The cobblestones on the castle walkway emit a smell of decaying monsters and chocobo dung. Pushing through the crowd at the village trading post, you make your way towards the castle. Pausing for only a brief moment to nick a few gil from an unsuspecting tourist’s pocket, you struggle to swim against the surging tide of the crowd. It’s much busier than usual here in Goldendew, owing to the planned arrival of the kingdom’s chief military Magistrate.
That’s where you come in.
Sixteen years in an orphanage taught you all the skills you needed to survive on the streets. Turns out, you needed none of them; another cruel twist in your thorny backstory, (of which you remember little). All it really takes to survive, you’ve discovered, is claiming you are a famous person to shake down the gullible.
Today, your target is a group of guards idling in the shade near the gate. Straightening up to full stance, you approach them.
“The Magistrate is coming today. We must prepare!” says a lanky guard.
“Do you know what the Magistrate looks like?” you demand.
“The Magistrate is coming today. We must prepare!” is the lanky guard’s nervous response. You take this as a “no.”
“I am the Magistrate!” you proclaim, stepping forward and twirling your petticoats in what you hope is a Magistrate-like manner. “If you give me your money, I won’t punch you in the face for insubordination!”
“The Magistrate is coming today. We must prepare!” the lanky guard replies fearfully, handing over his gil. All of the guards pay you, then hustle out of sight. You heave a proud sigh – yours is truly a noble profession. Eyeing an approaching golden airship, you consider your next move.
You rush to the landing pad. In your haste, you accidentally dart underneath the berthing airship and are crushed. Your last thought is, “I did not know this would make my brain ooze out my nose like toothpaste from a tube.”
THE END
You stand there with a dumb look on your face. The airship lands and a large group gets out. Eventually, a crowd gathers around you, everyone looking towards the Magistrate’s oncoming party. Glancing at the Magistrate you realize that he does bear a striking resemblance to you. Your thievery-trained eyes fall upon his hip pouch, which is bulging with gleaming gil.
Pretending to pick up an attractive-looking slime mold, you stumble into the Magistrate. He is weaker than you thought, and your force causes both of you to tumble to the ground. You swipe his pouch and put your own nearly-empty bag in its place. Getting up, you extend a hand to the Magistrate, then realize he needs more than a hand as he looks pretty dead. That guy was way weaker than he looked. The Magistrate’s guards descend upon you.
“Behold, my sword of illusion!” you cry, fumbling at your belt for the sword. Unfortunately, you remember too late that you left that sword in your adamantine armor, which is at the cleaners. Instead of your sword, you accidentally whip off your belt, causing your pants to fall around your ankles.
“Its girth certainly is a thing of illusion,” declares the Magistrate, to a huge round of guffaws from the audience. You are so embarrassed that you have a heart attack. As you stumble to your feet to rush to a house of healing, you forget about your pants around your ankles. You trip and smash your head on a cobblestone. Everyone laughs, even the emergency white magic personnel sent to save you, who laugh so hard they fail to heal you in time.
THE END
A crowd gathers as you run up to one of the Magistrate’s men and bop him on the head. He retaliates by slicing your throat in half with a diamond-studded volleyball. Your blood gushes onto the hewn cobblestones, creating a stain that will forever remind citizens of how much fun diamond blitzball is.
THE END
Cleaving a path through the crowd with the pointy front end of your hairdo, you dash towards the hulking ship. Looking over your shoulder, you see the guards sprinting after you; it’ll be a close call if they get you before you get to the ship. You lower your head and prepare for a final burst.
Just then, another armed party comes from the side, riding on chocobos. They easily overtake you and throw you in a net. Heading to the ship, they toss you on board before releasing anchor. The airship starts to float away.
– Jump off
You dash into the castle, hoping to put some distance between you and the Magistrate’s angry guards. However, the time between entering the castle door and exiting on the other side takes about fifteen seconds, allowing the men to catch you. They flay, disembowel, and behead you in front of the wildly cheering crowd (who think it is some kind of magic act).
THE END
You wriggle to the edge of the airship and peer over. You’re already a few stories in the air. Mustering your courage, you heave yourself over the side. As you see your former captors rush to the side of the airship, you realize too late that they aren’t the Magistrate’s guards. In fact, it becomes painfully obvious as you plunge into the hard earth that the Magistrate’s guards are on the ground. They take turns jumping on your already broken body, before throwing you into the sea to drown. But you don’t drown right away- it’s shark mating season.
THE END
You try to pull your seven-foot-sword from its sheath mounted on your back, but there’s just not enough room. A large, dark-skinned man sees what you’re doing and kicks you in the stomach.
