Penis worries that Lloyd is putting his sweet ass at risk. I have to type out Lloyd’s response, because a paraphrase will not do it justice: “Don’t worry, I’ll head down the cliff so they don’t see my face, then I’ll run in the opposite direction from the village.” Sweet motherfucking shit. This might be the perfect way to cover up a crime in a Phoenix Wright game, but it’s kind of a stretch for this game, even if the majority of the characters deserve a four-foot DURR trophy. Penis has to consider this for a full three seconds before agreeing. But first, Penis suggests that Lloyd “replenish [his] energy.” I’m sure whatever Penis has in mind isn’t going to replenish his energy, if you follow me. It turns out that he’s just offering Lloyd some of the reject cookies he didn’t give to Suelette, as opposed to the sandwiches he made. I guess the game designers forgot about those.
The magical cookies heal Lloyd completely from those two or three random battles he fought on the way here. It’s hilarious that the game designers had to think of a cover story for restoring Lloyd’s HP, but they can’t be bothered to put a fraction of the thought into any of the actual plotlines. I also love how they’re trying to act like this is an extremely urgent situation, but there’s still enough time for Lloyd to stand there and stuff his face with cookies. Well, I do believe that there’s always time to eat cookies, but it kind of takes away from what they’re trying to convey here.
Surprisingly, Lloyd doesn’t also take this opportunity to polish his sword or sew up a tear in his clothing. It’s time to get down to business. Just to avoid confusion, I’m not talking about the kind of business that Penis would be interested in. Although it does involve balls and flaming. Penis throws three perfectly-aimed fireballs that hit the guards, startling them slightly. I wish he could throw multi-enemy fireballs when he’s in my party. Since the whips aren’t touching Marble in any way, she seems to have survived the attack in good shape, and is not lying in bloody ribbons on the ground. As the guards turn toward the direction of the fiery balls, Lloyd does a series of ninja-like jumps along the top of the Jurassic Park fence posts. Two of the guards run in his direction toward the now open gate, and it quickly becomes obvious that the game designers skimped on the animation budget for the running. It looks like the guards are hunched over, traveling forward smoothly in a straight line, with only their legs moving from the knees down. It gives a comical effect to this otherwise powerful and chilling scene.
With two-thirds of the guards out of the way, some more prisoners appear, inquiring after Marble’s well-being after that terrible non-ordeal. They help her escape, although that’s not the best term to use, since the location they escape to is still inside a prison. Before she leaves, Marble murmurs her thanks to Lloyd and Penis, making sure to mention their names right in front of the remaining guard. Yeah, he’s hunched down and supposedly out of commission, but the guy is still conscious. And she doesn’t so much murmur as speak in a normal voice. That’ll help them stay undercover! Not that it matters with their genius plan in play, but still. This whole scenario is Tidus levels of dumb, people.
Lloyd lands on his feet in front of the still-open gate, and the two guards chase after him, just now passing through the gate. They must have stopped and waited for Marble’s short scene to finish. As if there weren’t already a dozen instances of retardation in the last minute, there’s another shining example coming up right here. Penis, now at the base of the cliffs, starts leisurely strolling toward the main path. The camera switches to a view of the area in front of the main gate. I’ll see if I can describe this. On the left side of the screen is the gate, with the guards hot on Lloyd’s ass. Just to the right is a line of bushes, shielding Penis from their view. Penis is on the far right of the screen, still strolling along. As soon as the guards pass the end of the convenient shrubbery, it almost seems like Penis is in the clear. Well, except for the very open main path leading up to the gate. I guess Penis is safe unless someone decides to turn around.
On a bare spot of ground, Penis suddenly trips, falling flat on his face. Okay, he wasn’t running, and there are clearly no rocks or tree roots in that area. Don’t tell me Penis has been taking random pratfall lessons from Suelette. I can only take one character with that annoying trait. Even with his spectacularly random collapse, Penis could still have escaped notice, except that he decides to yell “Ow!” in the loudest voice possible. I have to think that most people, when in this type of life-or-death situation (such as it is), would manage to stifle a cry of pain. Especially since there’s no way that fall could have hurt that badly. But of course the guards immediately notice someone yelling “Ow!” and decide it’s worth their attention. I know I just said this, but this whole setup is so fucking stupid, I can’t stand it. I think I’d almost rather watch Squall and Rinoa doing it. Almost.
