Live A Live

Yes, very cool.

And I'm sorry, but no discussion of Live A Live's music can be complete without Buriki Daioh's theme.

Did I already share the anecdote of how I almost fell out of my seat the first time I heard that song because I started with the Kung Fu chapter, with its mellow chill-out music and everything?

Meanwhile, this song.

I like Masaru's song personally. Could really imagine this being a SF song.

I'm playing throgh this game for the first time. I kinda liked it but I feel the battle system needs work. If they gave you at least a rough estimate of charge times, movement costs, and how powerful skills are it would be far more intuitive. Also, I'm at the Ninja chapter which I really hate. So hard to know where to go. At least I still have the cowboy and psychic chapters to look forward to.

I love the Kung Fu and Robo Chapters. So good!

As for music I like, well, I Wings that don't reach has a special place in my heart.

After playing Live A Live in its entirety, I wish Square would develop a sequel to it, or a remake. (A sequel, in my mind, wouldn't be connected to the original, but rather a new game with new timelines and new lives to play) The Live A Live game in my head would play out as (the descriptions are just basic summaries of the stories featured, as more details are being formed in my head):

Babylonian Age (BABIRONIA!) - Basically about the early city of Babylon and an ancient warrior who must defend it from nomadic invaders who worship the demon-god Odia. Would feature gameplay mechanics akin to RTS games.

Ancient Japan - The story of a ronin who is hired for one last job—to eliminate the warring factions that threaten to tear apart a peaceful town in Tokugawa-Era Japan. Would contain many reference to Kurosawa films, namely Yojimbo.

Colonial America (Salem Witch Hunts) - The story of a young female mystic who lives near a quaint village. When a slew of deaths result in mass hysteria enveloping the town (with many fingers pointed towards our young mystic), she must discover the eldritch truth hidden in the darkness with the use of her own supernatural powers. One part traditional RPG and two parts psychological horror.

The 1940's - The story of a detective who must find the culprit behind the gruesome murder of a politician. However, he bites off more than he can chew when he finds that to do so means to butt heads with the mob family of Odie Orange. An episode that is an homage to the film noir genre, and will require more puzzle-solving skills than actual RPG grinding.

Modern Era - WILL BE ADDED LATER

Cyberpunk/Near Future Era - The adventures of Kamen Rider Defender will be featured here, as an homage to the popular tokukatsu genre in Japan. Will also contain many references to the Japanese Cyberpunk genre (like, the chapter boss would be some sort of Tetsuo: The Iron man expy).

Far Future Era - WILL BE ADDED LATER

Preferably, one where a blind first-time player can tell where to go or how to find most items. Also, it gives you more info during battle, such as how much movement you have left before the enemy can attack.

Aside of the bump... well, shit, those are really solid addition. But you will have to be careful on who is the 'Odio' character. I don't think you can use Oersted again.

Touhou A Live is made by RPG Maker, so if you have other ideas to make a LAL-like game, give it a shot!

Just beat the first 7 stories and figured I should rank them here before moving on to Oersted.

1) Akira's chapter. The most well-handled plot, a satisfying lenght, extremely hype moments (Matsu piloting the Buriki Daiou was THE scene of the game to me so far) and they managed to make even Watanabe into a serious tragic character. Akira himself was a decently charasmatic protagonist and his mind reading gimmick is really interesting, even if underutilized (remake please). It's a real shame I won't use him in the final chapter because he's the Tier Induced Scrappy.

2) Sundown Kid's chapter. A terribly short one but it had its nice moments and Sundown is a very interesting protagonist in the little we see of him. Possibly my final chapter protagonist depending on how much I like Oersted. Also, I love that the boss is a horribly haunted horse weilding a machine gun.

3) The kung fu master's chapter. Not too long nor too short and did a good job in making me care about all the students (whenever Sammo was not being too one note), which is a great thing to do in a story where the player is forced to choose which students die. I trained Yuan.

4) Masaru's chapter. I absolutely loved how every chapter of the game feels so very different from all others and Masaru's Mega Man style chapter was where I felt this aspect the best. The gimmick of learning the enemy's attacks was also amazingly interesting.

5) Oboromaru's chapter. This one definitely didn't age well after Undertale turned its annoying gimmick into an amazing full game experience. I did the genocide run on a walkthrough because it didn't take me long to realize that I wouldn't be able to make neither the pacifist nor the genocide without at least three months of trial and error. The worst part of the game so far was having to do all work to get Orobo, only to need to get rid of it for the very next room. But on hindsight, I'm glad I didn't do the Pacifist Run so I didn't have to deal with it for longer. I'm wondering now, is Orobo The Scrappy for this game or is it just me? Anyways, the chapter was very frustrating and is only as high as it because of the amusing use of HistoricalDomainCharacters.

6) Pogo's chapter. I can perfectly understand the choice of making a whole chapter without any dialogue, and was even amazed at how they managed to perfectly convey their story without words, but it was still a subpar story that didn't benefit much from its silence, not to mention Pogo is a troglodite who thinks with his penis. Exactly what I would expect from a caveman but it's still unsatisfying. On the positive side, I liked how everything in this chapter hits like a truck, both because big number good and because Pogo's high stats must be very helpful in the final chapter. Zaki was also a great rival. Very interesting, very charismatic and very nude. But the biggest problem with the chapter is that you could walk 3 steps on the big field without a random encounter.

7) Cube's chapter. God, all the melodrama with the ship's crew was like a Mexican soap opera.