Live A Live / Tropes H to O

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• Have a Nice Death: The Distant Future chapter is full of them, and if you happen to activate any of them, you are greeted with "Alas, Cube never had the opportunity to set foot on Earth..."
• Healer Signs On Early: Zigzagged with Beru, as she joins rather early in Prehistory, but it's possible to not level her up ever and learn Sing Heal before she's kidnapped. Downplayed with Uranus in The Middle Ages, as Oersted and Straybow have to go without a healer for a bit. Akira and Cube will play this straight if either becomes the Dominion of Hate's protagonist.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Zaki from the Prehistory chapter, for the final boss of said chapter. Afterwards, he takes over the Kuu tribe, ending their sacrifices to Odo and burying the hatchet with Pogo's tribe.
  • Matsu from Akira's chapter, but it happened in the backstory.
• He Knows About Timed Hits:
  • The Prehistory chapter has Pogo's tribe leader "tell" the player through speech bubble pictures to press the Y button, even pulling out a stone version of it above his head.
  • The beginning of the Near Future chapter has Akira tell the player that pressing Y enables him to read minds. The remake handwaves it a bit by having him comment that "it's as easy as pushing a button: (Y)", with the (Y) note being unvoiced.
• Hell Is That Noise: The sound that plays whenever the Lord of Dark is around in the last two chapters. Interestingly, the sound doesn't play when you encounter the "Lord of Dark" in the throne room, hinting that something's not quite right.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: At the beginning of each chapter, you get to name its protagonist. This is retained in the remake, and none of the dialogue featuring a protagonist's name is voiced. How much of the name can be chosen depends on the character in question:
  • Pogo, Oboromaru, Masaru (first and last name), and Cube are fully renamed. Notably, Cube's Canon Name is still mentioned by Kato in order to explain why a round robot could be named "Cube", but the player doesn't have to go along with it. Even with the name change in Pogo's case, he still says his name when he levels up in the remake.
  • Only Akira's first name can be changed, as his last name is set in stone so it can be used to refer to his father.
  • "Sundown" is the only part of the Sundown Kid's name that can be changed, so that he can always be referred to as "the Kid".
  • The Shifu goes completely unnamed; his kung fu style is what's named at the start of the chapter. This also gets used as the blanket name for whoever survives and becomes the new master of the art. Akira even has voice lines for each of the new masters' names when meeting them for the first time in the Final Chapter, where he reads the lead's mind to learn their name. The Bountiful Heart in the Trial of Skill has voiced lines for the new master as well, which is fitting, given that the Trial of Skill is the dungeon for the Earthen Heart Master.
  • While not present in Live A Live, the OCTO-A-LIVE event in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent averts this with Oersted. Oersted, Streibough, and Alethea receive new voiced lines, with Streibough and Alethea calling Oersted by his name in voiced lines, which otherwise does not occur in Live A Live.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Matsu does this to power the Steel Titan by taking a fatal overdose of Matango, so he can save Akira and Kaori (the latter actually initially volunteering to be liquefacted to power it before Akira stops her).
  • Uranus uses the last of his life to unlock Oersted's cell after their arrest, and Streibough fakes having one during the Middle Ages chapter.
• Hero Stole My Bike: In the Near Future chapter, in order to chase after a trio of Crusaders after they kidnap Kazu and Matsu ditches him, Akira steals a passerby's motorcycle.
• Heroic Spirit: Deconstructed. Yes, the sheer willpower of the seven protagonists is what saves the day in their stories, some of them having to discover that spirit first. Then you get to Oersted, who already fully believes in Heroic Spirit, but in his case it's more pessimistic — everything that can go wrong does go wrong. That he ultimately ends up as Odio is a testament to how utterly broken he was by the end. But then reconstructed on a non-Oersted final chapter, when he summons the other seven protagonists to prove his point... and said protagonists' Heroic Spirit save the day and Oersted gets reminded on how he couldn't win by not shaping his spirit well enough.
• Historical In-Joke: If Oboro decides to follow Ryoma Sakamoto at the end of his chapter, in the final credits, he'll be seen thwarting an assassination attempt on the latter. The IRL version of Ryoma Sakamoto died because of an assassination.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The three antagonists of the Near Future chapter get turned into liquified humans too when the pool of liquified humans they gathered ends up engulfing them.
• Hope Spot:
  • After Rachel nearly gets Cube thrown out of the airlock in her Kirk-obsessed frenzy, she seems to calm down...only to rush off again, and get Huey fatally mauled by the Behemoth, and then she dies minutes later.
  • After defeating Streibough for his treachery, Alethea appears, and at first it's implied that she heard his Evil Gloating about his crimes, only to then profess her love for Streibough and commit suicide. Things go downhill quick.
• Hot-Blooded: Fittingly, both Akira and Matsu, especially when they pilot Steel Titan. Masaru doesn't talk much, but he reveals his nature to fit this in a particularly epic moment at the end of his chapter.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Lucrece was a prosperous kingdom which had found its future king to be wed to the princess, who also happened to be the local hero Oersted assisted by his powerful sorcerer friend Streibough. However, the kingdom fell shortly after their princess was kidnapped and the two heroes banded together to save her, only for Streibough to attempt a case of Engineered Heroics to take the princess for himself and brand Oersted a pariah. This led to the creation of the Lord of Dark Odio, the deaths of every single human in the kingdom, and leaving Lucrece in ruins while overrun with monsters following a Time Crash. Even after Odio's defeat and the curse being lifted, Lucrece is still empty and is presumably forgotten in the annals of history. This is reflected from the King of Lucrece as a soul in Akira's dungeon, who laments the fall of his kingdom under his watch following all the events that transpired.
