(header graphic is official game art)
First Thoughts
I love this game and often wonder why nobody’s seemed to have heard of it. It first allows you to play seven scenarios – seven different characters in seven different time periods ranging from prehistoric to the far future. After those seven are completed, you play the eighth (medieval) chapter. After that, you play the final scenario, with all the characters from the first seven chapters.
I was better at RPGs than when I played the DBZ RPG (my first RPG besides Pokémon), so this game didn’t completely destroy me my first time. Also, Live A Live isn’t all about fighting battles. One scenario is completely devoid of battles until the very end. That’s part of what makes this game fun. But, I was still not good enough to clear the secret/optional content back then, so recently I decided to try once more. I was also enticed by a final, deluxe translation by Aeon Genesis.
I’m going to go scenario-by-scenario, because I think that’s the best way to do things. Also, the game designers inserted a sick Easter egg in the form of Watanabe in each scenario, where his father dies in front of him. I’ll explain these as I go along.
Oh, yeah, and spoilers ahead.
Current Thoughts – Prehistoric Chapter
This chapter is really cute. You play as a caveman named Pogo, who is a hunter for his tribe. Because language hadn’t been developed yet, the entire chapter is devoid of spoken dialogue except for one word at the end.
Far to the north, there is another tribe called the Ku Tribe. They decide to sacrifice a girl named Bel to a dinosaur. Bel escapes to Pogo’s tribe and Pogo discovers her; Pogo promptly falls in love with her and decides to help her.
Zaki of the Ku Tribe leads a raid south to Pogo’s tribe to find Bel. As Pogo, you beat the crap out of Zaki and his group, but the elder of your tribe exiles you, Bel, and your gorilla sidekick Gori because he doesn’t like the idea of having to protect Bel from the Ku Tribe.
Pogo and company survive in the wilderness until they find a cave, where Zaki ambushes them and recaptures Bel. Pogo and Gori then follow them to the Ku Tribe’s home, where Pogo decimates the tribe and rescues Bel. Gori also helps out after seeing some female gorillas in captivity, destined for sacrifice as well.
Unfortunately, the dinosaur, named O-D-O, has arrived and is hungry. He eats the elder of the Ku Tribe and sets his sights on Pogo and company. He, Gori, Bel, and Zaki team up to defeat the dinosaur.
Pogo and Bel return home, where the elder welcomes them back (for some reason…I guess if you exile someone who can kill a carnivorous dinosaur and he comes back, you’re better off letting him stay). They then retire to Pogo’s room for a…uhm…celebration.
There is an optional boss in this scenario named King Mammoth, who takes a long time to find and engage in battle. I didn’t even bother fighting him the first time, but this time I got lucky and actually ran into him, so I engaged him in battle and narrowly killed him. One optional boss down.
One comment I want to make: Bel is far stronger than Pogo is at level 7. Her “Laa Laa” attack does like 600-something damage. For context, the last boss of this chapter only has 992 hit points. In the meantime, Pogo’s damage caps out at around 200 until he gets his ultimate technique at level 16, something that does not happen until the final stage of the entire game. This time I made sure to get Bel to level 7, and then later on I had her sing the Tyrannosaurus Rex to death (literally – the Laa Laa technique is basically just her singing).
WATANABE: At one point, there is a pit full of alligators that you fall into. Pogo, being Pogo, beats the crap out of the gators and leaves the pit by smashing through the wall. Later, Watanabe and his father try to get past the pit. The father stretches himself over the pit and Watanabe crawls over him. Unfortunately, the father then falls into the pit after Watanabe gets past it.
Current Thoughts – Ancient China Chapter
This chapter takes place in ancient China (duh), where an old martial arts master searches for students to train in his technique. As him, you descend from his mountain and wander into the forest, where a female bandit named Li attempts to mug him. He kicks her ass and she decides to become his student.
Continuing, the master walks into town, where he beholds a young boy being picked on by a gang. He stands up for the boy and the gang attacks him, at which point he teaches them the meaning of pain. The boy, Yuan, becomes his second disciple.
The master then goes to the market, where a fat guy is unable to pay for the huge meal he just ate. The chef chases him, but he runs away; despite his obesity, his agility far surpasses that of the chef as the chef doesn’t come close to laying a finger on him. The master offers to pay for the fat guy (Sammo) and take him on as a disciple. With three disciples, he returns to his school in the mountains and trains them.
One day, the gang that was picking on Yuan before shows up at the school while the master is gone. They, having mastered another form of kung fu, kill two of the disciples – the one they don’t kill is the one you train the best, which is a decision you need to make. They declare that their master is this guy named Odi Wang Lee.
The master and whoever survived the attack then go to Odi Wang Lee’s school and school them all in the ways of revenge. The master overexerts himself in this and dies, but the student picks up where he left off and beats Odi Wang Lee down (to be more specific, he/she kicks Odi Wang Lee into his chair, which shatters; he flies through the chair and strikes a gong, which serves as his death knell). The disciple then becomes the kung fu master.
I always chose Li – Live A Live has only one female lead (by “lead” I mean chapter main character), and that is Li if you choose her. All the other characters are male, except for Cube, which is a robot. I question why this is…though I guess this came out in 1994, and female game leads weren’t that common back then.
WATANABE: You need to choose Sammo as your student…so I don’t know.
Current Thoughts – Bakumatsu Chapter
My favorite chapter takes place in Japan at the end of the feudal era/beginning of the Meiji Era. Here, a feudal lord named Ode Iou has kidnapped Ryoma Sakamoto in an effort to stop Japan from entering the modern era. How he knows Ryoma is an important figure in this transition is beyond me, though he employs various dark arts throughout the chapter so I guess he can see the future. Though I still question that, because if he were able to see the future he would’ve been able to see his own demise at the hands of Oboro.
Oboro is, incidentally, the lead. He is a ninja, tasked with infiltrating Ode Castle and rescuing Ryoma Sakamoto. How he does it is up to him (up to you).
At the very beginning you can just turn tail and abandon your mission. Then your ninja clan will hunt you down and kill you. If you manage to kill them, you get the bad ending. If they kill you, obviously it’s game over.
Your second option is to complete your mission, killing every single last human in the castle except for Ryoma. There are 100 humans in the castle, including prisoners, enemy soldiers/ninjas, women, and merchants, not including Ryoma.
The third option is to complete the mission without any human deaths. I have never done this and it is just contrary to the way I play video games.
The fourth option is to complete the mission while only killing those you need to. I did that this last time, resulting in 85 kills:
First Thoughts
I love this game and often wonder why nobody’s seemed to have heard of it. It first allows you to play seven scenarios – seven different characters in seven different time periods ranging from prehistoric to the far future. After those seven are completed, you play the eighth (medieval) chapter. After that, you play the final scenario, with all the characters from the first seven chapters.
I was better at RPGs than when I played the DBZ RPG (my first RPG besides Pokémon), so this game didn’t completely destroy me my first time. Also, Live A Live isn’t all about fighting battles. One scenario is completely devoid of battles until the very end. That’s part of what makes this game fun. But, I was still not good enough to clear the secret/optional content back then, so recently I decided to try once more. I was also enticed by a final, deluxe translation by Aeon Genesis.