To prevent the guards from investigating the extremely suspicious sound, Lloyd doubles back and takes them on face-to-face. I bet the guards are wishing they had brought something pointier to this fight, because their whips aren’t very effective against Lloyd and his whirling blades. Well, they kind of are because I suck at blocking and the guards suddenly learned how to connect their whips with human flesh, but Lloyd still wins the 2-on-1 battle. At the end of the fight, Lloyd has the option to cook something to cure his wounds, much like Penis’s magical restorative cookies. By default, he ends up putting together a powerful sandwich of healing. I’m only following up on this particular gameplay feature because it amuses me to imagine Lloyd in his current situation, whipping out some bread and lunch meat, making the sandwich, and then standing there eating it. I’m also wondering how a sandwich, and food in general, can heal an injury. I guess the U.S. healthcare situation would be a lot less dire if we could all just recover from illness by stuffing our faces. I would be the healthiest human on the planet.
This game would be a thousand times better if he were committing suicide here.
Moving on. Lloyd is not in the clear yet, as a group of four identical soldiers run in spazzy, leg-flailing unison through the gate. That special sandwich was not powerful enough to enable Lloyd to take on all four of them, so he runs to the edge of the nearby cliff and jumps down, ending up offscreen. We don’t see his grisly fate right away, as the camera switches to Penis, running down the hill. It looks like that terrible fall didn’t severely injure him. Go figure. He stops long enough to look over and see Lloyd drop into view and hop down a few more cliffs for good measure. I’m sure this magical jumping ability will conveniently be forgotten any time it would actually be useful to me. Penis must feel very unmasculine, given that he can’t even fall a couple of feet without whining like a pansy. I’m sure that’s not all he’s feeling, watching his boyfriend look all studly and stuff.
“Lloyd, they saw your face! I’m sorry! It’s all my fault…” Penis squeals, hoping that Lloyd will see fit to punish him later. If they hadn’t seen his face, they would never have been able to identify him! I know we rag on the Phoenix Wright games for using someone’s outfit as positive proof of identification, but we’re not talking about a murder trial here. Plus, all the Desians need to know is that someone from the nearby podunk village attacked them — I doubt it really matters all that much which specific podunk villager is responsible. Have I mentioned yet that this whole setup is idiotic?
Speaking of idiotic, Lloyd is not the slightest bit worried about the Desians seeing his face. Not for the reasons I mentioned above, but because, in his words, “I took out the ones that saw my face, and the rest of them are still back up on the cliff.” WHEW! Crisis averted, then. After all, there’s no way the Desians could possibly follow the wide, accessible path down to find him and Penis right now. Lloyd addresses this issue by suggesting that they should maybe go somewhere else and not stand around in the center of the path. He then tells a still-distressed Penis that he’ll consider them even if Penis does his homework for him. I’m sure Penis will do a lot more for him if Lloyd would just say the word. Continuing to stand in the middle of the path while having a conversation, Lloyd announces that he’s going to head to his house, and Penis should go back to the village. Penis stalls his departure by thanking him for “helping Marble.” Yeah, they sure did her a real favor. They should feel all warm and fuzzy inside over that. Finally, they part ways, triggering another cutscene.
Back up at My Human Ranch, the Desian guards are standing around, flummoxed over Lloyd’s abrupt departure. I guess it’s possible that they think he’s dead or something, but I’d think they’d at least go searching for his corpse. Whatever, everyone in this game, even the bad guys, is stupid. A new character steps forward into view, but the camera’s doing that dramatic thing like it did with Kratos where it only shows him from the waist down. The view immediately switches to the back of this person, and…hoo boy. He’s not a generic soldier sprite, that’s for sure. This particular individual has teal hair — yes, teal hair — that he wears in a Tidus style. He has on a short-sleeved red and white midriff jacket — again, similar to Tidus’s hoodie. Aside from the pointy bejeweled butt guard, the rest of the outfit is fairly standard — matching red/white/gold gloves and boots and tight black pants. However, there is one feature that sets him apart from any other character design we’ve seen thus far, and that is the gigantic gold dildo replacing the lower half of his left arm. The thing looks to be about two or three feet long, and about twice the thickness of his upper arm. Holy shit. I bet Captain Hook wishes he had thought of this as a hand replacement.