  King of Lucrece: The fault is mine, most surely. 'Twas my watch. Lucrece, my charge, my child... now all is ash.
• Hulk Speak: Item descriptions, skill descriptions, and loading screen tips for the Prehistory chapter are given in this manner, since the protagonists are all cavepeople.
• Humans Are Bastards: Most of the chapter bosses are centered around this. However, each timeline also has a counterpoint which tends to get overshadowed, and yet the heroes keep fighting for it (and just shows how flawed Odio's point was by ignoring these good humans and overfocusing on the bad ones).
  • Prehistory: A tribe is willing to sacrifice a captured human to appease their God, a living dinosaur called Odo, and Pogo is exiled from his own tribe for helping her. The counterpoint: The vast majority of the tribe was mostly controlled by survival instincts and fear of getting eaten, only the chieftain was very fervent and dogmatic in the sacrifice. Once the chieftain was eaten by Odo and said dinosaur was killed, both tribes quickly established negotiations with each other and unite in peace, with Pogo and friends returning home as a result of said peace treaty.
  • Imperial China: A local gang causes trouble and steals from local villages, and when defeated by the town's local Shifu, twice, a larger gang retaliates by raiding his Dojo for all it's worth and killing two of his pupils. The counterpoint: The surviving student, who used to be ostracized due to their flaws, eventually became accepted by the public that shunned them, becoming a local hero for saving them from the gang, to succeed the Shifu that has passed away. In the remake, some members of the lesser gang attend the successor's Dojo too.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan: Ode Iou planned to take advantage of humanity's inherent greed and distrust by selling dangerous weapons, ultimately hoping to spark a war. The counterpoint: A group of people believing in trust still existed, led by Sakamoto Ryoma. It was for this reason that Ode Iou had him imprisoned, and yet the Enma Ninja still believed in peace despite their contractual nature and sent Oboromaru for his job, and he has the option to trust people and not kill them, and even when he does, he still tries to remember those he killed.
  • Wild West: O. Dio is in fact a horse given human form by the vengeful spirits of the 7th Cavalry after fatal losses to the Native Americans defending their home. The counterpoint: There's someone else who suffered fatal, personal losses and at first looks like a Death Seeker, but ultimately still managed to keep his heroism and rallied a bunch of innocents to defend their town instead of ravaging others like the Crazy Bunch, and even his constant rival is willing to put aside their rivalry for the greater good.
  • Present Day: While Masaru becomes the strongest by defeating his opponents in fair combat, his first challenger arrives and explains how he mercilessly killed each one to prove his own strength. The counterpoint: All of the victims are literal show-wrestlers making a living. Even Great Aja, the Jerkass luchador, wasn't malicious; the mauling of the heckler-with-a-son was because he was optionally provoked, and the result was not clear whether he was dead or Great Aja just sent him to med bay.
  • Near Future: The human leaders of Japan plot to sacrifice their nation to Odeo while also influencing the local gang to do its bidding. And the liquefacted humans blindly lash out in hatred and assimilate their captors, only to nearly do the same to Akira, who was an innocent who had nothing to do with their state. The counterpoint: Matsu, an ex-gang leader who used to be wild and anti-law, managed to smell out the evil plot and oppose it, siding with the innocents and becoming Akira's mentor after he felt guilty killing his father, who, like other non-leaders of Japan, were Just Following Orders, albeit a little too apathetic.
  • Distant Future: The constant infighting of the crew lead OD-10 to conclude that they were a threat to its mission of maintaining harmony on the ship. The counterpoint: Darthe, who was at first the most aggressive member, survived and revealed a levelheaded side and his dark past. After the incident, he quit the military and became a healing robot creator, overcoming his dark past. And while Kirk and Rachel were mostly jerks, they were only doing their job in piloting the ship to transport dangerous beings; they could even be genuinely nice to Cube. And lastly as Kato stated, even if everyone are on their edges and bickering at each other, killing each other would be the last thing on their mind.
  • It is all brought full circle in the Middle Ages chapter: After being betrayed by his best friend, the royals, and the villagers, Oersted gives up his humanity to become the Lord of Dark, Odio, with the intent to destroy humanity in every time period for the final chapter, and even beforehand, after Hasshe's initial victory against the first Lord of Dark, the people and the kingdom only cheered temporarily before forgetting his deeds and heroism, causing him to seclude himself as a hermit in disgust at the people. The counterpoint: That one kid still believed in Oersted till the end, even after Oersted-as-Odio subjected him to a Fate Worse than Death, and Alethea would eventually realize the error of her ways and beg the heroes to save Oersted.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: What Odio is trying to prove with all of his sadistic plots is this in a nutshell, deeming that they are untrustworthy, immoral beasts that are only capable of hating and killing, especially each other, and also that all of their idealistic hopes and dreams amount to zip and change nothing about their existence. The main connection between the playable chapters is that you're proving him wrong. His stance is understandable when you learn that Odio was once human himself, a man named Oersted who was every bit a Knight in Shining Armor who once believed in Heroic Spirit with all of his being — and had it all thrown back in his face in the worst ways possible. He is thusly baffled when you not only overcome his trials, but defeat him physically.
• Humongous Mecha: The Near Future has the Steel Titan, which is used for the final battle. Complete with its own theme!
