The Mechanical Heart
The Mechanical Heart is Cube's chapter in Live A Live and takes place in the distant future.
Its completed chapter icon is of a wrench. Its menu color is white.
Chapter Description
Far from Earth, in the vast void of space, the transport freighter Cogito Ergo Sum slowly make its way home. Abort this tiny vessel, a new form of life is born. Alas, as a series of incidents put the safety and well-being of the ship's crew in jeopardy, this autonomous support unit but recently built by the engineer Kato must work together with its creators to ensure all is not lost...
Chapter Mechanics
This chapter is unique among all other chapters in that it contains no combat whatsoever with the only combat consisting of the final battle and in the Captain Square arcade machine while the rest remains puzzle and story based.
To progress through this chapter one must talk to the various crew members and go around the ship checking things or picking up items and as each thing is completed the story moves on. Eventually the beast known as the behemoth gets loose on the ship. Cube must avoid it at all costs as coming in contact with it can result in an instant game over. Other things can account for a game over such as opening the doors in the airlock to outside or getting Cube's first terrible name by Kato wrong when asked who is the real Cube.
Captain Square
The Captain Square arcade machine is in the chapter and is (besides the final battle) the only combat in the chapter. You play as Captain Square and the mini game is split into nine stages, each harder than the last. An item called the Memory Card can be found in Kirk's room to be used on the game. It enables the player to save their progress, so that way even if one is to lose the game they can start on the stage they left off at.
Boss
The boss of this chapter is OD-10 of the Cogito Ergo Sum, known as Decimus or MUR-TH-UR Matrix. It was invented to manage all functions on the ship and to ensure the safety of the crew, but after observing the crew fight amongst each other, OD-10 gives up on humans, and determines that to attain perfect harmony, the crew members must be killed off.
The battle against OD-10 is set within the Captain Square game after Corporal Darthe hacks a pathway for Cube to engage OD-10 through it. OD-10 is a stationary boss with helpers lining along its left and right sides that can be individually destroyed.
Chapter Endings
Bad Endings
Easily obtained from some grave errors such as letting the Behemoth catch you, getting sucked into space or answering query Cube's original name wrong. A black screen with a broken Cube and the caption "In the end, Cube never made it to Earth..." (SNES fan translation) "Alas, Cube never had the opportunity to set foot on Earth..." (remake) appears before showing the usual Game Over screen.
Bad Ending (OD-10)
This ending is only obtained by losing the battle against MUR-TH-UR Matrix, it displays some information about the Cogito Ergo Sum and how the status of the crew is unknown.
Normal Ending
The only ending in the chapter it can be triggered after giving Corporal Darthe coffee. However before that one can wander around the ship for one last time and a secret in the Main Computer Room can be viewed at this point. To access the Main Computer Room first you must get the password from the Interface Room, after that you can enter the room, in it you can system check and a Dynamics Assessment which can be accessed by inputting the Captain's code (OAKFDE). The Dynamic Assessment details the following:
"Note: Ratings are relative to previous assessment.
- Initiative -
- Huey Trumbull: Reduced
- Kirk Wells: Increased
- Rachel Klein: Unchanged
- Yoshiyuki Kato: Unchanged
- Ingenuity -
- Huey Trumbull: Reduced
- Kirk Wells: Reduced
- Rachel Klein: Unchanged
- Yoshiyuki Kato: Increased
- Civility -
- Huey Trumbull: Reduced
- Kirk Wells: Reduced
- Rachel Klein: Reduced
- Yoshiyuki Kato: Unchanged
- Prudence -
- Huey Trumbull: Reduced
- Kirk Wells: Reduced
- Rachel Klein: Reduced
- Yoshiyuki Kato: Reduced
Cohort Cohesion: Significantly Reduced
Risk of Incident: Significantly Increased
Conclusion: Reconciliation Impossible
Recommendation: Dissolution"
Music Tracks
Trivia
- According to "Live A Live Complete Strategy Guidebook", the chapter was mainly inspired by the movies ALIEN and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The plot of this chapter also shares similarities to an anime called Lily C.A.T..
- This chapter lacks music, aside from the Captain Square theme, the ending music and the ominous music that happens.
- The creator of the art design and characters for this chapter is Yumi Tamura, a shoujo manga artist who became known for her various post-apocalyptic series including Basara and 7 Seeds.
- In the English dub, NATO phonetic alphabet is used for the password to the Watanabe Hypercaster.
- The Dynamic Assessment values might be loosely based on the Four Cardinal Virtues - Prudence is unchanged, while the other three stand for (in order), Courage, Justice and Temperance.
| The Distant Future: The Mechanical Heart |
|---|
| Characters |
| Cube • Captain Square • Yoshiyuki Kato • Kirk Wells • Rachel Klein • Huey Trumbull • Corporal Darthe • Hor Bishop • The Behemoth • OD-10 |
| Locations |
| Cogito Ergo Sum |
| Enemies |
| Captain Square (Clickarock • Headbert • Waterspout • Firewhirl • Teil Pup • Teil Broodmother • Cosmotroller • Gemparapet • Pymli • El Mirage • Lalu • Lala • Polka-Dot Q • Polka-Dot R • Polka-Dot X • Polka-Dot Z) • Stabilizer |
| Music |
| Unseen Syndrome • Captain Square • Captain of the Stars |
| Transcripts |
| 2022 (English) |