Nightmare Fuel / Live A Live

DIE, CHILD, DIE_

Live A Live, on the surface, appears to be a Cliché Storm of a Genre Roulette, covering slapstick, martial arts drama and fantasy, among others. Unfortunately, it's all a façade that can and will get ugly very quickly, throwing all expectations off the rails to horrific results.

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General

• Welcome to the Ur-Video Game Disguised Horror Story — way before games or visual novels of similar nature like Doki Doki Literature Club! popularized the genre. Unless you're starting with the Distant Future chapter, there's a chance where you'll pick a chapter that looks innocent enough and not too far-off from the genre they're based on and go halfway into it without seeing even a single horror element...only for the game to pull off the façade to do some of the most cruel and downright sadistic things a video game could do to your protagonist or other characters.
• Odio himself is the scariest character in the game. His incarnations are some of the most evil and horrifying characters in their respective chapters. Whenever his incarnations show up, his Leitmotif, Odio, the Lord of Dark starts playing. It is a haunting melody comprised with bells, organ pipes, and either an Ethereal Choir (original) or strings (remake). Another thing that makes him this game's resident Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant is the implication of his power. As the king of demons, Odio is able to transcend time and space by reincarnating his hatred which can even reach as far back as prehistoric times, to as far as the distant future. He is also a Misanthrope Supreme who is actively trying to Kill All Humans (and human-loving robots as seen with Cube being sent to Lucrece along with all of the other protagonists), and add all of that to the fact that he casually has the power to DELETE REALITY ITSELF and you can easily see why Odio is a very serious threat. His backstory is also horrifying and saddening.

Prehistory Chapter -The First-

• While mostly humorous, the chapter gets a HUGE Mood Whiplash during the climax with the arrival of Odo, last of the dinosaurs and a massive T. rex, who is worshiped as a god by the antagonist tribe, which doesn't earn them any favors as their chief is devoured by the beast just before the final battle. You don't even see it happen, the chief panics, runs off-screen, then there's a massive roar, and something eats him alive before spitting his headpiece back to the characters... before a gigantic shadow steps towards them. And this is just the first boss of the game canonically!
  • If you do the chapters chronologically, this will also be the first time you hear Odio's theme. Hearing that sinister Ominous Pipe Organ after the rest of the chapter had bouncy, carefree Flintstones-esque music just sounds...wrong, and makes it clear early on in the game that Odo may be something more than a mere mindless beast.

Imperial China Chapter -The Successor-

• Doubling as a Tear Jerker, the Shifu is lured away from his home to deal with Sun Tzu Wang... and comes home to find his house wrecked and two of his students brutally murdered, with the lone survivor seriously injured. The way this scene plays out also depends on who survives; if Lei was chosen, you find her beaten just outside the house, which tells you right away something is off, but the entire situation doesn't hit you all at once. If Yun was picked, turns out he only survived because despite being the strongest student, he noticed how outmatched they were, got scared and hid himself, Forced to Watch the others get slaughtered praying he wouldn't become a victim too. In Hong's version, he's knocked out still inside the house just like the others, but the player will find Hong last since he's the only one in the back, so even someone replaying the chapter for Hong could be forgiven for thinking they screwed up and he was dead too.

