Now that we’ve caught up with almost every other character in the game, it’s time to see what our hapless heroes aboard the Elsa are doing. Okay, we already know, because Mace told Canaan about it. Whatever! I have to deal with Shion now, is the point. As some dippy piano music plays, we see the Elsa flying low over the oceans of Second Miltia and hear a voiceover, Captain’s Log-style, by Shion. I know it’s Shion, because I have wizard powers, but you would be forgiven for not figuring it out immediately, because her voice has completely changed. She sounds nasal and pretty much nothing like Lia Sargent. I will spare you the full Bint’s Log, as it is long as fuck, and it’s also mostly a recap of the last game. But at the end, Shion says, “KOS-MOS’s actions allowed us to overcome these crises. I believe this series of actions by KOS-MOS has been greatly influenced by her black box components left behind by the late Kevin Winnicot.” Translation: she sure doesn’t fucking know how this stuff got here. Tee hee! “This will likely become a major focus of our future research.” The future research she won’t get to conduct, because she is supposed to turn over KOS-MOS to Vector’s Second Division. I can’t imagine she’s forgotten this after the unbearable shitfit she threw over it.

Enough about Shion’s info dump (ew): let’s talk visuals, because there is an elephant in the room right now. As Shion is talking and the dopey music is plonking away, we see our heroes and the Elsa’s crew on the ship’s bridge. Well, I say they’re our heroes, but…they’re not. Nearly all of them look significantly different. Specifically, Shion, KOS-MOS, MOMO, and Jailbait have completely shed their more cartoonish, glassy-eyed anime faces and now look…well, not realistic, but less glassy-eyed? (Ziggy, Corey, and the Elsa boys look totally unchanged, I guess since they largely didn’t have Giant Eyeball Syndrome.) But it’s not just that. Shion’s hair is randomly a much darker shade of brown. Body proportions have changed across the board– admittedly, mostly for the better. KOS-MOS could almost pass for a real woman if she didn’t have electric blue hair, red Terminator eyes, and weaponry welded to her hips.

(I should note here that these changes were evident back in part 1, as CHAOS!!! has also lost his shiny humongous anime eyes, and has also had a noticeable change in voice actor. But I was so distracted by his missing penis that I forgot to mention it. Whoops!)

The whole effect–and I’ll jump the gun and note that all the principal voice actors except Jailbait’s and Ziggy’s have also changed–is off-putting and bizarre. (I’ll take a leaf from Homer Simpson and wonder if this new appearance is the result of some after-the-fact incest.) And inconsistent, since like I said, some of the characters (Ziggy) have not changed one iota, while others (Shion) seem like totally different people. Not that I was super in love with the art style of the first game or anything, but it’s enough of a departure that it feels like they fired everyone who got them this far and started from scratch. Which…is more or less exactly what happened. Super!

Anyway, some “important” events also take place while Shion is doing her wankover. Matthews kicks Hammer in the head. MOMO laughs at this–and MOMO looks fucking weird now, you guys. She looks like an adult woman playing MOMO in Xenosaga: The Live Musical Spectacular. CHAOS!!! is shown below decks, looking mysterious and shit like always. Corey whines about something, Jailbait rolls his eyes and elbows him away, and Corey bumps into Shion, knocking her glasses off her face and then stepping on them. If I thought she even needed those to see, I would feel worse about this. Of course Shion looks like she’s about to go fucking nuclear on him, but he wisely backs away until he’s out of her arms’ reach. By the way, this scene was clearly added so we won’t all wonder what happened to Shion’s glasses when she stops wearing them for the rest of the series. People who need glasses just stop wearing them when one pair gets broken! Totally normal, everyone.

The gang deplanes at the Second Miltia spaceport, and Corey is thrilled to be alive and still a sad virgin. Jailbait agrees, probably with the first thing. “For a while there, I was kinda worried,” he says, “but somehow we made it back.” By “somehow” he means “KOS-MOS ‘sacrificing’ herself, only to miraculously survive, two consecutive times.” Corey boils down all the dangers they faced to “the crazy stuff the chief pulls,” which I find to be a tad reductive but Shion is reckless and stupid, so fine. Shion snaps back, “What are you saying? You make it sound like it was all my fault.” I’ll take that over everyone acting like nothing is her fault. Also, Shion’s new voice actor has much less of a saccharine tone of voice, if that makes sense. The upshot is that Shion sounds like roughly 500 percent more of a bitch now. I know, I know, that’s impossible, you’re saying. But it’s true!

