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Not Another Console RPG

Note: Horizontal Rules (Lines) are breaks in the story.  I didn't want to just write a lot of boring stuff where I didn't have to, so just imagine this is me pulling some clips from the game.

Themes

Hero's Theme-The Prologue of FFIV (U.S. II)
Girl's Theme-Celes's Theme (The song from the Opera)
Other Guy's Theme-All I Want by the The Offspring
General Butts's Theme-Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot

I bet I know what you're wondering.  Which cliché Role-playing game opening is he going to use: being awakened by your mother on a typical day or finding yourself placed in a simplistic dungeon having the basics of the game explained to you by an NPC.  Well, you know how this story will open?  The hero's mother is going to wake him up in a simplistic dungeon and guide him out while teaching him the basics of the game.

"Wake up... no really... you've got to wake up before the imps and slimes eat you.  What's that?  How did I know there'd be imps and slimes?  They're always the first and weakest monsters, silly!"

The Hero wakes up in a cave.  Shortly after that, an imp runs up and initiates combat.

"Now would be a good time to teach you how to fight, isn't it?  Isn't it weird how somebody has to teach you to fight, yet you're already carrying that big sword.  Okay, let's see, if my memory serves me right, you should see the words "Fight" "Magic" "Item" and some other crap on the screen.  If you want to fight the enemy, pick "Item".  If you want to use magic, pick "Fight"--Wait, I just messed that up totally, didn't I?"

Thanks to the repetitive and self-explanatory battle system, the hero saves himself and his mother from the imps.  Note the fact the hero's mother does not help out in battle, though she may be the only one who has combat experience.  Soon the two travel down a corridor and enter a room with a locked door and one, count 'em one, switch.

"Hmm... how are we going to get out of this one?"

While his mom is contemplating their next move, the hero pulls the switch.  Lo and behold, the door opens.

"Switches and doors!!? This is too damn hard!  I'm going to put this frustrating game down and go listen to my Britney Spears and Linkin Park CDs."

There will never be another switch in the game.  The two walk out of this room and find themselves in their sunny village.  The hero is tired and injured, while his mom did no fighting.

"I'm so glad we're safe.  Let's return to our single-roomed bathroom-less house."

They return to their house, the only residential building in town.  Surprisingly enough, it has only one room and no bathroom.

"Sure is convenient that I never named you."

Before the player has a chance to name the hero, they hear a loud crash outside.  The hero and his mom run outside to find four large guards pointing spears at a small innocent looking female.

"Everybody stay back.  This woman is very dangerous."

"What did she do?"

"What do you mean what did she do?"

"What crime has she committed?  I mean, if it took four large armored guards to subdue her, she must've done something really bad."

"He's right.  What the hell has she done?"

"Shut up!  Orders are orders."

The guard stabs the old man for nothing.  This informs us all that these imperial guards are wrong and evil in every way, shape, and form.  Nobody reacts. 

"Now to take care of you, missy."

The guard swings his spear in a large, slow-moving arc rather than a quick thrust.  This gives the hero time to draw his sword, jump over skewered old guy, and stop the guard from hitting the girl.  A battle quickly ensues, and by some miracle, four hardened veterans of war are defeated by a kid who just learned to use a sword in the middle of a cave this morning.

"It's gotta be the shoes, baby!"

The boy's eyes meet the girl's and time seems to stop for a moment.  He picks her up and takes her back to his mom's place.  In the next scene, the three are eating together.

"What did those guards want with you?"

"They wanted to know the whereabouts of my father."

The hero wonders why the guard would want to kill her then, but doesn't bring it up.  In case you haven't noticed, he hasn't spoken yet.

"Your father?  Did they by any chance want him because he was an all-powerful wizard who could bring an evil empire to its knees if the need had ever arisen?"

"Actually, they wanted him for tax evasion.  They said if I wouldn't tell them where he was, they would do the next best thing and take my pendant."

"I've seen such a pendant before!  It possesses a very powerful and evil magic... enough to destroy entire worlds!"

The hero's mother throws the pendant on the floor.  It shatters into dozens of pieces.

"Actually, they wanted it because they thought it was really expensive jewelry.  I never knew it was colored glass either."

She begins to cry.  The mother looks down in regret, and our hero stares blankly at the wall as usual.  That night, the hero walks outside to where the stabbed old man is lying.  Conveniently, of all the times he walks out there, he manages to be there just in time for the old man to utter his last request.