Twilight of Edo Japan Chapter -The Infiltrator-

• While the Aeon Genesis fan translation has Clockwork Gennai talk about his latest creation and he just needs to decorate it, the official remake makes it clear that he intends to replace the Prisoner's insides with it.
• Gennai himself is also unsettling, as he upgraded his body with something similar to the mammet to prolong his life, which left his brain uncovered. That weird person who runs away from Oboromaru emitting some kind of horrible roar? That's one of his inventions.
• Okame-no-kata (The Relentless Maid in the remake) is a horribly deformed human that will chase down intruders that dare wake her up, and won't die until you defeat her 14 times. The original is even worse, as she falls headfirst for the unlucky victim.
• Lord Iwama, the creepy giant koi fish living in the moat that can be fought as an optional boss. If you don't look closely in the water, it might catch you unawares.
• Majin Ryunosuke, the guardian of the Muramasa. Attempting to take the katana has him appear and tell them to leave. Disobey, and he will demand that they will die, resulting in a difficult boss fight.
• Ode Iou, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Darkness, and his horrific One-Winged Angel form, which resembles a monstrous humanoid toad with one arm turned into a snake. The English voiceover also has Ode screaming in agony as he transforms.
• In the remake, the ending of the chapter changes depending on how many people you killed (possibly a nod to Undertale, whose fight/mercy mechanic was heavily inspired by this chapter). If you go full pacifist or kill as little as possible, the ending plays out like the original, with the sky clearing and the sun rising over a new dawn. If however you went full genocide (100 kills) the sky suddenly darkens and a strong storm rises with lightning striking through the clouds. The game not so subtly tells you that all those deaths are on Oboromaru's conscience, and killing all those people will have dark consequences for the future of Japan.

Wild West Chapter -The Wanderer-

• This chapter is probably the most stressful right after the Distant Future for one thing: it has a strict time limit. After getting full access to the town, you're required to loot the town for various items in order to set up traps before the arrival of the Crazy Bunch. The time limit is only eight (in-game) hours and each hour is implicated by the ominous bell toll. It gets even more stressful when you order the townspeople to set up the traps, some of them taking longer than others, and if you choose poorly, you can see the end result almost immediately after the eight and final toll: seeing this bunch of violent madmen simply swooping through the town from all possible directions with little to no resistance.
• O. Dio, a violent madman and leader of the outlaw gang called the Crazy Bunch. He's the only survivor of the 7th Cavalry, who fell in battle to natives defending their home, and has been driven insane by the losses. He's also strong enough that he can lug around a hand-powered gatling gun with his bare hands. It turns out the 7th Cavalry survivor was a horse, and the townsfolk conjecture that the soldiers' dying rage clung to this horse until it took on O. Dio's shape.

Present Day Chapter -The Strongest-

• Odie O'Bright, the Big Bad of Masaru's chapter, is easily the most unsettling and terrifying of Odio's incarnations. While showing it as fantastical as the rest of the game, Odie personifies a situation that could indeed happen in real life; a Serial Killer targeting and successfully slaughtering a specific group of people. There's seemingly no apparent goal, but it's implied that he wants Masaru to become no different from him just to stop him in his tracks.
  • In the unofficial fanslation script, he even gloats to Masaru that he killed them in various brutal ways. Special mention goes to the one how he twisted Tula's joints in ways nature never intended.
  • Even Odie's introduction is creepy. After defeating all six opponents, you are brought back into the character select screen, but instead of the upbeat music, you hear the Lord of Dark's signature organ theme blaring in the background. All while the character portraits turn to grey and black one by one before completely disappearing from the screen. Then, Odie's portrait appears as the sole final opponent of the chapter with a sick and twisted grin.
    • The remake adds dread to it as red streaks slash across the challengers' portraits, and Odie's portrait appearance is accompanied with ominous droning, as though an actual demon is approaching to challenge you.

