izigame.me

The Live A Live remake is a shorter & more experimental JRPG that could’ve benefitted from some QoL additions but overall, it’s still a worthwhile and varied experience even today
It’s always great to see previously region-exclusive games release to a wider audience. The original Live A Live released on the Super Famicom in Japan in 1994 to favorable reviews but never officially made its way overseas (though fan translations exist) – until 2022, that is. 28 (!) years later, the remade game is now finally available to a worldwide audience as well, which of course begs the question: has the wait been worth it?
Let’s briefly go over the new features the remake introduced first. The visuals of Live A Live were remade in the self-proclaimed “HD-2D” art-style that was first introduced with the Octopath Traveller franchise and has since been used in other games as well (e.g. Triangle Strategy, Star Ocean: Second Story R). It looks great and even fits the different time periods featured in Live A Live quite well. Full voice-acting (English & Japanese) has been added for all dialogues and the soundtrack has also been rearranged under the supervision of the original composer, Yoko Shinomura. So far, so great.
When it comes to quality-of-life additions, however, things get a little odd. That’s not to say that no work was put into this part of the remake – the user interface received an overhaul and introduces bars for character health and attack charges now, for example. Weaknesses and resistances of enemies are also visible from the start, there’s a toggleable minimap showcasing objectives/explored areas now, sparks highlighting gatherable items in the overworld, and more.
No, what’s odd is that some pretty important QoL improvements we’ve already seen added in other recent Square Enix JRPG re-releases (e.g. the Final Fantasy I – VI Pixel Remasters are missing - mainly the options to turn random encounters off and to increase the game speed. As some parts of Live A Live feature a high random encounter rate that can be frustrating if you just want to explore (and if you’ve outleveled the random monsters in the final chapter for example) and some of the new, non-skippable battle animations take quite some time to play out, both options would’ve been more than welcome additions.
Apart from these surprising QoL omissions however, the remake of does a great job of modernizing the worst-aged aspects of the original Live A Live. But how does the core game fare nowadays, which was left just as it was in 1994?
The answer to that question is: mostly well. Live A Live does suffer from a few problems but it still remains a refreshing – albeit short - JRPG experience. The main draw of the game would be the 7+ story chapters, which all feature different protagonists in different locations and time periods. All of these chapters usually take 1-2h to beat (with two exceptions), which makes Live A Live an unusually short JRPG if you’re just going for one main story clear, although there are secret bosses and multiple endings to chase if you want to spend more time with the game.
The best thing about the split-chapter narrative structure of Live A Live is the amount of variety it provides. There are few other games that allow for stories set in the Prehistory, Imperial China, Edo Japan, Wild West, Present, Future and more all at once. Live A Live even allows you to choose the order of your chapters yourself, though this actually turns out to be a double-edged sword.
While Live A Live is a JRPG with a turn-based grid battle-system at its core, these battles are unevenly distributed among the story chapters. Some feature only a few battles and are more text-heavy instead, while others consist almost only out of battling opponents. And while the battle system itself isn’t the deepest or hardest - especially if you’re only going for a main story clear - it’s workings might only be immediately clear to those already familiar with similar JRPGs. As such, I recommend using a spoiler-free guide like this one from IGN to make sure you’re picking one of the better-suited chapters to get acquainted with the battle system of Live A Live.
Essentially, the battle system is a mix of chess and a classic turn-based JRPG. Attacks of your party and enemies all affect spaces on a grid, into which your battlefield is divided. Which means you don’t only have to pick the right attacks according to weaknesses/resistances, but also make sure you’re in the right position to use them/avoid enemy attacks. This can lead to some fights almost becoming small “riddles” to solve if you want to survive, which is quite fun, if character progression wasn’t so linear. Due to the limited number of party members/attacks during the initial story chapters, most fights are going to be pretty trivial as long as you’re not under-leveled.
But let’s get back to the story chapters themselves. As I previously mentioned, they provide a short, varied experience. The stories told aren’t especially deep of course, thanks to their short length, and some of the pop-culture references might’ve been a bit too strong (the Present chapter is basically Street Fighter, for example) but the individual chapters usually don’t overstay their welcome. Thanks to the unique approaches to each story, I also didn’t really get a strong feeling of repetitiveness, even though I feared this might be the case when I first started playing the game. This might change entirely depending on your chosen chapter order, however.
I also have to mention that didn’t find all chapters to be of equal quality. Some of the chapter approaches are either annoying to navigate (I recommend using a guide to save you some frustrations during the Edo chapter!) or badly paced (e.g. a way too battle-heavy final act). Thankfully, even if you don’t like a chapter for any reason, it won’t last long enough to really be much of a problem in the long run.
The main game changer and what really elevated my opinion of Live A Live however, was how the game pulled off its final act. Until that point, I had some light fun with the battle-system and the varied stories but didn’t really understand why the original game was so highly regarded by some. That changed during my last few hours with the game. I won’t spoil the final act here but it’s sufficient to say that it found a more interesting way to wrap up the game than I initially expected it to pull off. The gameplay also received a much-needed boost in variety, allowing for more depth than before.
To conclude, Live A Live is an experimental, short JRPG with a great look/sound that features some good chapters, some worse chapters and a surprisingly decent final act. It’s not a game for JRPG fans than want to spend a lot of time in an expensive world with a deep character cast, as that’s not who the game was made for. But if you prefer shorter JRPGs that are a little different from the rest, Live A Live is worth a look. Try the demo version if you’re still on the fence and while I wouldn’t recommend buying this game at full price, definitely give it a look once it’s on sale!