‘Leona Lewis polluting the fine art of J-Pop with her shitty Western music?! I call a FFXIII boycott!’

Gallows reads something startling in his newspaper, giving us a two-second glimpse of his hilarious shocked face before we see a close-up of the article in question. The short piece concerns something called the “Ark Scepter”, a sacred artefact which is due to be transported via train to the colony of the Baskar Tribe. The Scepter “is said to be capable of communicating with the powers that sustain the world”. I thought that was something game designers did after a puff on their magic cigarettes? Bizarrely, the actual text of the article — not the quoted extract provided by the PTG — is completely unrelated to the Ark Scepter, instead blathering “Don’t want perish horribly? Sounds like a job for Call Whistle! Just give a quick toot and up to four living, breathing horses will materialize – poof! – before your very eyes!” Despite this seemingly random word vomit, there’s a picture of the Ark Scepter (which is, naturally, a crystalline phallus) next to the body of text, which takes this into a whole new realm of nonsense. I don’t even want to attempt to explain the thought processes behind this scene. Maybe they didn’t expect gamers to actually read the text of the article. But, if that’s the case, why would they go to the trouble of composing a fake article about Call Whistles (which do actually exist, but have no relevance whatsoever to the plot), when they could have just stuck the real description of the Ark Scepter in there? Oh, wait, that would have been the most obvious and logical decision. Never mind.

Penis!

Gallows doesn’t seem to have noticed the discrepancy, as he starts wigging out about the Ark Scepter. “The sacred artifact of Baskar? And it’s on a train!?” he gasps. “Then…what the heck is this Ark Scepter that I’m holdin’ now!?” And he pulls out a second Ark Scepter from under the table. I think this is supposed to be comedic, but it’s hard to be certain — having ingested vast quantities of Southern Comfort in order to get through Jet’s scenario without killing myself or someone else, I’m currently at that stage of drunkenness where everything is hilarious, and I still can’t force myself to muster a smile at this scene.

Gallows continues to gaze goggle-eyed at the pellucid dildo clenched in his right hand. So, is the second Ark Cock Scepter a fake, or are there two in existence? Even alcohol can’t seem to make me care, but I can’t give in now — I’ve started, so I’ll finish. Even if it does take me ten years to do so.

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The scene fades out, and the PTG hastily writes “Three months earlier…” across the expanse of inky blackness. You read that right — we’re about to experience a flashback within a flashback. Even worse, this isn’t a short snippet of a memory like the flashback in Vagina’s chapter; it’s a fully-playable, quite lengthy, sequence. Uh, can we not do this? ‘Cause I don’t remember signing up to recap Lost. Hell, I can barely make sense of the current events in the timeline, let alone the layers of nonsense the game designers insist on piling onto me. If we start seeing flashforwards or flash-sideways, I’m turning the fucking game off.

Cut to Gallows dicking around in what appears to be his house. There’s a stone floor with a fire burning away in the middle of it, along with several barrels he appears to be rifling through. Aside from a couple of beds at the top of a short stone staircase, there’s no other furniture in the dwelling at all — the Baskars don’t exactly live the most extravagant lifestyle, you see. A pretty young girl with long, braided blonde hair and ceremonial robes suddenly meanders into shot, inquiring “Are you really going, brother?” Strangely, according to the text box, her name is Shane. Isn’t that traditionally a boy’s name? Wait, her parents did name her brother “Gallows”, so we’re clearly not dealing with sane people here. I bet she gets a lot of ribbing from her peers, though.

Gallows, not about to placate his annoying kid sister, replies that he’s definitely going. “Those of priestly lineage must enter the priesthood, right?” he exposits. “Well, not me. Why the heck do I have to follow some stale, old tradition?!” He throws up his hands with a melodramatic flourish, causing Shane to sigh in irritation. She once again asks him not to leave — for reasons beyond my comprehension — but he’s adamant that “No-one’s gonna tell [him] what to do”. Shane tells him that she won’t stop him from leaving, but wonders why he has to take the sacred artefact of the tribe with him. “The sacred artefact, Cock Scepter…” Gallows breathes. “It enables us to control and communicate with the powers that sustain the world…” The more I play, the more I entertain the idea that “Cock Scepter” is simply a euphemism for “Crack Pipe”. Gallows continues to rhapsodize over the Scepter, claiming he’d have nothing to fear in the wasteland if he could work out how to use it. And even if things don’t work out, he can sell it and live off the money for a while. “What’s even greater would be to see Granny’s jaw drop!!” he finishes psychotically, ramming his fist into the wall for emphasis. Yeah, that’s not disturbing at all. Shane wonders aloud how her brother could even contemplate selling their tribe’s priceless relic. Because he’s a flighty, careless bounder who doesn’t care about his lineage or responsibility. Got that? Don’t worry, we’ll all have it carved into our brains before long.

Finally realizing her brother is a lost cause, Shane tells him she accepts his decision, but will neither help him nor intervene in his affairs. Gallows is happy she’s going to stay the hell outta his bidness: “That’s my kid brother! Just the answer I wanted to hear! You take after me — you’re so quick-witted!”