Near Future Chapter -The Outsider-

• The conspirators' Assimilation Plot. Innocent people are captured and turned into liquefied people, remaining completely conscious and helpless as they were used as weapons or Human Sacrifices for the god Odeo. Their body count by the time the Steel Titan reaches them? 2,000. None of Odio's other incarnations had managed to kill this many people. They don't even qualify as Well-Intentioned Extremists or vice versa (as shown when the trio are actually terrified of being dragged down by the angry liquefied humans) — it's just a bunch of raving lunatics trying to destroy Japan for no clear motives, believing that they're really the saviors of mankind.
• Before Lawless activates the Steel Titan, you re-enter the world map and none of the Crusaders are present on the map. Then a fire breaks out at the orphanage and the absent Crusaders immediately emerge from there and leave. Once Akira reaches the orphanage, he's desperately trying to find Kaori trapped inside, only to get blocked in by burning parts of the building.
• Finding the room full of liquefied humans in the military facility. Even worse if you read their minds...
  "Help... me..."
  "Give back... my body..."
  • Kazuhiko Shimamoto's doujin of the chapter makes this part much worse, as it shows the liquefaction process with Yamazaki gleefully flipping the switch on a glass chamber of kidnapped citizens, who are forcibly melting in agony.
  • Remember Taroimo being turned into a liquefied turtle to save his life as a robot? Livingstill’s research shows a far darker use of this technology by sending the LH Combat Unit W1 after the heroes, a hulking robot with a liquefied human tank strapped to its back and talks like a robotic zombie. Even worse when it’s revealed after its defeat that this is Watanabe’s father, who after asking Akira to take care of his son, immediately explodes into a bloody mess. The remake adds hefty amounts of residue splattered across the walls when this happens, making it clear that there’s no saving him at all. Akira is understandably horrified by this and immediately tries to attack the conspirators, only being stopped by Matsu physically restraining him.
    • One of W1's final voiced battle-lines is an absolute gut-punch: "I...REMEMBER..."
  • After the Steel Titan destroys the Inko Buddha statue, the lake of liquefied humans devours the conspirators in revenge. The remake makes it look like two giant hands are swallowing them up, and Akira freaks out when they start leaking inside Steel Titan's cockpit like a horror movie.

Distant Future Chapter -The Mechanical Heart-

• Welcome to the Survival Horror chapter — unlike the other chapters, this one doesn't even try to hide what it is doing. It doesn't take long before shit really hits the fan, and once the Behemoth gets loose everything just goes to hell. The tense music doesn't help.
• There's something unsettling about Rachel's Sanity Slippage after Kirk's death, especially with the remake's voice acting. The chilling way she talks with Kirk's lifeless body pretty much spells her start of insanity, which culminates in her trying to escape the airlock just to be with Kirk again (which is actually OD-10's trickery). Worse, while it's understandable that she opens both hatches at the same time (as other crew members won't let her out otherwise), the fact that she's willing to exit without even trying to wear the space suit shows how far she has gone. Love Makes You Crazy indeed.
  • How about that message you can find on her computer?
  Tell me what to do Kirk I know you're in there I know this isn't happening it's not real it's not I did what you wanted why won't you speak to me Kirk please Kirk Kirk Kirk
• The remake seriously beefed up the Behemoth's presence, now possessing a truly imposing set of sprites that give a clearer picture just how screwed Cube would be to be caught alone with it. Just hearing its footfalls approaching is enough to make you panic and dive into the nearest room, and its screech sends chills down the spine.
  • The moment the Behemoth first appears after being escaped is enough to sends chills down your spine. First, you hear rumbling noises and screeching outside the cage and you go look for the source. While there's nothing unusual there aside from destroyed containers, the Behemoth suddenly slides out of nowhere like the creature from Mulholland Dr..
  • The Behemoth has a few fixed encounters right after you leave certain rooms that can catch you off-guard, but in the original game, it moves slowly enough for you to react to and allows you to walk around the room carefully to avoid it. In the remake however, seeing the Behemoth running right into you at a faster speed with the aforementioned noises is enough to be a jumpscare, especially if you haven't played the original. You will probably want to run away from it as far as you can before returning to the destination.
• In the original version, the entire screen goes haywire as Cube tries to access OD-10 through the Captain Square console, complete with threats from the mother computer herself.
• Right before the boss fight, the Captain Square screen glitches, then OD-10 send chilling words through the dark screen. It's even scarier in the remake, as the words are typed slowly to emphasize the dread.
  Original: KILL YOU...
  Remake: DIE, CHILD, DIE
• The battle begins inside of the smashed-up Captain Square game, and one of the first shots is a sudden reveal of OD-10's appearance, which looks like a digital Predator skull staring right at you. If Cube uses HP Lookup against it, OD-10 suddenly grows flesh and turns into a scaly abomination (pictured above).
• In the remake, OD-10 takes over the loading screen tutorials near the end of the chapter.
  It would be in your best interests to stop. This ship is my domain, and I its master.
  • It isn't just the loading screen tips. Shortly after reaching the computer room entrance for the first time (examining the door's scanner will give you the line mentioned above), the "next destination" marker on the radar leads you into a room with leaking acid, and then down into the hold where the Behemoth ambushes you. Both trips serve no practical purpose story-wise, but videogame logic dictates you have to go to both to continue. OD-10 is likely hacking your objective display to lure you into getting yourself killed.