"Please... help me... my family... in the village over the mountain pass... bring this to them..."

In spite of his ability to lift his head or finish a sentence without dot-dot-doting, the old man thrusts the standard 'Key Item' into the hero's hands.  The hero stares blankly at it.

"Take this... to them... mountain pass... then I can die in peace..."

The old man dies.  The hero puts the 'Key Item' in his pocket and walks back to his house where he catches the girl looking at the moon.  Every RPG fan knows this means there's love in their future.

"The view of the moon is so beautiful from this place.  I wish I could stay here forever."

The hero nods and then pulls the Old Man's possession out of his pocket.  It shines as he shows it to her, but you still can't tell what it is.

"Oh my.  What's that?"

Just as the girl sets our hero up to tell a story, he nods and the scene fades to black.  When it returns, we're still in the same scene.  He could've talked for all we know dammit!  The girl hops off the fence.

"Then the only thing we can do is deliver it to his family.  Am I right?"

She raises her fist and nods confidently.  The two walk into the hero's house and explain the story one more time to his mom.  If he did talk by any chance, we missed it again.

"Well, you want to go on a dangerous trek over a mountain filled with scary monsters with a girl you don't even really know in order to bring them something you got off their dead grandpa.  You're not even an adult yet!  Okay, have fun you two."

The two rest up.  Cue the happy inn music.  In the morning, they cross the bridge out of town to begin their big adventure.

The hero and his new friend stay at the inn, but somewhere far away, a nefarious battle between two almighty forces: the programmers and the execs!

"Alright, what's the story on the third character?"

"Oh, you mean Other Guy.  We plan on introducing him at a strategic point somewhere in the middle of Disc 2--"

"We can't have that!  According to our recent survey, 2.5% of the players decided that Other Guy was their favorite character."

"How do they know that?  They don't even have him!"

"From looking at his picture in the instruction booklet."

The programmers gasp.

"So you're the idiots who put the hidden characters Vincent and Yuffie in the little Final Fantasy VII manual that comes with the game."

"Naturally.  Now we want this third character introduced ASAP or else you'll all be fired."

The programmers bow their heads in shame.  The next morning, our heroes wake up.  Make that all three of our heroes.  All three look at each other oddly.

"Who are you?"

"The third member of your party of course."

"You?  But you're so old!"

"What are you talking about?  I'm 21 years old!"

She looks over to the hero.

"He's too old, right?"

The hero continues staring straightforward.

"Or you could keep staring at the wall, meaning you want me to join."

The hero continues staring straightforward.

"I guess that settles it.  Let's go."

"Alright, but you're not cute so you have to carry the bags."

Other Guy throws a handful of items into that mysterious void where items can be equally reached by all characters in spite of their location.

"Let's go."

The hero and the girl return home from the delivering the old man's possession.  Neither they nor the old man's family are sure exactly what that shiny object was.

"I can't wait to get home.  I bet your mom will be so excited to see us!"

They come around the final mountain pass to find the hero's hometown... burning in flames!!  Nobody is around except one man.  This man has long hair and a beautiful face... for a ten year old girl.  He's the other person in the entire world that wields a sword, thus making him the antagonist.  He smiles devilishly at our heroes over the wall of flames, and about a hundred Japanese schoolgirls begin swooning.

"If this game were not so horribly translated, most of my lines would be witty, quite witty."

A battle ensues.  Every one of our swings misses.  Every one of his attacks takes somebody out.  After the heroes get their asses kicked, we get out of battle mode and return to the burning village scene.

"It would make a lot of sense to finish you off now, but where would the fun be in that?  I'll let you punks go... this time.  Next time you cross us, don't expect any mercy."

He brushes his hand through his knee length hair.  Them Japanese girls swoon again.  He tries to walk to away, but trips on his hair.  Instead, he leaps gracefully out of the scene.

The hero, the girl, and other guy find themselves standing in front of a force field.

"Well, there's only one way to do this.  I'm going to have to sacrifice myself so hero can save the world."

"Sounds like a stupid plan to me."

"I cannot expect you to understand.  I have to do this.  This is my destiny: to die protecting those I love.  Just like the earth crosses the sun, my heart..."

