Live A Live Part #28 - Welcome to Lucretia.

Part 28: Welcome to Lucretia.

Oh boy, here we go.

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It’s been a long, long time since we’ve heard the game’s opening track. And look, a standard medieval setting! It’s almost like we’re playing a normal JRPG.

In the West… Er… What’s your name again?

It turns out that some goons are about as subtle as sledgehammers, so we’re sticking with Oersted.

In the west, it’s Oersted versus Armstrong!

...Oh dear. I hope this tournament isn’t to the death!

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Oersted starts at level 1, and his basic techs are very straightforward. Cut One Way is weaker and can target in eight directions, while V Shine is stronger but can only target a foe in the cardinal directions.

Armstrong dies in two hits from V Shine; all he can really do is poison Oersted with Monkshood, aka. Wolf’s Bane. Miiiight want to get that treated later.

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And in the East…

...Coming out of the Mecha chapter, that feels just a little bit on-the-nose, y’know?

Now then, before the finals, a word from the King!

Remember, to the winner…

Ah yes, none of this ‘marrying for love’ nonsense when it comes to royalty.

Even though we may be friends… I’ll never forgive you if you go easy on me!

Now then, it’s Oersted versus Straybow in the final match! Begin!!

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Our long-haired pal is a level 1 wizard, and therefore could be easily killed by a kitten as per D&D tradition. I do hope you enjoy the proper battle theme for this chapter though.

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Rrgh…

You’ve won…

Come forward, Oersted!

(Music fades.)

You certainly seem to be… VERY strong.

To Oersted goes victory, and the hand of Princess Alicia! In celebration of these two, on whose shoulders Lucretia’s future rests… A feast! Let us all eat, drink, and be merry!

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Father overdid it a little at the feast, admittedly, but he’s happy to have an heir such as you… Of course, I’m happy too.

From this day forward, even more than Father…

D’awwwww.

Also worth noting is that Oersted is a silent protagonist; even when he was clearly supposed to have said something, we didn’t get to hear it.

Ack, random encounter!

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The Dragnon can spit poisonous fluid to lay down poison fluids, but dies into two hits. Mainly because…

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It was just a distraction!

Welp.

Couldn’t even hold onto the princess for a single night.

There resides, in the Western mountains, a Hero fated to destroy the Demon…

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How is it that the Demon could have come back to life? We have little hope. The brave Hero Hash slew it last time… But he’s closed his heart now, and is living as a hermit in the mountains.

Make your own

jokes, people. Meanwhile, back at the plot…

Thank you, Oersted. I hereby proclaim you the new Hero! Please! Destroy the Demon, save Alicia and return peace to this fair land of Lucretia!!

I’m counting on you, Oersted! I believe in you!

...What a wordy old man. But yes, of course Oersted is going to slay the Demon and rescue the Princess! I mean, she is his wife and all…

It abducted the Queen, who was pregnant with Alicia at the time. The Hero Hash joined forces with a monk named Uranus to fight the Demon, emerging victorious. His Majesty rejoiced, granting unto Hash the title of “Hero.” Despite all this, he still set forth on his self-imposed exile… Uranus left for parts unknown as well. We haven’t the foggiest where he could be.

Thank you, Minister of Exposition. Also, I’d say something about living in Lucretia requiring you to have a ridiculous name, except that Alicia and Armstrong are reasonably normal.

All of the guards come in pairs; the guy directly to the right will say the same thing.

A pair lower down say:

We’re trusting you to save the Princess!

Now, there are a pair of side rooms here. They have items in them.

However! I will not be taking them. Indeed, Reasons™ suggests that we take almost none of the items available to us in this chapter. (Don’t worry, we’ll manage.)

To be fair, it both created a distraction and chose a method of escape that Oersted couldn’t possibly follow. At least we know where it went though.

The lower of the two doors leads out onto the balcony; moving to this corner will actually make the whole kidnapping scene replay in sepia tone.

Like so. We will be seeing flashbacks a fair bit in this chapter.

Gee, it’s like one thing is on everybody’s minds. Almost like treasure on the west bank.