Middle Ages Chapter -The Lord of Dark-

• The chapter starts off as a cheery textbook medieval RPG setting, but things start to darken when Hasshe succumbs to his illness and vomits a hefty amount of blood before dying. Then the colourful setting gets thrown out the following night when Streibough suddenly appears next to Oersted after he supposedly died earlier, and following him to the throne room has Oersted suddenly greeted by the Lord of Dark. One strike later, and the illusion melts away to reveal the King of Lucrece dead, then things go to hell shortly after.
• That hellish rumbling noise that plays whenever the Lord of Dark is onscreen.
• The room before the Lord of Dark. It's filled with seven peculiar statues, then you take a closer look and realize that all of them are the final bosses the previous seven protagonists had fought, hinting that all this time they've been a part of something much greater...
• Alethea's suicide. No reaction shots, no cut to black, all of her plunging the dagger into her throat is shown as much detail as pixels can show.
• The ending. The princess Oersted sought to save is dead. Streibough, the man he thought was his best friend, is dead. The King is dead — by his own hand, no less. Then the Silent Protagonist turns to the camera and begins to speak. And when he finishes, lightning strikes, the eyes of the Lord of Dark's statue begin to glow, Odio's Leitmotif begins to play, and to say everything goes to shit once he shouts the forbidden "O" word would be a MASSIVE understatement. The Fan Translation makes it creepier by having Oersted's font slowly become more twisted after he first mentions Demons.
  "Naught remains. Alone. Utterly alone. Cast out. Unloved. Outside the grace of gods. The Archon's Roost, they call this shrine of death. Yet nowhere do I spy our Lord of Dark. His throne sits empty, wanting for an heir... Did I not do all that was asked? Did I not serve and seek my fair and just reward?! And for my deeds, they damn me. Name me demon. And who am I to deny it? Demon, then! Renouncing former ties and titles! And in their place, I claim... The Lord of Dark. Odio!"
  • After lightning strikes the statue of the Lord of Dark, the credits roll just to hammer in to the player that no, this isn’t a Non-Standard Game Over, this is how the chapter truly ends.
  • Oersted facing the screen during most of his speech can make it feel less like a soliloquy and more like he's somehow gained the ability to speak directly to the player — the only other living person who's around to listen.
• The rumbling noise that plays whenever the Lord of Dark appears? Well, some emulators can't emulate the sound right, resulting in a horrible static sound. More than one person viewing the cutscene on YouTube has said that said static that begins to play after Alethea dies could be interpreted as Oersted screaming.

