Live A Live

On so many levels, Live A Live succeeds with its promise of delivering a very unconventional RPG experience. Playing through eight different characters and timelines each with their unique mechanics and fun stories is an incredibly compelling prospect to me. It baffles me that the ideas for this game were originally made all the way back in 1994 with its original release. We seldom see this sort of take on the RPG genre from big developers anymore so that automatically makes this game stand out. It truly is a unique gaming experience that sadly doesn't fully succeed moment to moment.

My main pain with this game is that the turn based grid is really not that interesting. I was bummed to find that was the only way combat was presented in the game. Rarely does the game present encounters as something other than spamming your strongest moves until you win which in turn makes most encounters trivial. I understand that the game instead focuses on the unique story its telling with each time period, but without a satisfying combat system most of the other gameplay boils down to "walk here", "talk to this person", "walk back to original place". I was a little bummed to see this format be consistent with good chunk of the chapters.
That being said there are standout chapters that do a good job of really differentiating themselves. The Wild West, Edo and Present Day chapters all successfully create an interesting spin on the moment to moment gameplay. So much so that I really wished the other chapters were more focused on specific gameplay ideas that actually changed how you would play normally. I did play all the chapters in a weird order so that's probably one reason as to why my enjoyment was all over the place but I know regardless the final bit of the game would be annoying no matter what.

My other major gripe is that I don't think the final chapter of this game is really that fun to play. The simple inclusion of random encounters in almost every part of the map really killed my drive to take my time and instead replaced it with "just let me beat this as quick as I can". This mindset really hurt the final bits of narrative at the end of the game since I was just so ready to be done at the end. This is a shame since I think so much of the presentation and themes are incredible and had excellent buildup especially with the penultimate chapter. It just sucks that it was dragged down by the slog it took to get there and I am a little surprised the remake didn't contain some sort of quality of life adjustment to this.

Even though I have my problems with Live A Live, I am still glad I played since it is such a unique take on a genre that can be a bit bloated and stagnant.

Profundamente experimental para a sua época, Live A Live é um JRPG que conquista por sua forma de ver o gênero e seu potencial de contar histórias das mais diferentes, embora não tão profundas.

Alguns capítulos são melhores que outros, o que causa certo desequilíbrio, mas a variedade de temas me manteve interessado durante as 20 horas e pouco - o futuro distante foi o único que me entediou um pouco mais pro fim. A cola que liga todas as histórias é clichê, mas bem contada e reserva surpresas divertidas no último episódio.

E não dá pra terminar um comentário sobre esse jogo sem aclamar a trilha-sonora e os visuais do remake, dos jogos mais bonitos que eu já vi.

Remakes often tend to be a bit of a complicated topic to think about for me for a variety of reasons. The mere idea of taking an existing piece of art and then having other people "modernise" it to have it lose a lot of its identity in order to be more palatable to general audiences is kinda disturbing at its core, and yet, I can't deny that there are cases which I think that they are welcome under the right circumstances, this version of Live A Live being one such example. I think that an essential aspect of game remakes to consider is the fact that the core intended experience is far and away the most important thing to keep intact, and it's why games like the Demon's Souls remake fail so tremendously despite very very much the same in a lot of aspects, with the simple change in atmosphere affecting the way the game as a whole feels to the point that it's totally different (and worse) despite the identical mechanical foundation. On the other side of things, a game like Live A Live actually ends up coming out feeling much better after this overhaul, with the plethora of mechanical alterations almost universally adding to the experience without getting in the way of what makes the game so good.