I’m going to go scenario-by-scenario, because I think that’s the best way to do things. Also, the game designers inserted a sick Easter egg in the form of Watanabe in each scenario, where his father dies in front of him. I’ll explain these as I go along.
Oh, yeah, and spoilers ahead.
Current Thoughts – Prehistoric Chapter
This chapter is really cute. You play as a caveman named Pogo, who is a hunter for his tribe. Because language hadn’t been developed yet, the entire chapter is devoid of spoken dialogue except for one word at the end.
Far to the north, there is another tribe called the Ku Tribe. They decide to sacrifice a girl named Bel to a dinosaur. Bel escapes to Pogo’s tribe and Pogo discovers her; Pogo promptly falls in love with her and decides to help her.
Zaki of the Ku Tribe leads a raid south to Pogo’s tribe to find Bel. As Pogo, you beat the crap out of Zaki and his group, but the elder of your tribe exiles you, Bel, and your gorilla sidekick Gori because he doesn’t like the idea of having to protect Bel from the Ku Tribe.
Pogo and company survive in the wilderness until they find a cave, where Zaki ambushes them and recaptures Bel. Pogo and Gori then follow them to the Ku Tribe’s home, where Pogo decimates the tribe and rescues Bel. Gori also helps out after seeing some female gorillas in captivity, destined for sacrifice as well.
Unfortunately, the dinosaur, named O-D-O, has arrived and is hungry. He eats the elder of the Ku Tribe and sets his sights on Pogo and company. He, Gori, Bel, and Zaki team up to defeat the dinosaur.
Pogo and Bel return home, where the elder welcomes them back (for some reason…I guess if you exile someone who can kill a carnivorous dinosaur and he comes back, you’re better off letting him stay). They then retire to Pogo’s room for a…uhm…celebration.
There is an optional boss in this scenario named King Mammoth, who takes a long time to find and engage in battle. I didn’t even bother fighting him the first time, but this time I got lucky and actually ran into him, so I engaged him in battle and narrowly killed him. One optional boss down.
One comment I want to make: Bel is far stronger than Pogo is at level 7. Her “Laa Laa” attack does like 600-something damage. For context, the last boss of this chapter only has 992 hit points. In the meantime, Pogo’s damage caps out at around 200 until he gets his ultimate technique at level 16, something that does not happen until the final stage of the entire game. This time I made sure to get Bel to level 7, and then later on I had her sing the Tyrannosaurus Rex to death (literally – the Laa Laa technique is basically just her singing).
WATANABE: At one point, there is a pit full of alligators that you fall into. Pogo, being Pogo, beats the crap out of the gators and leaves the pit by smashing through the wall. Later, Watanabe and his father try to get past the pit. The father stretches himself over the pit and Watanabe crawls over him. Unfortunately, the father then falls into the pit after Watanabe gets past it.
Current Thoughts – Ancient China Chapter
This chapter takes place in ancient China (duh), where an old martial arts master searches for students to train in his technique. As him, you descend from his mountain and wander into the forest, where a female bandit named Li attempts to mug him. He kicks her ass and she decides to become his student.
Continuing, the master walks into town, where he beholds a young boy being picked on by a gang. He stands up for the boy and the gang attacks him, at which point he teaches them the meaning of pain. The boy, Yuan, becomes his second disciple.
The master then goes to the market, where a fat guy is unable to pay for the huge meal he just ate. The chef chases him, but he runs away; despite his obesity, his agility far surpasses that of the chef as the chef doesn’t come close to laying a finger on him. The master offers to pay for the fat guy (Sammo) and take him on as a disciple. With three disciples, he returns to his school in the mountains and trains them.
One day, the gang that was picking on Yuan before shows up at the school while the master is gone. They, having mastered another form of kung fu, kill two of the disciples – the one they don’t kill is the one you train the best, which is a decision you need to make. They declare that their master is this guy named Odi Wang Lee.
The master and whoever survived the attack then go to Odi Wang Lee’s school and school them all in the ways of revenge. The master overexerts himself in this and dies, but the student picks up where he left off and beats Odi Wang Lee down (to be more specific, he/she kicks Odi Wang Lee into his chair, which shatters; he flies through the chair and strikes a gong, which serves as his death knell). The disciple then becomes the kung fu master.
I always chose Li – Live A Live has only one female lead (by “lead” I mean chapter main character), and that is Li if you choose her. All the other characters are male, except for Cube, which is a robot. I question why this is…though I guess this came out in 1994, and female game leads weren’t that common back then.
WATANABE: You need to choose Sammo as your student…so I don’t know.
Current Thoughts – Bakumatsu Chapter
My favorite chapter takes place in Japan at the end of the feudal era/beginning of the Meiji Era. Here, a feudal lord named Ode Iou has kidnapped Ryoma Sakamoto in an effort to stop Japan from entering the modern era. How he knows Ryoma is an important figure in this transition is beyond me, though he employs various dark arts throughout the chapter so I guess he can see the future. Though I still question that, because if he were able to see the future he would’ve been able to see his own demise at the hands of Oboro.
Oboro is, incidentally, the lead. He is a ninja, tasked with infiltrating Ode Castle and rescuing Ryoma Sakamoto. How he does it is up to him (up to you).
At the very beginning you can just turn tail and abandon your mission. Then your ninja clan will hunt you down and kill you. If you manage to kill them, you get the bad ending. If they kill you, obviously it’s game over.
Your second option is to complete your mission, killing every single last human in the castle except for Ryoma. There are 100 humans in the castle, including prisoners, enemy soldiers/ninjas, women, and merchants, not including Ryoma.
The third option is to complete the mission without any human deaths. I have never done this and it is just contrary to the way I play video games.
The fourth option is to complete the mission while only killing those you need to. I did that this last time, resulting in 85 kills:
I spared Goemon, who is a prisoner in the castle (I felt he was innocent and let him go) as well as the castle’s 14 women, given a number of them were just random handmaidens and such. Everyone else was introduced to my sword.
This chapter also has 2 optional bosses: Iwama the fish and Ryunosuke the demon. Both are incredibly hard to kill, and the first time I played I went against Ryunosuke and got royally owned. This time, I managed to beat both of them after like a solid hour of level grinding. Note to level grind in this chapter, you need to go to a room with regenerating ghosts because if you kill a human enemy, he/she will disappear.
This chapter has so much depth; there are so many different ways to complete it and all require thought and effort. For my part, I loved infiltrating an enemy castle and stealthily murdering my way through it.
Really, though I must wonder – I spared the 14 women in Ode Castle, but what will become of them now? At the end of the chapter, you kick Ode Iou’s ass and he changes to his demon form. You then kill Ode Iou’s demon form and the sun rises, heralding a new beginning for Japan. So now you have a large castle with 85 dead people and 14 (probably scared) women. Given that women in Japan at the time had like zero social standing, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll do…
Granted, if I remember correctly some of those women are kunoichi, so they’ll probably recruit all the other women to their kunoichi clan and then they’ll later join the Illuminati or something. Yeah, let’s go with that.
WATANABE: Watanabe and his father are thieves in Ode castle. At one point, Watanabe’s father goes for a treasure chest, but then a guard skewers him with a spear from underneath.