Finale -The Dominion of Hate-

• The Dominion of Hate is what remains of Lucrece, the kingdom the Middle Ages chapter took place in. It is now eerily quiet. What happened is hinted in a number of places, and then all but outright said in Akira's secret dungeon: Everyone's dead. They either died during the events of Oersted's chapter, or were killed by Oersted as Odio. Even the little kid who still believed in Oersted. It's also all but stated that some of the people in Lucrece died pretty violently. If you try to read the signposts to know where to go? They're unreadable, because they're caked with blood.
  • The remake takes it a step further. Opening up the map shows these locations, but all except Odio's lair, the Archon's Roost, have had their names changed. "The Last Hero's Grave", "Condemned Village", "Silent Wood", and "Seat of the Betrayers". Sends quite the foreboding message...
    • In addition, have you noticed the loading screen tutorials? That's right. DEAD. SILENCE. It's actually quite unsettling when you're in an unfamiliar land with very little information on what's happening, or has happened, and not even the GAME ITSELF is able to tell you anything. One would not be blamed for supposing that Odio truly is in control here...
• "Saint Alethea", Purity of Odio's ultimate attack. The spell displays an angelic-looking Alethea hovering over the targets, before she quickly melts into a horrifying hag with a mouth of fangs while letting out a horrible death wail (a sound so complex that, like Lavos' roar in Chrono Trigger, most emulators have trouble fully replicating it). The remake makes it even more terrifying, as the visage screams with Alethea's voice as the attack plays out, with a dark black hole opening up and a strong sonic boom covering the area of effect. Context only makes the spell even worse: the attack is based on the woman Oersted once loved. He's so consumed by hatred that this is how he sees Alethea now.
  • The remake makes it worse by adding several touches: If you look closely, you’ll notice that the woman/hag is wearing the circlet Alethea had, making it more obvious that it’s her. And finally, the scream actually is voiced, differing between the language setting (the English version gives a pure, unadulterated scream of pain and terror, while the Japanese version gives an anguished Big "NO!"). The implication that Oersted specifically reserved a special place of torture for Alethea's soul with this for what she had done to him is disturbingly high. He may even be punishing her for assisting the heroes by ripping her out of the Trial of Heart and forcing her to become that abomination to damage the people she's trying to help.
• The arena you fight the final boss in. If you look closely, you'll notice that your party is standing on a mountain of corpses (presumably victims of Odio) while fighting him. In the background, Odio's shroud is looming over the entire battlefield, overlooking the party with a demonic face (not to be confused with the eyes and mouth you're fighting), while under an ominous blood-red sky. The remake ups the ante, showing a towering flaming aura coming off of the shroud itself.
  • To say nothing of both forms of Odio itself that you fight. The first form is simply two blood dripping eyes and a face, each covered in vines and flowers and when they attack, they twitch in very unsettling ways. That strange "brow" that stands with it eventually unveils itself as Odio's true, "Pure", self, and it looks like a gigantic demonic baby (due to it being hairless) with red eyes that glow so brightly they seem almost white, clutching itself in a fetal position atop a flower with massive bloody red wings. It's more disturbing when you remember that this is the end result of the pure and good-hearted knight who merely wanted to protect his kingdom and loved ones getting screwed over in the most unfair and heartbreaking ways possible until he snapped and became the embodiment of hatred itself.
  • The remake adds the Sin of Odio as the true final boss, who looks like a giant demon with hatred so strong it burns off its own body with a face that is made of said flame with Oersted trapped in its heart and dragged further in to keep itself sustained as it makes its final desperate attempt to end the heroes. It can do nothing but roar in fury (or is it Oersted screaming in pain?) and the background shows all of its incarnations, making it seem like they are ALL after the heroes at once, with it giving way to a distortion of flaming red like the demon itself as his hatred warps space and time. Worse still is how it resembles the statue of the Past Lord of Dark, only far larger, engulfed in hellfire, and with the appearance of Devil horns, as though the original Lord of Dark - perhaps the first known Odio - is now in complete control. Just goes to show how boundless the Lord of Dark's hate is and how many different terrifying forms it can take.
• In the original, even Odio's death can send you reeling. After you reduce his health to zero, instead of the usual death effect of a boss, the boss and the entire arena slowly dissolve, accompanied by a horrible, unbreaking tornado siren-esque noise.
