Final Fantasy XII - Part Five | Working as Intended

Final Fantasy XII - Part Five

Posted on 12/24/2011 by Trambapoline

The first person to say they're Captain Basch fon Rosenburg of Dalmasca gets it in the teeth.

When we last left Poncy Shoutenstein and his merry group of Characters Worth a Damn, they had reached the Skycity of Bhujerba, which was in the sky, if you can believe that. The group tried, and failed, to rescue Penelo and she was taken into imperial custody by ~~Lamont~~ Larsa, Vayne's younger and yaoi-magnetized brother.

Afterwards, the gang tried to get the attention of the local resistance members by letting Vaan run around and do that ear-splitting thing I won't mention. Once they dragged him in to presumably cut his vocal cords out, Basch revealed himself (not like that) and the Resistance took him to Ondore's palace. Ondore was a bit of a smelly jerkbutt and the now the group finds themselves in imperial hands!

Oh, and hey, Amalia's up here too. What a crazy coincidence that is, guys. I bet nothing will come of this!

"Psst. Hey, it's okay guys. I know her. Hey! Hotlips! What's u--"

"p-OW! What the hell!?"

Uhhh... so are you, actually...

I think her storming across the room to bitchslap someone answered that question...

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

Only not at all, since the manual, opening FMV, artwork and all the prerelease information on the game kinda spoiled it.

Oh well, live and learn~

She left the documentation in her pants back at the palace.

Awkward.

Emphasis on mean.

It's difficult to hold high opinions of royalty and divine right to rule sometimes...

"I do so love the chopping of heads! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!"

"That's okay. We're a flexible workplace. You can play cadaver instead!"

"Now what was it.... er... Oh, right! 'Whatever you do, don't let my daughter get kidnap--Well, crap."

PSSST! HEY. MAYBE WE SHOULDN'T BE DISCUSSING THIS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE VILLAINS?

I smell fetch quest~!

I think your outfit's already doing that.

OH SNAP

Oh, that's real bloody rich coming from you, mister.

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

Yeah, that's the look I have every time he opens his mouth too.

I don't know how he pulled that out of his arse while wearing handcuffs, and frankly I don't want to know.

Aw, but I do so enjoy getting horribly lost in obnoxious dungeons to progress the story. Oh well.

You know, he could just walk over to Vaan and simply take it out of his hands, but that'd ruin the drama, wouldn't it?

Pro Tip: If you're making demands to a villain, be sure they agree to them before you hand anything over.

Pro Tip #2: Make sure your demand isn't something the villain can simply lie about following.

Pro Tip #3: Don't be a complete dicktard.

Gee, who could've seen that one coming!?

Basch barely resists the urge to lean over and scream "DURRRRRRRRRRRR! DURRRRRRRRR!!!" into Vaan's ear.

Considering where Vaan's hidden it for the past few hours, I think that's a question best left unanswered.

The Story Convenience Fairy is a cruel and unforgiving mistress.

Can we get a full round of this?

Just sayin'.

"I was expecting pants. Were you expecting pants?"

SUDDENLY: A DRAMATIC REVEAL!!

"Do you have any idea how long it took him to stop talking about whips and saddles? Gross."

Yeah, great job on that one, bingo.

"Damn right I did. You lazy bastard..."

"What?"

"Nothin'!"

So... has Vossler been hiding out as a soldier here the entire time, or did he just pop on-board when we got kidnapped and nobody bothered to do roll call this morning? You'd think a soldier nobody's seen or heard before would tip someone off, but that's less a problem with the game and more a problem with every single break-out-of-enemy-base scenario ever.

Right! Time to go rescue the princess! YEAH!

By which I mean walk five steps forward and trigger a cutscene.

"People die when they are killed!"

Right. So avoid the INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS LASER TRAPS. Got it! We're crystal clear!

CHAERG!!!

HAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!

Tally ho, chaps!

Unlike every other random mook on this airship, Imperial Gunner B seems to have a very stealth minded back-and-forth walking path. Clearly the game designers wanted us to be a bit more evasive with this fellow, as being detected by him will bring down more deadly laser alarms! We must be as silent and sneaky as possible...

*STAB!*

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

BRING IT OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!

20 minutes of stabbing and killing later, we finally find the laundry brig~!

"Man, I love diligently guarding things! So awesome!"

"I know what you mean, man. It's so great that nobody but us is in this room. I know this because I'm looking directly at the door and can't see anyone! Man, my life rocks!"

"A-DOIII?!"

Did somebody order a heaping pile of Clusterfuck? I think they did!

