Live A Live Wild West traps guide

The Wild West chapter is one of the strangest parts of Live A Live. It isn’t the setting or the story, those parts are pretty familiar. It’s the format, which really drives home how unique an experience Live A Live is compared to other JRPGs. This chapter is more about being quick, thorough, and attentive. You have about 15 minutes to set traps for an incoming bandit gang, and how well that goes impacts the boss fight at the end.

Live A Live: Full Wild West Traps List

So here’s some help, if you need it. For our Live A Live Wild West traps guide, we need to establish just a couple of things. First, you can always win the chapter. It’s never impossible, but it gets pretty close if you don’t hit at least a few traps. Second, the item locations don’t change, even if you restart. Third, only save at the very beginning of the chapter’s major task and Do Not Overwrite That Save.

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Okay, the gimmick here is you have until the eighth bell to prepare before you have to take on the bandits hand to hand. You and Mad Dog have to quickly search the town, put together a strategy, and dole out assignments to the people trying to help. To fully clear out the baddies you need at least one of the following:

• Coal Tar
• Horse Shit (yes that’s how it’s labeled in the game)
• Bottled Fire
• Carrot
• Bundle of Rope
• Bartender’s Special Poster
• Frying Pan
• Slingshot
• Shovel
• Dynamite

For some of these, you can end up with more than one. If you have multiple carrots, you can’t really do anything with them. But if you have extra Bottled Fire, you can use it in the upcoming fight.

To get these items, simply run a loop through each building in town after you exit the saloon. There are some empty chests, but it’s faster to just examine everything and get out than trying to worry about which is which. The only important thing to note is the Bundle of Rope, which is hidden out of sight in the otherwise empty Boarding House. Get behind the big staircase, and there’s a door you can’t see right in the middle. Don’t waste time searching the rest of the building.

Everything else you just pick up, with the pseudo exception of Bottled Fire. You’ll find those in raw ingredient form, each one made up of one Oil and one Empty Bottle. As soon as you get a pair, Mad Dog will offer to make the item for you. Always Say Yes, because saying no means you’ll simply miss out. As for the Slingshot, you get that once you return to the saloon and talk to Billy to assign him a task.

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As long as you picked up all the items, Mad Dog will tell you who should have what. Sometimes it’s obvious, such as giving the Bartender’s Special Poster to… the Bartender. Annie gets the Frying Pan and Billy gets the Slingshot handed right back to him. You’ll have stuff left over, such as the Shovel and Horse Shit. Just give those to whoever and it’ll work out. You can give carrots to anyone left if you want, but you don’t need to.

If you get everything set up in time, you get to watch the fruits of your labor as the Crazy Bunch gets ripped to shreds Looney Tunes style. If not, whichever trap isn’t present will put stragglers in the coming boss fight.

For the boss fight, hit it with wind, especially when you see it charge its big move up. Hollow Point will interrupt it, but you can also move two spaces away to dodge. If it hits, it’s a guaranteed KO, which is why some healing items are scattered around among the trap pieces. If there are bandits in the fight as well, try to catch them in AoEs as you focus on the boss. Good luck otherwise!