  "Go! Go! Steel Titan!"
• Hunting the Rogue: In the twilight of Edo Japan chapter, Oboromaru is sent by his clan to rescue a captive from Ode Iou and also slay the tyrant. However, Oboromaru can choose to abandon the mission. Doing so will have him branded a traitor and constantly hunted down by his clan, up to his own master stepping in to suicide bomb him.
• Hyperlink Story: The game's true nature. Though the chapters are initially presented as disconnected, the hints that they're all a part of something much bigger start to get clearer, culminating in both the Middle Ages chapter, which reveals that Oersted became Odio and is the source of all the trouble the characters went through, and the Final Chapter, where the heroes are brought to the Dominion of Hate and their goal is to defeat him and return home. Overlaps with You All Share My Story.
• Ice Magic Is Water: Ice-themed attacks like Akira's "Cold Day in Hell" are grouped under the water damage type.
• Inconsistent Coloring: All over the place concerning characters' sprites and official artwork. Most notably, Lei Kugo's outfit is pink with red pants in official artwork and in her original overworld sprites, but red with black pants in her original battle sprites and all of her remake sprites. The Sundown Kid's hair color leans more towards either blond or brown across different depictions, and Cube's glasses are generally colored red in-game but yellow in official artwork. Out of the villains, Ou Di Wan Lee is victim to this four times.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The ultimate weapons, one for each protagonist, in the Final Chapter. They're obtained by clearing each character's special dungeon.
  • Pogo's chapter has the Cola Bottle, a Rare Random Drop from the Mammoth King. When used as an item, it does 999 damage to almost anything, including the final boss.
  • Sparing all the women in Oboromaru's chapter, then waiting after acquiring the Maid's Sash will give you the Lacquered Medicine Box. It's an accessory that can be equipped to give a large bonus to IQ (Special Attack in the remake)… but it's also an infinite use healing item that also buffs all stats, which makes it very useful for fighting Oboromaru's Superbosses.
• Infinity -1 Sword: There's not one but two katanas in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter that are Oboromaru's second best weapon (one is his best for the chapter, one you get after you beat it), although both of them are absurdly difficult and obscure examples of Guide Dang It!, and you can only take one into the final chapter. However, both are exactly the same stat-wise.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • In battle, enemies consist of still images that slide around when moving and attacking and usually take up multiple spaces (the remake negates the "still images" factor but retains everything else). Exceptions to this tend to take up one space and have animations for moving and attacking, as well as having a "downed" sprite when they're defeated, unlike standard enemies who just disappear. Naturally, said opponents end up joining your party at some point in the chapter (Mad Dog, two of the three Earthen Heart pupils, and Zaki).
  • The reveal that the prisoner Oboromaru rescues is a Historical Domain Character is spoiled by the fact that he's directly called Ryoma as a party member in the fan translation. The remake opts to keep him named "The Prisoner" until the end of the chapter.
  • Ode Iou is first fought as a Trick Boss in his weak human form before turning into a Gamahebi for the real final boss of the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter. Players who have gotten through some of the other chapters beforehand can easily see the trick coming because Ode Iou doesn't have "Megalomania" playing in his fight and has a small battle sprite (whereas every other chapter boss has a very large sprite).
  • Before beginning each chapter, you're given a brief summary of the chapter's setting and what you'll be doing in said chapters… but no such summary is given to you once you select the Middle Ages chapter in the original game, while in the remake it's a vague one-section description. Suffice to say, there's a reason for this lack of description.
  • Unlike in the original version of the game, Oersted and his chapter is advertised alongside all the others in the remake. However, the fact that you can't select him yet when you first start the game should warn you that there's something different about him compared to the other heroes.
  • In the remake, the final bosses of each chapter have a red aura around them. Despite the primary goal in the Middle Ages chapter being to defeat the Lord of Dark, the titular Lord doesn't have the aura, indicating something isn't right.
  • Also in the remake, every character has a color theme. Oersted's is Red. The aura effect in the menu looks almost exactly like what you see when you fight an incarnation of Odio.
• Invisibility Cloak: Oboro gets one of these in his chapter, which can be used by holding down Y. Intangibility Cloak might be a more accurate term, though; while it's active, Oboro can't move, but enemies on-screen can't see him and will move through him. Apparently he was also given two more as spares, which get used by the Prisoner and the Mimic Mammet.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Die in any of the chapters, and you get a nice little scene of someone or something reacting to your demise.
  • Prehistory: If you die in the first part of the chapter, Pogo simply falls to the ground while Gori laughs at him. Dying after Beru is abducted shows a scene of her tribe beginning the ritual to sacrifice her to their god.
  • Imperial China: The gravestones of The Shifu and his pupils are shown as text narration states that their martial art fell into the annals of history.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan: Oboromaru's master mourns his death and states that times of peace are still far off for Japan. Should Oboromaru abandon the mission, he will be hunted down.
  • Wild West: A lone tumbleweed blows through the now derelict Success Town. In the remake, text will flash on the screen — "Bury Me Out on the Lone Prarie".
  • Present Day: The opponent that defeated you mocks you in an homage to Street Fighter II's continue screen.
  • Near Future: Kaori runs out of bed in a panic, seemingly sensing her brother's demise. After activating the Steel Titan, it becomes Matsu berating Akira in Heaven for failing. In the remake, the latter is changed to Akira collapsing in the Steel Titan's cockpit, while Matsu's spirit tells him not to give up.
