Part 5: An Encore Performance

Time for the first proper mission. You’ll recall that the events of the intro movie took place roughly five to ten minutes after this cutscene. So why was one concert getting attacked particularly important in the grand scheme of Manhattan island getting torn asunder by thousand foot tentacles? Err… Well… There wouldn’t be a video game level otherwise…? You got me. But here we are!







The game never mentions if the Overdive device actively selects the first host for Aya’s consciousness to go possess or if there is only a particular one she can target. Today, Aya will first be taking over the body of “Seamus Rose”, one of the concertgoers. The mission blurb said the National Guard is going to bust in on the concert, so I’m not sure why they’d make Aya first jump into an unarmed civilian.



In any case, welcome to the past just as the events of the intro are about to unfold around the city.







We find ourselves in Club Sacrifice as the band err… also named Sacrifice… plays on stage. There’s a text file that says the lead singer is the redhead named… Ginger. Sure.



Hyde reminds us of our mission. I know the in-game HUD says “Radio” when our support staff speaks. But… Aya isn’t actually wearing a radio earpiece, is she? I mean everyone is technically just talking to Aya as they’re standing in the same room. At most, they’ve got a microphone piping audio into her weird coffin chair in the device. No part of this game can stay consistent for more than five minutes, it would seem.








Welp. Looks like the power outage that took out the grid in Manhattan is hitting. A shame. Rikimaru was really shredding there. By the way, I looked up December 24th, 2012. It’s a Monday. What kind of rock concert begins at four in the afternoon on a Monday?





So anyway, it looks like Outworld is invading again. Raiden is gonna be fucking pissed when he hears about this.





I never got young people these days and their fascination with tentacles. They’re just ropey slimy things? They don’t even make good music.







The tentacles begin scooping up handfuls… err… Look, I don’t know what you’d call a tentacle grasping a bushel of any object… Regardless, scores of concertgoers get scooped up and yanked into the open portals…



…Which all apparently lead straight into man sized blenders on the far side.



Dude in the center is loving this shit! Best concert of 2012. Hands down.



Okay… So, dozens of people just got scooped up and tossed into a human blender. Don’t panic. Everyone please remain calm and exit in an orderly fas—



…Never mind.




New Music: Contact, Freeze, Explode



Aya, or rather body of Ms. Rose, is the only one to not flee in terror. Gee, it’s a good thing Seamus here was attending this mid-afternoon concert alone. It’d be weird if she were with a date or some friends then suddenly started spacing out when the man-blenders showed up.







Speaking of man blending, it turns out getting coated with enough blood processed from the far-side of the portals will also make people bubble-up and explode. Sure, why not? I don’t think that ever comes up again. By the way, Aya is now armed. Did her host smuggle a loaded handgun into the concert or is her magic armory an actual in-world thing they are just going to glaze over? Yes.







Aya starts firing on one of the tentacles. Since opening fire in the middle of a panicking crowd is sure to improve the situation. Alternatively, why didn't you fire into the crowd BEFORE the monsters you had prior knowledge about started murdering dozens of people? Aren't you in the past to try to help people? You're doing a kinda piss poor job thus far, Ms. Brea.





Of course, the tentacles don’t take kindly to any defensive measures in the face of their human smoothie creation.





…Welp.



Aya action rolls out of the way of another tentacle and its sticky white stuff excretions. However…









Well this is all going well so far. Two minutes into the first proper mission and Aya has already gotten her clothes torn to shreds. By the way, Aya getting her ass kicked here was featured heavily in promotional materials. Which was an early warning sign that this game might not be great.





One of the double-plus sized tentacles that are arbitrarily considered to be “a Babel” emerge on the far side of the concert hall. No, I’m not sure why we’re concentrating on this particular one when the rest of Manhattan is currently getting torn up by hundreds of other dimensional anomaly tentacles. But here we are…







More pressingly, Aya has managed to get grabbed one of the Twisted tentacles and boy that’s probably not a good thing given how creepy this game has already gotten. Nor do I ever want to search for “Aya Brea” on any Japanese art sites now…







At least the National Guard is here. We wouldn’t want the historic Club Sacrifice on Chelsea Street to fall to the hands of the Twisted invasion, now would we?







Here’s a cool shot for trailers, as time freezes just as Aya’s handgun splashes in a blood pool. Why has time frozen, you ask?





Well, Aya’s soul decided she just going to go ahead and hop out of that meat puppet that’s about to get grinded into a fine paste. I guess her soul can just hop out and have a walkabout, freezing time in the process. Or that only happens in this one pre-rendered scene that was ordered before they locked down the rest of the game. But Square-Enix would never do something like that, right?





Boy, Aya kind of totally fucked you over, huh, lady? You weren’t even close to the tentacle onslaught. You probably could have fled to relative safety and at least had a chance of surviving? Kind of a dick move. Oh well! Tough luck, nerd!





Now then, time for Aya to select her next meat puppet to send into the grinder… Hmm… Hey, Aya. Why didn't you just jump into one of the soldiers that arrived three minutes later in the first place? Especially when you did absolutely nothing to prevent that massacre?





Ah… You there, in the back. You’ll do.







Soul Hug uses way too much FP to be remotely viable for a sorcerer build in PvP and From has done dick to balance it in any of the patches.







What about…?





…Oh.



Holy SHIT! Did you just see that girl get wrecked?
Exploded like a meat piñata or something…
Why didn’t she run? Did she have some kinda death wish?
What a way to go… Fucked up, man. Fucked up. Right, Vogt?



Who? Me?
Yeah, you. Is that not the most fucked up way you’ve ever seen anyone die?
Oh… Yeah… It was… It was pretty messed up…
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. *shakes head*
…







Now that the Twisted portal is done blending all the human ingredients for its smoothie, it’s time to suck up all the juice to finish the receipt. If you for some reason think there is some link to The Twisted’s slaughter and needing blood… Nope. This, again, only happens in this particular FMV.





Apparently, all that blood is cause for the Twisted boss to stick its head out to see if there are any leftovers that could be churned up for second helpings.



Aya and the National Guard aren’t exactly feeling it in regards to jumping straight into a boss fight against a creature half poking out of a portal to the man grinding dimension.





But more importantly, Aya’s already shredded jeans are starting to chafe. Can’t have that if we’re going to have a boss battle.





Aya rips the torn cloth off and casts it aside. So, apparently Aya’s clothes shredding is also an in-universe thing. Except we JUST JUMPED INTO A FULLY INTACT SOLDIER! Also, when we jump back in-game, Aya’s outfit will be fully repaired. Again, The 3rd Birthday clearly didn’t employ any sort of script supervisor searching for continuity errors.





Tune in next time when Aya Brea faces off against the newest hard to describe teethy-tentacled mess and possibly remorselessly gets even more people brutally murdered by her own incompetence!






Video: Part 5 Cutscene (Recommended Viewing)





Sacrifice Band – I’m assuming they all died horribly off-screen as they are never seen nor mentioned again. RIP Bass Ninja.