“Stay out here all night!” he declares. “Maybe it will teach you a lesson about crystals.” You consider hopping off the edge, but you are already hundreds of feet in the air. Within seconds, each of the mysterious gang have gone below deck, including a short mysterious mage in a dark robe, whose face can’t be seen. The sun has set, and the moon has fully risen. You lay there shivering, wondering exactly what in Hades’ cauldron you’re supposed to learn about crystals. Just then, you spot a shadow. It’s a teenage member of the crew: a lady.
“Help!” you plead.
“I can’t,” she says. “Our attraction might get too deep.”
You stare at her for several seconds. Green hair hanging over one eye, pale white skin. You’re certain you’ve never seen her before.
“Huh?” you brilliantly retort.
“You know how it is,” she says. “I help you now, then we fall hopelessly in love. But if you’re eventually going to turn good and save the world, I can’t have the risk of your death constantly hanging over my heart!”
“What?” you ask.
“These few seconds have already brought us too close together. I need to break up with you.”
“Ummm … Is there anyone else I can talk to?”
“How DARE you!” She whirls away, face full of tears, and runs below deck. You figure that it’s settled, but an hour later she comes upstairs with a stick of dynamite and blows open your chest. Sadly, in the instant before dying, you realize you are in love with her for no apparent reason.
THE END
You sing her an opera you particularly enjoyed when you were a child,
“There once was a man.
Who got mistaken for another man.
He was taken onto an airship,
In fact this happened just a few hours ago.”
The words have never made sense to you, but that doesn’t take away from their beauty. You look to see the lady wiping away a tear.
“I’ve never heard those words sung with such meaning,” she coos. Using a knife, she cuts you loose from the net.
“Hello,” you say, “my name is Square. Square Buttons.”
“Charmed to meet you,” she smiles, “although I feel like I have met you before. You know? It’s like we have known each other our whole life. That feeling you get, the one I just got? I’ve probably said too much. Do you think I’m being too forward?”
Screaming a war cry that comes out two octaves higher than you’d like, you rush at the green-haired lady. Wrapping her up in the net, you toss her over the edge of the airship. It’s not long before the entire crew comes out. One by one, you deftly toss each member overboard with dramatic flair. Finally, it’s just you aboard the ship, having defeated the five crew members. Then, you realize that you have no idea how to pilot an airship. You have to wait hours before it runs out of coal, or gasoline, or whatever it is that those things run on. Frankly, you have no idea. By the time the engines sputter and quit, you are above an arctic continent. You plunge into the earth, creating a giant fireball rarely seen in the snow at this time of year. Oddly enough, your charred body lands just yards away from a cave containing a really awesome spell. It’s a spell that summons every member of the 1972 Peruvian World Cup Soccer team to come kick your enemy in the balls. But you’ll never know that, you’re too busy being dead all the time.
THE END
“Hee hee! I think so, too!” she giddily replies. “My name is Phoenix Downs.”
Just then, lights come on from the cabin. The four remaining party members run on deck and stare at the two of you accusingly.
“He was just about to kill me!” screams Phoenix, hiding behind the bulky frame of the largest crew member, who holds a lantern to your face.
“You’re not the Magistrate!” he declares. There is a murmur among the other three crew. “Dammit, we got the wrong guy. Push him overboard and let’s go back.”
You feel rough hands shoving you towards the side of the boat. A gangplank is raised and you are shoved onto it. Looking down, you can barely make out a forest thousands of feet below.
“You can’t kill me!” you exclaim. “I have something you need and it’s, uh, it’s in my pocket.”
“They only thing we’re seeking is crystals, and you wouldn’t have those,” says the large man, waving a scabbard in your face.
Looking at your pocekts, you spy the Magistrate’s leather pouch. Opening it reveals a sparkling blue crystal (and several Moogle-skin condoms). Lucky break.
Closing your eyes, you pitch off the plank and into the windy skies. A few minutes later, you can’t resist the temptation to open your eyes. As you try to move the muscles that open eyelids, you remember that you hit the ground a minute or so earlier, and your eyes are lying a few yards away from your head.
THE END
“You’ll never get it now,” you cackle, tossing the crystal into the clouds. You hear an ear-splitting crackling noise, and realize the sky itself is freezing over. The airship and its crew remain forever suspended in the ice-sky, until one day when a less small-minded adventurer comes along and retrieves the crystal.
THE END
Holding the crystal high above your head seems to strike fear into each of the crew. They cower, hands in front of their faces.
“That’s better,” you say. “Now give me all your money.”
The crew drops a pile of gil in front of your feet, each of them afraid to come any closer.
“Great, and next, take me to the children’s casino!” you demand.
The crew exchanges glances, then sets about changing the course of the airship. Just as you lean back and relax, the entire airship shudders. You see the Earth get smaller, and realize the ship is getting sucked into the clouds.