Wait. Let me rewind a sec…yes, he really did refer to Shane as his brother. This one seemingly-throwaway line leaves me with a gnawing internal conflict. On one hand, this game has been relatively free of translation errors so far (in comparison to certain other hack-jobs, at least), so I can’t really play down the brother reference as a localization glitch. On the other hand, I point-blank refuse to believe that Shane has a penis. I suppose the only way I’ll be able to reach a compromise with myself is to assume Shane is simply the gayest, most effeminate young man that ever lived.

…though probably not as bright as your outfit.

“By the way, where’s that slow-witted granny of ours?” Gallows asks casually, removing his clenched fist from the wall. I wonder if she’s slow-witted compared to him, or compared to people of average intelligence or higher. “I have not seen her since this morning, when I borrowed some of her moisturiser,” Shane replies, without the last seven words. “Perhaps she’s at the altar, or…” Gallows turns in shock, mouth agape. “Don’t tell me the Southern Sanctuary?!” he shrieks. “Just when I was about to head out there…” Given the red, I can only assume it’s more important than just any old Sanctuary. Shane basically tells his brother to stop being an idiot, but also has a proposition for him: “Shall I augur your future with my dream sight, Brother?” I have a sneaking suspicion that question has led to numerous disturbing incest fanfics, but I’m sure as hell not going to check. Gallows declines Shane’s offer of a brotherly prophecy session, declaring that his future is guaranteed to be bright even without the benefit of knowing what’s going to happen in it. Personally, I think he’s missing a trick here — he has a younger brother who can not only see the future, but also has an eye for colour and industrial quantities of male grooming products, yet refuses to take advantage of his generosity? I guess he really is as dumb as his character design would have me believe.

Gallows leaves, finally giving Shane a chance to listen to his Glee soundtrack in peace — the high F in ‘Defying Gravity’ always get him right here. Speaking of music, the Baskar Colony theme is so soothing and relaxing that it should be on a chillout CD — Lord knows I’ll probably be needing one by the end of this recap.

Before leaving for the Southern Sanctuary, Gallows takes a few minutes to explore a village he should, by all rights, know like the back of his hand already, squeezing in a quick round of Talk To Everyone for good measure. Those of you who’ve read the latest Wild ARMs recap are probably wondering if there’s any connection between this Baskar Colony and the tepee-dwelling, Guardian-hugging Baskar Tribe from the former game. In truth, I have no idea whether these games are supposed to take place in the very same Feelgayer, thousands of years apart, or if it’s a strange kind of alternate universe deal. Whatever the case may be, I’m fairly confident someone out there in the wilderness of the internet will have come up with a fanwanky timeline to tie everything together nicely, so feel free to sate your curiosity. I’ll be over here with my shot glass, among the empty bottles.

Don’t worry — with the fun and innovative World Map in this game, I’ll be doing plenty of both!

Sadly, nobody in the village has anything interesting to say. The most noteworthy individual Gallows comes across is a tiny little robot dude wearing a sombrero. As you probably guessed, he’s a Save Figure. I love how the WA people seem to think regular old save points are somehow beneath them, so we end up with the completely ridiculous alternatives of sombrero-wearing droids and talking pink parrots. Oh well, it’s just another shimmering thread in the beautiful, crack-induced tapestry of this game, so I’ll be nice and move on.

Before he ventures out into the big bad world of Feelgayer, Gallows notices one place in the colony he hasn’t yet explored — an opening in the wall of the cliff overlooking the village, with important-looking totems at either side. The passage leads to a small grotto carved out of the rock, at the centre of which is the altar he and Shane were talking about earlier. An elderly woman with tribal feathers in her hair, leaning on a walking stick, scrutinizes Gallows as he enters the cave. “So…” says the woman, in a voice I imagine to be equal parts astonished and cynical, “I see you’re back visiting the altar. Wonders will never cease…” I like her already. Of course, she’s Gallows’ and Shane’s oft-referenced Granny, Halle. “Granny! I thought you had gone off to the Southern Sanctuary,” Gallows cries. “Why? Is that where you’re headed?” Halle snaps. Gallows reacts to this question like she poked him with her walking stick, and denies even considering the prospect of going to the Southern Sanctuary. Halle thinks he doth protest too much, and Gallows, knowing she sees right through him, tries for the charm offensive: “One look at your bright smile made me forget what I was going to ask. I-I’ll come back once I remember…” Although it isn’t visible, Halle probably rolls her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re plotting in the Southern Sanctuary, but remember that it’s also called the Fallen Sanctuary…” she warns. “Your half-baked skills are no match for its traps and contrivances. And don’t you forget it.” God, I love this woman. In fact, she reminds me so much of my other favourite snarky grandmother character that I’m going to rename her in tribute.