It doesn't matter that we have people to rescue in an airship full of hostile soldiers, there's always time to pose!

"Uh, Basch, we've been standing here for like 20 minutes. How long is this going to take?"

"Liiiiiiittle longer...."

Woooo! NO. 1! AMERICA!!

.... and then we find the door literally ten steps ahead of us.

Thank you, game. That was entirely pointless.

They've been keeping a Save Point hostage? Those bastards!

Elsewhere, Ashe tries and fails to cover up her worrying lack of pants.

"Me!"

We're waiting for you to shut up, that's what!

Now there's a legitimate reason to get moving. Let's roll!

That's a first for this series.

Now that Ashe has joined the party, everyone's got their classes all sorted out. Hooray!

Unfortunately, you can only have three party members at any given time, and while License Points are given to those who don't participate in battle, EXP isn't. So now I have to choose who's going to be part of Team Awesome. Balthier's a shoe-in, and so is Basch, but that gosh-darn pesky third spot needs to be filled!

It's certainly not going to be Vaan. If Penelo were here she wouldn't get it either, mostly because Balthier already covers the healing on RDM. So that leaves us with Fran and Ashe. I like both, but Ashe is more story relevant and I like Samurai more than Monk, so that'll sort that! Of course, I could have given Fran Samurai and Ashe Monk from the start, but that'd mean I'd had to've planned any of this stuff out, which just aint gonna happen.

"J-J... Just wait a second, okay? Man, I'm tripping major balls here..."

Yes, because Basch is willing to stop fighting and get his face sliced off just out of spite. That'll show you!

Hooray for backtracking! It's like I'm really playing Metroid Prime!

Actually, I wish I was now...

Oh well, next time!

Pantsless Brigade, away!

Oh no! I now have to fight my way through alarms and soldiers! Whatever shall I do!? Oh, right.

M U R D E R.

Ah, the group's letting Vaan run ahead as the Team Meat-Shield. I approve!

Wait... So the entire group, Ashe and now Larsa and Penelo were all on the same airship out of the entire armada of them we saw in the last FMV?

How convenient!

That's nice. Nobody cares.

Knowing Penelo's quality of kidnappings, she was probably getting massaged and catered to this entire time.

And here I was thinking all the blaring alarms were just letting the soldiers know slop's on.

If I had Vaan on my ship, lord knows I'd want him gone as fast as humanly possible.

"AND YOU - YOU NO LONGER EXIST!!"

Ashe would know a lot about being bare.

HURRRR

"... You don't really know what you're talking about, do you?"

"Not in the slightest!"

Good. Glad we settled all that then!

Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. Ashe lied about her identity but you're not giving her the 8th grade sarcasm.

Although Ashe is parading around with no pants on, so maybe if Lar--No. No, that's a mental image I don't need.

Although....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!

Is it a knife? Can I stab out my mind's eye with it?

And then my actual eyes?

"Or not. Whatever. Don't really care."

Aw, poor Vaa--What am I saying?

Ahahhahahahahaha! Hahahaahhaahhahahaha! Hahahaaahahahahaaahha!

Yay! We lost a useful character in exchange for someone I'm never going to use!

That's a fair trade, right?

Oh well. The important thing is we're getting off this airship and the game designers were nice enough to not be so predictable as to throw a boss battle at us just before we escaped---

Aw nuts!

"Beheading counts as peaceful, right? I always get so confused on that rule. Damnable society!"

Someone really needs to inform the empire that glowing rocks are not a legitimate source of royal documentation.

"The important thing is that I get to kill someone."

Okay, I'm a bit confused about this. The empire kidnapped Ashe so they could kill her and try to destroy any resistance against them (although you'd think killing their royalty would just piss them off more, but whatever), but they say Ashe has absolutely no proof of her lineage and that's fine, since they'll just kill her anyway. But when the Dusk Shard is revealed, they're all like "Aha! See! You just saved us the effort of finding it! Now we can kill her!" Even though it was in the empire-occupied Dalmasca for like, years, and nobody was bothering to look for it or even knew it existed, outside of Basch. Even when Vaan, a rather loyal Dalmascan, found the shard he just like "Ooh, pretty rock!"

Either the characters are pulling some really sudden assumptions out of their arse, or the writers are.

BUT ENOUGH OF THAT. PRETTY LIGHTS DESTROYED THE ANGRY LIGHTS.

I believe it's what the ancient circles once referred to as contrived writing.

How very convenient that we were just handed the item that saved everyone in the previous cutscene.

"MY OVERSIZED HEAD ADORNMENTS ARE PLEASED AND SLIGHTLY AROUSED!"

