Part 71: Quick! Everyone Run Before The Ending Gets Here!

CUTSCENE: Epilogue & Credits
CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Fly My Blue Bird! Fly! (English Version)” (Game 2 OST, Track 22) – continued directly from previous chapter.

Our denouement begins with the Garmatha fortress falling lifelessly out of the sky into the ocean.


And then you’re given the perfect visual metaphor for this game: a massive thing crashing and sinking into the sea with Akihiro Hino’s name overlaid on top of it. Just to make sure you know who to blame now that this is all over with.






We’re not getting any more dialog for the game, so let me give you my best interpretation of how I think things went after this point, because I’m still chaffed that I didn’t my Final Fantasy XII-style “Kari Walhgren tells everyone to surrender to her glorious majesty” ending.

[From the loud-speaker of the hastily repaired Shahgna flying over the ruins of the Garmatha Fortress]
Cisna: Attention soldiers of the micronation formerly known as the Empire of Yshrenina. You are beaten! Your Empire lies crushed beneath the might of my army. Your capital stands in ruins. Your flying fortress is felled. Your leaders are dead. Grazel is dead. Ledom is dead. Shapur is… probably dead, I wasn’t paying attention, to be hone—
Eldore: [WHISPERS IN HER EAR]
Cisna: Shapur is DEFINITELY dead. Oh, and Madoras is dead too, but I don’t really think any of you know or care who that is. My point is, you have until the count of ten to surrender unconditionally or I will turn my giant hammer-wielding Incorruptus loose on your collective asses and you will all die SCREAMING!
Cisna: [TURNS TO ORREN]
Cisna: I can count on you to do that, right?
Orren: Take your fucking bomb back and squat on it and I’ll help you invade Greede for all you care.
Cisna: Deal. Right. TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEV—
Yshrenian Remnant: WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER! Gods, please don’t kill us!
Cisna: Once again, victory is undisputedly—
Leonard: Ciiiiiisnaaaaaa! I’m huuuungry!
Cisna: [PUNCH TO RIGHT EYE]
Cisna: Mine!


So remember when I told you to keep in mind that the Garmatha was literally stopped within spitting distance of the Balandor coast? And how the game was going to forget that completely?


Well, who’s up for a colossal city-destroying tsunami?


Millions died that day.


Toppled over just off the Balandor coast, not unlike how the Bahamut wound up toppled over just outside of Rabanastre in FFXII, the Garmatha’s core quietly dies.


And now we’re left to ask the same question Sony’s studio execs did when Hino handed them the final work print of White Knight Chronicles: “who gets to clean up this mess?”




Well, someone looks absolutely pleased with herself.


Cisna: Hot dogs and fireworks for EVERYONE!


Royal Army: YAAAAAAAAAAH!!!


The army goes wild in celebration.


And I think these two dudes are about to start making out but the camera cuts back to Cisna and Miu before that happens. …Because we can’t have any homosexuality in a game that’s already this paint-by-numbers safe.




Cisna: Also, one last thing. I was going to invade Faria and take it by force next week, but after staying up all night and talking with Miu, we realized we actually had a lot in common. SO! Instead of a hostile takeover, we instead will be combining our lands through peaceful means.
Miu: We’re getting married!
Cisna: Hey! Spoilers!
Leonard: Wha—? But Cisna! I-I thought you were in like with m—
Cisna: Choke on a horse cock and die already. You don’t got a Knight anymore and you nearly got everyone in this room killed thrice over because you’re a dumbass. You’re dead to me.
Leonard:
Orren: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!! Eat it, you tool!


Cisna and Miu share a knowing nod and smile while Cyrus and Elvee brofist it up in the background.

Cisna: ROLL THE CREDITS!


…I don’t think you can do tha—


Holy shit, she can!


So now we get the second game’s idea of a conclusion. We don’t even get the unvoiced tableaus of the first game, we just get a Windows Movie Maker slideshow presentation.

First up we get a recap of the plots of both games, in case everyone forgot what all happened over the course of the last nine months that this LP has been happening.

First up, the very start of the game with Belcitane, Kara’s Dragias, and Shapur overlooking Balandor Castletown. And once again, Shapur is treated as a periphery thing in the game, being covered over by the text of the credits.

Still though, remember Belcitane? Remember how awesome he was? Good times…


The Magi attack on Balandor Castle…


The only time Leonard does anything remotely heroic: stopping a 10,070 year-old man from harming a girl he actually had every intention of keeping safe because she was the key to all his plans.

But still, you tried, Leonard. If nothing else, you sort of tried.


Ah, young…. Not-love.


The genesis of all our problems…


And then Kara turns around, makes Leonard look like a punk and makes the game instantly better.

