amount of effort into each world design. Many of the world suggestions came from other members of staff, with Tokita choosing what he thought were the best. The first world created was the Middle Ages edition, which informed both the wider narrative and the gameplay design. The scenarios originally had a graduating difficulty scale, but Tokita abandoned this so players could tackle the scenarios in any order they wished. Inoue was responsible for the battle system design, wanting to make a strategic experience which Tokita described as "real-time shogi". Another goal was to evolve the standard gameplay of RPGs at the time. One idea of Tokita's that was rejected involved not displaying hit points, but having the character physically act like they had been injured or look weakened as they took damage instead. Once production finished, the team split up to work on other projects within Square. Scenario and art design A notable feature of Live A Live were the artists brought in to design the lead cast of the seven main sections. The artists were Yoshihide Fujiwara ("Imperial China"), Yoshinori Kobayashi ("Prehistory"), Osamu Ishiwata ("The Wild West"), Yumi Tamura ("Distant Future"), Ryōji Minagawa ("Present Day"), Gosho Aoyama ("Twilight of Edo Japan") and Kazuhiko Shimamoto ("The Near Future"). This was possible due to Square's publishing ties with Shogakukan, who was associated with those artists. Additional character artwork, including designs for the "Lord of Dark" narrative, was done by Kiyofumi Katō of Square. Further in-game graphics were designed by Yukiko Sasaki, who worked as a map designer on Final Fantasy IV. Sasaki encountered difficulties with the graphics, struggling to design the Edo Japan scenario and needed to cut elements such as telegraph poles from Present Day scenario. Having multiple character designers was not in the original plan, but emerged to complement the "omnibus" storytelling. This style of having one artist in charge for each world was unusual for Square, who previously had a single graphic designer in charge of all art direction. Fujiwara was known for his work on the martial arts manga Kenji. For the Imperial China protagonist's female student, Fujiwara deliberately went against stereotypes of martial arts heroines with large breasts, drawing her with a "tighter" figure. Shimamoto was originally going for an anime-styled design for his characters, but changed it to one based on traditional manga when he saw the other designers' work. Akira's partner Matsu was physically