XENOGEARS: A ROPE OF ROBOTS
(part nine)
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When last we saw our heroes, they were all dead. So it is time to start anew! With a new country, and new heroes! And... hey, where are you going? Look, here is someone interesting right here!
That was a lie. Welcome to Kislev! It is terrible and you're going to be here for a very long time. This is Kaiser Sigmund, one of many inhabitants of the fine city of Nortune with an inexplicably culture-clashing name. He is blowing off steam playing with his organ. Ha ha. One of his men comes in to report that things have been blowing up in Aveh, and they went to investigate, and they found that giant robot that got stolen at the beginning of the game! It's always in the last place you look, those stolen giant robots. This exchange lets slip that Weltall isn't actually a Kislev robot, they just... bought it used or something, from "them." It's full of black boxes! Does Kislev know what they do? No, they do not. No one in Xenogears has invented the crowbar. This soldier thinks they should attack Aveh while things are still blowing up. They could knock over Shakahn!
And then, "they" arrive! Well, that sounds at least mildly interesting. "They" are a giant freaky flower vase ship.
Would you buy a used giant robot from someone who drives one of these? It drops off a lady who is referred to not at all cryptically as The Executioner. From the looks of it, she fulfills her duties by driving down the street. She gives Simund something that will allow him to "pass through the barrier," but this narration does not remember what she is talking about, so, moving on.
She asks him to transfer that stolen robot and the pilot they found unconscious inside of it to D Block. What is D Block? This game is so glad you asked. Anyway, they apparently didn't want that stolen robot back very much. Meanwhile, Fei is dreaming in Freudian metaphors again. Oh, Fei. Most his theories have been disputed, you know.
This narration has not seen fit to mention it until now, but this is what Fei sees pretty much whenever he closes his eyes. Annoying! He runs in place for a bit while menaced by this giant swinging cross, and eventually he comes across a child version of himself watching a film strip of himself playing kickball with some woman.
Another, less well-groomed child version of Fei comes along and kicks him out! Fei's subconscious has a bouncer and he is not on the list. That's pretty exclusive. Fei wakes up in a strange room full of bunk beds, and a doctor comes by and tells him he's been unconscious for four days. But it's okay now! He's alive, well, and in prison.
Fei is in D Block, Nortune's detention area for dangerous criminals. Fei must be extra dangerous, as he was brought in under heavy guard, which dropped him on a bunk bed and then fucked off. A bunch of toughs come in, determine that Fei is more or less awake, and declare that is it time for his "baptismal ceremony.'
Too bad, Fei! You are on the inside now and you have a sweet ass. But apparently the baptismal ceremony is not what it really, really sounds like, but is in fact just a series of one-on-one fights with these punks and D Block's "champ," one Ricardo Banderas. Well, that doesn't sound so bad. Here he is now!
Wait, no, that is the wrong screencap. Here he is.
Now is probably as good a time as ever to mention that Xenogears is full of furries. They're called demihumans, and they are apparently mutants of some type, but this feels like writerly overcompensation to justify having furries around. How often do humans mutate into bipedal dolphins? Rico here is a demihuman, but instead of an animal, he's Blanca. He's kind of a weird plot representative for this class of people that mostly look like birds or marine mammals or whatever, but if you just need a guy to grind people into paste, well, sure. Fei has no problem wiping the floor with the first four toughs, but when it's Rico's turn Fei quickly notices that he is outweighed here by about a hundred pounds and suddenly becomes a pacifist. Rico is pretty insistent, though, and Fei starts snarling at him outside of the text box! Most "are you an insane video game protagonist" self-diagnosis websites have a ticky box for that. They fight anyway, and Rico kicks Fei's pretty little ass. He's impressed by his scrappiness, though. He gives him an A! They stick a bomb collar on him and send him back to where he woke up before.
The image quality of Fei's portrait is also way worse, because no one on the internet has a clean copy of his bomb collar portrait. You are on notice, internet.
Because you're in prison! Duh! The doctor says that is normal and he should not be concerned. Fei is accustomed to low quality health care, so he takes her word for it. He wanders off until he finds a bar, because prisons have bomb collars and bars. This is a completely logical combination of circumstances. At the bar, Fei meets a furry named Hammer.
Oh, a narration can dream. Hammer tells Fei he is a "supplier," with quotation marks, which probably means he's a drug dealer. Good eye, Fei! Everyone is very impressed that Fei got an A on getting beaten up in an alley, and there's a lady from the "battling committee" hanging around who thinks that Fei is going places. There is no option to kill her.
Hammer does not understand why Fei would turn down an opportunity to put in a caged deathmatch with giant robots. Fei does not understand why a giant mouse is talking to him. Fei makes a mental note: don't drink this bar's beer. Fei leaves the bar and returns to his bunk, where the giant mouse is waiting for him.
Ha ha! This shouldn't take long at all! |