Jailbait speaks for the non-Vector crew and says, “Hey, we’re gonna head over to the government office now. What are you all gonna do, Shion?” Corey gets no say, obviously. “Well, we need to hand over KOS-MOS,” Shion replies. Oh, now she remembers that. “I think I’ll wander over to Vector’s Second Division.” And, the kicker: “Is that all right with you, KOS-MOS?” Corey doesn’t even react. He’s had his own agency stomped out of him by a ladies’ size 6 Vector-issue stiletto ankle boot. KOS-MOS is all, “Fine, whatever.” I promise I will stop harping on this eventually, but KOS-MOS also sounds strange. The voice isn’t even an approximate match for her old one.

They all agree to meet up later, and Shion puts herself at the center of attention again by promising to show MOMO around because she knows Second Miltia sooooooo well. I only note this because MOMO says she’d like that, and her voice is even weirder than KOS-MOS’s. I think this game might have been produced by scabs. Shion and KOS-MOS take off, letting Corey trail after them like a needy pet. Natch. This leaves me–yay!–with Jailbait, MOMO, Ziggy, and the Invisible Wang. Ziggy needs a moment to go find a computer and report to Dr. Yuri and the Jedi Council. “It appears that Dr. Mizrahi has also arrived at Miltia, as well,” Ziggy tells MOMO, and you get no prizes for guessing that the next words out of MOMO’s mouth are, “Really? Mommy’s here?” Oh, girl. Ziggy says he’ll pass along her eagerness to see Mommy Dearest, and probably does not do enough to temper her expectations. MOMO is probably fantasizing about mother-daughter brunches that will never come to pass.

Speaking of Dr. Yuri. Ziggy has her on Skype, and she tells him to stick with MOMO until “the delivery is complete.” Stop, Dr. Yuri, your welling emotions are like to make me cry, here! Ziggy passes along MOMO’s message, barely throwing Dr. Yuri any shade over referring to him as “Jan Sauer” when he clearly doesn’t like that, and after a super awkward pause, she just says, “I, too, welcome your arrival.” Your? Jesus, that is harsh. Then she hangs up on him before he can ask her why she obviously hates her daughter.

Ziggy blinks slowly, I imagine to set his face to neutral before MOMO picks up on how that conversation went. But from behind him, Jailbait, that little spying scamp, says, “You know…it almost sounds like she’s scared to meet her.” Gee, you think so? Ziggy calls him out on eavesdropping, but Jailbait is a pretty shameless creature and ignores him. “Say, old man…how about upgrading to a modern carbon-based body?” he asks. “I bet if we applied combat Realian technology, we’d see some serious results.” Would that mean he wouldn’t have shiny steel asscheeks, and wouldn’t clank when he walks anymore? Over my dead body. And Jan Sauer’s, quite literally. I assume this has something to do with Jailbait thinking Ziggy would be a more effective cyborg this way, but Ziggy says, “There’s no need to play around with extending my lifespan.” I don’t know if y’all have picked up on this, but Ziggy wants to die! Soon! Jailbait doesn’t fuck around with half-ass guilt trips, though: “Sure about that? I bet MOMO would be happy if you lived longer.” Ziggy’s all, “That’s cool, I’d rather die.” Dang. MOMO doesn’t even know how rough of a morning this has been for her.

The string of cutscenes cuts off here, with Ziggy telling himself he should rejoin the others. Now that we’re in gameplay mode, it’s time for some background music, and I am therefore assaulted by the theme that sadly permeates all of Second Miltia. I mean, listen to this shit. It’s the auditory equivalent of being trapped in a shopping mall, and the only stores are Claire’s and Limited Too. (Note the commenters saying they actually like this. No. Noooooo.) And surprise: not only did a bunch of devs and writers and voice actors get shitcanned, but Yasunori Mitsuda quit the series too! Monolith Soft got CHEAP, you guys.

Ziggy can return to his Skype console to check out a couple Wikipedia entries, one on combat mechanics and one rehashing the plot of the last game. Ziggy passively takes in exposition about his own recent past as well as information that nobody else should really have at this point, like Shion hallucinating about a little redhead girl. But this is the series where you can go into cyberspace and retrieve items from the past, and where Shion Uzuki is a respected genius. What else did I expect?