"... and I will not allow you to Deus Ex Machina your way out of this!"

"Deus Ex Machina isn't a verb."

"SILENCE!"

PRINCESS SMASH!!

THWACK!

I'm not sure if Judge Ghis is meant to be challenge of not, since Team Awesome facerolled him and his two stupidly stupid bodyguards in about two minutes, so... uh... I guess take out the bodyguards first? T... That's a strategy, right?

"My luscious face! The doctor said I'm not supposed to get pain on it!!"

We're making our getaway on a universe destroying faceless monstrosity from beyond time and space?

Who votes to never let Vossler choose an escape craft ever again?

Oh, Balthier~ You and your crazy standards!

I'm starting to like this 'Everyone ignores or disregards Vaan' turn the game has taken.

And that's the end of that chapter!

SUDDENLY: AFTER AN INDETERMINABLE AMOUNT OF TIME HAS PASSED...

"Oh, so that's where I left those drugs!"

Balthier gets all the mad chicks.

AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!

Ondore's been beating things with a hammer?

I suppose that'd go with the whip and saddles, though I dread to think how.

"Although I appear to have forgotten your name. Curse my oddly selective memory!"

Nobody appreciates traitorous organs.

You might even say they struggle in Vayne. Eh? Get it?

Because he...

OH FINE THEN

Guns. You could always use guns.

"I would, but my eyes seem to be magnetized towards your lack of pants. Remarkable!"

Vossler's haphazard set-up for a blind date failed to impress anyone.

"Damn leathery shorts are chafing like crazy! Must remain composed. Composed...."

I like the cut of your jib, Mr. NPC!

Right. Back to Ondore's palace! Nothing bad could happen twice in a row.

AGAIN: SUDDENLY: AT NIGHT.

Final Fantasy XII has decided to delve into the writing habits of Metal Gear Solid and CSI, and have the characters explain things they should already know about for the benefit of an invisible audience.

They're so thoughtful!

"Citizens frequently ran around and announced false deaths of princesses. It was the '50s. We had nothing better to do."

"Totally not my fault. If you could just instantly believe that right now..."

He's an asshole?

Okay, so if Vayne announced Ashe's supposed death to the world, how's he planning to explain that Ashe (or an impersonator) is still alive, now that he has the Dusk Shard? That seems like a rather awkward thing to bring up...

RAVE PARTY! WOO!!

This would be the part where the entire room turns around to give Vaan a dirty look.

Okay, so basically if you have the Dusk Shard, that means you can become ruler of Dalmasca or wherever right? Except that Vayne essentially controls Dalmasca anyway and he didn't need the approval of some random-ass man sitting on a mountain, or the Dusk Shard. Unless it's not just the Shard that's important, and you need to have proof of some blood-relation. Not that Vayne needed that either, but whatever. It'd stop any ol' Joe walking up the mountain with the shard and going, "King me!" Of course then the Shard's completely useless, because you can just use blood to prove your lineage, except if it's not just blood and you need the stone but that just means y--oh no I've gone crosseyed.

A female character in a JPRG stand around and do nothing? Oh, how delightfully absurd!

And this is why Balthier's awesome.

Well this and everything else, really.

LATER: IN THE DOCKING BAY!

"What voice to choose..? Mr. T always gets me where I need to be, but Stephen Fry makes it feel more classy..."

Warning! Whiner off the port side!

So now's the a Dusk and Dawn Shard? Thematically appropriate I suppose.

I guess it's the Ivalice royalty equivalent of having a spare house key under the doormat.

She's talking to you, isn't she?

Your outfit states that much.

A lesson in morality and stealing from Mr. I Want to be a Sky Pirate...

Hah.

I like Ashe. She has the right amount of Not Giving a Toss towards ~~people~~ Vaan.

BUSTED!

In this series? Never.

"Am I setting this up enough so you remember it in the future? No? Well, I don't care. It's neat."

"This ship has a capacity of one ho only."

"Suppose I just heard something incredibly stupid?"

I like how now that Vaan's entire purpose of Setting up the Conversation has been fulfilled, he's forced to stand awkwardly to the side and let the important characters chat it out.

That Balthier. A man of outstanding morals and ethics, he is!

"What are the other riches?"

"Spiders, mostly. That and a few corpses..."

"I'll take it!"

Not to mention serious business.

Basch and Balthier quickly get into a felony pissing contest.

Aw, poor Penelo. Everyone else has their reasons for joining along on this crazy adventure, even Wanker over there, but unfortunate Penelo basically just gets the third wheel treatment.

Or the sixth wheel, as it were.