So, I’m not going to lie to you in an effort to sound cool and in charge–this boss can be a real bitch. My natural inclination to put Shion in the party as little as possible was several times my undoing in my first playthrough, given her sole ownership of the Medica All ether, but now I come in reluctantly prepared, thanks to the strategy guide. Well…let’s qualify that. This boss does require preparation, to the extent that I’ve spent the better part of playing through this traumatizing hellhole with the party that’s about to battle Jerkinov, and the guide’s suggested party: Shion, KOS-MOS and the Wang. Making sure their levels, techs, ethers, skills, and so on are all ready for this onslaught does take a lot of time, since all of them need to have the PDEF skill, and Shion must have Medica All, which she didn’t when I started. This time out I knew all of this in advance, so I was able to prepare adequately, but the first go-round, I was dumb enough to–gasp!–read the walkthrough in the guide as I played through the dungeon, which left me realizing how unprepared I was, oh, right around the time the party walked into this final room. And really, saying “If you don’t have these things, go back and level up some more!” is hair-tearing levels of irritating. Assuming you haven’t built up the necessary skill, tech, and ether points to get what you need, even if it’s just for one character, that’s, what, another hour of leveling up? It would take two sentences at the beginning of the Cathedral Ship walkthrough to tell the player what needs to be leveled up, and for whom, for the boss. Perhaps I’m making a bigger deal out of this than it is, but I’ll tell you that this boss fight was what taught me to read ahead 20 pages in this guide for any given dungeon.
Oh, also, I see now that I’m checking GameFAQs that there are two extremely rare items gotten only by stealing from this boss, and obviously I missed them without MOMO in the party. YAY.
In summation, I fucking hate BradyGames. I hate myself for buying this guide and for feeling obligated to use it because otherwise it’s a $15, glossy, 224-page coaster, or alternatively, a $15, glossy, 224-page firelighter. I hate this dungeon. I hate everything.
Moving on. Jerkinov the Hell Hound has a delightfully nasty attack called Hell’s Flash, which zaps the whole party right off the bat, and then a second time for good measure. Thus ends any bitching on my part about having to use Shion, as you can see why Medica All would be a natch in this battle. KOS-MOS and CHAOS!!! take out the junior Gnosis first, since they’re assholes and heal Jerkinov as he wantonly wails on my party members. Unfortunately, when each one dies Jerkinov gets a boost in attack power, which just makes the ouchies sting a little more–i.e., Jerkinov can now kill Shion or CHAOS!!! in one fell swoop. Man, I wish I could do that. As soon as both the junior Gnosis are gone, CHAOS!!! and Shion scurry away into their A.G.W.S., leaving KOS-MOS, unprotected, to face Jerkinov’s slightly misplaced wrath. If I were her, I would so be giving them the finger.
After this point it doesn’t take too long for Jerkinov the Hell Hound to go down from the power of KOS-MOS’s fabulously penisy R-DRILL. Heh. “Go down.” Admittedly, I feel a little silly now for considering this battle so difficult, but I guess my previous problems can be written off as me climbing the BradyGames learning curve. I’ll have you know it took two shots of vodka just to write that.
Oh, but while this battle has ended, the fun has just begun, ladies and gents. I think you all know what I actually mean when I say “fun.” Get your wank helmets, everybody.
As Gnosis!Jerkinov flails around in its death throes, Shion, eyes wide, finds herself seeing a vision of Jerkinov. A really random one, too. Jerkinov and Margulis are watching a sunrise together, complete with sappy audio track. “Behold the light that spreads before your eyes,” Margulis creeps sexily at his companion. If there is no fanfic or doujinshi of this scene, the whole fandom gets an F. Margulis blahs on some more about the light being a metaphor and shit. “This light once symbolized civilization–the very will of the human race. Also, it symbolizes my pocket rocket.” He then asks Jerkinov what the light means now, because people are stupid and consumerist and they kill the environment with styrofoam coffee cups or something. Shut up, Margulis. Just kiss him, already.
Game designers? Hypocrites? Pshaw.
Shion guhs, “The Commander… But, who’s that with him…?” just so we’re absolutely clear that Shion has ESP and is prophetic and awesome. In the vision, Margulis drones further, “The people you’ve encountered in your lifetime are not people at all. They’re less than human–mere sacks of flesh and bone.” Ooh, the old fleshbag burn. I am so zinged. “Only upon the realization of self-will can a person truly be called a man…” Sexist. But Jerkinov, he says, isn’t one of those fake meatbags with no self-will. We know this because he killed people. Apparently his self-will and truly male desire to murder others helped him survive all that personality reconditioning. On cue, Shion: “The Commander…underwent personality reconditioning…?” BITCH, STOP DOING THAT.
Blah blah blah, Margulis hurts my brain some more with talk of human will and consciousness and he and Jerkinov still are not making out. Margulis propositions Jerkinov with sweet talk: “Let us rekindle the torch so that human consciousness may once again be resurrected…” Ooh, hot. “For our sake, and that of our god…” I would totally join Margulis’s cause in a heartbeat if it meant he would just shut the fuck up for five minutes.
The camera is centered on Jerkinov as he stares lustily at his new boss, and then his face slowly melds into Shion’s. Ew. Shion is probably passed out or something, because everything is black around her. “Happiness? Were those my feelings just now?” she wonders. “No…it must have been the Commander’s feelings.” Okay, so now she’s Harry Potter? I don’t know how much more of this I can take. As Shion’s thinking of Jerkinov, suddenly he’s there in Coma Land with her. She stares at his back–he’s at a distance–and wonders, “What is it that you were searching for?” Jerkinov, for his part, turns partially around and hits Shion with a faceful of flashbacks–basically, a color-inverted, ultra-condensed version of the schlock I’ve been recapping all this time. It annoys me to no end that she gets the cliff notes version while I had to sit through the whole thing. Bitch.
