Tear Jerker / Live A Live

It might look like a Cliché Storm of a Genre Roulette, but do not be fooled. The game is an extremely dark Disguised Horror Story that will go out of its way to be as depressing as possible.

To set the mood in, have "Cry a Live" on in the background. Loop it for good measure.

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In General:

• Most chapters are exceptionally cruel against whatever character the game decides to set its claws against — expect this to end up to someone over half of the time. What appears to be a series of textbook Cliche Storms will crumble down very quickly to do something way worse than imagined.
• If you took out the comedy from these scenes, the moments where Watanabe's father gets killed may make him feel less like a Chew Toy and more of a Woobie. The Near Future chapter is the most brutal, as not only does Akira personally know this Watanabe, he later finds out why he's at the orphanage; Livingstill turned his father into the Liquid Human W-1, and after having to destroy him, his last words are begging the group to take care of his son at the orphanage. It's implied Akira never tells Watanabe about his father's fate.
• Yoko Shimomura's album memória! gives us a lyrical version of "Megalomania". They seem to be in the perspective of Oersted during the end of his chapter, and it shows.
  It's no game, live or die
  No time for losers, beat the beast, keep on fighting
  Let's get down, now's the time
  The past is gone, I can't look back
  I have no love, all I see now is sadness
  Sky has no mercy, every day is so dark, just cry, cry, cry
  I have no one, all I have now is you
  Somebody save me cause I wanna be free, I try, try, try
  Where to go? Who to be?
  Losing my time eating me up inside
  Let's get up, rise to shine
  It's now or never, I cannot go back
  But where's my hope? All I see now is darkness

The Prehistory Chapter:

• While Pogo's Chapter is comedic gold, the chapter moves into heartrending territory after Pogo saves Beru from Zaki the first time. The trio jumps for joy, until Pogo's Chieftain says that Beru can't stay in the tribe. Pogo tries to defend her, which angers the Chief, resulting in getting himself, Gori, and Beru exiled. Fortunately, at the end of the chapter, after the trio, along with Zaki's help, kill Odo, the Kuu and Pogo's Tribe make peace, allowing for the trio to come home.
  • This is also the first chapter chronologically where Live A Live's signature sad song, Cry A Live, starts playing. It is a melancholic theme that plays when something depressing happens during a Chapter from this point onward. Here, the song plays after Pogo gets exiled and before he finds a cave to rest. It is used to probably symbolize that Pogo is lamenting of getting himself and his friends exiled from his home.
• After Pogo and his allies defeat Odo, before he departs the screen, Zaki takes a moment to look down to his father's crown (all that's left of him) and mourn. For all that the Kuu Tribe's leader was a bastard, he was still Zaki's father.

The Imperial China Chapter:

• The story of the chapter is based around an ancient martial arts master who reforms and teaches three young thieves, and teaches them his style of fighting. No matter what you do, though, two of them are killed in a brutal attack from a rival school.
• This gets even worse on a second playthrough: the one who survives is the one who got the most training, because that one was well-trained enough to be able to get through the battle alive. No matter what order or how evenly you split the amount of training between them, there will always be one student who ends up with an extra day of your attention before the attack. The two students you don't choose for that extra day? They die. Which means you — no, not the Shifu, you, the player — are choosing which one lives.
• After the attack, the Shifu revisits the graves of the fallen students and expresses his sadness and regret over what happened to them. He wishes he could teach a lot more to Lei, or make Hong proud of his portly body. But the most heartbreaking one is Yun's... since the Shifu believes it was his fault that he taught Yun to be brave to the point that he died.
  • Yun's scenario is made worse because the only reason he survived is that he hid while Lei and Hong were killed and thinks that makes him unworthy of being a pupil of the shifu.
  • If Lei is the Successor and you initially try to refuse to let her join the battle against the Indomitable Fist, she becomes surprisingly vulnerable as she admits that she feels responsible for Yun and Hong's deaths, as they died trying to protect her.
  • If Hong was the one given the training, he was Playing Possum in the hopes that the Indomitable Fist could leave them alone and he blames himself for doing something so cowardly.
• At the end of said scenario, after the pupil eventually proves himself/herself capable of kicking Ou Di Wan Lee's ass, the Master tells him/her how proud he is and dies due to his wounds from Ou Di's assassins, in front of the pupil, rejoining the dead pupils. The pupils' reactions would really invoke sadness, especially when said pupil is Lei, who usually presents herself as a headstrong, impulsive girl, broke down screaming and for once called him 'Master', not just 'Gramps'. In the remake's English dub, you can hear Lei's voice wavering near tears as she realizes that he's going to die. In the Japanese dub, she holds herself together up to the point where he dies, where she screams her heart out.
  Lei: Shifu? SHIFU!!!!
• The worst part is that the game spells it out right that the shifu was going to die soon, so knowing what's going to happen makes the ending much more bittersweet.
• When the credits roll and the inheritor takes a stroll to the town, eventually they will visit Yun's grandmother. If the inheritor is Yun, it's all nice for Yun to report on how he has grown. Otherwise? Imagine how Lei or Hong try to report the heavy news that her grandson is dead, or at best being at peace in the afterlife, and perhaps they still feel responsible of how Yun died.
  • The game also gives a lot of attention to Yun than the other two disciples that will make you feel really bad for not letting him survive. Not only is he the kindest and most modest of the three, there's also a cutscene that shows Lei and Hong collapsed on the ground while Yun was training outside at midnight, while the Shifu compliments him (It won't change based on who's your favored disciple). Depending on your choice, all his hard work could be for nothing in the end as he dies anyways.

