Welcome back to Feelgayer, where every PENIS is a lethal weapon! In the last recap, the Cliché Trio failed to protect the remaining Guardian Statues, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. In addition to this, they were forced to pay off a teenage bounty huntress to spring them from a trap, go on a fetch quest for a pedophilic sea captain, and then bear witness to Cesuelia’s utterly nonsensical sham wedding to said sea captain. Not their finest hour, it has to be said. Also, if none of this is making any sense…well, I’d usually advise you to re-read the previous recap, but in this case I would also have to advocate the consumption of numerous mind-altering substances, and I don’t really want to be responsible for any lawsuits. Moving on!
We pick up the hot sprite-y action in a cabin of the Sweet Ass Candy, Cap’n Seymour’s inappropriately-named ship. The good captain apologizes to the gang for generally being a dick, then declares “Somehow, the wedding was called off, but we were still able to fake it all!” He sounds disgustingly proud of this, like pulling off a ridiculous fake wedding that nobody buys anyway is some huge achievement. Who cares that the Queen of the Demons is about to awaken and throw the world into turmoil, as long as Cap’n Seymour’s rival ex doesn’t think he’s a complete waste of sperm, right?
As payment for answering the dumb wedding questions correctly, not to mention surrendering the last vestiges of their dignity, the party receives several gifts from Cap’n Seymour, including a few thousand gella, a Lucky Card, and…the Wand tool. In case you needed to ask, I totally read the latter as “Wang”. “I’m sure you’ll find a use for it…” Cap’n Seymour ominously states, taking my mind to its usual disturbing place, before summoning a Black Screen of Returning to Port. Back in Port Timney–aka Gay Sailor Fetish Heaven–the group stops off at the local PENIS Meister while Rudy gets some work done. What can I say? The guy is self-conscious. With shaft extended and ammo reserves at full capacity, he leads the others to the town exit, where the disembodied voice of the Water Guardian, Stoldark, decides to remind the gang that they’re about as much use as a shit-flavoured lollipop. Basically, Mother is about to wake up (even though she’s kinda already awake, but why start worrying about making sense now?) and the world is headed for Shitsville. Stoldark, being one of the mighty and verbose Guardians, takes about a dozen text boxes to say this. “The seal no longer holds back the ripples of darkness from spreading…” he intones, the screen darkening to complement his ominous monologue. How considerate of the videogame gods to take ambient lighting into account here. Unfortunately, the relentlessly jolly background music continues to play throughout the scene, ruining the dramatic effect they were going for. Whoops!
“This will be the last transmission of my thoughts…” Stoldark continues, letting us know that things aren’t all bad in the world, before urging the Trio to make haste to “the snow-covered Demon Castle”, the source of the aforementioned ripples of darkness. I really wish he’d stop with this whole “ripples of darkness” thing, because it’s making me imagine Mother letting out the enormous fart she’s likely been holding in for the past 1,000 years. Speaking of Mother, Cesuelia points out that her growing power is suppressing the Guardians’ voices. It’s kind of a shame that we’re probably going to have to kill her, because I think I’ve just become her biggest fan. Ignoring Cesuelia, Indy suddenly has a eureka moment and shrieks that the Demons must be living in the remains of Arctica, the kingdom that he the completely-unrelated Garrett failed to defend in the opening sequence. I know I’m impressed by his deduction skills. Who would have guessed that a snow-covered castle would be located in the only icy region of Feelgayer?
Getting as fired up as it’s possible for anyone to be in this game, Indy makes some remark or other about fulfilling his vengeance, and then we cut to Demon HQ, Mother’s glorious cocoon in centre frame. The smashing of the Guardian Statues is beginning to return her senses to her, apparently starting with her sight. She moans for a while about the “wonderful wasteland” she sees before her–I’m going to assume she has some kind of alien remote vision, because the view from her tube appears to be an interior wall–and then spouts some dark and edgy prose involving such words as “bloodshed” and “nightmare”. Before she can ask one of her minions to bring her some black hair dye and a facial piercing kit, the other Power Rangers Villains, including Lord Zedd, Blankie, Scorpina and Squatt (but, strangely, not Baboo) arrive to witness her grand hatching. I hope you all have the brain bleach ready.
Accompanied by a disgusting egg-cracking sound effect, Mother’s cocoon breaks apart, allowing two huge pincers to protrude from her sides. After a White Flash of Not Having to Animate Stuff she’s also sporting an enormous insect-like stinger, along with the makeup of a geisha and elaborate floaty garments. The finished result looks like an outfit Lady Gaga would cook up after watching A Bug’s Life. And that’s not the worst of it.
Well, this solves the dilemma of my Halloween costume for this year.