  • Distant Future: A shot is shown of Cube's broken body; unless he gets sucked out the airlock, in which case he's shown drifting helplessly through space. The text narration then states, "Alas, Cube never had the opportunity to set foot on Earth..."
  • Middle Ages: The Lord of Dark looks over Alethea as she begs Oersted to save her, all while that hellish noise plays.
  • Final: If you fail to defeat Purity of Odio^note or any of Odio's forms in the remake, the Armageddon ending plays as everything is wiped from existence forever.
• Job Title: Played straight with the titles of the first seven chapters of the remake, each referring to what their player-controlled central character is or ends up being respectively (Pogo is "The First", Oboro is "The Infiltrator", Sundown is "The Wanderer", and so on). The unlocked eighth chapter named "The Lord of the Dark" is no exception to this.
• Jump Scare: During the Remake's Nintendo Switch Demo trailer, there is a sudden cut to Pure Odio casting Saint Alethea mid-scream without warning.
• Justified Tutorial: Anything involving the Y button is given an in-game explanation.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • Can sort of happen in the Wild West chapter; if you choose to spare Mad Dog, you'll fight him one last time after the credits roll. However, it's arguably harder to die than to win the fight, meaning you'd have to really be trying to invoke this trope.
  • A more plausible invocation of this trope is vs. any boss monster that self-destructs as a final attack. If you took to the strategy of getting everyone close in order to pin the boss in, then watch as everyone dies.
  • Even after defeating OD-10, the airlock can still suck Cube out of the ship, causing a game over. Like with Mad Dog at the end of the Wild West chapter, this only happens if you intentionally cause it.
• Karmic Jackpot: In the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter, freeing and sparing a ninja named Goemon in the castle jail will have him declare that he'll repay you some day. Checking certain treasure boxes that were already opened prior to this reveals that Goemon refilled them with a duplicate of their original contents along with a "Goemon was here!" message.
• Kill All Humans: Odio's primary goal. Lucretius reveals in an optional conversation that he succeeded with the entirety of Lucrece.
• Kleptomaniac Hero Found Underwear:
  • And yes, they are equipment, and had to be replaced with something less offensive in the remake.
  • The Near Future chapter. Belonging to three different people, no less. Bonus points for Akira not actually doing the act himself, even though he gets smacked for putting Watanabe up to it.
  • Sundown and Mad Dog can also swipe Annie's nightie in the Wild West chapter.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Oersted, deconstructed to hell and back.
• Large Ham: Zaki, somehow, despite not having a single line.
• The Last Dance:
  • Hasshe accompanies Oersted, Streibough, and Uranus to the Forbidden Land even though he's secretly dying from the plague so he can end his life doing something important. He dies soon after killing the (false) Lord of Dark.
  • In a way, the Earthen Heart Shifu's assault on Ou Di Wan Lee's school. Given his advanced age and the way he attempts to do it without his last remaining student, odds are good that the Shifu wasn't planning on coming back from dealing with Lee.
• Last Disc Magic: Every main character, plus two others, learns their final technique at level 16, high above what they need for their chapter's boss (though it's useful for superbosses in chapters that have them if grinded for) but perfectly achievable during the Dominion of Hate, and it outpowers the rest of their moveset with varying tradeoffs.
  • Pogo has Bing Bang Boom^note Dodegesden in the fan translation, a close-range, no-charge blunt move where he repeatedly clubs an enemy for ludicrous damage, but is inflicted with heavy stat debuffs for a while after using it.
  • The new Earthen Heart Master has Heavenly Peaks Descent^note Xuan Ya Lian Shan Quan in the fan translation, a spirit-element attack that deals heavy damage with no charge time or drawbacks. This is originally learned in the Imperial China chapter, where it can only be used once against the chapter boss, but upon being re-learned through leveling, it can be used without limit.
  • Oboromaru has Death Blossom^note Bronze Leaf in the fan translation, a spinning slashing attack that covers a wide area and debuffs attack and defense. In addition to leveling up, it can also be learned early by offering 10 Koban to the talking pot in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter.
  • The Sundown Kid has Hurricane^note Hurricane Shot in the fan translation, which has a lengthy charge time but lets him fire a ridiculous amount of wind-element bullets at anything in its target area.
  • Masaru has Worldbreaker's Wrath^note Earth-Rending Fury in the fan translation, an earth-element earthquake and one of his only area-of-effect techniques. He can learn it early via Jackie Iaukea if certain conditions are met to make him use it. Oddly, Mimic Mammet can also learn the skill if it reaches level 16 or the Koban pot is used.
  • Akira has Judgement Day^note Holy Image in the fan translation, a divine area-of-effect that deals middling damage but has a high chance of inflicting every debuff and multiple status ailments, including petrification.
  • Cube has Maser Cannon, a fire-elemental piercing star/laser blast that only works on diagonals. Since Cube cannot level up, they start with this technique from the get-go.
  • Oersted has Archon's Mark^note Death Trail in the fan translation, a demonic-element slash that strikes a single target twice but debuffs his accuracy and evasion. It's also one of Hasshe's moves.
  • Streibough has Black Abyss, a powerful ranged demonic-element counterattack. The chances of him getting it are extremely low since he leaves halfway through Oersted's chapter and never becomes playable again, though he will use it in his boss fight regardless due to being empowered.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: In the original release, Oersted's existence (and his entire chapter) was a secret only unlocked after you beat the other seven. The trailers for the 2022 remake, on the other hand, just introduces him as another protagonist. Likewise, while the original box art was sliced into seven parts for the initial protagonists, the 2022 remake adds one for him to give him equal billing to everyone else. More subtly, the trailer also reveals the fact that there is a final ninth chapter where you can control the other seven protagonists.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Mad Dog emphasizes that Sundown Kid should save a memory of the moment (read: the player should save the game) before going off to hunt for supplies for the chapter's Timed Mission.