The Wild West Chapter:

• The Sheriff reveals the history of Sundown: originally a cocky gunslinger, his pride eventually lead to the deaths of everyone he ever loved. He put a bounty on his own head because he's looking for someone to kill him. Thankfully, the experience of stopping O. Dio and saving Success alongside Mad Dog gave him a reason to live again, and he rides off into the sunset with a newfound resolve.
• Comply to killing Mad Dog, we dare you.
  • Should he fall in battle after being KOed, Mad Dog might call out to Kid. Made even worse if you choose Oersted for the Dominion of Hate.

The Present Day Chapter:

• The six challengers being killed in cold blood by Odie O'Bright. While they may have been abrasive and talked up a big game, most of them end up proving to be graceful about their losses, and the only one who isn't is supposed to be a Heel fighter. Their ultimate fate is being murdered by a sadistic Serial Killer who seeks to challenge Masaru after he defeated all of them, something none of them deserve in the slighest.

The Near Future Chapter:

• It begins with Akira telling the story of how he watched his father die. It gets worse when we get to the end of the chapter. As Matsu lays dying from Matango overdose in trying to control Steel Titan, Akira reads his mind and Matsu reveals the truth — he killed Akira's father in a stand-off, and the shame of this caused him to quit the Crusaders and raise Akira and Kaori as atonement.
  • Taeko's voice starts breaking down as she begs Lawless to rest, but knows that deep down that he's going to die. This gets worse in the manga adaptation, where it's clear that both of them were in a Secret Relationship and Lawless gives Taeko a Last Kiss before passing away. At the end, Akira is driven by grief to yell Get Out! to everyone and go to Nippori to kick ass.
  Lawless: Sometimes you gotta own up to your mistakes, consequences be damned. Am I... am I right? (collapses)
  • Before that, Kaori, Akira's sickly sister, offers herself to be liquified to power the Steel Titan so she can finally help her brother save the day instead of dying of her illness. Akira, having seen the suffering of those held in the facility, begs her not to go through with it.
  Kaori: (as "Cry A Live" plays) I mean it! I can do it! I'm sick all the time anyway, so it doesn't matter what happens to me anyway! But if you turn me into a liquid and put me into the robot then I can be with my brother forever! Forever and ever! (weakly) Forever and ever...
• The end of the chapter is bittersweet at best. Sure, Akira stopped Odeo, but all of the liquified humans are stuck as they are, Watanabe will never know that his father was turned into liquid (and Akira had to kill him) and the future is uncertain for Kaori. The only bright side is Akira inheriting Matsu's bike and taiyaki shop.