With the remake, I finally understand the greatness that the original game was so close to achieving, and it's because of the changes made here that I was able to reach that conclusion. The combat itself, while similar, adds a lot more information so you can better understand what you're doing, the UI is cleaned up, you can now see enemy health and when they take turns, and it feels like there's in general been a lot of tweaking to various values to provide a more tangible feeling of progression while allowing the player to better understand the tools they have at their disposal without swathes of total trial and error. One problem that I had in the original game that's fixed here as a result is that the cryptic, underexplained nature of a lot of the game's systems stopped it from fully being able to convey how many different ways the game experimented on this front, both mechanically and with how it tied into storytelling, often being hard to exactly tell whether it was a lack of balancing or a more deliberate choice for certain actions to play out as they did. By streamlining and tweaking this side of things, it now just feels infinitely clearer about what the game is actually trying to do, elevating the core experience while feeling just as experimental and creative as always. The visuals are also rather nice here and especially add a lot to the sense of scale that certain places in the original were lacking in a bit, with the boss spritework and attack animations being phenomenal at points, making it an absolute treat for the eyes and adding a ton in terms of raw atmosphere to the full experience.

I'm also rather appreciative of the way some of the more difficult problems the game presented tried to be fixed, even if it wasn't always successful. While certain mechanics and unique ideas were really helpful to have explained in more detail with a text pop up, it did tend to go a bit far unfortunately, overexplaining some key aspects that would've otherwise led to a great moment of experimentation or careful thought reaching the same conclusion. The entire behemoth chase in the far future was an especially detrimental one with the way it literally told you "don't run into this or you'll die" even though it was already so clear that you were meant to run. The other big thing that I feel was changed here in a bit of a mixed way, but one that I ended up appreciating a lot, was the implementation of a radar that pointed you towards your next required destination. While under normal circumstances I'd have hated this, the fact that you could turn it off in the settings made this far more tolerable, and ended up being a welcome addition once I was reintroduced by some of the most aggravatingly obtuse requirements for progression in something as small scaled as the settings could often be. Having this as an extra tool that I could switch on whenever I got to a particularly cryptic part, while not the most elegant solution, is a decent enough compromise considering that it ended up allowing the feel of the game to be as unchanged as possible while still making it less likely for the player to be buried in a walkthrough for most of the game. For the first time I actually want to go into a bit more detail about the individual chapters of the game as well because there's so much about this game that I can't entirely stop thinking about, with the way it plays around with so many JRPG tropes and ideas even though this was still so early in the creation of such games making it one that even though there are certain sections that are genuinely insufferable and show their age in unfavourable ways, still remains quite possibly the single most essential JRPG for people interested in the genre to play, and one that I feel like I'll grow to appreciate fully only after I eventually play it for a 3rd time.

None of the main 7 chapters are 100% played straight, but of them the Edo Japan chapter definitely is the one that feels as if it most closely resembles what you'd expect from the genre, albeit with a few bits and pieces changed up to give it a sense of flavour regardless. While the location is cool and the gigantic, labyrinthine fortress is one of my absolute favourite settings here in theory, in practice it ends up being a bit too all over the place, and the main gimmick of there being a sense of morality where you get a special ending if you kill literally nobody (playing around with stealth instead) or kill everyone is handled really poorly. The amount of knowledge you already need of the environment to be able to successfully get either 0 or 100 kills is bad enough, but the thing that really lets this down is the way that there are still some mandatory fights that simply don't count because they're either ghosts or robots. The big issue I have with this is that there are a lot of cases where the game never really makes this clear, and the sense of uncertainty about what actually counts as a kill ends up undermining a lot of the sense of choice made since more than almost anything else it basically either forces you to look up a guide or go through the slog of potentially reloading the game at anything that looks like it might be a mandatory fight. The 100 kills ending is far more simplistic in its problem of making the player explore this huuuge castle from top to bottom to kill everyone is painfully tedious The only particularly engaging way I found to play this is to entirely not care about either stealth or how many you've killed and just treat it as normal, which runs into the whole problem of the most enjoyable way of playing it to be entirely ignoring what makes it unique. The layout itself is just all around annoying and made the chapter genuinely insufferable to the point where it's one of the main reasons I can't quite justify giving this a 9 yet. One thing I will say though is that this is probably the portion of the game that had the absolute biggest visual glow up of them all, it looks utterly stunning through and through.

