Taking in the clowns before him, Blankie sneers “So, you’re the humans working for the Guardians…” God, I can almost taste the disdain and incredulity even with the merciful lack of voice-acting in this game. Astonishingly, Indy manages to recall his last encounter with the floating golden sphinx wearing a blanket, and dramatically screams “You!!!” I wonder if more exclamation points equals more emotion? Lord only knows how anguished certain characters from Suikoden II would sound if their game were voice-acted.
As Rudy and Cesuelia wonder who the fuck invited the freak in the bedsheet to the party, Indy and Blankie continue their short-awaited showdown. “The statue, in the human town, will be destroyed,” Blankie says matter-of-factly. “Unlike [Squatt], I don’t like making a mess out of things.” Except for your appearance. Still not appearing to recognize Indy (apparently, a change of clothes and grown-out hair enable you to pass for a completely different person in Feelgayer), Blankie reveals that he needs a few more minutes to complete his “experiments” in town. Ooh, that sounds ominous. Before Indy can draw his sword and go psycho (crack) on his nemesis’ blanketed behind, Blankie summons a convenient boss and tells it to keep the party occupied while he goes and takes care of bidness back in Saint Centour.
Why does this sound so wrong?
Well, the ensuing battle against “Night Gaunt” — a generic dragon monster — plays out pretty much like any other battle, so I guess the magical rainbow hologram prison doesn’t restrict the movement of its occupants; they just can’t step over its boundaries. Quite convenient, that. After a few magic spells and Hand Cannons, Night Gaunt explodes and its remains scatter to the four winds, carried off to wherever all the other formulaic filler bosses go when they die. Even with the immediate threat dealt with, the party is still stuck between a rock and a hard place (or rather, a crystal pillar and a rainbow projection); powerless to stop Blankie from carrying out whatever evil plan he has in store for Saint Centour.
Good for her!!!
Back in regular gameplay mode, Cesuelia screams “The statue is in danger! We must get out of here!!” All things considered, hon, there’s little chance of that…but wait, what’s this? A timely and convenient solution to your current predicament, in the form of a 14 year old girl in an orange dress? Said orange-clad girl scurries up the ladder leading to the roof, followed closely by an older gentleman (sugar daddy alert!) and demands of nobody in particular “Do you know of the Night Gaunt? Is it in this tower?” When nobody answers, she takes a look around and finally notices the simpletons trapped inside the psychedelic cage. For some reason, however, she thinks they are the Night Gaunt. Uh…all of them? Or just one? Whatever, it’s just a silly “comic relief” moment that is neither comical nor relief, so let’s just get on with the awkwardly-scripted scene. Although I may regret doing so before long.
The older dude, known only as “Servant”, uses his superior wisdom and deduces that the three bewildered, slightly brain-damaged looking humans are almost certainly not some kind of triple-headed dragon monster, then hastily tells his teenage mistress that they are “Just like [us]. They’re bounty hunters.” Quite how he knows this is a mystery — I mean, they could just be three home insurance salespeople who called at the wrong address — but the more salient point here is that he and the pubescent poppet accompanying him are freaking bounty hunters.
I agree – it’s clashing terribly with the original architecture.
Still only identified as “A Girl”, Orange Dress turns to her companion for clarification, giving me a more detailed view of her sprite — in addition to the orange floor-length dress, she has long, cascading blonde hair topped with a blue ribbon, making her the least convincing bounty hunter in history. Her elderly servant, probably half-crippled with arthritis, takes second place. It’s like, I suppose a mercenary duo consisting of a teenage girl and her elderly chaperone/butler/servant would be pretty effective in terms of catching people unawares, but this still seems pretty ridiculous. If nothing else, shouldn’t the girl be in school?
I’m sick of playing dumb about this, so I’ll just come out and say it — Orange Dress is in fact the renowned bounty huntress, Calamity Jane, although it won’t be revealed for another few text boxes. Yeah, some pretty hilarious artistic liberties being taken here. Realizing that the Trio somehow managed to kill the feared Night Gaunt, Jane saunters up to the rainbow cage and taunts them: “So, you want to get out, huh? How much is it worth to you? You have my bounty and I need the cash.” You guessed it, she’s the game’s obligatory “Money money money MONEY MONEY!!!” character, who are usually only marginally less annoying than the requisite “Chicks chicks chicks CHICKS CHICKS!!!” characters. Surprisingly, though, Jane’s pretty much my favourite person in the entire game, which probably says a lot about the overall quality of the cast as a whole.
The whiter-than-white Cesuelia is disgusted that this opportunistic young hireling has the gall to ask them for money, but to her credit, she doesn’t play the “How dare you, I’m a princess!” card, and instead tries to send Jane on a long-haul guilt trip: “Money? You want money! We’re trying to save the world and you’re asking for money…” Jane basically tells her to STFU and that she needs a new pair of shoes, making me love her all the more. Sure, I know it’s a pretty despicable attitude to take, but I’m just happy to have met at least one character who isn’t insufferably noble and/or dumb as a rock.
Indy, tired of Cesuelia’s fruitless attempts to appeal to Jane’s conscience, asks how much she’d be willing to accept for letting them out, to which Jane replies that 2,000 Gella should suffice. Personally I think that’s pretty damn reasonable, but Indy is adamant that there’s “no way [they] can pay that much”. Well, having exploited a certain item-duplication glitch and sold the excess (oh no, I’m not a true gamer!), the party currently has a fortune of 683,469 Gella, so I beg to differ, Indy. After some more attempted negotiations, the party finally agrees to stump up the cash, prompting Jane to carry out her end of the bargain. Those of you who are easily shocked might want to sit down for this.