The Distant Future Chapter:

• Kirk's death comes soon and without much warning, leading Rachel to snap and end up dead herself. The game's description of his body if you choose to examine it is heartbreaking.
  Kirk's body lies motionless in the bed. Devoid of life and energy and possibility. Almost childlike in his vulnerability. His skin grows paler by the moment, as if color is desperate to flee the empty vessel.
• One of the crew members is a guy named Huey, who the game goes out of its way to make sure suffers. For starters, his girlfriend left him for the pilot, who went out of his way to Kick the Dog and remind him of this fact. Then when Kirk bites it, he's accused of killing Kirk to get his girlfriend by said girlfriend. When the Behemoth breaks out and attacks Rachel, he distracts it, dying in the process. After his death, you enter his room and find that he took exams to be a captain on his computer. The very next message? "Greetings. We regret to inform you that you did not pass the exam for qualification as a ship captain. The next exam period is in six months." Then you enter the captain's quarters and read his assessment of the crew. Guess whose name is on the list for being fired? Oh, and his ex-girlfriend doesn't survive the chapter either, so his death was pointless.
• If you check Rachel’s cryo pod right after the prototype Cube turns it off in the remake (before going into Kato's room), you're rewarded with an easy-to-miss scene of her death; upon entering the cryo room, a flatline can be heard as Cube realizes what’s happened. Cube then quickly turns the cryo pod back on and mourns for Rachel for a moment, knowing that he was far too late to save her...
• Throughout the chapter, Darthe acts callous and hostile to Cube, dismissively referring to them as clank and even physically assaulting them at times. However, as Darthe, Kato and Cube are left the only surviving crewmembers, Darthe begins to warm up to Cube, and once OD-10 is defeated, he finally reveals the reason why he was so hostile to Cube: when he was young, there was a Robot War, and he saw many of his friends be torn apart by machines, an experience that left him with strong distaste for robots. He even adds that Cube was lucky to be born on the ship instead of being made in the war factory.
• This chapter's ending is much more bittersweet when compared to others. While there's solace in the fact that Cube, Kato and Darthe made back to Earth alive, the latter resigning from the military and choosing to dedicate his life to creating medical robots, but Captain Hor, Kirk, Huey, and Rachel are dead, and the mission to deliver the Behemoth to Earth ended in a failure, meaning that their deaths were in vain, all because the ship's A.I. system couldn't stomach them arguing with each other.
  • Even OD-10 gets its own somber moment as it gets defeated and has its A.I. sequestered by Cube, as it spends its last moments lamenting that it only tried to do what it was programmed to do, genuinely not understanding why humans were so hostile to each other and undermined its own primary purpose. The way it says its last words makes this homicidal A.I. sound truly pitiable as it expresses its inability to understand humans.
  OD-10: To safeguard my domain... To ensure the safety and well-being of the crew—this was my primary directive. But when I observed my subjects, I saw only pain. Distrust. Discord. Resentment. Hate. The community was beyond repair. The community had become an impediment to the vision. I could not reconcile this contradiction. I could not... comprehend... these... people...

The Middle Ages Chapter:

• "As long as there is still one person who believes in you". Oersted clings to those words for dear life, when the kingdom believes he is the Demon King. And when he finally reunites with the princess, only for her to ask why he didn't try to rescue her (he did, above everything else), cries for Streibough (who betrayed Oersted completely), and commits suicide in front of him. Is it any wonder Oersted snapped?
  • The remake translation makes this even worse by changing the Arc Words to "Inherit our cause. Keep the faith. Forgive." Oersted inherited the mantle of a hero, but by the end his faith in humanity is completely broken due to his best friend's betrayal and his love abandoning him for said friend and killing herself, and he ends up consumed by his anger and hatred towards his fate and the despair of losing everything he cared about, no longer able to forgive the people who shunned him and ruined his life.
• It gets worse if you name Oersted after yourself. Kids back in 1994 tended to name their Hello, [Insert Name Here] protagonists after themselves, meaning that they're in for quite the surprise when they get broken down in what can be summed up as one of the most depressing and hopeless RPG scenarios in history and turned into the villain. Mind you, back in the days, most RPG villains were Card Carrying Villains, villainous Flat Characters or are a case of Adaptational Villainy if the RPG in question was based on a real story, and the hero of any fantasy setting is often unambiguously on the side of good, so this can come across as shocking.
• After being banished from Lucrece, Oersted will begin to encounter the soldiers as random encounters. When Oersted hits them, they'll be inflicted with the fear status, showing how much they fear him for apparently being the Demon King. Also before you escape from the dungeon, the music that plays here is Cry A Live which isn't too surprising, but unlike Pogo's chapter it keeps playing in battles which doubles as Sad Battle Music; imagine how sad and horrified the soldiers are to learn that the hero they always believed in is the actual demon king, and that they, as normal people after all, fear their lives and don't want to die in the demon king's hands.
• Uranus using the last of his strength to free Oersted from his cell before dying, entrusting him to defeat the demon king and find the real culprit. It is made much worse when Oersted turns into Odio and despises humanity in the end, meaning that his trust was All for Nothing. The fact that he is pretty much the only individual who doesn't hate him after he was tricked into commiting regicide (besides the boy in the village, who he might not care about as much) doesn't help. When reading his soul's mind in Akira's dungeon, he seems to be disappointed in Oersted.
• Hasshe is introduced to the story being very cold and misanthropic, but after a while you learn that this is because of the stigma of being the hero. After he dies and knows that Oersted has become Odio, he laments that Oersted/Odio becomes even worse than him.