While the prehistory era's special mechanic isn't quite as transformative to the experience as some other chapters, I applaud the approach to storytelling here very strongly, as while the narrative might be overall pretty simple, conveying it almost 100% without any words still makes it feel extremely unique. It's all a bit juvenile in terms of its humour sure, but it's a tone that works pretty well and does capture the vibe of this silly little caveman tribe just doing their best to live very nicely. It feels like there's a bit more to do here to get distracted with as well, which once again feels pretty fitting, plus the combat itself, while being one of the most straightforward, is still a nice bit of fun especially with the fact that you have to hunt down the enemies through tracking their scent to be an absolutely perfect little touch to make it feel more akin to you hunting down prey to become stronger as opposed to being put against a harsh world without much hope of survival. Very comfy stuff, big fan of it.

The near future is probably the biggest of the main 7 chapters and is considerably more busy with how many interweaving ideas are present here. Rather than the combat itself having a different mechanical foundation in some way, the real difference in terms of combat comes from the way everything is laid out more like little puzzles, where it's less about overpowering them with brute strength, and more using the game's grid based system to its full advantage in trying to position yourself the best to take out the enemy leaders before you get overwhelmed. It's a great way of conveying the inexperienced nature of your character here, as the role he plays throughout the story isn't really a typical hero and instead is just a kid who feels like he needs to fight against whatever odds are put up against him, no matter how stacked against him that might all be. There's basically never a big moment where you fight all alone, and the one there is is also a climactic mech battle where his specific talents happen to make him actually be insanely strong for a change, so it still ties in with the clever characterisation that goes on here. Not really a big fan of some of the intermittent busywork that needs to be done and how tedious the crafting is, but for the most part this is awesome both mechanically and narratively, and is one of the bigger examples of how the game manages to so elegantly tie gameplay into its own storytelling device. It's also the other place that benefitted the most from the new visuals, the steel titan looks absolutely absurd in terms of its size now and adds so much more to any scene it's in as a result.

The rest of these chapters is where things get a bit more out there in how the gameplay is handled, with one of my favourite ideas being the present day chapter. The lack of levelling up, instead giving the player a choice between 6 bosses to fight in any order is cool enough, but the element of strategy added by learning the boss' signature attacks only by being hit by them is where it really shines. This not only makes each fight more difficult than you'd expect if you want to truly become powerful, but it adds a Mega Man-esque style of progression and turns the fights into little puzzles of sorts. One example is a simple one of one of the bosses feeling overwhelmingly strong at close range due to being a grappler, but if you've learned the attacks of the boss fight that focused on long range and mobility, you can essentially counter the core fighting style at play and take him down easily. There are so many little moments like this that make for a short, experimental chapter that is packed full of really clever design and easily makes for some of the coolest combat that it all has to offer.

Another very short but cool chapter is the wild west one, where everything basically hinges on this one fight with the entire objective to be exploring a town in a very limited timeframe to best prepare for an otherwise hellish encounter. It's a cool way to spin the exploration aspect of the game that often goes a bit underutilised in favour of more explicitly streamlined little scenarios, basically turning the entire location into one surprisingly complex puzzle that will likely take a few goes to perfectly optimise everything. The use of the townsfolk in setting the traps for the purposes of weakening the boss encounter is also a neat little way to tie things back to the theme being about revitalising the place's spirit rather than solving all their problems entirely on your own.