There are plenty of chatty NPCs in the spaceport, but almost all of their dialogue relates to the sidequest hell I’m going to be in shortly, and doesn’t remotely matter outside that context. Ziggy therefore clanks his way outside to where Jailbait, MOMO, and CHAOS!!! are waiting in Jailbait’s car, which looks for all the world like a Batmobile limousine. That’s my boy.

In the limo, which looks way posh, Ziggy belatedly downplays Dr. Yuri’s wide-eyed terror at being on the same planet as her daughter, noting that “She seemed…very busy.” MOMO takes that as the typical cold brush-off that it is, but Ziggy insists that Dr. Yuri genuinely is a busy and important person. Dr. Yuri can’t have it all! But let’s ignore that that’s because she doesn’t WANT to have it all! MOMO puts her own naïve spin on it: “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess I’ve got to do my best to help her out.” A deeply awkward silence falls over the limo. You can practically hear Jailbait’s teeth grinding.

After a totally unnecessary, scene-breaking black screen, the limo is still speeding along the freeway, easy as you please, when a shiny lavender mech with red racing stripes and a sword pops up from below the road, scaring MOMO half to death. It looks at her with an unmistakable “Sup” expression, and while everyone is still staring at it, another mech, a larger one with arm fins and a bo staff, looms up from the left side of the highway, tearing up the concrete railing. Hey man, somebody probably just took that chunk of cement to the noggin and died! And it wasn’t Shion! So terrible. Mech #1 starts tearing the roof off the Batmobile Limo, as MOMO screams and hides in Ziggy’s arms. Ziggy asks in a dead monotone, “[Jailbait], who are they?” Who cares? Maybe they’re here to tell you all about the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints!

Jailbait decides it can’t be Albedo, because “It’s too gentle for him.” I’m just gonna let that comment stand on its own. But at least Jailbait tries to do something while pointlessly wondering exactly who wants to kill them this time, and shoots his little pistols through the roof at Mech #2. Two seconds later the roof comes cleanly off the Batmobile Limo, leaving behind a sweet convertible that somehow doesn’t veer into the embankment and explode on impact. Because the automatic driver is a badass, I guess. But Jailbait is not satisfied with its driving, leading MOMO to drag herself out of Ziggy’s embrace and hop in the driver’s seat. Jailbait looks Very Concerned about this, like MOMO is just some regular child who shouldn’t be driving a car, but quickly gets over it, gives her a coordinate (“point 2089”), and commands her to “Floor it!” She grinds up on the guard rail and darts between other motorists like a fucking NASCAR driver, and it’s awesome.

(I feel like I am already flogging a dead horse, but the music for this scene is so bad. If the upjumped porn directors who made that awful Wheel of Time pilot decided to direct a straight-to-video Lethal Weapon sequel, they would use this music.)

Okay, other than the music, this is a pretty good little car chase. I won’t say no hate, but very little hate. At one point MOMO is driving up on the wall, and CHAOS!!! has to grab Jailbait’s hand to keep him from falling out of the car and becoming roadkill. But her stunt driving has sadly not shaken the two mechs. Jailbait thinks they’re in the clear when they enter a tunnel, but of course, since everything on Second Miltia looks like a shopping mall, the tunnel has a domed glass exterior and Mech #1 punches right through it to close on them. But CHAOS!!! gives Jailbait a meaningful glance and holds up a cylinder that looks like one of those pneumatic tube capsules. “The fire extinguisher?” he asks. “Yes!” Jailbait is FIRED UP about FIRE SAFETY. CHAOS!!! heaves the extinguisher into Mech #1’s face with a manly “Ennnngh.” Jailbait leaps skyward, pirouettes in midair with his gun arm extended like the little primadonna he is, and fires. The resulting gas cloud–which seems way bigger than you would get out of a tiny travel-size fire extinguisher–allows them enough cover to steer the Batmobile Limo into an underground subway station, out of sight of the mechs.

We pick up at the bottom of the stairs down which the Batmobile Limo careened, and miraculously no one is hurt. Jailbait again references “point 2089” as their destination, but adds this time, “the roof of Second Miltia Defense System #6.” CHAOS!!! burbles that this route will keep civilians out of harm’s way. If y’all say so. Jailbait uses the handy save point next to their wrecked car and blasts open a hole in a nearby wall, only to be ambushed by a mech that looks like an AT-ST from Return of the Jedi. Is this some random subway maintenance robot? That happens to have weaponized lasers? Or did U-GEE or whoever the fuck already find them? I’m going with weaponized subway bot, since once the battle is over, Jailbait ignores this giant hole he created and walks up some stairs to a door labeled “EXIT.” Nice going, kid.

