the rules of the game without help or therapy.

Each player starts the game with eight tiles, numbered one through three and suited by colors. They’re actually suited by characters, including the lame Gaien Knights, Marvy, Chiepoo, and Rita herself. There are also elemental rune tiles that can be used to fuck over your opponent, which Rita, natch, does constantly. Like the real mahjong, the goal of Ritapon is a lot like gin rummy: collect sets of tiles, either by number or by suit, until you have no tiles in your hand. This includes calling out a lot of silly things depending on how close you are to finishing, such as “Reach!” and “Tsumo!” Marvy is already used to grunting incoherently as he finishes, so this is natural. Rita also gets really into this, which is just so cute when you remember that she invented all the silly things to yell.

I can explain all this without a rundown from Rita because, as longtime readers probably know, I spent a lot of time playing this game. There was a time I would put in Suikoden IV just to play Ritapon. It looks so, so sad when I see it written there like that, but it’s true. Why did I take to this game when pretty much every mini-game in the history of the series has been a traumatic experience for us recappers? It’s probably because I was a bored only child, and in the pre-Internet days, that meant playing a lot of cards with my mom and my grandma. Gin and gin rummy were by far my favorites. And since there’s at least some strategy to it among all the luck, unlike shaking a stupid cup and praying like in TGTSNBN, it’s at least slightly harder to get fucked out of all my potch.

How did she get these people’s faces on the tiles when she’s never met them?

This is not to say I have never found the game frustrating. I’ve been letting the tape run while I explain the game, and periodically I have to stop to yell “BIIIIIIIITCH!” at Rita as she picks up one of my tiles to finish her hand. Because Rita totally cheats at this game she invented, you guys. But by and large, I find the game ridiculously fun. I am a terrible person.

Eventually, though I’m barely even keeping track of how long it takes, Marvy manages to put Rita 5000 potch in the hole. Once they settle up, Rita even gives him a bunch of bonus potch due to some more silly things she made up, even though she apparently has no money left. Marvy talks to her again, and she wants to know if he’s back to “rub it in,” ew. Marvy creepily asks, “Would you like to see my ship?” Oh honey, I know you want to make Slowe jealous, but inviting little girls into your windowless ship with the Rush mural on the side is not the way to do it. Rita’s all for it, though, and joins the group, which is the signal for the To Catch a Predator news boat to start its pursuit.

Marvy really just wants to play more Ritapon, but Rita already departed for his depressing digs on Obel, so he’s forced to walk around Na-Nal some more. Up the hill from the rest of the town, Marvy finds a gated village green and a man standing outside the gate. The man, named Reinhold, has a shiny bald head and crazy eyes with tiny irises. He’s also shirtless and covered in bandages. Reinhold wants to tell Marvy a story about why he is in such poor shape. “The truth is… In the square up ahead, there is a girl in red. She is actually a terribly violent girl. She needs to be taught a lesson… Would you please go and punish her?” It’s hard to tell from the portrait, but Reinhold is fairly well built. So obviously, he needs skinny, doe-eyed Marvy to go defend his honor and beat up a girl. Obviously.

But Marvy has no trouble beating up anyone if he just pictures them with Slowe’s face, so he proceeds to the green. The violent lady in question is actually a cheery-looking, short-haired girl named Mitsuba. “Ooh! Here come the suckers!” she blurts out. “Oops, let me introduce myself. My name’s Mitsuba. Nice to meet you. So… You were told to come here and punish me, right? Right?” She seems a little eager for this to happen, and goes on, “Come on, let’s see what you’ve got! Oh, and to make it interesting… If I win, you owe me 1000 Potch, okay?” Marvy’s “con alert” bells are clanging away in his head, but he is both flush with potch at the moment and not too scared of getting beat up, even though Mitsuba is at least six inches taller than he is. “On the off chance you might win, I guess you’d want some kind of reward,” she adds, clearly not concerned about this possibility. “Any requests?” Marvy has two choices, both of which are to join his Rebellion of No Specific Purpose, just to highlight that there is no actual choice. Mitsuba thinks nothing whatsoever of this odd demand.

Since it wouldn’t be fair for Marvy to receive Keneth, Paula, and Chiepoo’s totally necessary assistance, this is a duel between Marvy and Mitsuba. She yells at him enthusiastically, “I’m gonna come at you with everything I’ve got, right from the start! Now, let’s see what you’ve got!!” And this is not just empty bravado–she must be confident if she’s engaging in a sword fight in booty shorts and a halter top. Marvy says nothing, because he knows that opening his mouth is the key to losing these stupid duels. Instead, he listens to Mitsuba’s goofy bragging and deftly sidesteps her as she swings her bastard sword to stab her in the kidneys. After a few failed special attacks, Mitsuba rolls around on the ground in pain, wishing she’d actually worn some armor.