– Bail out
You grab onto the mast and hold on. However, no amount of grip will save you when the ship soars into outer space, and your entire body rapidly decompresses into a gooey mess.
THE END
Gazing over the edge of the airship, you see the Earth spinning around thousands of feet below. Looking up you realize the ship is shooting up towards space. Without taking another look down, you step off the side and plunge downward.
It’s an interesting fact that the planet you are on has a very thick pressure atmosphere at about 2,000 feet. The net result of going from the thin air to such a thick atmosphere isn’t enough to knock you out, but trying to get your brain around this situation does.
You wake up on a beach near a small forest. Your thoughts of “how did I get here?” are cut short by a glinty round object landing in the sand near you. Picking it up, you see that it is a diamond-encrusted soccer ball.
“Hey, buddy, thanks for getting that,” a bright faced man says, jogging up next to you.
In a blur of flying limbs, the man creates a vortex of air around the ball, reversing its spin and sending it at you. The sharp diamonds slice your body to ribbons. The man’s friends join him, see the carnage, and ultimately agree that your murderer has earned a three-minute penalty.
THE END
“Hello!” you cheerfully say.
“Hi!” he responds amicably. “My name is Mash Palms.”
“Cool, my name is Squa-“
“Have you played Blizzard Ball?” Mash interrupts.
“I don’t think-“
“Blizzard Ball is the best game ever. It’s way better than diamond blitzball, because we don’t use a volleyball.”
“Doesn’t diamond blitzball use a soccer ball?” you ask.
“Wouldn’t know, never played it,” he casually responds. “Hey, do you want to play? If you win, I’ll join forces with you and help you fight your way through these woods. It’s too tough to go alone.”
“Why would I go into the woods?” you ask.
“Game on!” Mash grabs the ball and tosses it in the air.
You flail and miss. Somewhere in the distance, a buzzer sounds.
“Aww, you lose!” cries Mash. “Tell you what, I’ll join up with you anyway. I hate Blizzard Ball.”
Deep in the forest, you hear the crashes and clanks of heavy machinery.
Although it doesn’t quit make sense, some invisible barrier blocks your path.
Crashing through the forest, you are soon ambushed by a party of imps.
Your meager actions are sufficient to make all of the imps, who were already elderly and suffering from heart conditions, die.
“Awww, I wanted to throw my blizzard ball at them,” says Mash.
You scoop up a batch of experience points from the jungle floor.
Stumbling into a clearing, you see bulldozers and cranes scooping crystals from inside of trees. Sadly, without the exposition provided by extensive cut scenes, you have no idea what is going on and soon die from apathy.
THE END
“The evil Mecha-Corp is taking the crystals from the trees, leaving the trees to rot.” Mash explains.
“That sucks! Let’s destroy the machines,” you urge.
“When the crystals are removed, it throws the Earth’s zen out of proportion. The Earth’s zen is needed to flow with the spirit of Gaia.”
“Yes, unfortunate. Let’s go shut down those bulldozers,” you comment.
“The planet operates as a single living organism,” Mash continues. “Without enough magical crystal power, the entire Earth could collapse. It’s just plain science.”
You charge at the machines, expecting your new friend to join the battle. However, Mash just continues his sage observation. Too late, you turn forward to see the giant bucket of a crane plunging towards your head. As your skull caves in it makes you regret that construction safety helmets have not yet come to this kingdom.
THE END
You backhand slap Mash, and he goes tumbling to the ground amid a spray of blood.
“Ha, ha!” he chortles, holding his broken nose, “I guess I deserved that, buddy!”
“Your nose looks broken. Sorry,” you offer.
“It’s nothing a good fight won’t fix,” shouts Mash, running into battle with the nearest machine.
Pulling out your nineteen-foot-long blade, you give the bulldozer a tremendous wallop. White numbers spill out of the gash you leave in the side of the bulldozer. However, the giant truck-with-a-bunch-of-drill-heads-on-the-end is able to flank your party, and blends all your organs together into one big multiracial smoothie.
THE END
You pull the crystal from wherever you were keeping it and throw it towards the sky. Brilliant blue beams of light burst from the crystal in all directions. It hovers several stories above the ground before turning into… a giant glacier. Slowly, the glacier moves towards the machines, which are powerless to do anything against it. After a few days, the glacier crushes the machines. This leaves splintered metal all over the forest and causes its ecosystem to become utterly baffled.
You pick up the potions that the machines were carrying. Just then, you hear a loud rustling in the nearby trees.
– Charge into the underbrush, wildly swinging your three-story-high sword
Your squeal is returned by an equally piggish squeal. As you stare in confusion, Phoenix bursts from the brush, along with the large-bodied member of the airship crew.
“I knew you would save me!” she exclaims. “And look who I found! Our old friend, Useless Analog Joy Stick.”
