Back to the bridge, just in time to experience some more Xenosaga Brand Technobabble™. Everything is going smoothly, but suddenly a warning siren begins to wail. One of the bridge flunkies informs the Captain that the signal is coming from inside the Hoglinde, in Sector Three. This discovery is followed up by every computer screen in the place lighting up with a Red Screen of Death. As I’m sure you’ve divined by this point, the source of the problem is indeed KOS-MOS. Our favorite boobtacular robot is booting up all by her lonesome. What a smart girl she is! Yes she IS!
Heh. Shion IS a SoHo.
Sirens and flashing red lights blare throughout the ship. The scene returns to the Vector lab, where Corey is standing in the middle of the room, asking everyone what the hell is happening, instead of going to his own damn computer terminal and trying to help figure it out. He’s filling his role as Shion’s understudy rather well, in a sense. We don’t get anything useful from this scene, since we already know that KOS-MOS is booting up. Quick cut to Shion’s dark bedroom. Her computer screen and her Connection Gear both start flashing red too. The room lights flicker on as Shion groggily sits up. After a moment, she sees that something is wrong. From her portable terminal, she sees the KOS-MOS Wakey-Wakey Countdown. Knowing that this is a critical situation, Shion of course takes time to put on her cutesy Vector uniform jacket. Just because it’s an emergency doesn’t mean a girl can’t accessorize! Poorly.
Shion runs over to her other terminal and, from the looks of things, tries to contact Corey. But since we’re at Terrorism Gnosis Alert Level Red, she can’t get through. Shion whines over this, like she’d be able to make a difference by calling Corey anyway. “Did someone activate KOS-MOS…?” she wonders to herself, even though the computer is flashing “KOS-MOS ACTIVATION IN T MINUS 10 MINUTES” at her. But she’s dumb that way. Then her bass-ackward rationalization kicks in. “Wait, that’s impossible. KOS-MOS isn’t supposed to wake up unless I enter the activation code from this terminal. That’s the fail-safe we integrated…” Well, Shion, your fail-safe failed. Duh. Rationalization switches over to denial, as she cries, “This…This can’t be happening…not again…!” Finally, she runs out of the room. KOS-MOS has had all the time in the world to wake up and blow the ship to smithereens by now, but I guess she’s been waiting patiently for Shion to finish talking to herself.
Just as Shion reaches the corridors, the automatic safety doors close, locking her out of the quick path to the Vector lab. Horrified, Shion wanks, “It’s exactly the same as the last time…” Yes, this cues a flashback. How urgent does the current situation need to be before she stops wasting time? This isn’t exactly the best moment for reminiscence. Regardless, we see the same Vector lab from Shion’s earlier daydream, but between flashes of lightning (ooooh, how dramatic but not) we can make out the dead bodies of a whole lot of Vector employees. Shion is holding the face of one, her dearly now-departed Kevvie. A slightly different-looking KOS-MOS is standing over them, surely about to kill Shion. Obviously, there’s no tension involved in this scene, because had KOS-MOS succeeded in offing everyone she wanted to, I might have ended up with a main character with more than two brain cells to rub together. Ah, what might have been.
IT’S FINAL FANTASY, NOT FINAL SCI–oops. Wrong game.
Even more sirens jar Shion out of her waking nightmare–I feel like I’m in a waking nightmare, folks–and we get to see what the trouble is. I’ll spare you the good five minutes’ worth of worthless dialogue on the bridge and cut to the chase: yes, those awful, scary Gnosis have finally arrived. And there are kerjillions of them. The biggest of the Gnosis are terrifying, havoc-wreaking…space whales. Translucent. Rainbow-colored. Space whales. Hey, as long as Shion and Co. don’t have to go back in time and kidnap some humpbacks from Earth to communicate with them in whale-speak, I’ll hold back my bitching. Well, I’ll try to. No promises.
It’s clear from the outset that all the mechs and guns in the world are not going to do a lick of good against these suckers. It’s just not meant to be. Nevertheless, the A.G.W.S. units on the Hoglinde prepare for battle, alongside the “weapons-grade Realians.” We rejoin our snarky friend Virgil inside his A.G.W.S., as he snickers to himself about the Realians he’ll be using as cannon fodder. There are a variety of action shots of Realians, A.G.W.S., Gnosis, and other shit we’ll see 85,000 times before this is over. It’s Very Tense Because People Are Going to Die. I’d like the tension factor if there were even a glimmer of hope that Shion would be one of those people. But no. Stop crossing your fingers, everyone. Just to illustrate the DEATH!!! thing a little better, we witness a number of human soldiers unloading their magazines against one Gnosis. Like I said, it doesn’t do shit. In fact, all it really does is piss off the Gnosis, as it picks up one of the soldiers in its odd-looking claws. Slowly, the man turns white, as if he’s transforming into chalk. Once he’s all chalkified, his white leg falls off and then he blows up into little chalky bits. His buddy, who paid witness to this, follows suit a moment later. Well, what are evil space ghost monsters if not sadistic?
Whoo, snowball fight!
After what felt like five million years of cinematics, I almost fool myself into thinking that controlling Shion is a welcome change. Almost. I soon realize that the closing of the hallway doors wasn’t just for dramatic effect, and that I do, in fact, have to go the long way around the ship. I can’t wait until this fucking place gets blown up. Shion is forced almost immediately into an encounter with a Gnosis. Her nonsensical weapon, like all the other weapons, does dick + 1 against the Gnosis. Shion, bobbing around vacantly as usual, exposits, “We won’t be able to defeat the Gnosis unless we draw them into our world. There’s no point in trying to fight them like this. I have to find KOS-MOS and [Corey]!” Thus: Shion needs to run the hell away from the Gnosis, unless I want her to die. Of course, I do, but then I couldn’t keep recapping this train wreck of a game for you fine folks.