On the left side of this area is the prison, and the right side has the armory.

Don’t forget the swords and shields hanging on the wall!

There’s a whole lot of nice stuff in here, but again, we’re not taking it. Not needing to gather treasure actually cuts down on time spent in this chapter a fair bit.

...Don’t tell me I have to make sprites for all these people. There’s like, eight different people in this crowd of eighteen (which I think makes the population of Lucretia at least half soldiers). And at least two of these people are always obscured by trees.

Unless…

Haha, disabling background layers to the rescue! That’s the first time I’ve ever done that on purpose.

Going from left to right, top to bottom:

Oersted! Take care!

You must be the new Hero!

That’s our Oersted! So manly…! Tee hee!

This sword has been handed down through many generations of my family. Please, take it.

Go on! Destroy that Demon!

Don’t let some nasty Demon get you down!

This might come in handy…

You like it? Go on, have another! Have as many as you like!

You can use This Thing (the RPGC shrine calls it BlueGate) as an accessory, for a whole +1 Vt. Still, might as well get twenty.

I gathered this in the southern woods…

Save the Princess!

The Naorigosa is our staple healing item of the chapter, and unfortunately is single-target. Can boost all your stats though.

I don’t have anything for you… Oh, wait, I know! How about this?

Can’t really afford more than this, sorry…

...That’s okay, really. Please put your pants back on.

My sisters live in the village of Familia, to the southwest.

The name rings a bell. (

)

It’s my treasure, but… Since it’s you, Oersted, you can take it!

It was a present from my woodcutter daddy!

The Joshua Seed is also single-target, but can be used on someone other than the person selecting it. It cures statuses as its added benefit.

I-i-i-i-it’s Oersted! Cooool!!

I’m the woodcutter. I picked up some seeds out in the woods.

The mountain in the southeast is known as Devil’s Peak. No one’s ever been up there except Hash and Uranus…

I’m the woodcutter’s wife. Roundabout the time I’d left to bring my husband his lunch…

Oh no, I’ve completely forgotten! Give me a minute… I’m going to be up ‘til three in the morning worrying about this if I can’t… Oh hey, wait, “three” reminds me of “tree,” so… Tree, tree… Oh, right! See, my husband brought that home, and… There’s an old man in a nearby village who spent all day sitting in the sun. Now, let’s see, what was the name of that village? Errr… I’ll think of it eventually…

Goddamnit, woman!

This is what I get for trying to scam items out of NPCs.

There’s a snowy peak to the West of here called Hero’s Mountain.

We can’t fight, but we still believe that you can bring the Princess back!

Please save the Princess… and all of Lucretia!

Grownups are sneaky! They don’t fight, they just lay it all on the Hero!

...How very perceptive you are, kid.

Be sure to bring back the princess!

Well, that’s all the chatter done and a few bits of gear gotten. Let’s actually get this show on the road!

Literally everyone else in town just gave Oersted a fond farewell. I don’t think you can really say that.

If it’s a Demon we’re up against, then it only makes sense…

I wasn’t aware the man who got second place could call themselves a champion too.

Straybow is very much your typical spellslinger; completely unable to take hits, but with tons of damage-dealing potential. His moves are actually mostly instant-cast too.

Once we step outside of Lucretia, the music settles down into a much more chill and peaceful track. Yoko Shimomura’s “best of” album, Drammatica, had two songs from Live-A-Live; one was the Kung Fu chapter theme linked during that chapter, and the other was Forgotten Wings, a slight remix of Wings That Don’t Reach.

Here’s a Tindeck version too.

Navigation is pretty straightforward, especially since everything is signposted.

But because this chapter is the most like a traditional JRPG, we have good ol’ random encounters for the first time!

Indeed, this chapter actually requires us to do a little bit of grinding.

Straybow and Oersted can handle the forest creatures, but heading straight for Hero’s Mountain would result in a swift asskicking.

So before getting stuck in on slaughtering local wildlife, let’s take a peek at Familia village.

...It’s all of two houses, apparently.