  • In the remake, the Distant Future chapter's notes mention that the hit video game Captain Square was released on September 2nd, 1994; the same date as the original release of Live A Live.
  • The Behemoth's codename in the remake is SHVC-5V, the product code for the Super Famicom release of Live A Live.
  • One of Streibough's lines in the Middle Ages final boss battle has him taunt Oersted that "this won't end like [he] think it will", referring to their battle trying to taunt the hero that he himself will win. Considering that the entire chapter was a Save the Princess plot gone wrong and Oersted becomes Odio at the end of it because of Alethea's suicide, the chapter itself didn't end like the player thought it would.
• Legendary Carp: There are two carp superbosses in the game. The first is Lord Iwama, a white koi living in the moat of Ode Castle in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter, who drops a water-summoning scale when defeated. The second is Lucretius, a golden koi who lives in the Trial of Instinct in the Dominion of Hatred; he only fights the party if they bring him one of the two Golden Topknots that can be found, and upon being defeated, he'll hand out a piece of the Cosmic equipment and provide some exposition about how Lucrece ended up in its current state.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Since Cube never battles any standard enemies in his chapter, one might think he'd be unfit for combat, but he's actually one of the best characters in the game as a Combat Medic.
  • Beru in the Prehistory chapter starts out with really low stats and it's generally up to Pogo and Gori to keep her safe. Until she hits level 7 (or level 6 in the remake) and learns "Sing Hurt," which can potentially One-Hit Kill the chapter boss.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: The Near Future chapter is entirely this, with Akira as the storyteller. Even has a bit of He Knows About Timed Hits as Akira introduces you to the gimmick of the chapter being his mind reader skill.
• Level Scaling: Enemies that appear will change based on the level of the characters. This is more apparent in the Near Future and final chapter, as enemies appear in higher numbers and at higher levels once the characters level up enough.
• Lone Wolf Boss:
  • Of the chapter bosses, Streibough is the only one that isn't an incarnation of Odio.
  • Odie O'Bright is the only chapter boss with no apparent followers or minions.
  • The Superbosses of Pogo's and Oboro's chapters are unaffiliated with the main chapter bosses, but still have "Megalomania" as their battle theme.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In the remake's English script for the Prehistory chapter, Pogo's first word is simply translated as "AIEEEEEE!". This, sadly, does little to carry over the original Japanese script's intent of Pogo's first word being "Love" (pronounced "Ai" in Japanese).
  • Among the superbosses in the final chapter is Euraokos, an accidental corruption of the intended "Erauqs", or "Square" backwards.
  • Downplayed example as the line still makes sense on its own. Jackie Iaukea's quote "I'M STRONGER THAN AN OGRE!" when he uses Mano Toss is meant to be referring to its original name, Ogre Grip, hence the ogre reference.
• Lord British Postulate: The final boss of the game consists of two phases, and the transition to the second phase occurs when the Brow of Odio morphs into Purity of Odio once the Eyes and Maw of Odio are killed. Attacking the Brow of Odio before this point just leads it to countering by healing itself and the rest of the boss. However, if it is somehow killed (the main method is to use an overlooked Fixed Damage Attack that doesn't trigger the counter), the second phase will be completely skipped.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • Beating Pluto in Captain Square depends entirely on how often the enemies use their strongest attack.
  • Learning Great Aja's moves. Dude is so fixated with his Bite attack that possesses so much range that he'd use that over and over and over instead of the learnable techs. Fortunately, Masaru learns any attacks he misses when he levels up in the Final chapter.
• Magikarp Power: Beru from the Prehistory chapter. She is unspeakably underpowered compared to Pogo and Gori, especially against the enemy levels you're up against at the time. However, if you manage to carry her all the way to level 7 (or level 6 in the remake) in the short time before she's kidnapped again, she learns "Sing Hurt", a ranged singing attack that packs enough power to ruin Odo in 2 rounds.
• Main Character Final Boss: Oersted, the protagonist of the unlockable chapter "The Middle Ages", loses everything at the end of the chapter after being betrayed by the people he thought were his friends and lovers. He then calls himself "Odio" and vows to take revenge on mankind, sending an incarnation of himself bearing a variant of the name "Odio" as the final boss of the previous chapters. He also appears in the Final Chapter "The Dominion of Hate" as either the protagonist who sets out to Make Wrong What Once Went Right by taking control of the other bosses or as the final boss of the game. The HD-2D remake adds a third form for the final boss called Sin of Odio, which allows Oersted to finally redeem himself by separating himself from the embodiment of his hate and being the one to destroy it.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Oersted as Odio's version of the Final Chapter, Dominion of Hate, has him change history so all of the protagonists lost to their Odio incarnation. He either succeeds, or takes reality with him in loss.
• Meaningful Echo: OD-10's "This ship is my domain, and I its master," is echoed by Odio if the party runs from him at the Archon's Roost: "This realm is my domain, and I its king."
• Meaningful Name: The end-of-chapter bosses are all variations on "Odio", with the exception of Streibough, which serves as a hint toward Oersted's true nature. Odio is Latin for "hate", which also means the final chapter, "The Dominion of Hate," can be read as "The Dominion of Odio".