Unfortunately, because I have a shitty memory at times, I forget that not only can Shion not damage the Gnosis, but if she encounters them at all she is denied her usual means of escaping from battle. (Yes, that includes distracting the monsters by flashing her panties. Sorry, fanboys.) Therefore, I have to reset and go through all that story-“furthering” FMV crap again. Even skipping through them takes nearly twenty minutes of my life. Sometimes, strangling myself with the Dualshock cord seems like such a good idea. But then, the email flamers WIN.
Okay, this time I won’t be stupid and run into Gnosis by accident. And if I do, I’ll just blame it on Shion. Anyway, after escaping the first batch of the–just a reminder–incorporeal monsters, Shion throws down a bunch of obstacles to keep them away, including a bunch of oil drums that start a convenient fire. The Gnosis just stand there, looking at Shion through the fire, because they can’t just walk right through it and give her the lethal Clorox treatment. I just realized that Shion is smarter than the Gnosis. That is so abysmally sad.
This is the point in the game where all that fucking exploring of the Hoglinde I did is supposed to pay off, because now I Shion I know the layout of the ship well enough to help me a) avoid the Gnosis and b) find my way to the Vector lab. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m less than thrilled about running around the ship again, when this time it’s infested with monsters I can’t kill. Boy, what a great reward for my diligence. Jerk-ass game designers.
Didn’t you know? The Hoglinde is a time-share.
Shion avoids the first Gnosis she sees by closing the partition door between them. On the other side, the Gnosis presumably hollers in agony at being unable to go through the door. Jesus Riverdancing Christ, this is ridiculous. I hate to go all Comic Book Guy on you guys with pointing this shit out, but they’re kind of forcing it upon me. The game designers have gone out of their way, what with all those cinematics, to show us that the Gnosis can really do whatever the fuck they want as long as they aren’t solid. We see them osmosing their way into the ship, absorbing bullets with ease, and God knows what else, but they’re afraid of fire and doors. What the fuck is that about?
I think the older I get, the more naïve I become. That’s the only way I can explain this expectation of mine for RPGs to make any fucking sense. Maybe I should write “Logical storytelling is for SUCKERS” on a post-it note and put it on my monitor, so I remember better.
The romp through the Hoglinde continues in this fashion, with Shion embarrassing the Gnosis by outwitting them, using the knowhow she got earlier, including the strategery she learned from being chased around by those horny soldiers. Preceding every single one of these encounters, Shion exhibits textbook use of Stupid Videogame Character Trick #17, Announcing Your Plans. Lucky for her, the Gnosis don’t understand her wank-speak. Miraculously, she even makes it to the A.G.W.S. hangar to receive the Boom Stick plug-in. Hooray!
At one point, we switch back to the Vector lab. Corey repeats all the stuff Shion already said about the KOS-MOS failsafe. Then he has a spark in his wuuv-addled little mind. “Unless…it’s reacting to…Gnosis?!” Good GOD, you are brilliant, man! I swear, there could be a CNN-style ticker running across the walls of the lab saying “Gnosis coming Gnosis coming Gnosis coming you goddamn idiots” and they still wouldn’t get it. Corey suddenly asks where Shion is, and is told that they’ve been trying to find her. They give the “emergency line” a try, and this moment of tense anticipation is broken up by a goofy-yet-catchy jingle. Everyone looks toward a chair on the opposite side of the room, where a ringing, bunny-shaped cell phone is buzzing away. Yes, Shion left her fucking phone in the lab. She’s probably one of those people who only remembers her cell when she goes to restaurants or movie theaters. Corey gnashes his teeth. I can tell, because he’s making the same face as me right now, and that’s sure as hell what I’m doing.
Loading ...Next thing everyone knows, the lights all go out. This is to add to the über-drama of the moment, because no one would notice the glowing blue light coming from the opening Big Black Phallus if the overhead lights were on. There’s even cold mist pouring out of it, for that unique Close Encounters of the Booby Kind feel. Slowly, arduously, KOS-MOS pulls herself out of her habitat. We see her feet touch the floor, and can now tell that they’re just way too small. The robot has bound geisha feet or something. KOS-MOS ominously approaches the terrified Vector people, and in KOS-MOS!Vision we can see her analyzing them all, Terminator-style. Hee. She accesses a map of the ship, and after a moment of searching finds Shion’s location. Wow, she’s gonna hunt down Shion specially? Neat!
(I know I’m deluding myself. Let me have this moment.)
She also locates the Golden Penis Plate. Then, with a whoosh and a snap, the visor over her faces retracts, and we see KOS-MOS’s creepy red eyes for the first time. They dilate and contract, too, like a camera lens. Ew. Fade out on a shot of Corey wetting himself in fright.
Meanwhile, Shion is still enjoying her wacky fun-run through the ship. After a while she comes across the guy who told her about the locked red doors and gave her the Segment File, which keeps track of said doors. Before he dies messily, he bequeaths all his decoders to Shion, and begs her to complete his dream of finding all these doors and the treasures behind them. What a stupid dream. But because of it, I get items, so it’s okay. Behind the nearest red door, Shion uses the appropriate decoder and finds a…robot arm. It will become highly useful later, but for now I have to stamp my feet petulantly at the game designers for filling up my inventory with worthless junk.