The Dominion of Hate:

• You can only have four characters in the party, including the one you choose as the protagonist. If full, you have to dismiss a party member to make room for another character. Most of the characters are pretty chill when you dismiss them with some even telling you to come see them again if you need them. On the other hand, if you dismiss Cube, they will make a lower pitched tone of their regular sound as if feeling dejected and saddened you don't want them.
• You can mind read a bunch of spirits in Akira's dungeon from Oersted's time. One of the spirits is the little boy from the small village who still believed in Oersted even at the very end. Oersted thought there was no one left that believed in him as a hero and became Odio... but there was. The little boy never stopped believing.
  • This point gets sadder when you consider things from Oersted's perspective. Although the player knows that the boy's faith in Oersted is never shaken, Oersted would've had no reason to believe his faith would last due to his mother and father branding him a demon like everyone else in Lucrece. While this does not excuse Oersted/Odio trapping his soul amid the annihilation of all of Lucrece, it at least explains why he would be found in Akira's trial.
  • Alethea is absolutely ashamed of herself, her sprite looking like she's in perpetual mourning. If she didn't kill herself or said she loved Streibough, who knows if Oersted would've been able to find peace? And the worst part is that she knows that it's all her fault and she will have to carry this sin for the rest of eternity. Thankfully, this gives her the motivation she needs to become The Atoner and do the right thing by helping the heroes stop the man who was once broken by her own actions.
• If you play this chapter with Oersted/Odio as the protagonist and win against the heroes without using Armageddon, it reveals that even after falling as hard as he did, Oersted has finally realized that it is Lonely at the Top. He visits places like the courtyard where he and Streibough dueled, the nearby village, the dungeon he and Uranus were imprisoned, and Hasshe's grave, implying that deep down, he still longs for his friends and the past days when he was still happy with his life. The last shot is of Oersted hanging his head in loneliness and either the words "Sad End", or in the remake "Alone, Victorious. Thus ends his tale.". Pretty powerful, even for someone who curses humanity.
  • This ending is even more painful in the English version of the remake. Odio proceeds to bask in his victory... but if one listens closely, his monologue sounds less like that of a demon and more like a broken knight who had lost everything asking for someone out there, anyone, to believe in him again.

    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!