Also you can see here that Akihiro Hino personally wrote the game’s intro and ending songs, and I will be posting the lyrics to them at the end of this update for you to see what word salad garbage they all are.


I’m still convinced that was all in Leonard’s head. I really, legitimately, out-of-angry LP narrator-character am.






And then sex happened.


And another example of Leonard fucking up and letting the bad guys win. Hey, remember when Leonard swore not to let Grazel get his hands on the Sun King and then arrived like ten minutes late so Grazel got his hands on the Sun King and won by default?

Leonard’s a tool.


And now we start recapping the second game. Why does this kind of feel like when a major motion picture is edited for a television broardcast and they curtail the credits by fastforwarding through everything at like 5 times its original running speed?




Of all the things to remind the player of, they’ve just GOT to keep bringing up the goddamn Toads…


I’m surprised there isn’t a shot in between here of Leonard falling on his ass one of the dozen or so times it happens in either game.


But at least we get to recap our brief victories again: Cyrus stopped being a drunk racist.


Yulie got the Moon Maiden.


Kara got not dead.


Cyrus stopped being a loser with Daddy Issues.


Miu became Archduchess.


And Cisna magic’d a sword out of her ass.


And three honest cheers to our voice actors, the vast majority of whom gave even a game this silly and stupid their all and made it somewhat enjoyable overall, other issues aside.






And from here we transition to the ACTUAL epilogue of the game…


Cisna: Okay, you got your one hug. Now get out.


Raus: O-oh! Miss Yulie! Welcome ba—
Yulie: Are you STILL fucking drunk, Raus?!
Raus: Uuuuuh w-well, maybe just a *hic* lit—
Yulie: [ROUNDHOUSE KICK]
Yulie: …It’s good to be home.

Note that Leonard is nowhere to be seen in this scene, nor was Yulie anywhere to be seen in the platonic hugfest of the last image between Leonard and his imaginary girlfriend. Yulie has finally, officially moved on and divorced Leonard from her life completely.

Congratulations, Yulie. You’re the real winner of this game.


Back in Greede, the staff of the Drisdall household cheers wildly at Caesar and Kara’s return to the city.


Amir: Welcome back, Young Master!
Caesar: Eeeey-hey! How you been, Amir?
Amir: Absolutely stupendous, Young Master. And a mighty welcome to you as well, Lady Kara.
Kara: Heh. “Lady?” Well that’s gonna take some getting used to.
Steward: Indeed, Lord Caesar, Lady Kara. Welcome home.
Caesar: Yeaaaaaah. About that one. Hey, Amir… Why is the city stuck on a hillside and leaning over to one side like this?
Amir: …Not my fault.


Miu and Lorias pray to the palm goddess in the Lost Forest’s Spring quadrant.

Miu: And I want a bicycle, and a pony, and a Malibu Stacey doll… Oh, and a sequel on the PlayStation4.
Lorias: …You’re not really getting what this whole “prayer” thing’s about, are you, Little Miu?
Miu: …We’re not getting a sequel, are we, Ban Lorias?
Lorias: No, child. I fear not.
Miu: Balls.


Well, if nothing else, Osmund and Rocco are happy they don’t have to appear in any more White Knight Chronicles-related material. Osmund’s doubly happy because he’s like Level-5’s version of Cid. He’ll turn up in another game somewhere down the line… Hopefully something better than this one.


Oh, and this shit keeps happening. What the hell happened to “can’t leave the oasis or she’ll die?” Huh, Level-5? Nice to see you don’t give a shit about stated plot points and will just throw any old shit out there for the sake of a sight gag.

Also, holy fuck Don Phibianacci’s a shitbag if he actually is moving his mistress into the house with his wife. Motherfucking frog sex.

Never forget that, people. Level-5 consciously decided to make FROG SEX a part of this game.


Ooooh, here’s a bad idea waiting to happen. Either Cyrus has been made Cisna’s new Chancellor of the Privy Council, or he found Sarvain’s old wardrobe and is doing a “dress up like the dead guy and act like a total dick to insult his memory” routine.

What’s more, this is either way in the future or Cyrus starts pulling double duty as both general and chancellor, because the next time we see him he’ll be back in his Castleguard attire leading the Royal Army once again.


And Elvee and the Turks just smile, nod, and humour him because Cisna will have them executed if they don’t approve of every little decision that tumbles out of her diseased mind.

Also, good to see Cyrus’s toadies survived the events of the game. You can see Oswald in the background there, and this is the first time Noel and Warren turn up in the second game (story-wise, all four Cyrusites show up in a game 2 Avatar quest). Anecia’s also there on the extreme right of the picture, but she’s cut off by the black Photoshop filter Level-5 put around each slide so you can only barely make out a shape that might be her if you squint.