Gallows leaves Sophia to her cranky mutterings and retreats into the bright sunlight of the outside world. While searching for the Fallen Sanctuary (thank fuck I can finally stop calling it the Southern Sanctuary) in order to nab the Cock Scepter, Gallows experiences his first delicious taste of the World Map’s infamous Radar System, or, as I prefer to call it, the Completely Fucking Ridiculous and Unnecessary Sanity-Raping System. See, it seems the game designers didn’t think it annoying enough to have to trawl the World Map in search of my next destination. This time, towns and dungeons aren’t even visible at all until I ‘reveal’ them using some kind of retarded sonar device (which seems to serve no purpose other than to drive me slowly and painfully insane). What this means is that I have to keep tapping the Square button every two paces until the location in question falls under the radar’s range. To give you an example of how utterly asinine this is, Gallows could be standing a millimetre away from a thriving city or towering structure, and it would remain completely invisible to him (and the player) without a magic press of the Square button. When you take into consideration the vague directions given by NPCs, it can — and does — take far longer than should be legal to stumble across even the most obvious of locales. Combined with my general ineptitude in matters of map-reading and navigation, I should consider it a miracle that I manage to progress in this game at all.

Thankfully, the Fallen Sanctuary is merely a stone’s throw from the Baskar Colony, keeping the face-clawing on my part to an absolute minimum — for now. “All right…” Gallows murmurs, stepping into the entrance hall of the shrine. “Get ready, Cock Scepter. ‘Cause here I come.” I’m not sure I want to know what he’s planning to do with it. Suddenly, he slaps his own face like a psycho, and mutters “I’ve got the power of Arcana in my Medium. As long as I’ve got that, no ordinary monster can stand up to me!” I know what you’re thinking. But surprisingly, he hasn’t been smoking crack — Arcana is this game’s equivalent of magic, and can be used by equipping different Mediums. It’s pretty funny that the big, beefy guy is the only designated mage-type character we’ve seen so far. On the flipside, this means his PENIS isn’t as powerful as it could be. Oh well — a guy can’t have everything.

I should probably mention that Gallows’ current Medium has the decidedly fruity name of ‘Aqua Wisp’. I suspect he stole it from Shane while the latter was otherwise engaged in his daily skincare regime. As its name might suggest, Aqua Wisp bestows water-element magic on its user. I sure hope the enemies down here are vulnerable to water, or this would be completely cheap and unfair!

Before long, Gallows is halted by a heavy stone door he can’t budge, and a blue-flamed torch burning away merrily next to it. He spends at least five minutes attempting to open the door somehow, cursing like an irate sailor, until finally deciding to check the previous room to see if he missed something back there. As it turns out, there’s a tiny opening in one of the walls that completely passed him by as the camera wasn’t pointing in exactly the right direction. The next time I see someone complaining about an uncontrollable camera, I’m going to kindly point him in the direction of this game. Inside the side-room are three chests, the first of which contains the extremely meh-worthy offering of a Heal Berry. The second isn’t much more exciting, storing nothing more than a Gimel Coin, so the third chest had better be holding something pretty fucking amazing.

To Gallows’ delight, the final chest contains something he had been lacking until now. No, not a functioning brain stem — a Tool. What’s great about this is the fact that, while Vagina has the absolutely nonsensical Tindercrest, and Jet uses a wooden boomerang that’s somehow sturdy enough to smash metal, Gallows’ Tool is refreshingly grounded in reality. I kid, I kid — it’s an absurd creation called the ‘Freezer Doll’. According to the Phantom Item Describer, it “projects ghostly beams of sub-zero frost” and “its supernatural snow is so chilling, it can extinguish torches in an instant”. As if this weren’t bizarre enough, the doll itself appears to be an effigy of a white duck wearing a bright blue fez. The icy blasts it generates are shot out of its beak, but when viewed from afar, the process looks significantly more suggestive. Or maybe it’s just my sick mind. Either way, this is probably the most ludicrous thing I’ve seen in the game so far, and the scary thing is, we’re only an hour in. By the third or fourth recap, I’ll likely be addicted to numerous mind-altering substances through a futile attempt to make sense of everything that’s thrown at me.

Money shot!

Armed with his jizz snow-spitting doll, Gallows proceeds through the dungeon with ease until he reaches the heart of the sanctuary, which houses an elaborate altar and the glowing Cock Scepter. “Sorry to keep you waiting, sweetie,” Gallows pants, arms spread wide. “Come to papa…” I suddenly begin to itch all over. As Gallows reaches across to grip the Cock Scepter around its crystal shaft, he hesitates, possibly wondering if he remembered to pack the lube. Before he can check his pockets, something rudely interrupts proceedings and drags him headfirst into a boss battle. I should probably be thankful.

*Puff*

The creatures Gallows must vanquish are a group of four crack-fuelled monsters known as ‘Kesaran Pasaran’. As far as I’m aware, the name comes from an ancient Japanese legend, in which they are known as mysterious, white fluffy creatures. What the legend apparently failed to mention is that they are actually floating yellow faces with zombie grins and terrifyingly-large eyes, being orbited by several smaller versions of themselves. I’m going to have nightmares tonight, I can feel it. Because it wasn’t enough for these monsters to be completely disturbing, they also have a gimmicky trick up their sleeve — the ability to split themselves in two. To end the battle once and for all, Gallows has to use his Extension ability to blast them all with magic at the same time. Fortunately, I can now look at the screen again, even though I’ll probably be seeing a whole group of Kesaran Pasarans grinning at my window tonight.