Funny / Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 puts a lot more spotlight on individual character than the first game, and despite the return of previous dark and melancholic elements (and some new ones), that spotlight still brings more room for humor.

This is a Moments page, so all spoilers are unmarked per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Main Game

General

• Unlike how the first game simply just sped up the kids' walking animations, this game gives each of them unique running animations. However, the sped-up walking animation returns when a kid starts sweating and needs to go to the Secret Garden. You can guess what this is supposed to convey.

• The first illustration for the Workshop features Malt and Kyle working to upgrade the Tarascus/Exo-Taranis. While Kyle seems fine with the wrench, Malt is seen holding a set of blueprints and desperately trying to grasp what they mean.

• The first illustration for the Animal Shed has Vanilla struggling to grab a clucken and looking as if she's about to fall over. The second illustration has Wappa in place of her, instead confidently swinging a lasso towards the clucken like a cowgirl.

• The enemy animations have improved compared to the first, and a few of them manage to be goofier than you'd expect for unmanned machines:
  • The Blättersturm and Fleischer (Berman Geist versions of the Zyklon enemy from the previous game) are able to burrow into the ground, but this is portrayed as them jumping into it as if they were jumping into a pool feet-first.
  • When the Flüchtling (new form of the Läufer) uses its skill to increase speed, it spins its wheels forward like legs as if it were a dog or cat getting ready to pounce.
  • There are Metal Slime variations of Crusade's robots that escape from the battle if you take too long. While the variation for the Cingeto enemy (the one that looks like a beetle or spider) will simply activate its camouflage and disappear, the variation for the Moricos enemy (the one that looks like a jellyfish) will instead use its tentacles to take a bow like a showman and fly off. One has to wonder if wartime-era security robots can have an interest in theatrics.

Chapter 1: "The Devil in the Belfry"

• In the cutscene after the first battle in the game, AI Hax explains how "according to [his] memories" he was responsible for the Tarascus' creation and intended role in controlling the Vanargand. In the Japanese version, Kyle simply questions Hax on why he's talking about his original self like he was talking about a completely separate person (he is, long story short). In the English version, Kyle instead takes the opportunity to tell off Hax as if he were a misbehaving child:
  Kyle: Hmph… You say it as if you're talking about someone else. It was all your fault, Hax! Shoulder the blame!

• From the "dummy" intermission when Hack explores the Tarascus' messroom:
  Chick: Kitchen looks good and ready to go, too! If we need some cooking done, you know which girl's the one!
  Hack: (thinking) (The one to cook up something awful, maybe.)
  Chick: Hey, I can tell you're thinking something mean, y'know!
  • From the same (dummy) intermission, Sheena takes a moment to express how peculiar it is that a frightening instrument of war like the Tarascus would have a spot designated for fishing. Jury's still out on why the Taranis itself was even built with one in the first place, but it's not like the Tarascus' reason for having it would be any more clear.

• A hidden gem from an otherwise bleak scene: Hax informs the children that the Taranis has a "Teleport" function. Given that the kids all live in a setting with tech levels and culture akin to 1940's France, Malt has to ask what teleportation is. Hax has to matter-of-factly describe to Malt that it means moving people from one place to another instantly.

Chapter 3, "The Palace of Silence"

• It's revealed that the kids tied up Stollen and Baum after running into them:
  Baum: Confound it! To think we'd be captured by these brats once more…
  Stollen: I was all but certain they were allies come to our rescue… Damn you, cruel fates!
  Baum: What are a raggedy bunch of rug rats like you piloting a Berman tank for, anyway?!
  Stollen: And what reason had you to fire on that tank from Gasco? It's your tank, is it not!?
  Hack: Shut up, will you? We're kind of busy!
  Kyle: Maybe we should've used more rope? I wouldn't mind tying a couple knots around their lips right about now.
  Baum: (horrified) Y-You shall do no such thing, you cretin! I demand fair and just treatment as a prisoner of war!
  • What do the kids decide to do with Baum and Stollen until their journey is over? Force them to stay in a supply closet that just so happens to be situated right next to the Soul Cannon Chamber. And the melodrama keeps on going from there, folks:
    Baum: Agh, this cold, damp air is doing a number on my arthritis… Ow, ow, ouch!
    Stollen: I never would have dared dreamed that my final resting place would be this overblown broom closet… Oh, why couldn't I have met an honorable end befitting a soldier!? Koff, koff…
    Malt: I don't think it's that bad in here… Oh, fine! We'll leave the door unlocked, okay? But don't think you have free run of the place! If you need something, make sure and ask one of us to—
    Baum: (nonchalantly) Right, right, we get it.
  • Stollen gloats to himself about how he and Baum have managed to gain the children's trust so easily. Unfortunately, Malt notices.
    Malt: What's with that sinister look? Maybe we should leave the door locked after all.
    Stollen: Oh, no, no, no! Perish the thought! I was simply pondering a way to repay your kindness…
    Malt: Is that so?

