based on actor Yūsaku Matsuda. Ishiwata based the protagonist of the Wild West on the cowboy figures portrayed by Clint Eastwood. Aoyama designed Oboromaru very quickly, and at Tokita's request based Ode Iou's design on the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga. Tamura was in the middle of her work on Basara when she was approached about the project, and it was her only work in video game character design. Katō designed the sprites of the Middle Ages cast based on templates from the Final Fantasy series, with Orstead being directly based on the Warrior of Light. The scenario was co-written by Tokita and Inoue. As with his other work, Tokita drew inspiration from the tone and dramatic moments of the manga Devilman. He also based its structure on Dragon Quest IV, with the script emulating the style of anime and manga. The Prehistory story drew inspiration from the manga series First Human Giatrus, while the Wold West narrative was based on climactic scenes from classic Westerns including Shane. The Near Future story made several references to classic mecha manga and anime. Along with its references to classic martial arts films, the name of the protagonist in the Present Day narrative was made up of kanji symbols taken from the names of four famous wrestlers. The Distant Future narrative was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien. Cube's name, created by a member of the development staff, was a reference to Stanley Kubrick. The Middle Ages story paid homage to Final Fantasy, with the relationship between Orstead and Streibough mirroring that between Cecil Harvey and Kain Highwind. Tokita was concerned about creating the Middle Ages story due to its similarity to the ongoing Final Fantasy, SaGa and Mana series. The final chapter and its selectable lead protagonists emulated the freedom of choice present in Romancing SaGa. Inoue created the recurring gag character of Watanabe, a normal man who suffers misfortune in each era, to represent the normal people who die during each scenario. Music The music was composed and arranged by Yoko Shimomura. After writing music for Capcom on multiple projects including Street Fighter II, Shimomura moved to Square in 1993, fuelled by the wish to compose for RPGs. Live A Live was Shimomura's first major RPG composition, and her first job after arriving at Square. Her only previous work on RPGs was minor work on Breath of Fire prior to