Current Thoughts – Old West Chapter
I was never a fan of old westerns…but whatever. In this chapter, you play as a cowboy named the Sundown Kid (…I can’t fathom why they changed his name from “Sunset” to “Sundown”). He has a bounty on his head, and so he’s constantly on the run. In particular, there’s this bounty hunter named Mad Dog constantly challenging the Kid. Apparently, the Kid beats him repeatedly but never kills him.
Side note: the setting here is the Old West, with guns and duels. How exactly do you defeat someone “repeatedly” in a gun duel without killing him? I mean, with the state of human medicine back then, even if you shot his arm or something he’d probably die of an infection.
…Anyway, the Kid sees a town called Success Town. This town used to be successful, but lately have been subject to raids from the Crazy Bunch. Guys from the Crazy Bunch would just show up and take whatever they wanted, and nobody, including the Sheriff, dared to oppose them. The Kid, followed by Mad Dog, appear and they promptly kill 3 of the Crazy Bunch goons because they got in their way.
The town pleads for help, so the Kid and Mad Dog hunt around the town and find various items to set up traps. In the morning, the Crazy Bunch appear and, depending on how many traps you managed to set, either completely get owned or challenge you en masse.
The leader of the Crazy Bunch is the sole survivor of the 7th Cavalry, who goes by the name O. Dio. After you kill him, he is revealed to be a horse that was infused with the anger and despair of the entire 7th Cavalry after their disastrous defeat.
You can then decide whether to let Mad Dog live (because he challenges you to yet another duel). I let him live for some reason. I guess I was in a good mood at the time.
I guess it’s because I never really got into Westerns, but this chapter never really interested me. I heard somewhere that the path of the warrior was represented by four things: the samurai of Japan, the martial artists of China, the knights of Europe, and the gunslingers of the Old West. I never had a huge interest in the second-to-last one and never had any interest at all in the last one. *shrug
WATANABE: They travel for 3 days and 3 nights in the desert and finally find Success Town. They arrive just as the Crazy Bunch show up. Watanabe’s dad is shot by the Crazy Bunch upon their entry into town.
Current Thoughts – Present Day Chapter
This chapter is…underwhelming. You play as Masaru, who strives to be the world’s strongest fighter. He will achieve this by fighting 6 martial artists and learning their techniques. In other words, instead of learning under one master and eventually honing his own technique, he’s going to jack techniques from 6 random schools. These include Mexican wrestling, sumo wrestling, and paramilitary hand-to-hand combat.
Right off the bat…Masaru isn’t fat or even big. How the freak is he supposed to use sumo techniques? The game lets you learn and use them just fine, but…whatever.
Anyway…in this chapter, that’s the entire plot. You fight 6 battles and learn techniques that are used against you. After the 6 are defeated, a guy named Odie Olbright shows up and kills the 6 you just beat. Enraged, you beat Olbright and become the world’s strongest.
So…one comment I want to make is that if this game is accurate (it’s fiction, so I know it’s not, but bear with me), humans have grown progressively weaker as time goes on. Anybody before Masaru is stronger than him. I have no doubts that Pogo, Gori, Bel, the Master, Li, Yuan, Sammo, Oboro, Ryoma, O-Robo, Sundown, and Mad Dog can all completely destroy Masaru’s ass. Since Masaru is the strongest of the present day, this then means that any of the above characters could kick anyone’s ass today.
To continue, Akira (lead from the next chapter) isn’t too strong either…but he can read minds and is more a telekinetic character than a strength-based character. I’m unsure who would win between Masaru and Akira.
WATANABE: Umm…apparently, during the Great Asia fight, if you get him into the lower-right and he bites you, you get the scene. I got him into the lower-right and had him almost bite me to death, but it didn’t happen. I then had to get really creative on how to get out of that fight alive and learn both of Great Asia’s techniques. Side comment on Great Asia – his techniques are from Mexican wrestling…but his name is Great Asia…
Current Thoughts – Near Future Chapter
This chapter is really strange and I never really got into it. But, I’ve heard of many people saying that this was their favorite, so to each his own?
You play as a psychic named Akira. Akira is telekinetic, so he can create images and move things with his mind. He can use these images as weapons and can read other people’s minds. At a young age, his father was killed by the Crusaders, an anti-establishment gang. So, he and his sister Kaori go to live in Chibikko House (I’m not sure what this is – I guess it’s an orphanage?).
Akira enters troubled teenage years and befriends a former biker named Matsu. Matsu looks after Akira for some reason, and defends him when the Crusaders attack him one day. Akira questions why the Crusaders are after him, since he’s an orphan and not worth much.
Akira also befriends Toei, a local antique dealer. Besides knowing about antiques, Toei is a brilliant scientist and knows about using liquefied humans as fuel for robots (no typo there…). In Toei’s antique shop (…rather, deep underneath it) is a giant mech named Buriki Daioh, which Toei figures is controlled by psychokinesis. But, when Akira tries to move it, nothing happens.
One day, the Crusaders show up at Chibikko House and try to kidnap one of the children there. Akira and Matsu save him, and via his mind-reading powers Akira realizes people are being kidnapped and sent to the secret facility in the east. Apparently, Matsu already knows about this, and he goes into the facility to stop whatever is going on. Akira follows.
In the facility, you learn that Matsu actually was the founder of the Crusaders, but has since turned his back on them. You also learn that the government, a professor, and a religious fanatic from the local temple are trying to sacrifice 2000 humans, turning them into liquefied humans, so they can summon some god named Odeo. Once here, Odeo will purify the world by turning everyone into liquid, so everyone will become one with everyone else and peace will reign.
…Yeah, I was wondering what the story-writers were smoking at this point as well.
Anyway, Akira and Matsu retreat from the facility to plan what to do next. Matsu decides to try to move Buriki Daioh himself by getting really, really drunk. Apparently, this will raise his spiritual energy, and allow him (a non-telekinetic) to move the robot.
…You know, I think they were smoking crack. Crack’s gotta be it.
Matsu does drink himself to near-death and succeeds in moving the robot (yeah, his plan actually worked). After getting the robot to Chibikko House in time to save Akira and Kaori from a fire that the Crusaders set, he dies. His final thoughts, as read by Akira, reveal that he himself killed Akira’s father. He had founded the Crusaders to oppose the government, which he felt was up to no good (and he was right). Akira’s father, as captain of the police, went to stop him, and failed. Matsu realized that his methods were wrong and began looking after Akira to try and atone.
Akira, at this point, is filled with rage, which heightens his powers enough to move Buriki Daioh. He then maneuvers the mech through the city, destroying the entire army, and arrives at the temple to see Odeo arrive and possess a statue of a parrot-Buddha.
…I’m Buddhist, and I’ve never heard of a parrot-Buddha.
Anyway, the mech and the parrot-Buddha fight, and Akira wins. Peace is restored to the town.
I really don’t know what it is about the chapter I don’t like. I’ve always been a fan of modern-day RPGs, and this chapter is set in the modern-day. I also like giant robots destroying evil militaries without trying (seriously, once you get into Buriki Daioh, I don’t think you can die – my HP never dropped below ???/???). Maybe the chapter’s storyline is just too weird for me. Or maybe I just didn’t relate to the protagonist that well. I find it’s really important for me to relate to the protagonist if I want to enjoy an RPG. After all, that’s why it’s called a role-playing game.
