Live-a-Live Remastered, Pt 6 - Ohio Chemical Disaster

This was the longest and dullest character scenario, outside of maybe the Prehistoric one. I'd have left it for last, but I'm doing them in chronological order. Either way, this chapter is kind of icky, like a chemical spill.

The protagonist of this chapter can move shit...with his mind. Like that wildly-unlikable protagonist in that AAA game.

He can also read minds, which would be an interesting premise for a whole full-sized RPG.

They really took inspiration from the movie Akira in this chapter, with biker gangs and general dystopia.

Our hero spends his time riding around on a motorcycle with this bad-ass biker dude. Akira is the bitch, and the other guy is the butch.

We get the trippy Super Sentai style intro with GIANT ROBOTS and THE KING OF KINGS.

Akira is a tough street kid. Like the street toughs of Greenwich Connecticut. I've got nothing

Speaking of Triple H references, they're watching wrestling on the TV! It's Misawa vs Mutoh, which would get seven stars in the Tokyo Dome.

I thought Mutoh was the one with the elbow? Or maybe I'm thinking of the Roaring Elbow.

Cool overworld in this chapter. Looks like a modern city, complete with roving gangs to get into battles with. Unfortunately, there isn't much beyond this screen, and it's a pretty small overworld.

Akira has some very strong (and cool-looking) attacks, but he's actually one of the weakest characters in this game overall. It's unfortunate. Second-best healer besides Cube, but he's at the bottom of the rankings in every other area.

Our next stop: This crazy old guy with an antique shop.

He's got A TELEPORTER IN HIS BASEMENT.

This is like in Spaceballs when the President elects to just walk from one room to the next.

New party member alert: A robot turtle-man. The Devil's hands have been busy.

Vaguely similar to the SaGa series, you power up robots by giving them robotic enhancement parts. However, the stat bonuses are quite minor and there aren't many of these enhancement parts laying around.

In the Super Famicom version, these were panties that you could equip on your head. Now it's just a photograph that you can equip. That doesn't even make sense! Does he staple it to his forehead like a hardcore wrestler?

New weapon, 4x as strong as the starting weapon and capable of some furious fisting. The description on this weapon is hilarious.

The goal here is to power up the Super Sentai giant robot. Why? I don't know, to defeat all the gangs I guess. I barely remember this chapter already. The only problem is, piloting the robot requires going through a bizarre series of actions:

First, I gotta touch this guy's "pink elephant". What even the hell?

Well, this is the worst game of Simon Says ever, but a mega-robot is a mega-robot.

That gets me the mega-robot in question. However, instead of using it, our heroes are gonna storm the enemy base on foot.

Weird minigame at this point where you can sell food in the park for fun and profit.

You can then go and collect fabulous prizes for your hard work. What you want are No 9 Potions, which are basically Megalixirs.

I farmed a TON of these, thinking I could bring them into the final chapter and basically have massive healing. Well, no. You can't. They poof after this chapter, so this was pretty much a waste of time. Doesn't hurt to get a couple of them, I guess.

Next up, we charge into the base of the enemy gangs. It's like the Imperial China chapter, except with more cussing and Badass And Keww modern stuff.

The enemy base feels a lot like a Gen 1 Pokémon Team Rocket dungeon, with a checkered floor, narrow hallways, and enemy goons sprinting at you.

Everyone knows who Akira is now because of his street battles. Watch out, he's got a Turtle Terminator at his beck and call!

The bad guys reveal that they're doing some sort of massive project to "liquify" people to make them into a higher being (a fusion of all people). If this sounds like a terrible idea, it's because it is.

They then summon a combat robot! Well, the good thing about the timeline of the game catching up to the near-future is we can start fighting machine enemies.

Quick boss battle. Note the bizarre names of Akira's abilities.

Reinforcements are on the way, so our heroes flee the scene without finishing off the bad guys. Why? Just finish 'em off!

This gives them time to retaliate by burning down our hero's house. Yeah, this is like, a full-on repeat of Imperial China.

After rescuing everyone from the burning house, it's time to activate the giant robot and defeat the bad guys once and for all.

Said bad guys have their own kaiju, though: A massive bird-god statue that they're trying to bring to life.

On the way to battle them, I get to slug it out with...fighter jets? That's right, FIGHTER JETS are now random enemies on the overworld.

This whacko wants everyone to liquify themselves and join the masses of liquified people. Liquifying yourself to join the pool of humanity: The latest Tik Tok trend. The "Liquify Yourself In A Vat Challenge"!

GROSS

All this liquifying of people causes the giant bird god statue to become the latest Odio form..... Odeodeo.

Odeodeo is basically a giant chicken god and you punch it out with him, like that one gag in Family Guy.

My robot unleashes DOUBLE KAMEHAMEHA as Kaiju Battle 2k23 continues!

After a pitched, but not exactly difficult, battle, Odeodeo is sent into the pool of liquification. And so are the other bad guys. Time for them to wallow in the muck of avarice, as Jake the Snake would say.

That's it for this one. Weird chapter, not a whole lot to say about it. Akira is a character who I don't think is all that useful in the finale, and his ability to farm top-tier healing items is basically useless when you can't take them with you after this. It's unfortunate. More on this game later.