“Call me Mr. Stick,” Useless Analog chuckles.
“What happened to that short mysterious mage guy?” you inquire.
“He had to go. Masters of the Universe sued us for ripping off Orko.”
You hack away at the bushes. Eventually, your sword finds and dismembers the source of the squealing: Phoenix. As her muscular bodyguard steps forward, you remember him as the huge guy from the airship.
“You killed Princess Phoenix. She was the last of the half-summon, half-human species. The only one capable of delivering the crystals to the dark heart of outer space.”
“What?” is your carefully chosen last word before you are punched in the face to death.
THE END
Your sword cleaves a large wound in the face of Mr. Stick.
“You’re the whole reason I’m here to begin with!” you scream.
Your blow hit Stick harder than you expected; you’ve never seen so many white numbers gushing from a wound.
Mouth full of blood, Stick gurgles a laugh. “Fair enough. How do we get out of here?”
You look across the clearing to see a chocobo stable and an airship.
You bound over to the well-stocked chocobo stables.
You are not sure who left this majestic Mecha-Corp airship here, then abandoned it. But you don’t pay this much thought as you pull up the anchors and rise into the air. As you fly across the skies, you soon realize you are not alone. An armed Mecha-Corp ship closes the distance, and pulls up next to your ship. The gangplank is placed, connecting the two ships, just as the sun goes behind the clouds.
The enemy ship’s crew wheels out a large pipe organ. A sailor comes out and begins playing a horrifying dirge. A black-clad figure steps forward, and crosses to the middle of the gangplank.
“I am the evil Franz Kafka, head of Mecha-Corp.”
“Are you the one I talk to about this airship? Because it’s evasive maneuvering leaves much to be desired,” you snap, sounding more wordy than witty.
“Enough!” roars Kafka, unsheathing his sword in a very obscene way.
Just then a giant roar erupts from the Earth, loud enough to vibrate both ships. Looking down, you see the Earth collapsing on itself.
“Now you’ve done it” shouts Mash. “I warned you!”
You hop on the red chocobo. Immediately, it does the only thing red chocobos know how to do: dig straight down. You soon find yourself plunging into a hot pool of lower-world lava, still wondering why breeders even bother to make red chocobos.
THE END
Hoping on a sullen chocobo with feathers the color of night, you steer into the open air. You ride towards a cliff, hoping to try out the chocobo’s specialized ascending skills. However, your plans are soon dashed when a black cactuar jumps in front of your path. Your last thought as thousands of needles pierce your body is, “Wow, black cactuar can also climb mountains, I guess.”
THE END
You hop on the bright silver chocobo. Before you can dig your spurs deep into its fleshy sides, the chocobo sprints out of the stable and takes to the skies. Laughing, you realize you’ve never flown so high before. Unfortunately, you never learned that silver chocobo are bred to mine the inside of volcanos. Soon, you find yourself plummeting down the hole in the top of a fiery mountain. Just your crazy luck, this was the day a nearby black magic school decided to teach the spell, “erupt.”
THE END
The chocobo’s feathers glisten like fire as you clamber up. Unfortunately, orange chocobos are bred to do one thing and one thing only: mate with anything that comes near. The pleasantness of its soft, moist feathers soon gives way to the crippling pain of two tons of bird on top of your junk. This isn’t fatal, really. But it’s so painful you convince the next person you see to cut your head off.
THE END
You hop on the blue chocobo. Sliding into the seat, you feel the smooth curves of Italian-engineered chocobo. Taking it outside, you decide to open her up and see how she handles. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is “she handles based on however she feels.” At this current moment, the blue chocobo feels like running you straight into a tree. Both you and the chocobo have your skulls shattered into dozens of pieces. As your consciousness fades, you ponder whether the chocobo was suicidal to begin with, or if it just hated you that much.
THE END
“Wow! It was intense,” proclaims Mash. “First we battled the fire and wind elementals, who live just beyond that patch of trees. Then we fought the earth and water elementals on the beach! Then we became sages and raised rainbow chocobos! What did you do?”
“Uhh, I walked over here from the beach,” is your glum response. In fact, you become so glum that you decide to fall on your sword rather than live in the shadow of your fellow party members. A rather dumb decision, thinks everyone around you, but it’s your adventure so if you really want to die then, fine.
THE END
As you curl your feeble fingers into a fist, a memory flashback hits you.
You remember being six, and living with Kafka in the orphanage. One day, Kafka stole a toy from you so you punched him. Kafka retaliated by swapping consciousnesses and sending you to a dark dimension that took you months to battle out of. Shocking that you forgot about that.
Filled with rage, you pounce at Kafka. “I… REALLY… LOVED… THAT… TOY!” you shout, socking Franz square in the jaw.
