The world of Mamouna was once a lifeless place, until one day a flower appeared at the bottom of the sea. The source of all plant and animal life, it came to be known as the Mother Flower. But a mysterious enemy appears and corrupts the Mother Flower, from which dangerous creatures and monsters now spawn.
Deep in the Rondo Forest lives Kitsch, a young foxgirl training to succeed the Chief as guardian of the Beastfolk. After a corrupted mole attacks the Chief and her friends, she vows to make him pay, embarking on a journey that before long leads her to the evil's source...
Linkle Liver Story is a (mostly) sprite-based fantasy action-adventure title for the Sega Saturn developed by Nextech and published by Sega that was released in 1996, but only in Japan. While little-known, it garnered a loyal-enough cult following that a team of its fans created an English translation patch
that was released in 2019.
This game provides examples of:
- Character Portrait: All characters who talk have one. Most include different expressions for different emotional states.
- Clock Tower: The game's first dungeon, the Mysterious Clock Tower, is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Though to contribute to its boss fight, the clock face points toward the sky so its hands can bludgeon Kitsch as they spin.
- Disconnected Side Area: In the Mermaid Caves, the edge of walkable terrain can be seen across bodies of water that are too wide for Kitsch to jump across. Heavily downplayed in that she only needs to take a couple switchbacks to reach it.
- Engrish: The title is presumably meant to be "Wrinkle River Story", but the "official" transliteration is what's found in the main menu. The fan translation team decided to keep it that way for their own release.
- Fetch Quest: A mission that unlocks after beating the first dungeon requires Kitsch to collect ingredients for a potion that lets her enter others' dreams.
- Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Naturally, one of the areas in the Land of Four Seasons.
- Giant Hands of Doom: The Mermaid Caves' boss is one of the giant stone variety. He also attacks by hopping around with his Easter Island-style head, which can leave Kitsch Squashed Flat.
- Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: Inevitable when the characters are only 64 pixels tall.
- Gravity Barrier: Some bluffs against the water are impassable. Others are not.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: An unintended example. Kitsch initiates dialogue simply by walking up to NPCs, which causes the game world to pause while the text box is on screen. In the Mermaid Caves, Kitsch can even do this mid-jump over a body of water. You can guess what happens when the NPC's spiel wraps up.
- Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: In just the starting area, we have small stumps, mushrooms, flowers...
- It's All Upstairs From Here: The aforementioned Mysterious Clock Tower—Kitsch starts at the bottom, fights the boss at the top. Unlike most examples of this trope, it shows up near the start of the game rather than the end.
- Noob Cave: The Mysterious Clock Tower. Befitting the first dungeon, the only motile mooks inside can't even attack after they sidle up to Kitsch—she can only be damaged by bumping into them herself.
- Polluted Wasteland: The Land of Spring starts out as this thanks to the smog spewing from the top of the Mysterious Clock Tower.
- Pre-Rendered Graphics: The opening cutscene that explains the history of the world and the Mother Flower.
- Respawn Point: A special symbol becomes this if you touch it.
- Rubber-Band A.I.: Inverted. When Kitsch runs a footrace with the Chief at the start of the game, he will stop and wait at certain parts of the track no matter how far behind Kitsch may fall.
- Save Point: Hitting Start on the world map prompts you to save your progress. Not that anything in-game tells you that...
- Sprite/Polygon Mix: A few trees, the taller rocks, at least one boss, and the world map are made of polygons while everything else is sprites.
- Three-Quarters View
- Voice Grunting: All character dialogue is presented as text with standard beeps and boops. The only voice acting is Kitsch's shocked "Ouch!"
- Whack-a-Monster: Chief tasks Kitch with attacking his staff when it pops out of the ground at random in the game's tutorial.
- World Tree: While not actually a tree and located deep in the ocean, the Mother Flower serves as one by giving birth to all life, plant and animal alike. Though now it has become corrupted and births only monsters...