Tossing her golden curls, Jane casually pulls out a PENIS and blows one of the crystal pillars to smithereens with a single well-aimed shot, which instantly disables the rainbow cage. I’ll just assume shooting out one of the pillars only works from outside the cage, lest I drive myself into insanity trying to rationalize Rudy not attempting the same thing. As she blows the end of her firearm, Indy looks Jane up and down then casually declares “Just like Rudy, she uses a PENIS.” We all have our secrets, I guess. Finally deciding to introduce herself, Jane gives her full name as “Jane Maxwell” and elaborates by claiming that she’s also known as “the most beautiful woman here, next to [her] sister”. She’s also not a woman yet, but let’s not let a little thing like biological age get in the way here!
Nothing at all, as long as you stay away from certain pointy-haired Guados.
Aghast, Indy cries “This little girly is Calamity Jane!?” Jane confronts him about this disparaging remark and fumes “What’s wrong with being a little girl?” which makes me want to throw something at the TV (or the scriptwriter’s head) because apparently she was supposed to be a fully-grown woman ten seconds ago. In the ensuing verbal exchange we discover that the elderly servant’s name is McDullen, not that he has much of an impact on proceedings. If you ask me, the middle syllable of his name sums up his entire presence in the game.
Throughout the conversation all the non-mutes are having, Rudy stares at his feet and seethes silently. How is it fair that a guy like him can be ostracized and treated like some kind of freak just because he possesses a PENIS, while that irritating blonde bint has managed to become a world-renowned celebrity despite having a similar appendage herself? Do her legions of fans really know what she’s packing beneath that dress?
Loading ...McDull and Jane make their excuses and depart, leaving the others to resume their epic fetch-quest for the Guardians — even though Rudy would quite like to tell them, and the rest of Feelgayer, to kindly fuck off right now. With Blankie’s foreboding words fresh in her mind, Cesuelia casts GTFO and the party is instantly whisked to the bottom of the tower. If only getting to the top had been this easy.
Back in Saint Centour, it immediately becomes apparent that Something Is Wrong; the upbeat town music has been replaced with an eerie, somber melody and the place is completely deserted. Oh, and it’s now full-to-bursting with random battles, too — I almost had a heart attack when the Guitar Riff of Battle Transitions kicked in for the first time and shattered the uneasy stillness. I’ll warn you all now, we never actually find out what the fuck happened here — it’s safe to surmise that Blankie is somehow behind the disappearance of the entire freaking town, but that’s as far as the game ever explains it. To me, the most likely explanation is that this is simply a larger-scale recurrence of the previous citizen abductions, but that doesn’t explain the importance of the Cage Tower in all this, nor the small matter of where everyone actually went. Or, you know, how Blankie managed to pull the entire stunt off in the first place. Hopefully a poll will shed more light on this turn of events!
Still trying to figure out what happened, Rudy and friends continue to explore the ex-town, finding little more than the contents of all the treasure chests that were blocked by those inconsiderate townspeople until now. At least there’s an upside to this mass disappearance, Rudy thinks to himself as he procures a Duplicator (a magic key, to you and me) from a chest tucked away in a previously-guarded outhouse. The rest of the treasures, aside from a rare healing potion, are all mundane crap that could probably be fished out of the average NPC’s household waste, which kinda makes Rudy wonder why the townspeople were so anal about protecting them from interlopers.
Hopefully this won’t come as too much of a surprise to you guys, but The Littlest Blind Girl is the only survivor, having apparently hid in her house when she felt a “strange energy” descend upon the town. Because it’s completely plausible that the girl with the lowest chance of surviving a catastrophe actually ends up being the only one who lives. Being of no use to them, the party leaves her at the mercy of the ferocious beasts now prowling the streets, dismissing any pangs of guilt — come on, if she’s managed to survive this long, she can’t be in any real danger.
Where are the men in white coats when you need them?
Directly north of The Littlest Blind Girl’s apparently impenetrable house, the group stumbles upon a fenced-off square which, much like the distinctly underwhelming treasure chests was previously blocked off by a paranoid townsperson. In this case, however, the NPC had actually been protecting something valuable — a Guardian Statue, to be exact, which now lies in ruins on its pedestal. Shit. I would speculate as to why the citizens didn’t focus all their security on the one thing they couldn’t afford to lose, rather than guarding their precious fucking Heal Berries with their lives, but since Blankie would have made them all disappear anyway, it’s a moot point. That, and I don’t really care enough to waste any more seconds of my life pondering the scenario.
This isn’t what I meant when I begged you to throw me one, game designers.
“The statue is speaking directly into my mind…” Cesuelia breathes, putting on her Chosen One Face and pressing her cheek against the rubble. Naturally, she isn’t just attention-seeking; the statue (or rather, the spirit that once resided in it) actually is speaking to her. The disembodied Guardian, channeling itself through the Phantom Text God, reveals itself to be “the sacred spirit, Ione Paua” and declares that its powers are weakening. Because a pile of rubble being all that remained of its sacred vessel wasn’t enough of a clue. The long and short of it is that the party obtains the “Saint Rune” and I get a lecture about protecting the final Guardian Statue before the Demons can get their grubby mitts on it. “We must reclaim the Tear Drop before they use it to wake their Queen,” Cesuelia nags, suggesting that they head for the port of Timney before it’s too late. Time for another game of interstellar human tennis!