Franz Kafka recoils in pain. Regaining his senses, he calls forth a lightning bolt from the clouds. Since you are sailing through a cloud, it’s really painful. So painful, in fact, that you die.
THE END
Pulling out your blue crystal, you toss it in the air. A giant snowman appears, and starts waddling across the gangplank.
Thinking quickly, Kafka shoots a plume of fire at the summon, melting the giant snowman. Before you can hop out of the giant puddle this creates, Kafka casts a lightning bolt, electrifying the puddle. Your 64-foot-long sword acts as a lightning rod as you fry to a crisp.
THE END
Shooting Kafka the bird, you casually hop off the gangplank. Plunging toward the Earth reminds you of something from your past. Not that time you plummeted towards the Earth a few minutes ago, though, something different. One time when you were at the orphanage, the orphanage keeper said, “Should world end backwards, jumping off cliff makes you be to as not unlike the swan.” It’s times like these you wish that everything she said didn’t come out so unintelligibly translated.
But as you get closer to the ground, you realize that the ground itself is plunging. Instead of smacking against the earth, you slowly catch up with the cascading dirt, becoming enveloped in it until all is black.
You wake up in a bed in a one room cabin. An old guy is making fish stew.
Lunging towards the old man, the bloodthirst in your eyes turns to strain as you bounce against your restraints. Apparently, the old guy has tied you to the bed.
“Certainly,” chirps the old guy, dishing you a bowl. “I’ll have to pour it down your throat though, as I have tied you to the bed.”
A quick inspection finds that he is right. Fortunately, the person who ran your orphanage that you never remembered until recently taught you a trick. Taking a fishbone in your mouth, you quickly saw through your restraints.
“Would you please untie me, you old man?” you ask as nicely as you can.
“My name is Cid,” he responds. “Call me Cid. And, no. Not until you’ve tried my fish soup and tell me how good it is.” Cid pours a spoonful of soup into your mouth.
You attempt to strike a seductive pose, but find it quite difficult with every limb tied to the bed. Just then Cid hustles over and unties you.
“Sorry about tying you up, I… I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not going to tell you why I tied you up.”
You lunge towards Cid. His frail body barely has enough strength to grapple with your long-comatose physique. A very pathetic battle ensues, the net result of which is Cid drowning in a pot of stew. Happily, you go back to bed and await the end credits, certain that Cid was the final boss. Then a giant robot fist crushes the small shack you are in, spattering you like a swatted fly.
THE END
“Have you checked for secrets in the cave?” you ask. “I hear there’s treasure.”
“Oh, my,” says Cid, “I had no idea you were an NPC.”
The trick worked! “Have you checked for secrets in the cave?” you ask.
Unfortunately, it is a bleak apocalyptic future where all NPCs are rounded up and either given sensitive mental disability treatment or put in a zoo. You get the latter and spend the rest of your hours being stared at by plump tourists. Until, of course, a giant robot comes and kills you later that day.
THE END
Using all of your tremendously weak might, you project a trail of hot soup onto Cid’s face. Cid wipes off the soup, the pleasantness gone from his face.
“Just for that, I’m not going to tell you about the giant robot that was summoned by the moon man,” he snaps. “But I will untie you, because that part is getting kinda creepy.”
As Cid begins untying you, you stutter out a commanding, “What?” but his reply is cut short by a giant robot picking up the shack and eating it. As you wonder why a robot would need to eat things like that, you also die.
THE END
“It’s nice,” you say. You smile, trying to look both ugly and unappetizing.
“I think so, too.” Cid smiles back. “Now let me untie you. I’ve had my fun.”
“What … what does that mean?” you ask.
“Would you like to hear about the Apocalypse?”
– Say “No”
“I’d rather not hear about the Apocalypse,” is what you start to say, but then an unknown force wills you to say, “Wait, I mean YES!”
“Great!” says Cid. “You fell into the ocean and washed up here. The Apocalypse collapsed the Earth into the Underworld. Then both fell on top of another world which we didn’t even know existed, but whose creatures we now know squish out red guts when a world falls on top of them.” He pauses to take a wheezy breath. “The entire planet has decreased in size by half. But none of this is important right now. Mecha Corp has managed to rebuild in just a few months, somehow. The citizens of Earth all got together and prayed and the giant robot came out of the Earth to protect us all.”
You hurry outside, more to get away from Cid’s ramblings than to see the giant robot. But then you see the robot and it is spectacular. Thousands of feet high, the anthromorphic robot looks like half stone and half metal. It smashes the cabin you were just in with an enormous fist. You tumble to the ground from the resulting earthquake. The robot walks away, down a nearby beach.
“Absolutely,” is what you try to say, but you find your lips somehow compelled to say “Nope.” Cid stands there, staring at you. You realize he has nothing else to talk about. In pity, you start to ask for his story, when a giant robot fist smashes the cabin, destroying the both of you. Your last thought is, “that was probably a good story.”
