Live-A-Live: The Omnibus of RPGs

I have a soft spot for oddball games. Whether it be a weird art style, a strange combination of genres or even just a bizarre premise, I like games that aren’t afraid to be different or experimental. Well so long as they’re in a genre I enjoy anyway.

So, when I heard of Live-A-Live it immediately caught my interest. For those who haven’t heard of it, Live-A-Live was originally released in 1994 exclusively in Japan for the Super-Famicom. It wasn’t a major sales success, but it got decent reviews and would gain a bit of a cult following.

Especially in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the emulation scene started to kick off. Thanks to fan translations western gamers were able to play it for the first time and it gained a reputation as one of the better games that never left Japan. Well, up until recently anyway.

Yes, Live-A-Live has now officially been released thanks to a brand-new remake for the Nintendo Switch. I don’t exactly know why it was remade. As I said it wasn’t a top selling game, but apparently there were enough people clamouring for it to come back that Square Enix decided to remake it.

It could also be because a more recent RPG, Octopath Traveller, took some ideas from it and was decently successful. The Live-A-Live remake even runs on the same HD-2D engine Octopath ran on.

But whatever the reason, we finally got an official English release making it much easier for people to play it. I never played the original Live-A-Live, so this remake is my, and probably a lot of other players, first exposure to the game. And after playing it, I can see why it has the reputation it has.

But what exactly is Live-A-Live? Well as the title of this review suggests, Live-A-Live is an omnibus of an RPG. Unlike most other RPG’s which tell one epic story, Live-A-Live is instead composed of eight smaller stories across different eras. From the prehistoric age to the far-off future and everything else in between, the game will take you to a various places and times each with their own stories to tell.

One has you play as a cowboy protecting a town from bandits in the old west. Another has you play as a shinobi trying to infiltrate an enemy castle. The far future story involves a robot trying to help the crew of a spaceship, while the prehistoric age has you play as a caveman trying to rescue a princess from an enemy tribe. Travel to ancient China with a Shifu trying to train a successor or play a martial artist in modern times trying to beat the best of the best. Then there’s the near future where a boy with psychic powers tries to take down an evil government force.

The stories here vary in terms of tone, structure, and genre. Science fiction, western, tokusatsu, ninja or martial arts movies, it does a little bit of everything. Each of the stories are done very well though they aren’t all equal. I personally didn’t care for the near future or Edo Japan chapters, but I wouldn’t call any of them bad.

The writing and dialogue are on point for each era you visit. The characters in the wild west chapter talk like they would in the wild west, while the prehistoric chapter has no dialogue at all with the story being told with physical pantomime because language didn’t exist back then. The fact they were able to match each era and genre so effectively is very impressive given how varied they all are.

The gameplay mechanics are what you would expect from an RPG, but a lot of it has been simplified. You don’t get money so you can’t buy items or equipment, you just find that stuff in the overworld or by beating enemies and there isn’t a whole lot in the way of character customisation. Areas are also much smaller and not as open as most other RPG’s.

But Live-A-Live also isn’t a typical RPG. Giving the game spans multiple time periods and continents it would be ridiculous to expect each map to be as sprawling as those from its contemporaries. Live-A-Live is more interested in telling theses smaller stories and the mechanics and even structure of the game will change to better tell that story.

The modern-day chapter is laid out like a fighting game where you beat a series of opponents and learn their moves. That chapter is nothing but fighting while the far future chapter is the complete opposite. There’s no fighting in that chapter until the very end, instead most of that chapter is spent exploring the spaceship and learning more about the crew.

The wild west chapter also doesn’t have much fighting in it. Instead, most of it is spent putting traps together to take down the bandits. The prehistoric age doesn’t have equipment to find, but it does have resources that let you make equipment with a crafting system. The near future chapter has something similar while also having a robot partner you can level up with certain items and equipment.

The game is constantly shaking things up. Some chapters even change how character progression works. The ancient China chapter doesn’t let the Shifu gain experience points only his students does, and some chapters don’t have experience points at all.

Every chapter plays differently to one another giving the game a great amount of variety. The only constant between chapters is the combat system. The combat in Live-A-Live is unique. It takes place on a grid where you can move characters around.

Every character has a time gauge that builds up over time. When it’s full you can use one of their moves. Each move has different properties like damage and, most importantly, range of effect. Move require you to be in the proper place to pull off, which means you’ll have to move them on the grid to get in position.

However, moving causes everyone else’s time gauge to build up, and if you’re in the enemy’s range when theirs is full you can get hit by them. That’s not all, some attacks also have charge times which need to be filled before the move goes off. The charge time differs per move, but the longer charge times are usually for the more damaging attacks.

But having to sit there and charge up leaves you vulnerable. Not only that it also gives time for the enemy to move out of the way or use an attack to reposition you and interrupt it. And that also applies to you. If you see an enemy charging up a strong attack you better get out of the way.

