Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Live-a-Live #13 - The Knight's Tale

Time for the secret eighth scenario. The Knight looks a lot like Dart from Legend of Dragoon.




We begin with a tournament. Dragon Quest 4 won't get all the tournament glory!

It's about time I saw a castle in this game. Wonder what the cute queen is doing with that ancient-looking king. ...oh, that's the princess? Nevermind.

Orsted is an odd name, but I'll take it.

"...IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!"

He fights in the tournament. First battle is against this pirate. Nothing too difficult here.

And just like that, Orsted is the Western Conference Finalist. This feels like if DQ4's final chapter had Saro as the main character instead of the hero, and picked up with him fighting in the Endor Tournament (not sure if he fought in it or just bailed)

Special mention needs to be made of this recurring in-joke throughout the game. It appears once in every scenario in some form. A father and his son will wander onto the screen, the father will fall down or otherwise die, the son will start bawling, and...

...the son runs away crying, leaving the father's body there, as everything continues like nothing happened. I don't get this but whatever.

After the dead father is swept off of the screen, everyone continues like nothing happened. Seems Orsted will win the right to marry the princess if he succeeds in the tournament. This really IS DQ4!

But first, he must fight his friend Straybow. Who is NOT an archer... he's a mage. Weird.

(Editor's Note: Turns out this was a mis-translation, or a way too literal one, of "Streibough")

Straybow is also the Eastern Conference Finalist. It's the Championship Round!

I win with little trouble. Orsted then dances around and makes "bawk bawk" sounds at his friend, who has to wallow in his injuries and failure. Time to carry off the princess and start makin' little squires.

Barely knowing each other's names only adds to the kink. Get used to saying that name, you'll be saying it a lot more later on. Hawr hawr.

Alicia gets increasingly turned-on as she talks. You wanna get outta here?

Later, in the castle tower... funky music begins to play.

Wait, what? Don't tell me she's never seen a penis before!

No, wait, it's just a demon. He swoops in and kidnaps Alicia! THAT BASTARD!

It's a big land... she could be anywhere. But she's probably in that dark castle over there. Let the final chapter begin.

The brave... Hash? Apparently this has happened before. There's a Demon Lord and every so often he harasses the kingdom. He chose to do this right on Orsted's wedding night.

Interesting to note that "bride-napping" was a common terrible thing noblemen tried to do in the Medieval age (along with a lot of other cultures at different ages). Even in the late 20th century Uday Hussein was well-known for storming weddings and kidnapping the bride just so he could have her virginity before returning her to the groom.

Huh, that's odd. Hash defeated the Demon Lord, then stopped socializing with anyone.

Imagine that, the people in the castle actually give me equipment. That's right, the people who need you to save them in an RPG are actually helping you to do that, rather than fleecing you on having to buy stuff from them! ERDRICK ISN'T HERE TO FIX YOUR ECONOMY, JERKS!

This sword is small... yet fearsome.

One of the townspeople gives me a REAL sword as I set out. No starting with a dagger and leather armor here.

To everyone's surprise, Straybow won't let Orsted go it alone.

Now I've got a pretty good party going. Straybow has all kinds of offensive spells.

Our heroes proceed to sack various people's houses! Thievery is where it's at in Live-a-Live!

Actually, this is pretty typical RPG behavior, usually because the destitute heroes need equipment so badly due to getting none from the people they're saving.

Our heroes journey across the woods. This sounds ominous.

Speaking of ominous, this door is like something out of Doom. Can't get in yet.

One screen above the forest, things are suddenly snow-covered. This is pretty cool. This scenario in general gives us a lot of standard RPG environments that the rest lacked.

Atop the mountain, we find the gravestone of Hash. So, he's dead?

Nearby is a woodcutter who won't speak. He's got all kinds of weapons and armors in his shack. (I BET HE'S HASH)

Soon after, we run into this guy.

...and he joins us.

The sidekick of a previous legendary hero joining the new one is a bit of a trope in RPGs. He's got all kinds of heal spells.

I go back to the silent woodcutter, who it turns out is indeed Hash. He refuses to help us defeat the Demon Lord again, though, and Uranus proclaims him dead.

But wait! He turns around and suits up for battle!

HASH IS JOINING! HASH IS JOINING!

First four-person party in this game in a WHILE. "Big Sexy" Hash likes to defeat his opponents with the Jackknife Powerbomb, and he'll start with the Demon Lord.

As for why he gave everyone the silent treatment... for some reason he ended up disillusioned with humanity for a while.

Bring him to his gravestone and he vows to stop the Demon Lord. Off we go.

Back at the Forbidden Land, Hash breaks the mountain with his sword Frog-style. So did this game rip off Chrono Trigger or vice versa? We just found a disillusioned legendary hero, recruited him, and had him cleave a mountain so we could get to the lair of the bad guy.

Oh, there's even a creepy cave with bones in it on the way to the castle.

Straybow unleashes attack spells on the enemies here, which mops them up quickly.

Inside the castle, there are statues of the seven scenario bosses. This is eerie, to say the least.

Here's the demon who kidnapped Alicia. Is this the Demon Lord?

Looks like it. The battle is joined!

This guy is THE most difficult fight in the game... and my party is the strongest it's ever been, too.

After several losses, I group the party together so that they benefit more from the area-effect heal spells.

Finally, Hash manages to finish him off since he's distracted by killing Orsted over and over.

I WON! I WON THE HARDEST FIGHT YET! ...wait, what the hell?

More Live-a-Live Posts HERE


2 comments:

  1. This father-son thing is dark. Is it a joke, or a commentary on how human suffering persists from generation to generation?
    I'm impressed at how much the princess was looking forward to her love with Orsted.
    Whoa, nice design move putting that castle right there; I bet the gamers didn't see it until after the kidnapping. I sure didn't.
    "the brave Hash and that priest Uranus" LOL sorry Uranus he thinks you suck.
    Really cool character names. I like this whole chapter all around so far.
    I have a sense of mounting suspense, remembering something's going to happen here but forgetting what.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps the biggest thing I took for this post is how much this game looks like FF5 when there are suddenly castles.

    ReplyDelete