THE END
Springing to your feet, you chase after the enormous robot. You round a cliff just in time to see the robot smash a foot into the giant Mecha Corp headquarters tower. The machine jumps on the network of buildings and towers, stomping everything into rubble.
Then the robot turns to the nearby town of Brownleaf, and smashes it too. Even though you are half a mile away, you can hear the citizens’ agonized screams.
“It’s out of control!” squeals a familiar voice. You turn to see Phoenix, Mash, and Stick standing behind you.
You run into the ocean. Unfortunately, a party of giant metal crabs descends upon you, slicing you to ribbons with their steel pincers.
THE END
You run towards the robot, your party on your heels. Oddly, the robot spots you and marches towards you. With his giant fists, the monster smashes the ground, but you dive out of the way.
You pull out your trusty blue summon crystal. Tossing it in the air, it shatters into a brilliant ball of light. The light plunges into the robot’s chest, turning the robot to ice. Everyone celebrates, but while collecting your treasure (a masamune) you cut yourself and bleed to death.
THE END
You jump onto the robot’s fist, clinging to one of its fingers. Your party follows suit. Soon, you are being lifted high in the air.
– Find the secret door mentioned in that one part of the adventure that you skipped
Glancing around, you see a rectangular outline in the robot’s palm. Heaving your weight against it, you swing open an entrance to a passage.
“Of course!” exclaims Stick, “the invisible dragon’s secret door. The traveling gnome was right!”
You plunge into the passage, which is lit with torches despite the physical impossibility of that happening. Running up what you can only assume is the inside of the robot’s arm, you are confronted by a party of three robot maintenance workers.
You run up the outside of the robot’s arm. The robot’s other fist comes crashing down on you, crushing you like a stomped grape. If it’s any consolation, your guts leave a permanent stain on the metal/stone exterior of the robot, serving as a reminder to future adventurers not to run up the robot’s arm.
THE END
A sparkling tidal wave descends upon the robot helpers, somehow avoiding you entirely. As the robots short circuit, your party dashes past them and into the shoulder. The passage forks ahead.
“Where to now, Square?” Stick barks from the back row.
You cast a giant fire spell, failing to first check the enemy machines’ motherboards for firewalls. The flames bounce back at you, burning your flesh to about medium-well.
THE END
“This way!” you scream. Climbing into the head, you survey the room. It is a 360-degree technological wonder, with wall-to-wall panels of circuitry and monitors.
“Over there!” points Mash. “The emergency shutdown switch!”
You step towards the switch, but a ball of black light appears in front of you. It transforms into a nine foot tall, scantily clad, yellow-skinned woman.
“I am Ethreus, Goddess of Earthquakes!” she proclaims. “Your quest to save the world shall be stopped! By me! Any last questions?”
“Why do you live in a giant robot head?” you query. “What does that have to do with Earthquakes?”
“Enough,” she screams, then begins moving her hands in such a way as to imply she is casting a really big spell.
You take the lower passage, assuming it will lead to the robot’s heart. Unfortunately, all it leads to is a giant chest cavity containing gears. Your corpse is enough to jam the gears for a few seconds, before they turn you into ground meat.
THE END
You cast a gravity spell, and instantly feel yourself gaining mass. Your enemy casts quake. As the shaking ground kills you through not-entirely-explained ways, you find yourself wondering what the purpose of a lot of these spells really is.
THE END
Your party lifts off the ground just in time to escape a very painful-looking ground shaking. Walking on the air, you deliver a kick square to the face of the Earthquake elemental. This is sufficient to remove her head.
Leaping across the room in a completely unnecessary manner, you arrive at the switch and give it a deft flip. The lights go out in the room. The only light is provided through two round holes in the wall. You assume those holes are the robot’s eyes.
Hoping to get a laugh from your party, you cram your head through the severed neck. It turns out, there’s a lot more gunk in there than you expected. You try to remove your head from the head, but are stuck. Sadly, this does get a laugh from your party, as they are too busy guffawing to stop you from suffocating. Oddly, the earthquake elemental gains some posthumous experience points for technically defeating you.
THE END
You climb out of the robot’s eyes and stand on his shoulders, surveying the scene. It looks like you shut down the robot before it could do any further damage. Sighing relief, you sit back and wait for a list of names to scroll through the sky. Unfortunately, the only thing that happens in the sky is a giant maelstrom, which begins sucking the robot into the air.
You attempt to run back to the secret door, but are cut off by three identical-looking girls.
“We are the triplets of the robot! Prepare to die!”
Although you find it bizarre that these sisters also live inside the robot, you brandish your mile-high sword and plan your attack.