While the girl keeps talking, a little monster comes up and bites Other Guy's ass.  He jumps up with a look of pain on his face.  The girl and the hero are oblivious to all this.  Other Guy chases the monster around the room and finally tackles him.  He begins punching and stomping the monster.

"Hero, you still have so much to accomplish.  Save the world... in my absence."

The girl stands before the force field with arms wide open.  At the same time, Other Guy picks up the severely beaten monster and throws it across the room like a sack of potatoes.  The girl falls forward, but the monster crosses through the air much faster.  It gets caught in the field, begins twitching, and explodes before the girl hits it.  The girl falls face first through the space that was the force field and falls flat on her face.  The hero ignores her and walks right on by with the Other Guy, rubbing his butt where the monster bit him, trailing behind him.

The three heroes reach the top of the tower.  All that stands there is a single treasure chest.

"There it is.  There's the treasure we were sent to find.  I hope this is something really good."

The hero walks up and opens the chest.  A mysterious light zooms out of the box, and having a life of its own, flitters about the room.  It flies into Other Guy's face, who mistaking it for a firefly, swats at it.  Disappointed in his response, it flies over to the Girl who gazes at it in wonder and grins.  The picture is very cute and placed in every magazine review of the game.  The light then flies back over to the hero, passes around his head and then into his mouth.  The hero looks like he's choking for a second but then returns to his normal self.

"I can talk."

"Wow!  We found his voice!  This is great."

She does the happy "jump in a circle" dance that Shana did a few times in LoD.

"Yeah, I've always wondered what's been on his mind."

He does the FFVII Cid "Huzzah!" arm pump gesture.

"This is my voice."

"Oh man, I had a feeling this would happen.  Say something else."

"You just asked me to say something else."

"W--W--What's wrong?"

"Well, he can talk, but only in simple declarative sentences that are responses to something else.  He can't make any commands and compound sentences, and don't expect him to actually start a conversation."

"Oh my God.  How do you know all this?"

"I... used to have a friend that came down with this.  Apparently it only strikes young blonde guys."

"What's it called?"

"Dart-Cloud-itis"

Our heroes ask for an audience with the king.  They step into his throne room with two gold pillars, two guards, one advisor, a large window behind him, and a red carpet that leads up to his throne.  All three kneel at his presence.

"You may rise.  What'cha want?"

Other Guy looks at the king with utter shock.

"What are you lookin' at?"

"I--I just thought Kings were supposed to be... I don't know... a little more formal than this.  I mean, we just came in and you're already chummy with us, maybe a little too chummy."

"We need a ship."

"A ship, eh?  Kind of weird how you came to me instead of a shipyard or sailors.  Ah well, let's see..."

"Your highness, the volcano island has recently become overrun with monsters.  Perhaps these young people could handle the problem for us."

"A wise plan indeed.  Should I present this to them?"

"Absolutely, my liege."

The King turns back towards the three heroes, but not before adjusting his crotch in his pants first.

"Okay, here's the dillio.  If you take the ship over to the nearby volcano and kill a bunch of monsters they think they own it, I'll let you take the ship wherever you want after that."

"Sounds like a deal to me."

"And just to make sure you three ain't playin' me, I'm going to send one of my generals with you.  Advisor call for General Butts if you will."

The girl covers her mouth with her hand and starts giggling.  Other Guy isn't quite so polite with his laughter.

"Butts!?  Hahahahaha."

A man in very regal looking white armor walks in.  General's Butts's theme starts playing.  He would be taller than the three heroes, but outside of battle, people in this world only come in three sizes: adult, child, and cat.

"You are General Butts."

"Yes lad, that would be me."

"Heh heh, a please to meet you Mr. Butts. Hahahaha."

Butts glares at Other Guy, but his gaze suddenly turns to the Girl.

"Well hello there missy."

He takes her hand, goes down on one knee, and kisses it.  She grins.

"Hehe.  Don't encounter too many chivalrous figures such as yourself these days."

"Well, good luck and whatever."

"We will kill the monsters."

"Time to get our butts in gear."

Butts glares at other guy again.  All three then walk out of the throne room.  They're outside of the throne room but still inside the castle when they're stopped by a Japanese man in a brown leather jacket with a Band-Aid under one eye.

"Excuse me, do you know where sailors hang out?"

"If we had known that, we wouldn't be here."