As it turns out, I needn’t have bothered conversing with Kratos. His only contribution is, and I quote, “[Suelette] must now go on a long journey to search for those seals.” You don’t say! In other breaking news, grass is green and the sun is hot. I steer Lloyd onto the warp platform before anyone else can pull the Captain Obvious act, but it’s too late! Kratos comments, “You’ve received the oracle. Then let us leave now, Chosen.” Like leaving was all his idea. Before Suelette follows Kratos in beaming out of the room and leaving the temple, she invites both Lloyd and Penis to her house later. I would make a pervy comment about that, but I can’t really imagine a blander threesome, so it’s not worth it.
You might think that with the scene pretty much over, we are safe from any further appalling statements of the obvious. You haven’t played many RPGs then, have you? As soon as Suelette disappears, Lloyd remarks, “She left…” Seriously, somebody thought that an essential piece of dialogue. And I apparently thought it essential to include in the recap, so I guess I’m the bigger asshat here.
Penis can barely wait for Suelette’s shiny molecules to clear the air before starting in on the juicy gossip. Except in this case, “juicy gossip” refers to the fact that Suelette’s dad is an angel. Sadly, when Penis says, “The rumor was true,” Lloyd has no God damn idea what Penis is talking about. I guess I can’t be too hard on Lloyd here (heh…I said “hard on”) because for all I know, there could be dozens of Suelette-related rumors floating around. I can, however, harbor fantasies of Penis dying a fiery death when he explains in detail, “That [Suelette] is the daughter of an angel and is not really related to her current father.” Wait, when did we find that out? God, this game.
Lloyd immediately goes on the defensive, all, “JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ISN’T RELATED DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT A REAL FAMILY.” I don’t think we’ve learned this yet, but since I’ve already spoiled Kratos and Lloyd’s (platonic, familial) relationship, it should go without saying that Lloyd is adopted. And he’s apparently very insecure about it. Penis apologizes, even though he simply stated the facts of the situation without making any judgments. But that’s the fun part about hanging around people with personal issues — everything is about them and they’re really fucking touchy.
Lloyd and Penis head back down to the main chamber where they find the very person they hoped to avoid — Raine. Something has triggered an all-caps jizzfest on her part, accompanied by an equally exuberant musical theme. Before we can find out the cause of her excitement, Lloyd walks up to her, going, “Professor…?” So not only does he purposely draw her attention — something he apparently wanted to avoid about half an hour ago — but for some reason he wants to know what’s causing her to get her rocks off. Double dumb.
Predictably, Raine turns around and gets all cheesed off that the two boys disobeyed her orders. Yet she doesn’t really have room to talk, since she lied to her class about where she was going. Sure, she’s at the temple now, but she left over half an hour ago and, well, I didn’t see her anywhere around the temple when I passed through.
Instead of pointing this out, Lloyd and Penis are all, “Shit, that’s right, we were supposed to avoid her!” complete with anime sweatdrops to hammer the point home.
Loading ...As it turns out, the sweatdrops are not unwarranted. In one swift motion, Raine picks up her younger brother under the stomach and — I’m not kidding, here — freaking spanks him. Her 12-year-old brother. While his legs kick backward violently with every smack. Christ. Is there any family relationship in this entire game that doesn’t give off a wholly inappropriate vibe?
…
After Raine finishes with him, Penis drops to the ground on all fours, hanging his head. Raine informs Lloyd that he’s next on the molestation menu. Luckily for Lloyd, she forgoes the bad touch and just kicks him in the balls, sending him flying across the room to land in a crumpled heap. I’ll note that this entire scene was “cleverly” animated using various black and white screens and cutaways — well, except for the spanking, which we saw in vivid detail. The time saved by this method undoubtedly allowed the game designers to fit in copious amounts of redundant exposition and maybe an extra incest scene or two. How wonderful for us.
Now that Raine has broken pretty much every conduct rule in the book, she sends the boys home. “There will be no more class for the day,” she informs them. So why did she make all the students stay in the classroom and study if she wasn’t coming back? Oh, right. So she’d have an excuse to spank her brother if and when he broke the rules. Awesome.
Raine says nothing about Suelette’s unexpected visit to the temple and the oracle — both of which she was apparently hoping to witness. Nor does she make any mention of the recent deadly attack on the temple. Nope, the only thing on her mind is continuing her study of the temple since Phaidra gave her special permission to do so “a little while longer.” Remember, ordinary peons aren’t generally allowed to enter the temple. I like how Phaidra’s biggest concern is enforcing this time limit on Raine and not, say, worrying about all the shit that just went down. Seriously, in light of that, who gives a fuck about some professor studying the place? It’s not like she’s going to pee on the walls. I also love how Raine is still sticking to her lie about being in the temple for quite some time already. Speaking of her magical teleportation ninja powers, Raine walks out of the cutscene and promptly disappears. Does anything in this game make sense?