The bug/woman hybrid appearance alone would be more than enough to reduce an entomophobe like me to a terrified wreck…but then there’s the laugh. Oh gods, the laugh. By this point I’m ready to throw myself out of the nearest window, and the bitch hasn’t even started speaking yet. When she does, things quickly head even further south–after a brief “Hi there” to her children, she immediately launches into a fevered tirade about “bringing humbleness” to the land of Feelgayer. “Life will end and we will prosper,” she proclaims. “Destruction of all life. Beauty lies in complete destruction!” Hear the record scratch? Yes, the OMG TWIST is that rather than conquering Feelgayer to rule it, she instead wants to annihilate it altogether, because she gets off on destroying planets, or something. I don’t really know. In a hilarious moment, Lord Zedd’s response to her nihilistic monologue is to wonder “Is that when we get to rule the world?” Do you want to break the news to him, or shall I? Wait, I’ll just do this instead.
DURRRRRR!!! DUUURRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Mother’s reaction is considerably harsher than mine. Giving another blood-chilling guffaw, she scoffs “Rule? Order? What do those things have to do with me? [Feelgayer] will end up just like the other worlds I’ve been to. The flame of life is most beautiful at its scattering end…” That last line was actually quite poetic for this game’s script, but I’m getting off-topic here. I’m imagining Lord Zedd and the other Power Rangers Villains with FFVI-style Don Knotts reactions to all this drunk-at-a-wedding ranting, but sadly we don’t get to see their faces as their long-awaited Mother shatters their illusions in spectacular fashion. I never get to have any fun.
And Mother isn’t finished yet. Well, she has had an entire millennium to prepare this speech; might as well let her enjoy the moment. She claims that the end of a planet’s life is “the ultimate beauty supplied by the universe.” Okay, hon, destruction = beautiful. I think we all get it now. Put down your glass and sit down. Slow on the uptake, Lord Zedd’s all “OK, just to be clear, we’re not making this planet our new home after all?” Someone slap him, please?
It gets worse better. Remember Hy/iades, the homeland that was name-dropped by the Power Rangers Villains a few times? Well, turns out Mother Dearest wiped out that planet too, seemingly because she just felt like it one day. I’d hate to be around her at her time of the month. As the realization slowly dawns on her spawn that Mother isn’t quite the…thing they imagined her to be, she hits them with an even worse revelation–once Feelgayer has been destroyed, she plans to reward her children for their hard work by eating them. And yes, my mind just went to the Bad Place once again. “You will be burned in the eternal flames of your own mother’s appetite!” she screams, adding that “no other heaven exists in the universe.” That’s a somewhat liberal definition of heaven she’s using there. Also, it’s just occurred to me that I haven’t completed my ill-advised naming scheme by renaming Mother to Rita Repulsa yet, and in light of this scene it feels kind of inappropriate to do so. I mean, my memory of 90s TV is kind of fuzzy, but I’m almost certain no episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers ever concluded with Rita gleefully promising to devour her own offspring. Still, I’m aiming for some semblance of consistency in these recaps, so Rita it is.
We fade out to another horrific laugh, because I haven’t been squicked out enough by this scene already. Wow. I never thought I’d be saying this, but thank God we now return to the vastly less disturbing Cliché Trio. I’m never going to complain about these guys again…for the rest of this page. Back on the world map, the gang is at a loss. Obviously they’re supposed to head to Arctica, which is north, for their final battle with the Power Rangers Villains, but there’s one tiny little problem–it’s on another continent. Shit. Luckily, the ever-helpful Strategy Guardian, Gamefaquon, advises them to head in the opposite direction for now…instead of, I don’t know, trying to secure passage on a boat at the port right in front of them. Cap’n Seymour definitely still owes them for playing along with his asinine charade. Instead, Rudy dashes south as fast as his little sprite legs can carry him, pausing momentarily to cast a longing backward glance at Port Timney and its plentiful seamen. After a brief encounter with another wandering NPC lunatic (this one is babbling about an enchanted world, like we needed any more evidence that Feelgayer’s inhabitants are all insane and/or drug-addled) the Trio happens upon a nearby Elw Megalithic Structure of Undetermined Design. Ooh, my favourite!
*puff*
Just a few steps inside the pyramid, a magically-sealed door blocks the path, almost taunting Rudy. Lucky for him, though, he remembered to pick up the Duplicator (aka magical key) way back in the deserted Saint Centour, so the door disappears faster than Miley Cyrus’s clothes. Speaking of Duplicators, I haven’t renamed them to Lubricators yet, have I? Consider it rectified.