Oh, that must be that one lady’s sister.

Are you really Oersted?

My son’s a huge fan!

Aside from meeting some of Oersted’s adoring fans, this tidbit is good for letting you know you can take the orange flowers. (They’re Naorigusa.) We’ll be leaving those alone too, though.

What a lovely day…

Ah, you must be the old man who likes sitting in the sun.

Neat shield he’s got too.

But enough of that. If we head back to the first signpost, this path north leads to Hero’s Mountain.

Which means that we have to take some time to grind now, unless we want to flee our way up and down the mountain. (The slugs are Thing Eaters. They drain HP, but are squishy.)

...Why are there tiny men riding… whatever the hell those are?

At any rate, the encounters around here have EXP values between one and three, and you’re getting barely anything once your level matches the EXP value. So level three’s where we want to be!

Oersted’s level two move is Plus Link, which hits everything around him.

While Straybow embarrasses his friend by learning Silver Wind, a single-target attack that is basically our caster’s bread and butter.

Alright, good enough. Straybow is going to lag behind Oersted experience-wise by an encounter or two from here on out, because fighting Armstrong gave the knight a headstart.

So off into the rainbow snowdrifts we go!

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RUN AWAY!!

No, seriously. If you see the Nuggiebear, just flee. It will murder you hardcore.

It’s also only got an EXP value of 5, when almost all encounters here offer 4-6. So it’s not even worth it when you are able to kill one! (There’s an encounter with two Nuggiebears with an EXP value of 15, but that’s pretty rare.)

Aside from the Thing Eater already being palette-swapped for the Fang Eater, we have Oersted’s level 3 tech, Hammer Power. It’s a little stronger than V Shine, turns enemies around most of the time, and it targets diagonally. Between those two moves, Cut One Way is now useless.

Straybow’s next tech sucks royally by comparison. Blue Gale apparently hits a 3x3 area (despite what the targeting reticle says) and can stun, but it’s weak and has a charge time. Don’t bother with it.

Cool Bulbs are fairly unremarkable beyond having good damage and rarely dropping Ice Helms, which would be a semi-nice find.

By the way, the whole idea here is “go north”. After the first screen transition, it’s north and then a little bit west.

Right about here.

Oh, hey there Armstrong. Came back to try that whole wolf’s bane business again, I see.

Red Cage certainly looks cool, but unfortunately its damage is highly inconsistent. A random number of flame pillars will be shown in the animation, which means it does a random number of hits. I’ve seen it only put out one pillar before, barely managing double digits.

The Freezines are somewhat dangerous to Straybow, but nothing to write home about.

Hey, long-haired hermit guy! Would you happen to be Hash by any chance?

…

Well, that’s a dead giveaway. We’d better schlep back down the mountain and go back to Familia territory.

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Examining the shield up in the hermit’s hut has relocated the old man.

The warmth of the stove is quite comforting…

To echo Starkclamp (or Adelheid as they’re now known)…

The old LP posted:

I... Are you serious? You just said this, and also you were here looking at this exact one just a short bit ago.

(Music stops.)

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So the Demon has come back…

But afterwards, the kingdom had no use for him, and he was soon all but forgotten. Eventually, he hid himself in the northern mountains, and grew disgruntled…

There’s a moment’s pause…

So then…

That’s right… I’m the monk who fought alongside Hash all those years ago.

Though rescuing the Princess is indeed important, I don’t wish to leave Hash as miserable as he is. If people can’t believe in others, then in what CAN they believe…?

“Believe” is the chapter’s drinking word, if you hadn’t picked up on that.

I still believe that Hash will change his mind!

The Hero Shield is definitely worth grabbing. A minor speed penalty is manageable when it gives +10 defence and +8 IQ.

Oh, and Uranus also steals Straybow’s Leather Boots. He’s an old man, he needs them more.

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As you may expect from an old monk, Uranus is all about religion and healing. God’s Blessing is a 3x3 heal of reasonable potency. Prayer of Healing is single target, very strong and cures status effects. And Voice of God…