Or
The Final Daddy-Daughter Dance
Get your tissues ready for today’s update, September 25, UMA Day. When you see a Chupacabra with bathing suit tans, you know Fall has come. For those wondering what UMA means, it stands for Unidentified Marine Animal.
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Clive rescued the gang, and then everyone confronted Beatrice. But the nightmare imp had a trick up her sleeve: she revealed that she had bested Werner Maxwell! Or at least knocked him over! So we better go help him up!
But we’re still at Demondor Pillar-Rear.
Since we have the Teleport Orb, we don’t have to worry about the walk back to Lombardia. And let’s not think too much about how Lombardia could pick up Clive on demand…
Boot Hill! Home of the Maxwell family.
Lore you probably forgot: Roykman the traveling salesman was saved from angry dogs by Werner. There is not much more to that story.
Tesla, brother of Werner, is too much of a nerd to understand the rest of his family.
Ah-ha! Virginia’s mother’s grave appears to have more than a flower on it.
Mail call!
Where do people keep getting envelopes in this universe? There does not appear to be a postal system…
Yes yes, we knew that already…
While Werner has granted us a few dungeon leads here and there, this is the first time he treated Virginia’s team like his backup. Progress?
“I’m just glad we’re talking, Daddy.”
“I must kill the internet! For my father!”
So… uh… any idea where this Mimir’s Well is at?
Ah! That’s better. If you “use” Last Letter, you get the whole spiel again, but Last Letter’s item description is coordinates.
“Shut-up, Neil! I have to go save the world now!”
So let’s fire up the radar and track down those coordinates. You know, if you never found the Map Scope back at the Ark of Destiny, I am not certain you would have any idea how to proceed.
Appropriately enough, Mimir’s Well isn’t all that far from Yggdrasil.
Kind of a nondescript hole in the ground for the most important location in this whole plot.
Fun fact: this is the last discoverable dungeon. We are barreling toward the finale!
I remember that floor!
And that corpse!
"Daddy? Did you go back in time and kiss grandmom?"
Incoming static ball.
If Wild Arms 3 really wanted to be mean, you would be ejected from the dungeon, and be forced to fight your way back to an explanation.
But we are forthcoming today.
Reason Wild Arms 3 should have voice acting: Beatrice would be delightful. (Also: it would be a guaranteed job for Mela Lee.)
“Aren’t you, like, 18? I am embarrassed for you.”
Hey! Holo-Daddy is getting up. Good?
“Because you’ve only thwarted 100% of my plans so far, you losers!”
“Stop insulting noncorporeal Daddy!”
Final dungeon has already been prepared? Cool.
Beatrice drops a literal key on the ground, and then pops out to leave us with daddy fallout.
That’s your question? Nothing about the whole “clearly a ghost” thing?
“Don’t make me wave my hands through your chest!”
The rare reverse-Vader.
GHOST DADDY!
“Are you getting this, daughter? I mean… uh… person?”
She’s having a Xenogears! Everybody back up and stay clear!
LIVING DEAD DADDY!
BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY!
They pulled this trick in Wild Arms 2, and I will never fault it: we are going to get a big ol’ info dump, so we may as well walk and talk. It tricks the audience’s stupid monkey brains into thinking something is actively happening other than random talking, and it works every time.
Oh, and plot-wise, “Werner” is actually the downloaded backup of Alive-Werner from before Yggdrasil exploded ten years ago.
“I told you guys he was a robot. You all owe me ten bucks.”
“Clive, not the time.”
Werner believes he is just… oh let’s hit this nail on the head… a memory of “real” Werner.
And if you want a scientific explanation for how he could do things, Memory Werner has been using Hyades tech to simulate existence with forcefields.
Which also explains why he has intermittently exhibited superpowers (generally when fighting Asgard, whom you may correctly recall was an artificial lifeform).
“And I was really confused as to why you guys never asked about that whole thing, but whatever, just a gimme.”
Considering we have immediately gone from Sacrificial Altar to the two pillars under threat of monsters invading the world, Werner is talking about an event that happened that morning.
I also remember what I had for breakfast.
Which is apparently something you can do with one (1) mystical teenager.
Somebody put Shane on lockdown!
“Girl really wants her own planet. Can’t blame her.”
Did anything in that sentence make logical sense?
Did I mention that this whole segment auto-advances? There is a timed, set amount of space that they walk to this door. It isn’t an infinite background loop cheat. This is a real dungeon we are ignoring.