The party is now back outside, which seems to defeat the entire purpose of their little subterfuge stunt with the fire extinguisher. Jailbait grabs some skill upgrade items from–FINE–where the AT-ST would have been, and I suppose that means I have to talk about the goddamn skill system now. I mean, I don’t have to, but the entire game kind of revolves around it, and I spent so much time bitching about the last game’s skill system, and don’t remotely anticipate that not continuing here, that I may as well cover the basics.

The good news is, the three different point systems of the previous game are gone. Techs are basically automatic and don’t require any leveling (hell, other than button combos having some of the old names like Storm Waltz, techs basically don’t even exist now). And ethers and skills have been rolled into a single system. The bad news is, as a gameplay mechanic it leaves everything to be desired. Everyone accesses the same skill tree, which has four levels, each of which has eight classes labeled A through H (Level 4 is only A through D). And each class, opened up with class points, allows access to four skills, purchased with skill points. In other words, it’s a pretty classic skill tree, except 1) it is presented as a series of text menus instead of looking like a goddamn tree, which means making an informed choice about what classes and skills to open up requires interminable backtracking through menus; and 2) there is more than one type of point used, and routinely one or the other will be a cockblock to getting what you want. It usually tends to be class points, as characters only accrue them by buying all four skills in a given class, which means wasting points on nonsense like Blind Guard just so everybody can have Medica and have enough class points to get to other spells that don’t blow goats. (Clearing out one class is also required to access classes and skills at the next level. Which makes me wonder why the levels are even locked if it’s something I have to do anyway.) Is this a massive improvement over having to osmose skills off of items, mere minutes after acquiring the items in question? Yes. Is it still stupid in other ways we’ll get to discover together? Also yes.

(Also, because this can’t be too easy, some of the skills aren’t even available, and are represented as “????” until I find the super secret items that allow them to be learned. So I’m still kind of extracting skills from items. Burn the earth.)

A set of stairs leads down directly into a canal full of water, for reasons I can’t even begin to ascertain. And somehow, trudging slowly through this water allows some U-GEE operatives in their silly purple Foot Clan outfits to catch up with them, even though they have to be moving just as slowly. I don’t know why I do this to myself. While taking these groups of Stormtroopers out with prejudice, I notice that Jailbait and Ziggy both are using their old arrays of end-of-battle catchphrases, but they’ve clearly been re-recorded and sound subtly different. I fear this is because their voice actors, in the Monolith Soft Employment Purge, had to re-audition for their own roles and these are just the tapes from those auditions. But at least they weren’t fired.

Jailbait falls down a waterfall at the end of the canal into a deep square holding tank, where another U-GEE Stormtrooper is waiting. How long has this guy been down here? Were the other U-GEE guys actually on their way to rescue their friend who fell in a well? This is all a big misunderstanding, isn’t it?

Through another corridor, we switch to a cutscene. It’s the same running through nondescript futuristic metal boxes that they were already doing, but better rendered. “Gaignun,” Jailbait gasps on his comm, “we’re headed for 2089. Tell [Mace] to send backup!” I am choosing to believe this is the first time Jailbait has contacted Gaignun at all, and Gaignun has no idea what’s wrong. Regardless, Jailbait does not get a response, and we cut to Gaignun’s posh office on the Kukai Foundation. Gaignun is sitting at his desk, holding his head in his hands, apparently to muffle some weird audio feedback sound maybe only he can hear. There’s also some warbly visual effects, so it’s possible Gaignun is just on mushrooms or something. Eventually, Jailbait gets through. Gaignun asks for a repeat of that heading, and on the zoom-out we can see that Gaignun also spilled a cup of tea all over his fancy hardwood desk. And he hasn’t even cleaned it up! It might stain!!! Something must be terribly wrong. Jailbait hangs up, leaving Gaignun to wonder what he was doing just now. He has the blank look of the recently concussed, or the perfectly healthy Shion Uzuki.

Back on Second Miltia in his well-appointed cavern of an office, Mace gets off the phone with Gaignun. “Damn…” he growls. “It’s not even safe on land anymore.” For the record, the “Damn…” sounds nothing like a Sam Jackson “Damn!” Disappointing. But I got to thinking about this and realized basically every battle situation our heroes have found themselves in up to this point has in fact been in space, or at least in Imagination Land. Land actually was safe! I mean, except for that whole Miltian Conflict thing. But I’m sure nobody remembers that.