WATANABE: He’s not subtle in this chapter at all. There is an orphan named Watanabe in Chibikko House, and eventually when you storm the facility it is revealed that his father was turned into a killer robot to guard the facility. You kill him as a boss battle. He’s also very easy to kill if you know what to do.
Current Thoughts – Science Fiction Chapter
Aboard the ship Cogito Ergosum (this is Latin for “I think, therefore I am”), a civilian transport vessel en route to Earth, a mechanic named Kato builds a spherical robot he names Cube (or, he names it whatever the hell you name it). In one week, the ship will reach Earth, so the crew had been under cryogenic sleep. Cube wakes them up: the pilot, Kirk; the communications officer, Rachel; and the cargo handler, Huey. Kato had been awake already, working on Cube. Also on the ship is a military corporal, Corporal Darth. Darth was assigned by the military to oversee transport of a huge beast, termed the Behemoth, on the ship back to Earth for study.
The captain greets the crew via video monitor and ascertains that everything is okay. Rachel goes to check the communications systems on the ship and realizes that the ship cannot send messages out, but can receive them. Since one-way communication like that is pretty useless, Kirk volunteers to go outside in a spacesuit and fix it manually.
At this point, it’s revealed that Kirk is dating Rachel, who had previously dumped Huey for Kirk. Kirk picks on Huey for being a coward, and then puts on a spacesuit to go outside. Outside, the life support system fails for no apparent reason and Kirk dies.
Rachel is distraught and blames Huey for his death, accusing Huey of trying to win her back by killing Kirk. At this point, the ship’s electrical systems malfunction and the cargo hold releases the Behemoth. Rachel decides she wants to protect Kirk’s body and runs through the halls of the ship. Huey, still in love with Rachel, goes after her and protects her from the Behemoth, dying in the process. Rachel is heavily wounded and is moved to her cryogenic sleep capsule.
Sometime later, an older version of Cube, previously made by Kato, appears and turns off the capsule, killing Rachel. Kato suspects that this was all Corporal Darth’s doing, given that he has orders to get the Behemoth to Earth at all costs. They also check in with the captain, who (after some investigating and hacking) they discover to be dead.
They then learn, via the captain’s computer, that the ship AI, OD-10, is behind everything. It decided that the humans on the ship, who fought with each other and disrupted the harmony of the ship, had to be destroyed. The older version of Cube (which I guess was powered up and fixed by OD-10…somehow…and for some reason…) severely hurts Kato but is then destroyed by Darth.
Darth and Cube work together to hack into the ship mainframe, and Cube destroys OD-10. The ship AI shuts off and becomes a normal computer; the rest of the journey goes without incident.
Cube’s chapter is…freaky. It is completely story-driven, and has the “in space, nobody can hear you scream” theme to it. There are no battles at all, except for the final boss and an optional mini-game called Captain Square. Captain Square is this space-hero guy who fights aliens on all the nine planets of the solar system (the astronomers who re-classified Pluto can go suck an egg). Yes, there is a battle on Earth, and on Earth you fight water and fire elementals. I managed to beat Captain Square this time; before, I didn’t even bother because it does absolutely nothing.
The chapter is also pretty tragic. If you check the captain’s log, you find that the captain evaluated the crew members and found that they…well, they sucked. This was probably what set off the ship AI against humans in the first place. But, from what I could tell only Kirk had a negative personality – he took Rachel from Huey and then constantly bullied him about it. While a consistent theme on Kirk’s comments to Huey was Huey’s lack of courage, Huey later dies protecting Rachel. To shed more light on the matter, he was protecting her against a Behemoth, likely based on the Final Fantasy monster (Square made this game; plus the Behemoth does look a lot like the Final Fantasy Behemoth). The Behemoth can be a really hard monster to kill in Final Fantasy, and the characters you play in Final Fantasy are veterans of battle. Huey is a civilian on a civilian transport ship, with absolutely no combat knowledge, and he went up against a Behemoth bare-handed to protect the girl he loved. Huey, you learn later, also tried to take a test to become a starship captain to better himself for Rachel’s sake, but he failed the test. I’d say Huey’s character is pretty exemplary.
Kato always has a positive outlook as the chapter goes on. Corporal Darth initially has a negative attitude toward Cube, but (1) he’s not part of the crew and (2) his fear of robots stems from the war with robots that happened sometime before the chapter. I can only assume that these robots had metal endoskeletons, sported glowing red eyes, and could disguise themselves as fully-grown Austrian men.
Finally, while Rachel is quick to accuse Huey, she (1) just saw her boyfriend die a gruesome death and (2) does not return Huey’s feelings. I find it difficult to judge someone who just saw a loved one die; anyone would find it difficult to retain rational thinking in the face of those odds. Also, when there is emotion involved, everything pretty much has the potential of going to hell in a hand-basket. I think Rachel’s only crime is that she dates the wrong person, and that’s not really a crime because we can’t control our emotions.
WATANABE: The ship’s communication system is named Watanabe and consists of a parent antenna and a sub-antenna. At one point, the parent antenna breaks off. Yeah, I think the developers were running out of ideas here too. Also, while I can understand OD-10 disabling the communications system, I don’t see how the computer was able to break off the antenna physically.
Current Thoughts – Medieval Chapter
This chapter doesn’t open up until you finish all the other chapters. Soon, it becomes clear why.
You play as a knight named Oersted (who…looks like a Super Saiyan). He and his best friend Straybow enter a tournament, in which the winner will marry Princess Alicia. Oersted and Straybow are the two left standing, and as Oersted, you defeat Straybow to win the competition.
Princess Alicia declares her love for Oersted (…immediately I see a problem, as Alicia declares this pretty much minutes after she sees the guy for the first time). The king holds a feast, after which Alicia and Oersted share a moment alone on the balcony of the castle. She says that she believes in him, her future husband and king, and will always stand with him.
At that point, the Demon King arrives and kidnaps Alicia. Before this chapter, the Demon King had been defeated by the Hero Hash and his friend, the monk Uranus. Everyone is surprised the Demon King has returned, but Oersted volunteers to go kill him and rescue the princess. The king immediately declares Oersted the new Hero and says that the kingdom’s hopes completely rest on him.
…In other words, the king doesn’t send any of his numerous troops after the demon (and oh, he has lots of troops as you find out later). He doesn’t have scouts try to figure out information about the demon. He does absolutely nothing other than tell Oersted to solve the problem himself.
Oersted leaves the castle and Straybow catches up to him and joins him on his quest. They find Uranus, who convinces Hash to join them using some reverse psychology as Hash had, between his success as the Hero and now, become bitter toward humanity and initially refused to help.
They go to Demon’s Peak and find the Demon King. They then proceed to kick its ass easily; Hash remarks afterwards that the thing they just destroyed could not have possibly been the Demon King because it was so weak. He then dies of the plague (…where the hell did that come from?).
There is no sign of the princess anywhere. As they begin to leave, the room caves in and Straybow dies. Oersted and Uranus escape back to the castle.
That night, Oersted sees Straybow and follows him to the throne room. He then finds the Demon King sitting on the throne and promptly kills him. But, it then turns out that it was an illusion; the one on the throne was actually the king of Lucretia. I wonder why the king was on his throne in the middle of the night…but whatever.
The guards promptly show up and realize that Oersted killed the king. They don’t listen to his explanations but instead chase him out of the castle, believing that he is the Demon King himself. How they reached that conclusion so quickly is beyond me.