Once she’s recovered, she commiserates with Reinhold, her accomplice in this failed grift. “My goodness!” he says. “They were stronger than you, Miss Mitsuba? Oh dear, oh dear…” He’s standing there with his hands on his hips in a very macho Mr. Clean stance, but given his words you’d think he’d be alternately wringing his hands and clutching his pearls. Mitsuba is now convinced they’ll never be able to con idiots again, like it was such an amazing scam in the first place. She whines, “We can’t earn a living like this if we lost the bet… What was it again? Your request?” When Marvy reminds her that it was to live with him for free courtesy of King Lido and his Rebellion of No Specific Purpose, she can’t even hide her relief that the guy who beat their scheme is still dumb enough to give them free room and board. Reinhold also agrees to join. “After all, I may be partially responsible for your loss,” he says. I guess I’m just unsympathetic to their “loss” of livelihood when it consisted of beating up idiots and taking their money.

After visiting the town elder and the hot springs for basically no reason, the gang returns to town, where a Suikoclone in a sweater vest tells Marvy a “secret”: there is an elven settlement on the other side of the island. Paula feels the need to add, “There is an elven settlement past this village.” Thanks, sweetheart. She also says they don’t get along with humans, which is shocking and not at all cliché. Next you’re going to tell me that dwarves love mining! Marvy thinks on it and decides that, as he doesn’t really like humans either, he’ll pay this elven area a visit.

Can’t anyone in this game crack a damn smile?

To reach the elven settlement, Marvy returns to the green where he fought Mitsuba and takes a path out of the village. From there, he must cross a desolate, misty chasm formed of granite. And just to make sure none of these three areas of the same small island share remotely the same climate, that path leads directly into a dense forest.

The area is labeled as the Great Elven Tree, though Marvy won’t have the pleasure of seeing the eponymous large wood, because a couple of elves are barring his path. The one creatively labeled Elven Elder says she has nothing to say to “you humans,” and is probably trying to recall an insult about their short lifespans and brutal natures from the Big Book of Fantasy Racial Tropes, when she stops to take a closer look at these visitors. “You there… Could it be… Romina’s daughter?” she asks. And with that, Keneth is reunited with his people. I kid. Paula replies, “Yes, Romina is my mother.” The elder huffs, “Are you not aware of the atrocious sin your mother committed? How dare you even think of setting foot on this sacred land!” Paula could respond that she got dragged here by a mute in a headband, or that obviously she’s aware, since she’s not living among the elves and is instead living with heathen humans, gasp, but she chooses to say, “My mother…passed away many years ago…” If the elder were not an asshole, this would an excellent guilt tactic. Instead, the asshole replies, “Then you shall be the one responsible for bearing the burden of her sin… Your mother once worked in a league with humans. Now, you, too, must pay for her treachery…” She worked in a league with humans? Was it a bowling league or a Pokémon league? The other elf, a Portrait Person named Selma whose gigantic neon yellow hair make it look like she just returned from a Jem and the Holograms audition, simply but kindly tells Paula to leave.

Well, now that we got the crucial business of elven racism and backstory for a character I don’t care about out of the way, it’s time to leave Na-Nal and return to Obel and their cave, sweet cave. Before he can make a beeline for Rita, though, he checks in with newsboy Perrault. “I’m thinking of putting out a newspaper like this,” Perrault tells Marvy. “Take a quick look at it for me.” He hands Marvy a page hot off the printing presses that Marvy didn’t know he had. The “teaser” reads, “At last, this newspaper has been launched to answer the public’s questions and meet its demands.” I’m sure the five people in this room have just been beating down Perrault’s door, begging for his incisive editorials about the shitty overcast weather, Princess Flarey Sue’s red carpet fashion disasters, or, since I can no longer look at Perrault without thinking of this, pork belly futures. “With our commitment to reporting the facts in a timely manner,” he rambles on in a way that would make any J-school professor break out in hives, “we intend to do our best in informing you.” And then, just to prove that he has no skills as an actual reporter, he begs for tips: “If you have any opinions, comments, or good information, please bring them to Perrault without hesitation.” Perrault, meanwhile, will sit in this room and opine about the important journalistic work he’s doing instead of getting off his fat ass to do any reporting himself.