Imperial China is the absolute peak of the game conveying narrative however and I don't even think it's particularly close to me. Starting off as a fully levelled character to represent that he's learned as much as he possibly can in his life is an interesting enough spin on things, especially since most of the fights in here are against disciples you're training, but it's the progressions of these fights and the way that a lot of it isn't directly told that made me fall in love with it. By the time you get to your final bout of training fights, despite being far less experienced overall, these disciples are likely to be surprisingly tough fights, as while you might be far more knowledgeable and experienced than them, you are also a frail old man who's been approaching the end of his life for a while now, and the toll of such a reality become increasingly apparent as you continue to fight against those of a younger generation. What I love about this is the way that this closeness in strength is never really directly addressed as these fights are going on, but it feels so clear that something is going wrong and that you've been deteriorating all this time. This also adds a lot to the disciple characters as well in the final act, with them being as strong as they are but still feeling this ever growing need to continuously push themselves further, to become more experienced to truly feel worthy of becoming a martial arts master rather than simply having had the torch passed to them before they felt as if they had become knowledgeable enough for the title. Overall just a masterclass of basically every aspect of the game.
The distance future is definitely the coolest experiment to me however for basically having 0 actual combat, instead just wandering around the ship as the story progresses. A lot of really lovely atmosphere here too, evoking something that feels almost like a middle point between Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey and being able to nail it even with everything being these funny overworld 2D sprites. Very cool idea to have been done for this one section of the game and a really cool way to mess with the fundamentals of the genre as a whole, even though I'll admit that it was also where I had to make the most use of the new radar function.

The middle ages is an interesting part in its own right due to the total lack of defining characteristics from the gameplay or setting, instead feeling like its own take on a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy adventure. It's really the story that sets this one apart as one of the best parts of the game, with twist after twist as the world basically crumbles around the protagonist until everyone turns against him. I absolutely adore the villain that gets created from this and think that the idea of Odio as a whole is incredible with how it not only creates this truly threatening presence, but also plays nicely with the whole trope of the villain insisting that they'll return again, because in this case it feels along the lines of "yeah I know you'll be back, I already killed you then as well." Really emotional stuff through and through here, genuine gut punches all down the road even though I even knew what was coming this time.

The final chapter of the game is an interesting one and also a pretty awful experience too unfortunately for the most part. The core idea of having the final boss available to you and the only thing stopping you being a lack of strength is obviously cool, but it doesn't work too well in this game due to the fact that it ends up being really grindy and tedious. Live A Live's grid based system is amazing for being able to provide extra avenues for the designers to craft more varied encounters that often represent specific things that couldn't otherwise be expressed, but the one thing that it really cannot do too well is be an actual, regular JRPG without any frills. The middle ages chapter could only get away with it because there was not a point where getting stronger felt required, it just naturally happened throughout your journey, but in this, the express purpose of the chapter is gaining strength, and the process to do so really starts revealing all the cracks in the game's foundation that were able to be largely ignored until now. The grid system that acted as such a strong component of most other parts of the game ends up feeling like another way a sense of tedium is introduced, with grinding not even being able to be done through turning off your brain and mashing A for a while, but always needing to actively think and position so you can actually deal with the enemies. I'm all for a game that demands a bit of a higher order of thinking for the most part, but the moment you start introducing grinding/fighting waves upon waves of random encounters, making the player have to actively think about every step they take makes it feel like a Sisyphean task which drags the final hours of the game out an ungodly amount. The fact that there are barely any new enemies here too also sucks, and all the cool little interactions that are dependant on which character you start the chapter as don't do enough to justify the unengaging experience leading up to the final boss, even if said encounter is a fantastic way to end things.

On the whole, I absolutely adore a lot about what this game is doing and the remake fixed so many issues I had with the original experience that I feel like I was finally able to appreciate this on a much deeper level. It still has its problems with a few sections being an agonising and boring task to get through along with a lot of smaller problems that can muddy the experience from time to time, but even so, it's a great time. To see a game that was so wildly experimental and ambitious updated in a way that maintains practically off of its identity while being elevated to this degree is an absolute blessing, and this is indeed a purely essential game for people to play if they're interested in JRPGs on a slightly deeper level. One of, if not the most important games I'd recommend for such a crowd, and I feel like another playthrough will bring this up just that tiny bit more for me to let me wholeheartedly embrace it as an all time favourite.