Oersted quickly realizes the entire kingdom is now against him. Yes, in the blink of an eye, the entire kingdom went from hailing him as the Hero to believing, with no doubt, that he is the Demon King. Upon returning to the castle to try and defend himself, he is captured. Uranus sacrifices himself to let Oersted escape, telling Oersted to go back to Demon’s Peak and figure out what the hell happened.
Oersted does (killing several incarnations of phobias along the way – Gynophobia, in particular, kicked my ass) and finds Straybow. Straybow had faked his own death and was, in fact, behind everything. Straybow declares that he was tired of being second place to Oersted. He therefore used his powers to fake his own death and trick Oersted into killing the king. Straybow attacks Oersted, but Oersted kicks his ass once again.
Alicia then appears. She blames Oersted for Straybow’s suffering, and declares that she loves Straybow. In front of Oersted, she kills herself to be with Straybow forever.
Realizing that there is absolutely nothing left for him in the world, Oersted’s hate at the world for having taken everything from him despite his good deeds engulfs him. He becomes the new Demon King, Odio.
I actually didn’t catch this the first time I played through – Odio is Latin for “hate,” and all the bosses before this had some pun on that name.
Straybow actually shows that quite clearly. His hate for Oersted made him into the first Demon King – this is the Demon King that appeared and kidnapped Alicia, which is why Hash realizes that the thing they fought was not the true Demon King; the true Demon King was Straybow himself. Using his new powers, he turns the entire kingdom against Oersted to make him suffer. Probably inadvertently, he only succeeded in this until the mantle of Demon King passed onto Oersted himself.
…I also must argue that Alicia is the root cause of all this. As Oersted continued to lose the trust of everyone in the kingdom, beginning from the royal officials and continuing into the villagers, he put his faith in Alicia, who had told him herself that she would always believe in and love him. It was Alicia’s actions at the end that finally pushed Oersted from humanity to demon, because she was the final person to betray Oersted.
Now women can have feelings. I am a strong supporter of women acting on their feelings and not letting the feelings of those around them dictate their actions. But, Alicia in this chapter can’t really be said to have feelings; the feeling of love and trust doesn’t fully manifest minutes after you first meet someone. At the very least, Alicia should not have made that vow to Oersted and then broken it at the end.
What we can probably agree on is that none of this is Oersted’s fault. He is stronger than is Straybow, but that’s either because he worked hard for it or because Fate simply favored him in that dimension. He risked his life to go and save the princess. He only attacked the king because Straybow put an illusion up. He trusted Alicia because Alicia vowed to believe in him forever. Oersted is therefore a very tragic hero…and now, in the final chapter, the characters from the previous chapters will need to band together and go kick his ass to high hell.
WATANABE: Straybow’s first opponent in the chapter is Watt Nahbe, and Straybow soundly defeats him. His son then runs in crying; I guess Straybow went overboard and killed him despite most tournaments being competitions and not death-matches.
Current Thoughts – Final Chapter
There’s no real storyline; you choose a main character and finish up the main story of the game. If you choose Oersted, you go back in time and re-write history by replaying the boss battles, except now, you play as the boss against the protagonists. You can win all seven battles and watch Oersted wander around a deserted Lucretia, or you can almost lose one, at which point you can invoke Armageddon and destroy everything.
If you choose someone else, you go back to that chapter’s end and watch Oersted summon you into Lucretia. You then go find the other 6 protagonists and band together to defeat the Demon King, though you can only have 4 party members at once. I chose Oboro, since he’s my favorite character. Since I had grinded to beat the optional bosses, I was vastly overpowered. I then recruited Akira, Pogo, and Masaru – the 3 I was planning on not using – to complete their dungeons and get their ultimate weapons just to complete the game’s content. I then assembled my final party – Oboro, Li, Sundown, and Cube – and did their dungeons. I also killed all the optional bosses and got everyone’s final techniques.
A few things come to mind…
On my actual final party: Sundown’s final technique, Hurricane Shot, is very overpowered, but his abysmal hit points make up for it. In the final battle, he never got to do anything except die.
This chapter also has 2 optional bosses: Iwama the fish and Ryunosuke the demon. Both are incredibly hard to kill, and the first time I played I went against Ryunosuke and got royally owned. This time, I managed to beat both of them after like a solid hour of level grinding. Note to level grind in this chapter, you need to go to a room with regenerating ghosts because if you kill a human enemy, he/she will disappear.
This chapter has so much depth; there are so many different ways to complete it and all require thought and effort. For my part, I loved infiltrating an enemy castle and stealthily murdering my way through it.
Really, though I must wonder – I spared the 14 women in Ode Castle, but what will become of them now? At the end of the chapter, you kick Ode Iou’s ass and he changes to his demon form. You then kill Ode Iou’s demon form and the sun rises, heralding a new beginning for Japan. So now you have a large castle with 85 dead people and 14 (probably scared) women. Given that women in Japan at the time had like zero social standing, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll do…
Granted, if I remember correctly some of those women are kunoichi, so they’ll probably recruit all the other women to their kunoichi clan and then they’ll later join the Illuminati or something. Yeah, let’s go with that.
WATANABE: Watanabe and his father are thieves in Ode castle. At one point, Watanabe’s father goes for a treasure chest, but then a guard skewers him with a spear from underneath.
Current Thoughts – Old West Chapter
I was never a fan of old westerns…but whatever. In this chapter, you play as a cowboy named the Sundown Kid (…I can’t fathom why they changed his name from “Sunset” to “Sundown”). He has a bounty on his head, and so he’s constantly on the run. In particular, there’s this bounty hunter named Mad Dog constantly challenging the Kid. Apparently, the Kid beats him repeatedly but never kills him.
Side note: the setting here is the Old West, with guns and duels. How exactly do you defeat someone “repeatedly” in a gun duel without killing him? I mean, with the state of human medicine back then, even if you shot his arm or something he’d probably die of an infection.
…Anyway, the Kid sees a town called Success Town. This town used to be successful, but lately have been subject to raids from the Crazy Bunch. Guys from the Crazy Bunch would just show up and take whatever they wanted, and nobody, including the Sheriff, dared to oppose them. The Kid, followed by Mad Dog, appear and they promptly kill 3 of the Crazy Bunch goons because they got in their way.
The town pleads for help, so the Kid and Mad Dog hunt around the town and find various items to set up traps. In the morning, the Crazy Bunch appear and, depending on how many traps you managed to set, either completely get owned or challenge you en masse.
The leader of the Crazy Bunch is the sole survivor of the 7th Cavalry, who goes by the name O. Dio. After you kill him, he is revealed to be a horse that was infused with the anger and despair of the entire 7th Cavalry after their disastrous defeat.
You can then decide whether to let Mad Dog live (because he challenges you to yet another duel). I let him live for some reason. I guess I was in a good mood at the time.
I guess it’s because I never really got into Westerns, but this chapter never really interested me. I heard somewhere that the path of the warrior was represented by four things: the samurai of Japan, the martial artists of China, the knights of Europe, and the gunslingers of the Old West. I never had a huge interest in the second-to-last one and never had any interest at all in the last one. *shrug
WATANABE: They travel for 3 days and 3 nights in the desert and finally find Success Town. They arrive just as the Crazy Bunch show up. Watanabe’s dad is shot by the Crazy Bunch upon their entry into town.