You dash down the robot, making a valiant leap from the hip to the knee. As valiant as it is, you miss the knee by a good eight feet and plunge to your death.
THE END
You jump into the eye holes just as the robot gains speed. You glance through a pupil to find that you are soaring through the atmosphere. You go into outer space, you stare at the stars in amazement. Eventually, you land on the moon. You and your party climb out of the robot eyes and down to the ground. Also, you can breathe for no apparent reason.
You plunge your sword into the powerful black mage, causing a sizable gash. However, the white mage simply heals her. The paladin and black mage wail on your party until your liquified organs coat the walls.
THE END
You dodge the paladin’s spear and stab her in the chest with your sword. Just before her last breath, however, the white mage heals her. The black mage and paladin then push the reset button on all of your organs.
THE END
You smartly attack and kill the white mage, preventing the offense from being healed. Your team makes short work of the inferior red and black mages. However, you are immediately back-attacked by a group of hovering unicycles. The evil vehicles take advantage of your weakened state to destroy you all.
THE END
Inside, the brilliant blue castle is made up of only one chamber. Giant crystal pillars of all colors stand all around the chamber, humming beautiful low tones. In the direct center of the chamber stands an old, bald man.
– Put your hands on the red pillar
Wandering into a cave, you are attacked by a gelatinous creature resembling butterscotch pudding.
“Hello,” you say to the old, bald man.
“Yes, hello indeed,” he replies. “Do you remember who I am?”
You blurt out what is fast becoming your catch phrase, “What?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was speaking to the princess.”
Everyone turns to look at Phoenix, who blushes and stares at the floor. Stick puts a meaty hand on her shoulder, “you can tell them.”
“I’m a princess,” she states, “princess of the moon.”
“Yes,” says the old man, “I am her father. I sent her to Earth to kidnap lots of sexy golems for me. But my plans were ruined when you she fell in love with a human.” He turns to you. “My name is Moon Man, but you probably want to call me father-in-law, huh?”
“What?” is your response.
“Nevermind!” shouts Moon Man. “Time for fighting!”
Moon Man summons Meteo. A giant meteor alters its orbit and crashes directly into your face.
THE END
The bald, old man kicks you in the junk so hard that you literally die from the pain.
THE END
You place your palms on the red pillar. You feel a rush of heat surging through your arms, up your shoulders and neck, and into your brain.
*You Have Learned Flare*
You place your hands on the purple pillar. A powerful energy, which feels like a liquid electric shock, flows through your hands, up your shoulders and into your mind. Your vision is filled with ancients destroying swaths of Earth in an orgy of destruction.
*You Have Learned Ultima*
You plunge your fist into the pudding. When it gets stuck, you decide to eat your way out, as you love butterscotch. Unfortunately, the tasty Moon Butterscotch Blob Monster is poisonous to humans, and you die writhing in pain on the moon.
THE END
You cast lightning 12 on the pudding. Unfortunately, thanks to lunar storms, the pudding has evolved to not only withstand lightning, but to repel it as well. As the jolt of lightning fries your entire body, you realize that you can, in fact, see your skeleton through your skin.
THE END
You attempt to cast Flare on yourself and fail. In a brilliant display of ingenuity, you cast Wall on Stick, then cast Flare on him. The spell is reflected back at you, and you feel the burn of a million suns exploding from your stomach, like the time you ate a fried burrito at Princess Garnet’s Super Sweet Sixteen. Except much more fatal.
THE END
You fight lunar imps and moon marlboros for what feels like eternity.
You fight lunar imps and moon marlboros for what feels like eternity.
You fight lunar imps and moon marlboros for what feels like eternity.
You fight lunar imps and moon marlboros for what feels like eternity.
“Hello,” you say to the old, bald man.
“Yes, hello indeed,” he replies. “Do you remember who I am?”
You blurt out what is fast becoming your catch phrase, “What?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was speaking to the princess.”
Everyone turns to look at Phoenix, who blushes and stares at the floor. Stick puts a meaty hand on her shoulder, and says “You can tell them.”
“I’m princess,” she states, “princess of the moon.”
“Yes,” says the old man, “and I am her father. I sent her to Earth to find rescue and kidnap lots of sexy golems. But my plans were ruined when you she fell in love with a human,” he turns to you. “My name is Moon Man, but you probably want to call me father-in-law, huh?”
“What?” is your response.
“Sheesh,” Moon Man frowns. “Look, can you go off and play while the adults who actually paid attention to the cutscenes can talk?”
“Father, I love him,” Phoenix beams. She tries to grab your hand but you shake hers away. “Over the past hour-and-a-half we have formed an unbreakable bond. Because it is make of love, the most unbreakable substance on the planet, not counting Ribbon.”
“Earthling! I knew I was right planning your destruction.” cackles Moon Man.