• Meaningless Villain Victory: If Oersted is chosen as the protagonist for the final chapter and he succeeds in the boss rush against the other characters, he proclaims triumphantly that he's proved his point about humanity being terrible and not worth saving. But it leaves him all alone to wander the dead lands of Lucrece. He is the victorious Lord of Dark, who ends up ruling over nothing and no one. The last shot of him with his head down shows all he's left with is his depression.
• Magic Is Mental: In the original, magic was powered by the IQ stat.
• Moment Killer: In the Near Future chapter, a young couple at the park who decided to get married are suddenly interrupted by Steel Titan rising out of the lake.
• Mook Chivalry: Enforced near the finale of the Imperial China chapter. When the Earthen Heart Shifu and his surviving student reach Ou Di Wan Lee's inner circle of students, Ou Di Wan Lee mentions he could sic them all on the Shifu and student, but doing so would not be very fair. He instead allows the Shifu and student to fight his inner circle (who are all Elite Mooks culminating in a Mid-Boss fight against Yi Bei Kou) in more manageable groups of two and three. Of course, he gets called out on it by the Shifu's student because when he had the other students killed, he absolutely did not adhere to the trope, having his men gang up on them. In the end, it's actually a subversion: Ou Di Wan Lee has two hidden assassins that would kill his opposition unprepared or tire them further so they become easy pickings for him after they catered through his display of Mook Chivalry.
• More Dakka: O. Dio's solution to a few things.
  O. Dio: Two or one, it makes no difference. Another dog, another bullet. And I have so, so many to spare!
• Murder Is the Best Solution:
  • Odie O'Bright kills all the wrestlers that Masaru faces in his chapter to prevent anyone from trying to take his place as the world's greatest warrior. Masaru proves him wrong.
  • OD-10 in the Distant Future chapter decides that killing everyone on the Cogito Ergo Sum is the easiest way to maintain its goal of a perfect community without disorder after watching most of the crew fight and bicker with each other.
• Multinational Team:
  • The remake's localization of the Distant Future chapter gives the Cogito Ergo Sum a multinational crew. Kirk is American, Hor is Scottish, Darthe is British, Kato is Japanese-British, Huey is British-Indian, and Rachel is Australian.
  • In the Final Chapter, the saviors of humanity compose of a caveman who predates modern ethnicities, a Chinese man or woman, three Japanese men from different centuries, an American, and a robot built by a Japanese-British man.
• Multiple Endings: Four in total, and that's not even counting all the dozens of variations there are to the two better endings.
  • Worst Ending: Choose Oersted as the final protagonist, get severely injured during the final battles, and unleash Armageddon, or choose one of the other protagonists and lose the fight with Purity of Odio^note Any of Odio's forms in the remake. Oersted takes his misanthropy to its logical conclusion and annihilates all of reality.
  • Bad Ending: Choose Oersted as the final protagonist and defeat all of the other heroes. Oersted has proven his belief that Humans Are Bastards, but is doomed to wander the ruins of Lucrece alone for the rest of his days.
  • Neutral Ending: Choose anyone except Oersted as the final protagonist and execute him when prompted after his boss fight. Oersted has been defeated and reality is saved, but it is implied that the protagonists are trapped in Lucrece for the rest of their days.
  • Good Ending: Choose anyone except Oersted as the final protagonist and refuse to execute him when prompted after his boss fight. After a Boss Rush against all of his reincarnations, Oersted is brought back to his senses and dies as himself, and the heroes return to their homes to live out their lives.
  • True Ending: Choose anyone except Oersted as the final protagonist, recruit all the other characters at least once, and refuse to execute him when prompted after his boss fight. After a Boss Rush against all of his reincarnations, Oersted and the final protagonist share some words before sending everyone back to their original times with his last breath. In the remake, following the boss rush, a frustrated Odio makes one last bid for victory and absorbs even more hatred into himself to summon the True Final Boss, Sin of Odio, culminating in a fight in which all the heroes participate (including Oersted, who redeems himself at the last second and delivers the final blow).
• The Musketeer: The Prisoner from Oboromaru's chapter's primary weapons are a revolver which he uses for two of his attacks, and his Yoshiyuki katana, which he uses for the third.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Streibough. His failed attempt at getting revenge on Oersted is what caused the latter to turn against humanity and become Odio, the hate-filled Lord of Dark. When you use Akira to read Streibough's mind, he realizes that he is at fault for what has happened to their world and regrets his actions for causing Oersted to turn evil.
• My Name Is ???: In the Distant Future chapter, the first speaking character is ???, later revealed to be Kato, when he introduces himself to Cube.
• Mythology Gag: Added in the remake:
  • In the Prehistory Chapter, Pogo and Gori's running animations are based on the one used in the credits of the original game, where they had unique higher-detailed sprites of them walking profile.
  • Also in the Prehistory chapter, whenever a character talks about another character, an image of them is shown in the speech bubble. The images are based off of the original game's smaller sprites rather then the remake's larger and more detailed sprites.
  • The Chapter Complete medals added on the save files use the otherwise-absent battle cursors from the original release.
  • Oersted as Odio's appearance in his version of the Final Chapter or his Last Stand in the "Hero" versions has him don a cape, much like his design in Holy Dungeon, a Square Enix mobile game he guest-starred in. Additionally, Alethea's knife◊ matches the one◊ featured in her Holy Dungeon appearance.