Thoroughly pleased with himself for outwitting the inanimate object that tried to obstruct him, Rudy hops onto the Elw teleporter and zaps off to the next location on the Trio’s magical mystery tour. But, as always, there’s a catch. On the other side, there’s another motherfucking magical door blocking the corridor. And Rudy only had one Lubricator. Okay, game, you win. I hope you’re having a good laugh about this triumph while I drive myself crazy retracing my steps to find the Lubricator I somehow missed. Incidentally, I think it’s quite fitting that I renamed Duplicators to Lubricators mere seconds before the videogame gods decided to fuck me over.
I know you guys are probably too busy laughing at my misfortune to care where the second fucking Lubricator was, but I’m going to tell you anyway–it was in Port Timney. Which, again, is strangely appropriate, given its homoerotic NPC population. And before I get any emails–yes, I know I could have used the item duplication trick to copy the first Lubricator, but I didn’t want to damage my TROO GAMOR cred any more than it already has been. I don’t think my tiny 12 year-old penis could possibly shrink any more, you know?
Anyway, back to the magical door in the party’s as-yet unknown destination. Practically stabbing the Lubricator into the slot, Rudy gives the door the shittiest look he can muster, and if it didn’t immediately disappear he’d have slammed it against the stone wall a few dozen times as well. Not that he has anger issues or anything. It’s too early to say whether The Great Lubricator Hunt was worth it, as it soon transpires that this particular Elw Megalithic Structure of Undetermined Design spits the group out just north of Milama, a town they visited way back in Part 3. This constant zig-zagging across the world map is giving me travel sickness. Also, by my reckoning, this places them even further away from Arctica than they already were, not that the feeling of slipping further and further away from their goal is anything new to them.
Just outside the ruin, there’s yet another blond NPC clone waiting to vomit some exposition all over the Trio. Is it just a coincidence that these guys can be found wandering in the vicinity of every single Elw MSoUD, or are they employed by someone to do just that? Like, maybe someone decided that what Feelgayer really needed was a troupe of crack-dependent exposition fairies to assist users of the Elw teleportation network. If that’s the case, then surely the Cliché Trio are classed as frequent flyers by now. If they’re eligible for a reward, Rudy’s totally going to ask for some Lubricators, just in case he’s ever caught short again.
I can’t get enough of the scintillating NPC dialogue in this game.
…Where was I? Oh, right. Exposition. According to Elw MSoUD Guide #14, travelers of the Sand River east of Milama are being harassed by an unidentified assailant. Considering the Sand River is a dungeon whose dubious delights we haven’t sampled yet, and Elw MSoUD Guide #14 here was waiting to tell the group all about it before they even had a chance to take a gulp of fresh air, it’s a safe bet that it’s our next destination. But before that, Rudy has a little personal business in Milama. Stop rolling your eyes, Indy and Cesuelia, this will only take a minute.
You see, Rudy just remembered–with the help of Gamefaquon, of course–that there was a particularly ferocious sausage dog guarding a certain house in town, and it just so happens that Cesuelia’s latest tool, the Wang Wand, is the key to getting it to move. By which, I mean she uses the Wand’s magical power to converse with the dog. By hitting it.
Well, if I ever need any pointers on how to lick my own anus, I’ll be sure to come to you!
I’m not even kidding. Sure, the comedic sound effect is supposed to make this seem acceptable, but the fact remains that Cesuelia is effectively beating a defenceless animal over the head with a blunt instrument to extract information. If this game were released today, PETA would have a field day. Anyway, the Wand of Animal Abuse’s first victim meekly tells the group that he doesn’t have any friends, but feels better now that someone has taken time to talk to him–even if they did have to use brute force to accomplish it. The dog shuffles away from the door (probably to sleep off the headache in an alley somewhere), allowing Rudy to enter the house and pilfer the contents of the lone treasure chest inside. Wow, hitting a dog and then stealing from its owner? Who are the heroes of this story, again?
The item inside the heavily-guarded chest turns out to be another tool, this time for Rudy. And it is A-MAZ-ING. The Radar–hereafter known as the Gaydar, naturally–allows Rudy to pinpoint undiscovered items in the vicinity, meaning that his days of futilely rifling through barrels and crates are finally over; with one tap of the button, any hidden curiosities in the area are instantly highlighted with a flashing light. By my estimation, this little device is going to save me approximately 2,714 hours of fruitless item-hunting. Sorry, dog, but your little love-tap to the head was so worth it in hindsight. Sure, the Gaydar doesn’t actually identify gay men, but that’s probably a blessing in disguise–if it somehow fell into an interdimensional rift and ended up in the Suikoden universe, the resulting riot of flashing lights would probably give players epileptic seizures.