Now Jerkinov is sitting cross-legged on a black-and-white cyber!beach, with Shion standing about half a foot behind him. She’s really invading his personal space bubble, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Shion sadly says “Commander…” for about the five hundredth time. “I never really existed at all…” Jerkinov tells her. Then he reads something in her silence or body language or something that screams, “Please tell me your life story, Commander!” And so he does, fully ignoring the tortured screaming he hears from beyond the fourth wall. He explains that 36 years ago, he was created as a test tube baby to be a mindless zombie fighter in the Miltian Conflict, along with lots of others, because back then it was okay to do shit like that. “Killing was my…no, our whole reason for existence. The fortunate ones were those who could adapt to that way of life. Even luckier were those who died on the battlefield.” If they were created expressly to kill, why would there be a need to adapt to that? Whoops, writers. “But I was never granted that opportunity,” he whines in self-pity. “Before I could find some significance to my own life, the war ended, and I was left behind while the world went on.” He moans some more about how haaaaard it was for him to relate to other people, and that’s where the killing and lobotomies came in. “But the Commander…” he cries, “It felt like he really needed me.” Aww, he misses his boyfriend. Cue renewed and vigorous whining about how much his life sucks. God, I really do not need this.
“Now I finally understand,” Jerkinov tells Shion. “The world didn’t reject me, I rejected the world.” Well, at least he realizes he could have improved his lot in life and just didn’t because he wanted to mope instead. Better than some people would do. Jerkinov now addresses Shion directly: “Shion. I like it here. I’m the only living thing that exists in this place.” I guess he doesn’t register Shion as a living thing, which is more than fine with me. As he blahs on about how cool this place is because of its absence of meatbags, I notice that it appears the sand he’s sitting on is trying to burrow up his ass. And right when I notice this, Jerkinov says, à propos, “It feels good.” Hee.
And with all his own lame feelings out of the way, Jerkinov senses the time is right to drop a bombshell. “Shion…you’ll eventually find yourself here, too…” Yeah, she will end up on a beach. Don’t fucking remind me. Oh, wait, he means she’s going to turn into a Gnosis and kick the bucket. Rad. Jerkinov fades away, leaving Shion looking like someone just died–or is going to, yay!–as he adds, “I’m sure of it… It won’t be much longer… I know… I…can tell…” Goodbye, Commander Jerkinov. You annoyed me most of the time, and made me want to kill myself at other times, but every once in a while you made me happy. The look on Shion’s face when she hears she’s going to turn into a Gnosis? That almost makes this whole endeavor worth it. It would make this whole game worth it, too, if I didn’t already know Jerkinov’s little prophecy was bullshit. (Advance Shion Cheats Death Count: 10) Oh well. I can enjoy her suffering while it lasts.
Back in the real world, Gnosis!Jerkinov’s body blinks away into gold sparklies. Shion is on her knees, like that’s unusual, and looks like she’s either in shock or in a trance. MOMO runs over to help her, but all it earns her is Shion shaking her by the arm, asking where the stupid Commander is. God. The Wang senses that she may need some comfort, so he kneels down to talk to her. As soon as he says her name, Shion whips around with soap opera flourish and grabs his hand, her voice full of affected tears: “[CHAOS!!!]! What just happened? Where is he?” And she sobs into his his hand. Good thing she’s not a Gnosis already, or that probably wouldn’t be very good for her well-being.
Yuck.
Shion continues to cry and be stupid and her head manages to fall square between CHAOS!!!’s legs in the process. Vomit. There’s silence for a moment or two–glorious, glorious silence–before MOMO assumes My Puppy Died Mode and asks, “Ziggy, did something happen?” Ziggy tells her not to worry her pretty illegal little head over it. And Shion continues bawling into CHAOS!!!’s unit, saying stupid things like “Was that really the Commander?” And CHAOS!!! tells her, get this, “Shion. The truth isn’t always a pleasant thing to know.” HELLO, what the fuck, people. Jerkinov turned into a Gnosis right in front of you, and then you attacked him and he died, again, right in front of you. Are they all high? Two-second, gamer-esque attention spans? Does the Wang send out hypnotic waves? Also, it’s not like any of these people were even remotely close to Jerkinov. Shion is crying like it’s Kevvie-poo all over again. Even Ziggy seems, in his way, emotionally affected by this. Jerkinov was just this guy. Get over it.
And God help me, Shion is still crying. Surely about to throw another wobbler, She asks CHAOS!!! if they’re all going to turn into Gnosis, too. CHAOS!!! assures her that they’ve been here this long and none of them are sprouting chalky penises. Of course, none of them, save Shion, were in the grips of a Gnosis, either. It’s funny how Shion either entirely misinterpreted the reason for Jerkinov’s transformation, or she’s trying to make her problem everyone’s problem. CHAOS!!! gets Shion to stand up and stop feeling sorry for herself–fat chance on the latter–but at that exact moment the ground shakes and KOS-MOS informs everyone that Cathedral Ship is basically disappearing. Aw, snap. The gravity starts to go, and they’re all about to float away into lung-bursting oblivion when the Elsa just happens to pass by in search of the party. “Heyyy, Ms. Vector!” Matthews yells over the intercom. “You still alive?” Corey, also on the Elsa, of course, echoes the sentiment. Oh yeah, and you other jerks, glad to see you’re not dead. The Elsa’s hatch opens to let them in, and the scene fades out before we can address how exactly our heroes got themselves in there. What did they do, air swim? Did Matthews deploy a net? Whatever. I don’t care. I just want a save point.