  • In the Distant Future chapter, the release date for Captain Square is September 2, 1994, the release date of the Super Famicom version of the game. Likewise, the Behemoth's code number is the Super Famicom version's actual product code.
  • The designs of the Near Future cast heavily resemble the ones provided in Kazuhiko Shimamoto's doujinshi retelling of the chapter’s events, particularly Taeko. The Steel Titan also has new animations for its attacks based on their manga depiction, such as Marduk's Rage deploying missiles from its jetpack and the Halogen Lasers being emitted from the red pads on its forearms.
• Nerf:
  • The Powerful, but Inaccurate aspect of multi-hit moves in the original is noticeably cranked up in the remake thanks to proper accuracy and evasion stats being implemented, with many of them now dealing much less consistent damage; this is most visible with Beru's Sing Hurt and Mad Dog's Texas Jitterbug, which lack some of the ridiculous output they had in the original, though they remain viable enough. This thankfully applies to enemies as well.
  • In the original game, stat buffs and debuffs persist for the entire battle unless counteracted, and the presence of moves that affected the "Level" stat (which has a significant effect on every other stat) allowed for various fights to be trivialized if a party member was capable of buffing themselves, or if they could Level Drain the opponent (which could be hard to inflict at first, but after one infliction, their resistance to it gets lowered). The remake's combat changes included applying a turn limit for buffs/debuffs depending on the move, requiring they be used more strategically, and removed the ability to alter level entirely.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: The Lord of Dark turns out to have once been an ordinary knight with no special magic. It's never explained just how he gained his alternate form and reality-warping powers.
• Nightmare Face:
  • OD-10's manifestation in the virtual world. Even more so if you scan the central tile on its body.
  • The pre-final boss, Odio's "Face".
  • Saint Alethea, Purity of Odio's ultimate attack.
• Ninja: Oboromaru is one, and his chapter takes place in the time of Feudal Japan.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts: Due to the Prehistory chapter's gimmick of every character speaking in noises instead of words, it uses the Japanese "voices" regardless of which voice track is selected.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • In the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter, attempting to turn around and run from the castle you're supposed to infiltrate will lead to you being hunted down by your fellow shinobi as a traitor. If you manage to fend off enough assassins, you'll be confronted by your leader, Hayate. If you manage to defeat Hayate, he'll still kill you with a Suicide Attack, ending the game.
  • If, for some reason, you decide to open the airlock in the Distant Future chapter, Cube will be sucked out and you get a game over.
• Not His Sled: In the original game, Odio forcing the seven heroes to fight their respective incarnation one last time was the final battle in the game before the ending. In the remake? After those battles, Odio powers up by drawing all of the hatred of the world into himself, trapping Oersted's body within a massive demonic bodily form called "Sin of Odio". This new form requires all of the heroes to defeat, so if you haven't leveled all seven heroes adequately, this final phase will be difficult. The entirely new segment gets lampshaded by Masaru and Sundown.
  Masaru: So it's not over, huh?
  Sundown: Not by a long shot!
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In the original Japanese, Hong is named Sammo for Sammo Hung. Max Morgan from Masaru's chapter also has an uncanny resemblance to Hulk Hogan, who loses his moustache in the remake.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In the Prehistory chapter, Pogo takes in Beru, who's on the run from the Kuu tribe, and after beating up the invading tribe and scaring Zaki off, Pogo's leader kicks him, Gori and Beru out to the wild out of fear that Beru's presence will cause the Kuu tribe to invade again.
• Non-Elemental: The "Void" attack element does not factor into the game's weakness/resistance system. On the player's side, it's the rarest attack type in the game, with only two associated skills: Hong's "Pork's Second Cooking", a variable Fixed Damage Attack, and Yun's "Whirlwind's Dismay", a multi-hitting attack that debuffs the target's attack and cannot be countered.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Distant Future chapter is largely devoid of music outside of the Captain Square mini-game and the chapter's climax boss, and there's only five human characters in the chapter, which slowly dwindles as the chapter goes on. This is on top of the chapter taking place in a largely empty spaceship with a dark and oppressing atmosphere. There is only one enemy on the ship, and it's an instant game over if it catches you. Naturally, this is the game's horror chapter.
• No, You: Pogo and Zaki do this in picture/emoticon format regarding who's going to lose.
• Nubile Savage: Beru is incredibly attractive (even by modern standards) for an unintelligible, big-eating savage from prehistoric times. Zaki also counts, swishing hair and all.
• Numerological Motif: Many chapters have some feature that involves doing something 100 times. In the Prehistory chapter, examining a specific object 100 times will get you a powerful accessory. The maximum number of kills you can get in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter is 100. In the Near-Future chapter, examining the TV in the orphanage 100 times will get you a short Easter Egg scene. In the final chapter, retreating from battle 100 times will trigger a fight with Optional Boss Death Prophet; defeating it will give you a piece of the Cosmic equipment.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • Due to the remake displaying HP totals in battle for player characters and enemies on the HUD, all moves from the original release that displayed them instead deal debuffs to make up for the redundancy.
  • In the Prehistory chapter, you're given a very small window to train Beru up in battle to get her skills up to Sing Hurt after Pogo and his friends get exiled from his tribe. Due to there being a finite amount of enemies per area until you move to another one, players of the original usually go into the cave in the north-east and quickly exit to refresh the encounters without triggering the story event which removes Beru from the party. This was changed in the remake where entering the cave automatically triggers said event so you can't refresh the encounters, so Sing Hurt was moved to Level 6 instead of Level 7 to avoid locking Beru out of learning it, and the player would more likely encounter this after clearing the entire area of enemies and learn her incredibly useful Sing Heal in the process.