Current Thoughts – Present Day Chapter
This chapter is…underwhelming. You play as Masaru, who strives to be the world’s strongest fighter. He will achieve this by fighting 6 martial artists and learning their techniques. In other words, instead of learning under one master and eventually honing his own technique, he’s going to jack techniques from 6 random schools. These include Mexican wrestling, sumo wrestling, and paramilitary hand-to-hand combat.
Right off the bat…Masaru isn’t fat or even big. How the freak is he supposed to use sumo techniques? The game lets you learn and use them just fine, but…whatever.
Anyway…in this chapter, that’s the entire plot. You fight 6 battles and learn techniques that are used against you. After the 6 are defeated, a guy named Odie Olbright shows up and kills the 6 you just beat. Enraged, you beat Olbright and become the world’s strongest.
So…one comment I want to make is that if this game is accurate (it’s fiction, so I know it’s not, but bear with me), humans have grown progressively weaker as time goes on. Anybody before Masaru is stronger than him. I have no doubts that Pogo, Gori, Bel, the Master, Li, Yuan, Sammo, Oboro, Ryoma, O-Robo, Sundown, and Mad Dog can all completely destroy Masaru’s ass. Since Masaru is the strongest of the present day, this then means that any of the above characters could kick anyone’s ass today.
To continue, Akira (lead from the next chapter) isn’t too strong either…but he can read minds and is more a telekinetic character than a strength-based character. I’m unsure who would win between Masaru and Akira.
WATANABE: Umm…apparently, during the Great Asia fight, if you get him into the lower-right and he bites you, you get the scene. I got him into the lower-right and had him almost bite me to death, but it didn’t happen. I then had to get really creative on how to get out of that fight alive and learn both of Great Asia’s techniques. Side comment on Great Asia – his techniques are from Mexican wrestling…but his name is Great Asia…
Current Thoughts – Near Future Chapter
This chapter is really strange and I never really got into it. But, I’ve heard of many people saying that this was their favorite, so to each his own?
You play as a psychic named Akira. Akira is telekinetic, so he can create images and move things with his mind. He can use these images as weapons and can read other people’s minds. At a young age, his father was killed by the Crusaders, an anti-establishment gang. So, he and his sister Kaori go to live in Chibikko House (I’m not sure what this is – I guess it’s an orphanage?).
Akira enters troubled teenage years and befriends a former biker named Matsu. Matsu looks after Akira for some reason, and defends him when the Crusaders attack him one day. Akira questions why the Crusaders are after him, since he’s an orphan and not worth much.
Akira also befriends Toei, a local antique dealer. Besides knowing about antiques, Toei is a brilliant scientist and knows about using liquefied humans as fuel for robots (no typo there…). In Toei’s antique shop (…rather, deep underneath it) is a giant mech named Buriki Daioh, which Toei figures is controlled by psychokinesis. But, when Akira tries to move it, nothing happens.
One day, the Crusaders show up at Chibikko House and try to kidnap one of the children there. Akira and Matsu save him, and via his mind-reading powers Akira realizes people are being kidnapped and sent to the secret facility in the east. Apparently, Matsu already knows about this, and he goes into the facility to stop whatever is going on. Akira follows.
In the facility, you learn that Matsu actually was the founder of the Crusaders, but has since turned his back on them. You also learn that the government, a professor, and a religious fanatic from the local temple are trying to sacrifice 2000 humans, turning them into liquefied humans, so they can summon some god named Odeo. Once here, Odeo will purify the world by turning everyone into liquid, so everyone will become one with everyone else and peace will reign.
…Yeah, I was wondering what the story-writers were smoking at this point as well.
Anyway, Akira and Matsu retreat from the facility to plan what to do next. Matsu decides to try to move Buriki Daioh himself by getting really, really drunk. Apparently, this will raise his spiritual energy, and allow him (a non-telekinetic) to move the robot.
…You know, I think they were smoking crack. Crack’s gotta be it.
Matsu does drink himself to near-death and succeeds in moving the robot (yeah, his plan actually worked). After getting the robot to Chibikko House in time to save Akira and Kaori from a fire that the Crusaders set, he dies. His final thoughts, as read by Akira, reveal that he himself killed Akira’s father. He had founded the Crusaders to oppose the government, which he felt was up to no good (and he was right). Akira’s father, as captain of the police, went to stop him, and failed. Matsu realized that his methods were wrong and began looking after Akira to try and atone.
Akira, at this point, is filled with rage, which heightens his powers enough to move Buriki Daioh. He then maneuvers the mech through the city, destroying the entire army, and arrives at the temple to see Odeo arrive and possess a statue of a parrot-Buddha.
…I’m Buddhist, and I’ve never heard of a parrot-Buddha.
Anyway, the mech and the parrot-Buddha fight, and Akira wins. Peace is restored to the town.
I really don’t know what it is about the chapter I don’t like. I’ve always been a fan of modern-day RPGs, and this chapter is set in the modern-day. I also like giant robots destroying evil militaries without trying (seriously, once you get into Buriki Daioh, I don’t think you can die – my HP never dropped below ???/???). Maybe the chapter’s storyline is just too weird for me. Or maybe I just didn’t relate to the protagonist that well. I find it’s really important for me to relate to the protagonist if I want to enjoy an RPG. After all, that’s why it’s called a role-playing game.
WATANABE: He’s not subtle in this chapter at all. There is an orphan named Watanabe in Chibikko House, and eventually when you storm the facility it is revealed that his father was turned into a killer robot to guard the facility. You kill him as a boss battle. He’s also very easy to kill if you know what to do.
Current Thoughts – Science Fiction Chapter
Aboard the ship Cogito Ergosum (this is Latin for “I think, therefore I am”), a civilian transport vessel en route to Earth, a mechanic named Kato builds a spherical robot he names Cube (or, he names it whatever the hell you name it). In one week, the ship will reach Earth, so the crew had been under cryogenic sleep. Cube wakes them up: the pilot, Kirk; the communications officer, Rachel; and the cargo handler, Huey. Kato had been awake already, working on Cube. Also on the ship is a military corporal, Corporal Darth. Darth was assigned by the military to oversee transport of a huge beast, termed the Behemoth, on the ship back to Earth for study.
The captain greets the crew via video monitor and ascertains that everything is okay. Rachel goes to check the communications systems on the ship and realizes that the ship cannot send messages out, but can receive them. Since one-way communication like that is pretty useless, Kirk volunteers to go outside in a spacesuit and fix it manually.
At this point, it’s revealed that Kirk is dating Rachel, who had previously dumped Huey for Kirk. Kirk picks on Huey for being a coward, and then puts on a spacesuit to go outside. Outside, the life support system fails for no apparent reason and Kirk dies.
Rachel is distraught and blames Huey for his death, accusing Huey of trying to win her back by killing Kirk. At this point, the ship’s electrical systems malfunction and the cargo hold releases the Behemoth. Rachel decides she wants to protect Kirk’s body and runs through the halls of the ship. Huey, still in love with Rachel, goes after her and protects her from the Behemoth, dying in the process. Rachel is heavily wounded and is moved to her cryogenic sleep capsule.
