Live A Live, the unique SNES RPG that recently earned a high-quality remake, is full of all kinds of settings and characters. The game is divided into chaptersthemed around different time periods, and each one tells a different story with different gameplay mechanics. It’s a creative feast for the senses.
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On top of that, each individual chapter contains lots of little secrets. Some are references to the stories that inspired the game, and others are rare encounters that take some elbow grease and a little luck to discover. Listing them all would take quite a while, so here’s a brief collection of ten fun secrets that are easy to miss.
10Rock of Rocks
One of the most well-concealed secrets appears in Prehistory. After a certain point in the game’s story, a strange head-shaped rock becomes interactable but appears to do nothing. It only has an effect if the player activates it exactly one hundred times - more than that, and the count starts over. Fortunately, it makes a noise when the hundred activations are complete.
Doing all that triggers a cave opening on the west end of the area. Inside is a black monolith - a reference tothe scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Completing the reference with a thrown bone rewards Pogo with the Rock of Rocks, an extremely powerful accessory.
9Peach Bun
A short, unique scene occurs in Imperial China after saving Yunfa from a bandit attack. Talking to the villagers causes them to reward the player with items, including some unique accessories. That’s not much of a secret on its own, but there’s an extra scene if the player talks to the woman on the right.
The woman invites the Shifu into a nearby building and offers him a “wonderful reward.” The Shifu tries to decline but ends up accepting the marvelous surprise:a peach bun.
8Mimic Mammet
The Twilight of Edo Japan chapter is one of the most complex and is loaded with secrets befitting a ninja infiltration. One of the most significant comes just after the puppetmaster fight: a slot in the wall with no obvious purpose. Placing three coins (called “koban” in Edo Japan) into the slot opens a secret room further south.
The room contains a whole new party member: the Mimic Mammet. Defeating it in battle adds a copy of Oboromaru to the party. Be advised that it dies instantly after a long fall or upon entering the castle moat, and also that the room takes one more koban to let the player out safely.Besides being a cool find, it’s also an essential part of the zero-kills route.
7Annie’s Diary
In the Wild West, the main activity is searching the town of Success for materials to build traps. There are some strange items hidden around town. One of these is hidden in an upstairs room in the saloon, in Annie’s closet. Trying to get it, however, makes Annie immediately run into the room to stop you.
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There’s a way to keep her from interfering, though. Assigning her to set up a trap keeps her attention away from her room, letting players claim her item: a diary considered a piece of armor. It’s decent equipment and includes a special reaction for trying to give her the diary as a trap to deploy.
Some chapters have different endings depending on how they’re played, such as Imperial China, in which the player can choose which student becomes the next Master. A lesser-known variation is the Wild West. In the final duel with Mad Dog, the player is allowed to flee.
Choosing this option ends the encounter with Mad Dog leaving the scene. Otherwise,the player is forced to kill him. If Mad Dog survives, the ending of the chapter is extended with a bonus scene and combat encounter.
5Worldbreaker’s Wrath
In the Present Day chapter, the player learns new attacks by being struck by them. Each of the six opponents has two moves to learn, which are listed in their descriptions. There’s also a secret bonus attack not listed in-game. It’s a third learnable move held by sumo wrestler Jackie Iaukea.
It’s a tough move to learn. Besides not being listed, he won’t use it unless his limbs are crippled from Tula Han’s grapples. Even after that, the player has to survive the hit to learn the move. If everything works out,the reward is Worldbreaker’s Wrath, a powerful area attack. It’s not a big deal to miss it here, though, since it can also be learned later.
4One Last Restroom Trip
During the Near Future story, there’s a segment when the protagonist Akira waits in the bathroom for Watanabe to steal items from the orphanage matron Taeko. This scene is required for the scenario to progress and has the player continually return to the bathroom as Watanabe steals a variety of things, ending when Taeko wises up and catches them.
Many players simply leave here, but going back into the bathroom one more time after being caught causes Watanabe to show up with Taeko’s Secret Stash, their original objective. It’s a useful armor accessory, which is odd for a stash of pocket money, but in the original game, it was Taeko’s Panties,which Akira would wear on his head.
3Deactivated Robot
As the horror-themed plotline of the Distant Future unfolds, it’s possible to find little details and alternate routes that flesh out some of the strange happenings aboard the Cogito Ergo Sum. Sometimes characters will be working in different places around the ship, with different comments to make about their situation. Other times, some equipment will be out of place, suggesting sabotage.
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At one point, an eagle-eyed player can find the impostor themselves early on. In the storage room on the third floor, a deactivated robot sits. It looks like a copy of protagonist Cubeand is the true villain’s puppet, used to cause several acts of sabotage around the ship. There’s no reward, but it’s a cool detail.
2Armageddon
The final chapter includes a special variant in which the player, as the game’s antagonist, can control the game’s major bosses and destroy the heroes. It’s a nice bonus mode, and it hides a secret as well. If one of the major bosses is losing the fight against the heroes, they gain a new action: Armageddon.
Choosing this action ends the fight and shows a scene of every time period being obliterated in a white light,leading into the credits. It’s the same scene that plays upon losing to the final boss, but it hits differently when the player triggers it themselves.
1The Watanabe Family
One of the strangest yet most extensive secrets in the game is the Watanabe family. Watanabe appears as a character in the Near Future chapter, an orphan whose father was killed in a sinister experiment. There’s more to it than that, though. Sharp-eyed players may notice that a Watanabe family exists in every single chapter.
Each time, this takes the form of a father and his son. The father dies tragically, and the son mourns. Sometimes the reference is obvious, such as the pair wandering in the desert when the Crazy Bunch attacks or in the tournament at the start of the Middle Ages chapter. Other times, the reference is hidden. One only appears if the player trains Hong Hakka in Imperial China. Another requires the Great Aja to be facing the top-left and use Bite during his battle. Even the Distant Future chapter has a Watanabe: the pair of Watanabe-brand communications antenna. The main antenna is destroyed, and the secondary shuts down.