  • Sometimes, when defeating Purity of Odio, he will shout something familiar as he dissolves to shadow. "BELIEVE IN ME! BELIEVE!" While there is a bit of catharsis at defeating the source of all evil, hearing him cry out for someone to believe in him is a sad reminder that deep down, Odio is still Oersted.
• Indeed, there is no good ending for Oersted; at best, he gets a Bittersweet Ending. If you win as him in the final chapter, he is left alone as described above. If you lose to Pure Odio, or choose Armageddon as Oersted, everything in all times is destroyed, Odio and all his incarnations included. If you defeat Odio and choose to finish Oersted on the peak, he dies with Alethea's name on his lips. And if you spare him and defeat his final onslaught, he learns more of the human spirit, but still dies, cautioning them with his last words that anyone can become a demon, like him (at least this one gives him Dying as Yourself status).
• The remake lets Oersted have a bit of a happier ending, but after what he went through these small moments are powerful. In the throes of his Sin of Odio form, the seven heroes fighting manages to reawaken Oersted's spirit. But even as he breaks free from his hatred and delivers the final blow to the Sin of Odio form, he still is wracked with guilt over his actions.
  Oersted: "Are these my hands, stained black with blood and sin? What wickedness I've wrought. And all for what?"
  • The Sin of Odio's strongest attacks are coupled with a loud scream that sounds less like something ancient and fiendish attacking heroes, and more like someone in unimaginable emotional and physical agony lashing out at anything they can find to try and make the pain stop.
  • If Pogo is the main character in the remake finale, he does something else besides his usual loud shout. He gives poor Oersted a sorely needed Cooldown Hug. The way Oersted gasps after Pogo is done hugging him is absolutely heartwrenching and it almost sounds like he's going to burst into tears at the show of affection.
    • It gets sadder when you realized that Pogo, due to coming from an era where the smartest person alive has mental power comparable to a preschooler, is pretty much a child in both the physical and mental sense. It could be possible that he himself doesn't fully (if at all) understand the pain Odio, or Oersted in this case, has been through and is only acting nice because it's just in his nature to be kind to (what could very well be in his P.O.V.) a fellow caveman in suffering, even though he could never comprehend why.
  • If Akira is the main character, he has no patience for Oersted's lamenting, grabbing him by the collar and taking several deep breaths — presumably to try and calm down — before tearing into him with his own speech. But despite that, it sounds like Akira is trying really hard not to cry himself.
  • If Oboromaru is the main character, he gets one of the more shocking responses — Oersted agrees with what he has to say and quotes a similar part of Hasshe's dying speech, but notes that he can't remember who told him that. It's possible he fell so deep into being Odio and hating humanity that he's forgotten the good he saw in people like Hasshe and Uranus.
  • If the Sundown Kid is the main character, he admits that he's been alone for a long time and has come to miss having friends, companions, and somewhere to call home. In turn, Oersted admits he feels the same way as well, and despite everything he misses his own friends and companions so much.
  • Even the Final Boss theme in the remake, "Gigalomania", sounds more tragic than it does intimidating or triumphant, fully communicating how thoroughly destroyed Oersted/Odio's sense of self was by his rage and hatred against the world for the sheer misery he was put through.
• In the end, even after Odio's defeat and the curse over Lucrece is lifted, it's still made clear that absolutely none of her people are coming back after Odio's onslaught, leaving the bright and hopeful kingdom to forever remain a Ghost Town and eventually disappear as time rolls on.
• If you kill Oersted right after defeating Purity of Odio, turns out when he still held his sanity, Oersted still loved Alethea as he uttered her name in death. And in turn, some of your protagonists, especially either the Earthen Heart inheritors or Masaru, makes a sad remark wondering if it was the right thing to do. Worse, while Lucrece would recover, the heroes destroyed their only way to return to their respective times. Pogo would never be with Beru again; the Earthen Heart inheritors cannot even pay respect to their Shifu anymore and their style would be forgotten due to their disappearance; Oboromaru will never be able to fulfill his promise with Sakamoto Ryoma (and he'll end up getting assassinated without Oboromaru to protect him) or take on missions from the Enma clan again or even make amends for the people he (optionally) killed through his mission (the thunderous clouds in the remake is going to hang around him forever); Sundown Kid will never see the people of Success Town flourishing again or encounter Mad Dog with his renewed vigor again; Masaru won't be able to defend his title as the Strongest again as eventually his title will be forfeited due to his absence; Akira can never visit his orphanage, Tobei and the Steel Titan again; Cube will never meet Kato and Darthe again, nor will he be able to witness Earth from his time period. They're trapped forever in Lucrece, and the cycle of hatred will continue. That's your neutral ending, folks. A bit better than the bad ends, they said...
  • One of the most heart-rending quotes in this section comes from Lei, who realizes to her horror that she's succumbed to her worst instincts, and has once again made the choice to attack another human with the intent of completely destroying them. All she can do is beg to her fallen master that she hasn't made a mistake.
  Lei: Dammit. It's all wrong... This isn't me. This is who I used to be... Tell me, old man... Tell me I did it right...

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