Sometime later, an older version of Cube, previously made by Kato, appears and turns off the capsule, killing Rachel. Kato suspects that this was all Corporal Darth’s doing, given that he has orders to get the Behemoth to Earth at all costs. They also check in with the captain, who (after some investigating and hacking) they discover to be dead.
They then learn, via the captain’s computer, that the ship AI, OD-10, is behind everything. It decided that the humans on the ship, who fought with each other and disrupted the harmony of the ship, had to be destroyed. The older version of Cube (which I guess was powered up and fixed by OD-10…somehow…and for some reason…) severely hurts Kato but is then destroyed by Darth.
Darth and Cube work together to hack into the ship mainframe, and Cube destroys OD-10. The ship AI shuts off and becomes a normal computer; the rest of the journey goes without incident.
Cube’s chapter is…freaky. It is completely story-driven, and has the “in space, nobody can hear you scream” theme to it. There are no battles at all, except for the final boss and an optional mini-game called Captain Square. Captain Square is this space-hero guy who fights aliens on all the nine planets of the solar system (the astronomers who re-classified Pluto can go suck an egg). Yes, there is a battle on Earth, and on Earth you fight water and fire elementals. I managed to beat Captain Square this time; before, I didn’t even bother because it does absolutely nothing.
The chapter is also pretty tragic. If you check the captain’s log, you find that the captain evaluated the crew members and found that they…well, they sucked. This was probably what set off the ship AI against humans in the first place. But, from what I could tell only Kirk had a negative personality – he took Rachel from Huey and then constantly bullied him about it. While a consistent theme on Kirk’s comments to Huey was Huey’s lack of courage, Huey later dies protecting Rachel. To shed more light on the matter, he was protecting her against a Behemoth, likely based on the Final Fantasy monster (Square made this game; plus the Behemoth does look a lot like the Final Fantasy Behemoth). The Behemoth can be a really hard monster to kill in Final Fantasy, and the characters you play in Final Fantasy are veterans of battle. Huey is a civilian on a civilian transport ship, with absolutely no combat knowledge, and he went up against a Behemoth bare-handed to protect the girl he loved. Huey, you learn later, also tried to take a test to become a starship captain to better himself for Rachel’s sake, but he failed the test. I’d say Huey’s character is pretty exemplary.
Kato always has a positive outlook as the chapter goes on. Corporal Darth initially has a negative attitude toward Cube, but (1) he’s not part of the crew and (2) his fear of robots stems from the war with robots that happened sometime before the chapter. I can only assume that these robots had metal endoskeletons, sported glowing red eyes, and could disguise themselves as fully-grown Austrian men.
Finally, while Rachel is quick to accuse Huey, she (1) just saw her boyfriend die a gruesome death and (2) does not return Huey’s feelings. I find it difficult to judge someone who just saw a loved one die; anyone would find it difficult to retain rational thinking in the face of those odds. Also, when there is emotion involved, everything pretty much has the potential of going to hell in a hand-basket. I think Rachel’s only crime is that she dates the wrong person, and that’s not really a crime because we can’t control our emotions.
WATANABE: The ship’s communication system is named Watanabe and consists of a parent antenna and a sub-antenna. At one point, the parent antenna breaks off. Yeah, I think the developers were running out of ideas here too. Also, while I can understand OD-10 disabling the communications system, I don’t see how the computer was able to break off the antenna physically.
Current Thoughts – Medieval Chapter
This chapter doesn’t open up until you finish all the other chapters. Soon, it becomes clear why.
You play as a knight named Oersted (who…looks like a Super Saiyan). He and his best friend Straybow enter a tournament, in which the winner will marry Princess Alicia. Oersted and Straybow are the two left standing, and as Oersted, you defeat Straybow to win the competition.
Princess Alicia declares her love for Oersted (…immediately I see a problem, as Alicia declares this pretty much minutes after she sees the guy for the first time). The king holds a feast, after which Alicia and Oersted share a moment alone on the balcony of the castle. She says that she believes in him, her future husband and king, and will always stand with him.
At that point, the Demon King arrives and kidnaps Alicia. Before this chapter, the Demon King had been defeated by the Hero Hash and his friend, the monk Uranus. Everyone is surprised the Demon King has returned, but Oersted volunteers to go kill him and rescue the princess. The king immediately declares Oersted the new Hero and says that the kingdom’s hopes completely rest on him.
…In other words, the king doesn’t send any of his numerous troops after the demon (and oh, he has lots of troops as you find out later). He doesn’t have scouts try to figure out information about the demon. He does absolutely nothing other than tell Oersted to solve the problem himself.
Oersted leaves the castle and Straybow catches up to him and joins him on his quest. They find Uranus, who convinces Hash to join them using some reverse psychology as Hash had, between his success as the Hero and now, become bitter toward humanity and initially refused to help.
They go to Demon’s Peak and find the Demon King. They then proceed to kick its ass easily; Hash remarks afterwards that the thing they just destroyed could not have possibly been the Demon King because it was so weak. He then dies of the plague (…where the hell did that come from?).
There is no sign of the princess anywhere. As they begin to leave, the room caves in and Straybow dies. Oersted and Uranus escape back to the castle.
That night, Oersted sees Straybow and follows him to the throne room. He then finds the Demon King sitting on the throne and promptly kills him. But, it then turns out that it was an illusion; the one on the throne was actually the king of Lucretia. I wonder why the king was on his throne in the middle of the night…but whatever.
The guards promptly show up and realize that Oersted killed the king. They don’t listen to his explanations but instead chase him out of the castle, believing that he is the Demon King himself. How they reached that conclusion so quickly is beyond me.
Oersted quickly realizes the entire kingdom is now against him. Yes, in the blink of an eye, the entire kingdom went from hailing him as the Hero to believing, with no doubt, that he is the Demon King. Upon returning to the castle to try and defend himself, he is captured. Uranus sacrifices himself to let Oersted escape, telling Oersted to go back to Demon’s Peak and figure out what the hell happened.
Oersted does (killing several incarnations of phobias along the way – Gynophobia, in particular, kicked my ass) and finds Straybow. Straybow had faked his own death and was, in fact, behind everything. Straybow declares that he was tired of being second place to Oersted. He therefore used his powers to fake his own death and trick Oersted into killing the king. Straybow attacks Oersted, but Oersted kicks his ass once again.
Alicia then appears. She blames Oersted for Straybow’s suffering, and declares that she loves Straybow. In front of Oersted, she kills herself to be with Straybow forever.
Realizing that there is absolutely nothing left for him in the world, Oersted’s hate at the world for having taken everything from him despite his good deeds engulfs him. He becomes the new Demon King, Odio.
I actually didn’t catch this the first time I played through – Odio is Latin for “hate,” and all the bosses before this had some pun on that name.
- The Tyrannosaurus Rex, O-D-O
- The rival kung fu master, Odi Wang Lee
- The evil Japanese lord, Ode Iou
- The 7th Cavalry guy, O. Dio
- The former world’s strongest, Odie Olbright
- The demon lord who possesses the parrot-Buddha, Odeo
- The mother computer of the Cogito Ergosum, OD-10
Straybow actually shows that quite clearly. His hate for Oersted made him into the first Demon King – this is the Demon King that appeared and kidnapped Alicia, which is why Hash realizes that the thing they fought was not the true Demon King; the true Demon King was Straybow himself. Using his new powers, he turns the entire kingdom against Oersted to make him suffer. Probably inadvertently, he only succeeded in this until the mantle of Demon King passed onto Oersted himself.