It opens to a lot more strategic thinking than you would expect in most JRPG battles, in theory. In practice battles don’t require that much strategic thought. Most fights are just spamming the strongest attacks or exploiting enemy weaknesses, which the game will just tell you, so you don’t even need to figure that out. There’s also no MP to worry about and health replenishes after every fight, so resource management is a non-issue.

It isn’t a bad battle system. The characters do at least play differently and there are plenty of them to play across all the chapters. You also can’t just spam the attack button to win, you do have to at least plan out where to move. So, there is some strategy here, it just isn’t as strategic as you would think. It may look complex on the surface, but it isn’t all that deep when you really dig into it.

Which is a good way to summarise Live-A-Live as a whole. It has a lot of ideas and mechanics, but they don’t have much depth. Everything is very surface level with not a lot to uncover. Much of the reason why is because the chapters here are not very long, with the longest not being anything more than 3 hours.

Now the short length isn’t a bad thing. I like that each chapter are as long as they are because it means they don’t outstay their welcome. You play one for a bit and then move on to the next one. It keeps the momentum going.

However, the short length also means a lot of its ideas aren’t given enough time to develop. They can’t do any cool or interesting things with them because the chapter is over before you know it.

And yet it all works. It may not be complex, but everything the game sets out to do it does well. The battle system may not have much strategy, but they are still engaging. The maps may not be that large, but the different eras you can explore are represented well and there is still some optional stuff to find. And while a lot of the mechanics lack depth it still has a lot of them and changes them up frequently enough that things never get stale.

Simple doesn’t mean bad if it’s done well, and I think Live-A-Live is an example of that. The individual chapters are each enjoyable in their own way, and each is self-contained meaning you can play them in any order you want.

There is a final chapter that does tie everything together, but I won’t spoil that here. All I’ll say is that I found the final parts of the game to be some of the better ones in the game and worth seeing everything through to the end to get to. There’re also multiple endings to go for as well giving it some replay value.

In terms of gameplay, I wouldn’t say Live-A-Live is up there with the best of the genre. It really is the variety in the stories that keep it from becoming too shallow. But the stories and settings are interesting enough that it still makes for a fun playthrough. All helped by a great presentation.

The HD-2D engine is one of the best things to come out of modern Square-Enix. For those who may not know what it is, the HD-2D engine allows games to emulate the pixel art style of the 16- and 32-bit generations with modern technical flourishes. In simpler terms, you get beautiful pixel art mixed with highly detailed 3D backdrops.

I love how this game looks. The sprite work is excellent, keeping within the classic style of 16-bit RPG’s while also allowing for more detail and expressive character animations. In combat they look even better with some very flash and cool looking attacks and large boss sprites.

The environments are also excellent with each one perfectly representing the era’s they’re based on. One thing I love about these HD-2D games is the lighting. It can be a little heavy on the bloom at times, but the more natural lighting effects really helps gives the game a better sense of immersion and atmosphere.

I love games that blend 2D pixel art with 3D backgrounds. When it’s done well it can lead to some impressive visuals and Live-A-Live is a great example of that. The visual presentation here is top notch.

The audio presentation is also excellent. The voice acting is great for every single character with the actors able to match the different era’s dialects without coming off as cartoonish. There aren’t any stand out performances, but everyone here does a great job which is more than you can say for a lot of other recent Square Enix games.

And the music, is done by Yoko Shimamura. Do I need to say anything else? I’m convinced this woman can do no wrong, everything I’ve heard from her has been phenomenal and this is no exception. Each track perfectly represents the era they play in. The music in the wild west era sounds like something from a Sergio Leone movie, and the opening theme for the near future chapter sounds like the opening from a Japanese Anime. It’s a great soundtrack.

One thing I must praise is the sound design because it really adds to the atmosphere. The entire far future chapter has no music at all, the only music you hear comes from an arcade machine in the lobby. It helps add to the oppressive lonely atmosphere the chapter goes for. It’s an impressive amount of immersion for a 2D game like this.

Live-A-Live was a game I thoroughly enjoyed. The gameplay may be a bit too simple, but it’s still executed well and manages to keep things interesting with the sheer variety it has. And the stories and settings are fun ones to experience.

My only major complaint with the game is some outdated game mechanics it has like random battles But, given this game is a remake of an 18-year-old game, archaic design choices like that are kind of expected.

It isn’t a game for everyone. Fans of more traditional RPGs may not jive with the simplified mechanics and experimental structure, but if you go in with the right expectations then there’s a lot to enjoy here.

It’s a simple, charming experience that I’m glad I checked out. I wouldn’t call it one of the all-time greats, but it’s unique premise certainly lets it carve out a small niche alongside them, and honestly that’s good enough for me.

I really hope we see more releases like this. We are getting a Dragon Quest 3 remake soon which I’m sure will be excellent, but there are other RPG’s that deserve some attention as well. I mean they already did a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics in Triangle Strategy, so why not bring that series back as well. Lord knows that series could do with some more love.