This guy would make millions in Hyrule.
Captain Dildo orders the guards to “analyze the data from the gate surveillance system.” Wait a second — these guys have a freaking security camera? It’s obvious from the architecture of My Human Ranch that the Desians have superior technology at their disposal, but the idea of a video camera is kind of jarring in this world that so far has been all swords and magic and flaming Wizard Wangs. I’m just warning you, though, if this is the type of camera that takes a photo every time someone walks by, I am permanently ending this recap. As the two clone guards run off to do Captain Dildo’s bidding, the teal-haired man stares dramatically off into the distance and wonders aloud, “How did a mere human make that kind of jump?” I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m somewhat impressed that they’re addressing this obvious superpower. Although it still doesn’t explain how Penis managed to get up and down that tall cliff earlier.
But doesn’t most slash involve a lot of thrusting?
Back at the save point, Lloyd takes a moment to use it, then heads home through the forest, fighting more bunnies and slimes and spiders along the way. This part is more forested, so I can sort of take back some of my criticisms from earlier. I fast-forward through the entire rest of this “dungeon” until Lloyd reaches the world map again. Before I can get into any fearsome battles with black blobs, another skit option pops up. What the hell is this — isn’t Lloyd alone? Am I going to be subjected to skit monologues? I must have been a puppy raper in a past life to be punished like this. The skit, called Restless Noishe, is not technically a monologue, but it’s just Lloyd talking to his dog. The dog that ran away offscreen at the start of the forest, as you’ll recall. The game designers didn’t bother to show us the part where Lloyd reunited with his green pet. Since Noishe was so terrified of all the forest monsters, I want to know what monsterless path he used to get here.
Anyway, Lloyd says to Noishe, “Say, Noishe, is it just me or have you been restless ever since we left the sanctuary?” Sanctuary? The hell? I have no idea what Lloyd means by this in the slightest, so let’s assume that “sanctuary” means “village entrance.” Noishe and his gigantic ears explain to Lloyd in English exactly what is going on with this sudden anxiety attack. Obviously I’m shitting you — Noishe just whines some more. The entire rest of the skit involves Noishe whining like crazy and Lloyd trying to figure out what the fuck his problem is. It’s fascinating and essential stuff, but sadly I can relate as a pet person. In the real world, Noishe would be freaked out by something like the blinking light of a plane or a microwave or the movement of a polar fleece dog crate cover. In the game, I’m sure there is a compelling reason behind his behavior, but we’ll just have to wait to find out what that is.
A wide dirt path leads to a cottage nestled in another alcove of forest. This cottage, labeled “Dirk’s House,” is the same height as Lloyd. I know dwarves are supposed to be small, but this is pushing it. Once Lloyd enters the actual screen, the house balloons to the size of a normal residence. It’s a two-story wooden cottage with a rope fence-lined path leading up to it and a simple, sweet background theme for ambience. Noishe runs up the path and the camera cuts to an elaborate gravestone with a couple of plant pots next to it. Lloyd greets his dead mother, who appears to be buried in the front yard, near the clothesline. A clear blue stream meanders through the property. It’s all very peaceful, which exponentially increases its chances of being burned down at some point.
Just in case you didn’t notice, this recap pretty much consisted of Lloyd walking from the village to his house. In terms of plot coverage, this surely ranks up there with such classic recaps as “Cloud tells a story” and “Barry recruits a bunch of assholes.” Now that Lloyd has reached his destination, I’m going to be a big jerk and end the recap here, forcing you to wait until next time to meet Lloyd’s dad, the dwarf responsible for raising Lloyd into the intelligent and thoughtful young man he is today. Maybe you’re not too sad about that. See you in Part 4!