  • In the remake, the final chapter now allows for all of a character's inventory items to be carried over instead of just what they had equipped, with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions is the Robotic Enhancements (consumables that give permanent stat boosts to robotic characters) from the Near Future chapter; this prevents a player from hoarding Robotic Enhancements while playing as Akira (where they aren't critical since Taroimo is plenty bulky already) and getting Akira and Cube as quickly as possible in the final chapter in order to hyper-buff the latter.
• Old Master: The Earthen Heart Shifu. Unusually for the trope, he is his chapter's protagonist, rather than a side character. At the end of his chapter, he dies, and it's his successor who goes on to participate in the Final Chapter.
• Ominous Save Prompt:
  • Mad Dog will lean on the fourth wall to remind the player about saving after the first half of the Western chapter, as this is when the Timed Mission that affects how the chapter boss starts.
  • After defeating the sixth opponent in the Present Day chapter, the save menu will suddenly pop up. Since there's no overworld in the chapter, the game will immediately proceed to the chapter boss once the menu is exited.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The game has a fair number of these, but Odio in particular.
• Once per Episode: The Watanabes pop up once in each era (see Running Gag and Butt-Monkey).
• One-Hit Kill:
  • Attacks that cause stone count. Purity of Odio has the attack Saint Alethea. This is also accessible to the player with Oboromaru's Deepest Dark and Akira's Judgement Day.
  • O. Dio's Gatling Barrage, which does vastly more damage than you'll ever have hit points. In the original, the saving grace was that he could only attack with it diagonally; in the remake, he can now fire it in any of the cardinal directions! With that being said, it now has a visible charge period and only hits the tile his target was standing on when he started charging the move, so it's still manageable.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: The "Level" stat in the Super Famicom version of the game has a drastic effect on all of a character's offensive and defensive attributes and their debuff/status effect resistance, so it has a far greater effect in battle when boosted on party members or decreased on enemies compared to the four equipment-related stats. The remake axes the ability to buff/debuff Level entirely.
• One-Time Dungeon: In the Final Chapter, the Trial of Heart cannot be revisited once cleared.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Ode Iou turns into Gamahebi, a giant frog-like monster holding a cobra.
  • Oersted's Purity of Odio form is actually angelic.
  • In the remake, after the Boss Rush following Purity of Odio, one last form is revealed called Sin of Odio.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: The seven trials in the Final Chapter has shades of this for entering the trial to begin with, differing between each individual character.
  • Trial of Instinct: Pogo's trial, which requires him breaking the ice that blocks the entrance. Once the ice is broken, the trial can be freely entered regardless if Pogo is present or not, though keeping him makes navigating the dungeon considerably easier, as his sense of smell can help you guide the party towards the the location of Pogo's ultimate weapon as well as the location of the optional boss. Having Akira in the party for the trial is needed for getting information about a secret.
  • Trial of Skill: The Earthen Heart Master's trial. Technically, anyone can enter and exit the trial as they please, but the Master is needed to break the rock at the entrance along with the other rocks found blocking the entrance to other pathways which can only be broken by using Earthen Heart skills, the correct one prompted as a hint by the Master. An interesting case of Developer's Foresight happens here as the hint for the Earthen Heart skills is worded differently between Lei, Hong/Sammo, and Yun.
  • Trial of Time: Sundown's trial. A horse found on the southern path towards the Archon's Roost only appears when Sundown is in the party, and interacting with the horse will cause it to run away and lead the party to the trial via a hidden path. Attempts to enter the trial without Sundown in the party will have the entrance to the trial obscured by tree branches and inaccessible.
  • Trial of Keys: Oboromaru's trial and a similar case to Pogo's and the Earthen Heart Master's. The trial can be entered by anyone, but Oboromaru is needed for a ninja enemy called Shadows to spawn, as they drop keys that are needed to proceed. If a key is obtained, then Oboromaru is removed from the party and the party returns to the Trial of Keys, the party members cannot use the keys themselves and require Oboromaru to unlock the doors.
  • Trial of Power: Masaru's trial. The trial is blocked by a mini-boss called the Apophisphilo who can only be fought if Masaru is in the party. Once defeated, the trial is unlocked permanently regardless of the party. Attempts to enter the trial prior to fighting the Apophisphilo without Masaru in the party will not have the Apophisphilo, nor the entrance appear.
  • Trial of Heart: Akira's trial which is more like "Only those with the Powers May Pass". Akira is needed to enter the trial, and unlike other examples, this is done by having him use his Teleport command to flee from battle. The chance it will happen is random where Akira will find himself accidentally being teleported into the trial. As the trial cannot be re-entered, Akira will always be in the party during the trial by default due to his Teleport command.
  • Trial of Wisdom: Cube's trial, which might be better described as Only Smart People May Pass. Entering without Cube in the party will have the party forcibly expelled from the trial. Notably, this is the only trial where this trope is outwardly acknowledged.

You stand within the trial of wisdom. Those who favor strength cannot proceed alone.

• Orphanage of Love: The Bright Sparks Orphanage in the Near Future chapter appears to be this. The children there are shown to be happy and well adjusted, and the matron and Ms. Taeko are kind and caring caretakers. Akira himself has a very high opinon of them, with his only complaint being that they treat him like a little kid.

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