God, I think even Elena got more screentime in Advent Children than her expy does in this game.


And Cisna goes back to being the First Lady of Balandor, apparently. Is it sad that she’s got a more believable relationship with this group of children in a silent still image than she ever had with Leonard while the game was in motion and being voice acted?


And Eldore returns to being a wandering vagabond now that his life has no meaning once again. Or rather, he retired having accomplished all his goals.

I don’t really know. I’m just thinking Cisna forbade him from ever entering the castle, once again on account of the Old Man Stench. That shit is killer.


Special thanks to D3 for half-assedly bringing the game over to North America and then stiffing everyone on the Avatar Story you promised to localize. Have fun making more licensed tie-in shovelware for the rest of your corporate existence, guys; because I’m pretty sure this will be the highlight of your game catalogue in retorspect.


Also, what the fuck did Namco Bandai do for this game? Are you telling me that Hino called in Bamco to bail his ass out and the game STILL turned out to be a piece of shit?

And to think, this was the essentially the demo reel he sent to Bandai to convince them to let him make Gundam AGE. You only have yourselves to blame for that, Bandai. You saw it coming.


The most misleading credit in this game as I’m convinced it had neither a) a plan of any sort behind it, or b) production values.


Yeah, I bet Sony’s proud the own the copyright to THIS, aren’t they?


And Kazuo Hirai sat in his office gently weeping into his hands in despair. Final Fantasy XIII had been a turd. White Knight Chronicles had been a bomb and a turd. Final Fantasy Versus XIII had been a production disaster. Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story had been lost to the Wii because Namco fucked over Tetsuya Takashi and Square fucked over Hironobu Sakaguchi. And Kingdom Hearts III was just a scribble on a Post-It note on Tetsuya Nomura’s “To Do” board, right underneath “Actually start working on Versus XIII FFXV”.

The days of Sony’s JRPG dominance were over. They were killed by dumbass farm boy named Leonard, and his giant, useless robot.


Speaking of, the Great White Dope has one last action to fulfil before we kick him the fuck out of our lives for good.


He approaches the pedestal in the castle treasure vault from whence he grabbed the White Knight’s Ark and started this whole shitshow a year ago.


He was a useless idiot when he walked in here, he remains a useless idiot even now.


He places the now powerless Ark back on the pedestal.




I don’t know why he’d even bother seeing as how it’s useless now, but whatever. Since Cisna killed Madoras it’s technically a war trophy now.

Also, don’t get your hopes up. This ain’t sequel-bait, though in any other game it probably would be.


There is a neat kind of symmetry to it, I suppose. He starts the game picking up the Ark to (fail at) saving Cisna. And he ends the game by putting the Ark back after (failing at) saving Cisna and instead being saved BY Cisna.

It’s like poetry; it rhymes.


Cisna: Okay, now get the fuck out and don’t come back. NOW!

He walks away and doesn’t look back. I always expect him to look back, just because it’s a cliché of this kind of situation, but no, he just keeps on walking right out into obscurity and oblivion, probably painfully aware that even with getting swaths of innocent people and creatures killed just by existing, failing to accomplish even the simplest goals, and then becoming the monstrous villain he’d set out to defeat in the first place, even after all those black marks, this will still be the high-water mark for his life.

19 years old, and his prospects are so dim that “I once accidentally became Super Hitler” will be the story he proudly tells to… I want to say “his grandchildren”, but the thought of Leonard procreating fills me with horror and disgust.


And on that note, we fade softly to black. Though the White Knight may no longer be a part of its narrative, the White Knight Chroncile still has a few more chapters to cover before we can close the book on it for good.




Meanwhile, in Frass Chasm… Somewhere just south of the settlement of Orrenstown, a young Papitaur travels races through the canyon, out of breath and panicked beyond all reason.


Or rather, panicked with good reason, as a Greaver spawn thunders up behind her, chasing down its prey.


Papitaur: Somebody help meeeeeeeee!!!


Orren: Fear not, miss.
Papitaur: Huh?!


Orren: Don’t you worry your little rabbity head there.




Orren: I got this shit.

LOCAL MAYOR SAVES DISTRESSED TRAVELLER, news at 11:00!


…In a format that precluded 90% of the people who played it from seeing the game’s true ending.

While this may seem like a stopping point here, we’ve actually only hit the first of several false bottoms between now and the ACTUAL end of the game and the LP.

From here out, we transition fully into the haunted wasteland of misspent hours and ill-conceived gameplay known as the post-game of White Knight Chronicles II.

We’re not done yet. Not by a long shot.

Steel yourselves, my lovelies…



Vellgander calls.


But first, CONGRATULATIONS, EVERYONE!

• EPI.1 - Epilogue & Credits
  
• EPI.i - CONGRATULATIONS!

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