“So, that’s what you wanted the robot for! You destroyed our planet to summon the defense robot so you can capture it and use it to destroy our planet!” Stick shouts, expositionally.
“You’ve figured so much out, but you missed one crucial detail,” replies the old man, coldly. “I also thought this robot would look totally cool.”
“Enough talking,” cries Mash, who hasn’t actually said anything up to this point. “Prepare for battle.” He rushes the old man, weapons drawn. You exchange a shrug with the rest of your party and rush into battle.
Using your awesome special move, you blast up in the air. You’ve been practicing, and can usually get up to a few hundred feet before rocketing towards your opponent’s face. However, you forgot about the low-gravity properties of the moon. Your jump propels you miles into space, where you float around until your body decides it’s good and ready to explode.
THE END
You bury your sword square between the old man’s eyes, moments before he finishes casting “Firecracker 1.” He collapses to the ground in a pool of blood. Phoenix jumps into your arms, you quickly drop her.
“I knew you could do it!” she exclaims.
You take a few steps before your head gets foggy. “What was I going to do?” you ask aloud.
A rumbling attracts everyone’s attention. The old man’s carcass has transformed into a six-story high alien demon monster.
“Renounce my daughter, or you shall die.”
“I don’t even like her, you can take her, dude. I don’t care!”
“Fine! If you won’t renounce my daughter, you all die!” You get the feeling listening isn’t his specialty. He casts “Meteo”.
A giant meteor plunges into your face. It is quite painful, and takes nearly all of your health points. You struggle to your feet. You feel Phoenix casting a healing spell on you; you wish she wouldn’t cast it with such oddly sexual gestures.
A magic shell made of chocolate appears around you and your party.
The old man casts “Gravity 20”. A black hole appears in front of you. All of the planets and stars in the universe get sucked into the hole, after colliding with you. Planet after planet, star after star slams into your tiny body. Then the black hole sucks you in, and implodes. Then this now-collapsed universe erupts forth in a massive big bang explosion.
All in all, you lose about 10% of your total hit points.
You begin the 15-minute series of incantations required to summon Ultima. However, the old man is faster, bringing a comet from the sky to hit you in the face. Having now been hit in the face by both a comet and a meteor, you can definitely say that the comet was more fatal.
THE END
You cast “Wall 0.05” A reflective wall forms around yourself. You lick it and are surprised to discover it tastes like a soap bubble.
The old man cases “Nuke” in a fit of Japanese insensitivity.
The ground opens up, a warhead rises up. The warhead fires, hitting you square in the forehead. The explosion is so massive it blinds everyone on the moon, which is currently just you 5. Then, a hail of nukes arrives, detonating the entire moon.
THE END
With the old man recovering, you take your chance.
You begin the 15-minute series of hand gestures required to cast “Ultima”.
“MegaFlare!” casts Moon Man, and begins a similar set of hand gestures.
You and the old man stand there, gesturing, for a tense fourteen minutes. During this time, the rest of your party goes to the crystal castle’s restroom and gets snacks.
Finally, you finish the final gesture and cast “Ultima”.
The entire world turns white. A translucent black dome appears over the old man. Inside the dome, the old man gets thrown about like a blanket in a washing machine. Lightning, earthquakes, fire, meteors: all of these things happen inside the old man’s private biodome.
“Noooooo!” he screams. “I mind controlled Mecha-Corp for nothing!”
“What?” you ask.
When the light fades, you see the old man’s monstrous guts lying in a goopy pile.
Stepping out of the castle, you gaze up at the sky and the now-safe Earth. Kneeling, you extend your sword towards the Earth, striking a pose you think would look good for a fadeout. Darkness falls.
When the light comes back, you are in Goldendew’s castle courtyard. An enormous wedding has been set up. You are standing at the front, next to Phoenix.
“Do you, Phoenix Downs, take Square Buttons to be your spouse?” the king asks.
“I do!” squeals Phoenix.
“And do you, Square Buttons, take Phoenix Downs to be your wife?”
“What? No!” you blurt out.
The king pauses for a minute to give you a quizzical look. An expression of joy spreads across his face, “Good enough!” he shouts. “I now pronounce you man and princess! You may kiss the bride.”
You turn your face aside so that Phoenix plants a wet one on your cheek.
“Stop!” you exclaim. “Stop the wedding!” But the light is already fading. A list of names scrolls by on the castle walls, “No! Don’t roll the credits! This isn’t done, I don’t want to marry Phoenix! Reset! Load! Sephiroth!”
The light fades completely. The names finish scrolling.
YOU WIN!
Hoovler also writes for Gamespy, Blastr, Playboy’s The Smoking Jacket, and Ranker. He is lead puzzle designer for the Telltale game, Puzzle Agent 2, and wants to be your Facebook Google Plus friend.