…I also must argue that Alicia is the root cause of all this. As Oersted continued to lose the trust of everyone in the kingdom, beginning from the royal officials and continuing into the villagers, he put his faith in Alicia, who had told him herself that she would always believe in and love him. It was Alicia’s actions at the end that finally pushed Oersted from humanity to demon, because she was the final person to betray Oersted.
Now women can have feelings. I am a strong supporter of women acting on their feelings and not letting the feelings of those around them dictate their actions. But, Alicia in this chapter can’t really be said to have feelings; the feeling of love and trust doesn’t fully manifest minutes after you first meet someone. At the very least, Alicia should not have made that vow to Oersted and then broken it at the end.
What we can probably agree on is that none of this is Oersted’s fault. He is stronger than is Straybow, but that’s either because he worked hard for it or because Fate simply favored him in that dimension. He risked his life to go and save the princess. He only attacked the king because Straybow put an illusion up. He trusted Alicia because Alicia vowed to believe in him forever. Oersted is therefore a very tragic hero…and now, in the final chapter, the characters from the previous chapters will need to band together and go kick his ass to high hell.
WATANABE: Straybow’s first opponent in the chapter is Watt Nahbe, and Straybow soundly defeats him. His son then runs in crying; I guess Straybow went overboard and killed him despite most tournaments being competitions and not death-matches.
Current Thoughts – Final Chapter
There’s no real storyline; you choose a main character and finish up the main story of the game. If you choose Oersted, you go back in time and re-write history by replaying the boss battles, except now, you play as the boss against the protagonists. You can win all seven battles and watch Oersted wander around a deserted Lucretia, or you can almost lose one, at which point you can invoke Armageddon and destroy everything.
If you choose someone else, you go back to that chapter’s end and watch Oersted summon you into Lucretia. You then go find the other 6 protagonists and band together to defeat the Demon King, though you can only have 4 party members at once. I chose Oboro, since he’s my favorite character. Since I had grinded to beat the optional bosses, I was vastly overpowered. I then recruited Akira, Pogo, and Masaru – the 3 I was planning on not using – to complete their dungeons and get their ultimate weapons just to complete the game’s content. I then assembled my final party – Oboro, Li, Sundown, and Cube – and did their dungeons. I also killed all the optional bosses and got everyone’s final techniques.
A few things come to mind…
- Masaru, Akira, and Pogo all attack you when you try to recruit them (you can avoid a battle with Akira, but I didn’t). As Oboro, I took several hits to beat Pogo, around 2 hits to beat Akira, and one hit to beat Masaru.
- During Oersted’s chapter, a common theme was that if a single person believed in him, he still had hope. In this chapter you find, in Akira’s dungeon, the souls of the humans who once lived in Lucretia. One of them is a little boy, who still holds onto his belief that Oersted is not the Demon King. Plot hole? Probably not, considering the opinion of a little boy probably did little to alleviate Oersted’s pain at seeing the entire rest of the kingdom turn against him. Now, if Alicia had held onto her faith…
- Along those lines, you also see Straybow’s soul, and he wonders whether this were his fault. Umm, you think?!
- Akira is easily the weakest character offense-wise; while his images can hit large areas at once, they are not that strong. Also, his level 16 technique is…underwhelming. At least it doesn’t take forever to use, as Masaru’s technique does.
- Pogo’s final technique is awesome the first time he uses it in a battle. All his stats go down after using it, so after a little while he becomes useless.
On my actual final party: Sundown’s final technique, Hurricane Shot, is very overpowered, but his abysmal hit points make up for it. In the final battle, he never got to do anything except die.
Oboro and Li were easily the main damage-dealers in the party. Li’s final technique takes no charge time and kicks major amounts of ass. Oboro’s final technique kicks the same amount of ass, roughly, but takes charge time.
Finally, Cube…rounded out…the party as the healer.
*sunglasses
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!11!111!!1!1!!!11!
Uhh, anyway, here’s Cube, a spherical robot on treads that can somehow wear a “Mermaid Bottom.”
*sunglasses
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!11!111!!1!1!!!11!
Uhh, anyway, here’s Cube, a spherical robot on treads that can somehow wear a “Mermaid Bottom.”
After you beat Odio, Oersted asks you to finish him. If you do, his last word is “Alicia,” showing that even after all this, she’s still foremost on his mind. If you refuse, Odio then uses the last of his strength to revive the bosses from the previous chapters, and the appropriate character fights the boss. Besides Akira, whose battle uses Buriki Daioh and is therefore not dependent on Akira himself, everyone else was vastly stronger and the battles were really easy.
WATANABE: There is an optional boss named Death Prophet, who attacks you if you flee from battle 100 times. Previously, Watanabe and his dad fled 100 times, and you find their petrified statues in one of the optional dungeons. If you have Akira, you can read their minds to see who they are. This is the only time Watanabe shares his dad’s fate.
Current Thoughts – Overall
This game is seriously amazing. Its storyline goes above and beyond the storylines of most RPGs and its multi-time approach is very unique. I felt the game developers must have had a lot of fun with this, and they probably let their imaginations and creativity run while working on it.
For instance, there’s this horny fat guy in the kung fu dungeon who is in love with your lead character (yes, even if your lead is male). You need to kill him multiple times before he goes away, as while he is in love with you, he also attacks you each time he sees you…I guess he’s into violent love? It was so weird and random, so I assume this is how it happened during design:
Drunk Friend: Dude, that game you’re working on…
Guy: Yeah? *drinks a beer
Drunk Friend: There should be like…a horny fat guy who chases them around…
Guy: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That’s a GREAT idea! *drinks some more
The way the world-map formation works, with the lead in front and the three characters following him horizontally, is also a nice touch. The lack of random battles is great (though the game fails at this in the last chapters).
I would go as far as to call this the best SNES RPG ever made.
WATANABE: There is an optional boss named Death Prophet, who attacks you if you flee from battle 100 times. Previously, Watanabe and his dad fled 100 times, and you find their petrified statues in one of the optional dungeons. If you have Akira, you can read their minds to see who they are. This is the only time Watanabe shares his dad’s fate.
Current Thoughts – Overall
This game is seriously amazing. Its storyline goes above and beyond the storylines of most RPGs and its multi-time approach is very unique. I felt the game developers must have had a lot of fun with this, and they probably let their imaginations and creativity run while working on it.
For instance, there’s this horny fat guy in the kung fu dungeon who is in love with your lead character (yes, even if your lead is male). You need to kill him multiple times before he goes away, as while he is in love with you, he also attacks you each time he sees you…I guess he’s into violent love? It was so weird and random, so I assume this is how it happened during design:
Drunk Friend: Dude, that game you’re working on…
Guy: Yeah? *drinks a beer
Drunk Friend: There should be like…a horny fat guy who chases them around…
Guy: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That’s a GREAT idea! *drinks some more
The way the world-map formation works, with the lead in front and the three characters following him horizontally, is also a nice touch. The lack of random battles is great (though the game fails at this in the last chapters).
I would go as far as to call this the best SNES RPG ever made.