Just to break up the idiocy of the plot, the game designers force upon us the idiocy of another skit. This one, entitled “Lloyd’s Thoughts on Angels” lets us know right away that we’re in for a rather special conversation. Actually, it’s kind of funny since Lloyd essentially points out some of the more ridiculous features of angels — like how their wings would make it inconvenient to change clothes and sleep comfortably and such. “Have you been thinking about this the whole time, Lloyd?” Penis asks jealously in response to the clothing thing. After all, that Rimiel was quite the specimen of girly manhood…er, angelhood. How can a scrawny prepubescent boy compare to that? The whole point of the dialogue is comic relief, of course, but I always appreciate when a game takes the time to poke fun at dippy character design conventions because it means that I don’t have to. I’m lazy like that.
With this very essential conversation finished, Lloyd resumes his path toward the exit — it’s important to note that characters cannot converse and move at the same time. Just before I’m home free from this particular portion of the game, Lloyd and Penis pause at the exit, distracted by a bout of maniacal — or possibly orgasmic — laughter from within the temple. The dialogue isn’t voice-acted here, so choose your own interpretation. The frantic, jaunty music indicates that Raine is the source of the sound (hence the possible orgasmic interpretation), rather than a random group of monsters or any priest zombies. When Lloyd expresses curiosity over the goings-on within, Penis gives him the mantra of videogame recappers everywhere: “You’re better off not knowing.” Amen.
With this second very essential conversation finished, Lloyd and Penis are free to head down the front steps outside the temple and back out into Black Blob Land. Immediately, the game designers ambush me with another fucking skit, one with the very specific title “The Journey.” Penis immediately blurts, “What’s [Suelette] going to do now?” Surely he must be wondering about Suelette’s immediate plans, such as heading home for a nice dinner or maybe taking a nap. Because wondering about her plans regarding the world regeneration, which have already been jackhammered into our heads, would be too obvious, even for this game, right? Oh, how naïve you are, young ones. When Lloyd — the dumb one, remember — tells Penis — the smart one — what we already know about Suelette releasing the seals and becoming an angel, Penis responds sadly, “So [Suelette]’s going to leave the village…” No, she’s going to sign on to the internet and do all that shit remotely. God, this dialogue.
That was the entire conversation. Seriously. It appears that concepts such as “editing” or “cutting room floor” mean nothing to the writers. Anne Rice would approve, I’m sure. However, I will probably need some extra help to make it through the next 50-plus hours without my brain committing suicide. And by “extra help,” I obviously mean alcohol.
Loading ...But we’re not done with skits! In fact, there are two — count ’em, two — skits left before I can end this recap. And I’m not letting you guys get out of the experience — if I had to sit through them, so do you. Ready? You bet you are.
The first, with the fanficlicious title of “Do I Have to?”, revolves around Lloyd’s reluctance to return the Wizard’s Wang. Penis urges Lloyd to return the Wang to Suelette’s grandma. The ensuing mental image from writing that sentence makes me regret renaming the ring. Such are the perils of recapping. “But we went through a lot of trouble to get it!” Lloyd lies. After some more shameless begging from Lloyd, Penis gives in, unable to deny his butt best buddy anything. “Fine, fine. You’re not going to do anything bad, are you?” Penis wonders, his Worried Face on. Yes, Lloyd is going to use the Wang to re-enact the holocaust and, while he’s at it, rape a few kittens for good measure. Christ, Penis.
It’s nice to see that while they’re willing to forgo following up on unimportant matters such as murdered priests, the writers still take the time to follow up on absolutely necessary plot points like Lloyd’s continuing possession of an item he found in a dungeon. Yes, I’m still harping on the priests thing. Someone has to remember those poor, dead fuckers.
It is with greatest joy that I introduce the final skit of the recap. “The Oracle,” as you might expect, is a discussion about the oracle. Shocking, I know. Lloyd expresses what many of us are probably thinking — that the whole oracle event really wasn’t all that. Being the game character that he is, Lloyd obviously doesn’t realize that the blandness of the oracle was a direct result of the game designers spending their time writing riveting, snappy dialogue and animating Suelette’s klutzy pratfalls.
Lloyd’s not worried about the “why.” Instead, he has his own dramatic fantasy of how the oracle event should have gone down. Namely, “An angel as big as a mountain comes flying down from heaven carrying the Tower of [Penetration]. Then he sticks the tower into the ground!” Yeah, I would have to agree that a giant, effeminate angel fucking the planet with a massive dildo-shaped building would be a thousand times more interesting than the exposition party we witnessed. Ah well, maybe in the sequel. Penis somehow misses the sexual imagery inherent in Lloyd’s idea, as he’s just all, “Dude, whatever.”
And that’s where my footage runs out. Well, at least we’re stopping on a phallic note, not that that’s hard. Cue rimshot. Join me next time as we follow up with Suelette — although with this game’s track record, we might never see her again — and hopefully get through enough redundant exposition to actually start out on the journey. See you in Part 3!