• This exchange when Lieutenant Muscat calls up the Tarascus crew:
  AI Hax: Incoming transmission request from the Gasco Army. Shall I patch them through?
  Malt: The Gasco Army? It must be Lieutenant Muscat. Come to think of it, I don't think we've made contact since we commandeered the Tarascus… Good thing you passed on our message so she doesn't think we stole the tank to go joyriding, Vanilla.
  (the game's cutscene UI fades away for a second)
  Malt: Wait—if you snuck aboard, then there was no one to tell her what we did…
  Vanilla: Oops…
  Malt: Did you really board the Tarascus at the same time we did? You didn't give her our message, did you?
  Vanilla: (defensively) H-How could I have?! If I hadn't jumped on right away, I would have been left behind!
  Malt: This is bad…
  • After Muscat angrily calls in and orders Malt and the others to return to Pharaoh and let the Gasco Army handle things, Malt states that they're running out of time to rescue their friends, prompting Vanilla to speak up about avenging her father, thus incriminating herself. She then clarifies to Cannelle that she allowed the other kids "express permission to use the Tarascus on behalf of the president", and then hanging up with an "Over and out!" right before her big sister can get the chance to blow a gasket. And so her portrait returns to having a confident smirk as if Lieutenant Muscat had never even called in.
    Vanilla: Well, then. Shall we proceed?
    Malt: (with a look of confusion as if to say, "What just happened?") Um, sure…

Link Events

• This exchange from Kyle and Boron's first Link Event:
  Boron: How've you been, Kyle?
  Kyle: Fine, don't you go worrying about me. Something 'bout you has been on my mind a lot, though.
  Boron: (flustered) I'm always on your mind? D-do you mean—?
  Kyle: (without missing a beat) I dunno what you were about to say, but let's just assume no. Anyway…

• Wappa's attempt to make Socks her new boyfriend. All of it.
  Socks: M-Me and Wappa? A couple?!
  • The first Link Event starts out casual enough, with the two merely greeting each other after a year of not seeing each other. And then Wappa drops the bombshell:
    Wappa: I got something I wanna know and you might just be the guy for it.
    Socks: No way of knowing until you ask, but feel free to, nonetheless.
    Wappa: All right, here goes. Wouldja wanna be my boyfriend?
    Socks: Would I… EXCUSE me!?
    Wappa: Wow, my gosh, don't be rude. Do you need to get that worked up?
  • Wappa clarifies why she chose Socks: he seemed like a "safe enough shot".
    Socks: THAT is your reasoning!?
    Wappa: Anyway, thanks for hearing me out, boyfriend! Hehe!
  • How does Wappa manage to convince Socks to go along with it? She explains that the reason she wants a boyfriend is so that she can better understand the ideas of "love and peace" that the world revolves around… in other words, she appeals to the scientific method. And so, just as Wappa is about to give up:
    Socks: (with sudden brimming confidence) Perhaps we ought to try this… love simulation of yours! It would do no good to leave your questions unanswered! I will do my part to analyze this boyfriend-girlfriend, love and peace dynamic as well!
    Wappa: Seriously!?
  • Afterwards, Socks figures out how to kick-start their relationship in the most appropriately Socks way he can: he does research about dating in Gasco, concluding that ports and airships are "locations full of romantic opportunity". Wappa agrees to have a test date there, since airships mean high places.
  • How it ends:
    Wappa: So, like, what's love and peace all about, then?
    Socks: (still trying to look confident) That… will require some more investigation to determine!
  • This YouTube comment pretty much says what some of us are thinking:
    "Whoa, now I know where Red gets his optimism from."

• Four words: "Boron, God of Destruction".
  • To clarify, Wappa's conversations with Boron are just one big Fandom Nod towards Boron's Memetic Badass reputation in the west. She states that of all the kids on the Taranis she told about to her "minions" in the village, he was the most popular — "Some of them even started worshipping you!"
  • And let's not ignore how one of the folks responsible for Boron's reputation as a "god" reacted to this whole thing.

Comedies of Steel 2

• Kyle and Vanilla give Boron a massive feast. Tragically, they then begin to lecture and nag Boron continuously about every trivial table manner they can think of. To someone like him, this has to be considered a form of torture.
  Boron: (crying) There are so many things to learn, I can't concentrate!
  Kyle and Vanilla: Don't talk while you're eating!
  Boron: (whines)

• Colonel General Shvein Hax, the expert soldier, the feared Berman tactician, the Supreme Commander of Gasco Invasion who once came close to attaining godhood… reduced to a toy for the amusement of children. More specifically, Hack forces him to say "Tarascus" ten times in a row, followed up by this:
  Hack: (holds up a plate of what looks like rusk) And what's this?
  AI Hax: …Rusk.
  Hack: Boo! (camera zooms out to show they were bread slices) The right answer was just French bread!