  • And that's if you play on an emulator that can't render the sound right. The original sound for the death of Purity of Odio is more like an incredibly loud static roar.
• The prelude to the Death Prophet in the final chapter. You're just minding your business, probably running away from battles when things go south. And suddenly, after retreating, the music stops and an ominous message like the Grim Reaper warns you that death awaits those who run away too much, and starts counting down to zero every time you run away. When the countdown reaches ZERO... it comes to you. A black panther monster that can easily turn you into stone. Unless you're the type of keeping count of how many times you run away, the Death Prophet's warning comes off as chilling and shocking.
  Death Prophet: A hundred times you've run, run, run from death... But I am death foretold. Relentless doom. 'Twas cowardice that called me hither, child. Your fate is sealed. You'll flee no more. Now die.
• The Trial of Time sees the player Stalked by the Bell. Get in, find Sundown's ultimate weapon, and get out before the bell chimes eight times, or else you get ambushed by the Jaggedy Jacks. If/when they finally appear, the screen goes utterly dark, except for the protagonists and the Jacks themselves, staring right at the player.
• More subdued than other examples, but the Trial of Skill is rather unnerving. The tunnels are labyrinthine, and you are constantly stalked by the Bountiful Heart. Who is he? How does he know your character? It's never explained. But between his unexplained nature, and his sluggish gait and slurred speech, he's quite creepy. The original is arguably even worse, as he is enamored with the leader he's trying to kill.
• If you meet Odio, the Lord of Dark at the peak and choose to run away, you'll end up back in the void-between-temporal-dimensions where you originally started. Except for one very serious problem: You get severely punished for your hesitation and cowardice by running into "The Headhunter", an optional boss that will proceed to use his Wizenblade to decapitate your party with impunity since his stats are outrageously high.^note But low enough that he can be crippled by a few stat reductions to give you a chance at winning.
  Odio: To flee is folly. This you shall soon learn. This realm is my domain. And I its king. O children, out of time and out of place. Your wanderlust will lead you unto death!
• If you choose Oersted as your protagonist, you play through all the chapter boss fights again... as the bosses. Should your health get low enough, "Run" is replaced with "Armageddon". Choose that option, and Odio ends all of existence, erasing everything in a massive, all-consuming explosion across all time periods, culminating (in the remake) in a gigantic World-Wrecking Wave engulfing all of Earth and beyond. Oh, and the same thing happens if you lose to the final boss. What an incentive to win, huh? The final line after the credits, depending on the version, drives the point home.
  Japanese version in English: AFTER ALL... EVERYTHING WAS BLOWN AWAY...
  SNES Fan Translation: In the end... everything was blown away...
  Remake: Let All Creation Yield to My Command: Let Blinding White Subsume and Cleanse the Slate
• In the remake, choosing Oersted as your protagonist and opening the map of Lucrece shows it covered in blood, with only the Archon's Roost left visible. A visceral visual clue to what happened to the people of Lucrece, if the bloodied signs throughout the land weren't obvious.
• In the remake, Oersted's victory monologue is enhanced by the dub's Voice of the Legion. For as sad as the undertones are knowing Oersted's history, it hammers in a disturbing fact: Odio's battle to Make Wrong What Once Went Right has made evil an inescapable truth throughout time. In that timeline, hate is the only thing worth believing in.
  Odio: Believe in me. You will. You must! For I'm the hero true! Heh heh... I am... I am! Hahahaha! Believe in me! Believe! BELIEVE IN ME! BELIEVE!
  • This gets worse considering that you've just forced all of the protagonists into their very unpleasant Game Over scenarios. Pogo, Gori, and Beru were all devoured before they could return home and start their families, the Earthen Heart kung-fu art has been lost to history with the Indomitable Fist free to reign terror across the region, Ode Iou keeps Japan at war with Ryoma Sakamoto either dead or turned into a karakuri puppet, all of Success was murdered and razed by the Crazy Bunch who are free to invade more settlements, Odie O'Bright continues his bloody onslaught to remain on top of the martial arts world, the entirety of Japan is under threat from Odeo with the Steel Titan defeated, and the crew of the Cogito Ergo Sum failed their mission with no survivors.
  • Kazuhiko Shimamoto's doujinshi for the final chapter shows off a little bit of what would have happened to the heroes during these "loss" timelines. Special mention to Masaru, who has his head gripped so hard it bursts by Odie O'bright.

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"Reflect on your regrets... And bid farewell...To misspent life of sin! You'll live no more!"