Somebody write that down!
“It is also the same combination on my luggage.”
“Would you like a small flower suspended by my magical gravity science?”
“This is a garbage flower. Absolute dogshit.”
“Do I have to give you the lecture again?”
On one hand, Werner was a good husband who left flowers on his deceased wife’s grave. On the other hand, he was nowhere to be seen when she actually died.
“You… uh… only kinda-failed? 50%?”
Hope there isn’t a boss in there…
Werner is really coming around on this whole “I’m a real boy” thing.
“Filgaia’s spawn”? Yep, gonna start calling Jet that.
And that explains Jet having a mental breakdown looking at pods over at the old lab a billion updates back. Any other plot threads we need to tie up?
“So how long did you work on socialization skills with Jet? Like five minutes? Ten?”
“Wow! You accomplished, like, nothing in ten years.”
“I had no intention of revealing my identity, but… Since our paths kept crossing, I figured I couldn’t hide any longer… I want to hunt down Beatrice, and stop this calamity from happening. At the very least, I consider this an atonement for my sins. However…”
“It was getting to be a hassle.”
For a hologram, Werner is sure having some trouble keeping it together today.
Virginia is only accepting Holo-Werner because she doesn’t want to figure out a new name.
“I am wounded,” would be faster.
“Right. Destroy the internet. Whole reason we’re here. Got it.”
Oh yeah. That would mean…
Patricide.
“Look, I’m gonna die anyway. You may as well shoulder the emotional burden of killing me.”
Not sure I follow the math on that one, Werner.
Werner, did you think this whole thing would make it easier on your daughter? Follow up question: Can a living memory be insane?
This is a pretty big ask!
“Come on, man. I’m already dead. Make me double dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is shooting the living manifestation of your dead father making this hard for you? How about if I remind you that if you don’t do this, everyone you love will die? Does that help?”
“Is there a switch to toggle, or…?”
“Your father is talking, young lady.”
Oh. Oh! We are going for maximum trauma today.
“You were kind of a weenie of a kid. Figured you needed a crutch.”
“That would have been some amazing forward thinking.”
“Others. Like me.”
D’aw. Considering Virginia’s speech to Maya way back in Chapter 1, you can see how Werner really is significantly responsible for Virginia’s beliefs.
“This seems like a gray area!”
Virginia? Do you need both guns to shoot your father?
Guess redundancy works.
Pow.
Time for some imaginary imagery.
Chase the ball!
The Daddy Ball.
Barbie: The Motion Picture totally stole this scene.
Oh? Are you just figuring this out?
Next, he will reveal this is all happening on Virginia’s birthday.
“It was because of you, if you’re not getting that.”
“I could have at least bought a new hat…”
“I mean… It’s true… Just it’s not that bad.”
Please do not look back to earlier in the Let’s Play and see Virginia’s interpretation of “joy”.
“You know? I swear that whole ‘shoot me’ thing made more sense in my head.”
Finally being honest with Daddy.
“And I have the worst strength stat on my team. Good job.”
Is… is this forcefield based?
“You did just shoot me. Twice.”
Gots to go.
“I will always remember you, Holo-Daddy.”
“One high five for the road?”
Cherish the Daddy Ball.
CHERISH IT.
Yay! A whole new grave at the only cemetery on this planet!
“You’re right. It is cliché.”
“But there’s someone out there who’s trying to take this dear memory of my father away from me. Not just mine, but everyone else’s precious memories, too! It might not be as grand as saving the world…But my goal right now is…
…to protect everyone’s memories. That is my reason to fight! And my reason to live on Filgaia! If that’s okay with you all, I need to ask for your support!”
If we weren’t going to fight Beatrice before, we’re sure as hell gonna do it now.
“How come your dad didn’t ask me to shoot him? He was my dad, too…”
"Cram it, Filgaia’s spawn."
“How long is this going to take? Like one more dungeon?”
“I will destroy my own memories on my own time, thank you!”
To the grand finale!
We will save the world! Forever!
Next time on Wild Arms: Wait! Crap! We were talking that whole time! We forgot to actually explore that dungeon!
[…] Remember when Beatrice gave us a literal key back at Mimir’s Well? Well, here it is. […]
[…] this is significant for her ultimate finale. Virginia gets her big damn character moment at Mimir’s Well, but she is also the focal point of the ending sequence. And what is the difference there? Well, […]