Second GOTM finished for April 2024. I'm still not sure if this game deserves this high of a rating, but the uniqueness of the overall presentation and that last chapter/ending sequence feels like it helps elevate what might otherwise just be an average game. The polish put into this remake is stellar. The graphics are great, the music is incredible, and lots of QOL improvements and changes help to streamline and improve the experience. As with any of these "Anthology" type games, not every story is going to hit, and some are even going to be unpleasant. However, there's likely something here for everyone, and making each scenario feel different and unique really helps to keep the game feeling fresh all the way to the end. Again, that last chapter and end-game sequence (while slow in the dungeons) really made for a great finish. It may not be an amazing game, but it was a truly unique experience!

Characters: 8/10
Story: 10/10
Music: 10/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

Total: 9/10

It's a great remake, but the story and gameplay is middling. The combat is way too easy and requires very little thought and absolutely needed an MP system to prevent me from cheesing several fights, especially considering you get Full Restored after every battle. I appreciate how the storylines are homages to the tropes of popular movies and games. Reference culture is cool when you get it, but creates a cliche and dissatisfying stand-alone product. The main problem I take is that it didn't out-western, out-Mecha or out-2001 the original properties, nor subvert them. I've played or seen close to all of these influences, so I didn't gain anything from playing Live-A-Live in my understanding of how to tell these stories well. It makes passable, but functionally worse choices than the original properties made, which makes me question the creator's intent beyond paying homage. I don't dislike the game at all: it's fun, cute and pretty, and the bite-sized narrative structures made it very digestable and paceable in a way I think a lot of chunky RPGs could benefit from. Those just aren't the reasons that I play RPGs, it's two weak points are. As is, I can't but help feel that it was a testing ground for the much stronger and more polished ideas of Chrono Trigger.

estórias péssimas, joguei a da China e Velho Oeste e achei que se manteria no mesmo ritmo, estava divertido. Após fui para o futuro próximo, uma das piores coisas que experienciei, pulei metade da história e achei o final terrível, a batalha não tem boa jogabilidade então era basicamente espamar os ataques do robô.
após foi ladeira a baixo, pré-história não foi só chato, mas irritante, não terminei, e o caso do futuro é ainda pior, podia ser um bom "nível" de exploração, mas é um anda anda desgraçado com uma história merreca.
os gráficos são lindos, mas esse é o melhor elogio, a parte da China foi tão boa...
uma das maiores decepções, tantas pessoas falavam bem, mas isso é intankavel

The different stories and how they play with the genre are interesting enough for a sensible chuckle, but it often feels like they lack the depth you would expect. As for the narrative, the amazing presentation and unique settings carry the experience, as I was mostly underwhelmed, even when the stories predictably come together at the end. The battle system present in all the stories shines when you are under leveled, but is otherwise mediocre.

It’s a curious experience with some standout segments, but I think this was a much more interesting and revolutionary game in 1994. Definitely a "you had to be there" game, I don't think it says anything particularly meaningful in this day and age.

I am so happy this game got a bit of a renaissance because the original SNES game was so far ahead of its time. It is simply one of the best games ever made. A ~20hr RPG that plays off a bunch of different genres, has fun mechanics, memorable boss fights, and tons of extra stuff to explore just checks all the boxes for me. It is a miracle modern-day Square Enix did not mess up this remake but it's truly a wonderful rework of the original game. The HD-2D style is so perfect for this. The SNES game is still worth revisiting and there is an excellent translation patch available, but either way, you're going to have a great time!

Live A Live is here to do one thing: to shower the player in personality and love. Through homages to various genres of fiction and the tropes that they follow, Live A Live seeks to explore why it is that we care about characters and their journeys. For the most part, I think it is a success because the charm of how these stories and the overarching theme are both presented to the player is irresistibly sweet. Even at times when I find myself let down by gameplay elements, that charm itself is all Live A Live needs to make me glad I sat down and played.

There are some chapters here that I'd like to highlight without delving into spoiler territory...

The Wild West — The Wanderer alongside Present Day — The Strongest are both incredibly short chapters focusing on character interactions and the game's combat respectively, and I think that they are both really effective bite-sized chapters. I'm not even a fan of the genres that either follow, but I found myself invested in the Sundown Kid's short-lived relationship with the townsfolk and his rivalry with Mad Dog. The same being said for Masaru Takahara's goal and morals and the opponents he ends up facing.

The Near Future — The Outsider is easily my favorite of the presented 7 chapters as I am a huge sucker for this classic mecha anime vibe and the consequential tropes that it follows. I'm a massive Akira Tadokoro fan here.

Lastly, Imperial China — The Successor completely surprised me as I had played it while really tired and wanting to just get it out of the way since I never really cared for any story focusing on martial arts masters and their disciples. Despite that, I really like this one! I thought that although not explored at length, the initial impressions of the relationship between the Shifu and each of his disciples were effective for getting me to care about the chapter's story. I also think that the way that training your students pays off later is great. This is one of the moments of the story that I'm really glad I got to experience blind.

Like I said, I don't want to delve into any spoiler territory, so I'll just say that I love how this game ends up tying itself together for its final section and conclusion. The entire last stretch of this game helped elevate my appreciation for Live A Live as an entire package—including some sections that I didn't enjoy as much as others, namely The Distant Future — The Mechanical Heart and Twilight of Edo Japan — The Infiltrator.

Juego único donde los haya.

Cada capítulo es único, puede que en uno sean peleas continuas, otro tengas que explorar un mapa amplio y en otro los combates no tengan presencia y la historia predomine dejando al mínimo la parte de las peleas.
Esto puede no gustar a algunos, pero para mí es una de las cosas por las cuales acabé cautivado por el juego.

Los combates no son para nada complicados de entender y el capítulo final del juego tiene una gran variedad de objetos secretos para encontrar.

all 8 routes are really good, but i especially fell in love with how the villain was introduced in the last route. the individual routes never felt too long and i felt like i was really accomplishing something in a short period of time, while also growing attached to all the characters in the limited time i got with them. the only thing i wasn't a big fan of was the gameplay, which made me drop the game at the very end and watch the ending on youtube. some battles and routes felt pretty easy and some felt way too hard. it's an interesting battle system, but interesting doesn't always mean good

Probably the most disappointed I've felt in not enjoying a game that seems to be so beloved by others. The vast majority of the game feels like a prologue. Each character's scenario gives you a general idea of their personality, motivations, etc, but the short length of them didn't give me enough material to really come to care about any of the main cast as they barely felt fleshed out. Narratively, the majority of stories didn't pull any interesting takes, twists, or thought-provoking moments to get me invested in what was going on. Each story clearly took from other media genres such as Sci-Fi or Westerns, but they ultimately felt pretty... basic. Like watching a short-film where you already know what all is gonna happen 10 minutes in because it's just following typical genre tropes. That said, gameplay-wise I did appreciate how experimental Live A Live was in having each character scenario play out in mechanically different ways, with the Distant Future and Japan scenarios being highlights. Experimenting with ways to tell a JRPG story outside of typical JRPG gameplay conventions is pretty welcome, and that makes it stand out even among modern games.

The grid-based battle system is neat, but also suffers from that "20 hour prologue" feeling with the game constantly throwing mind-numbingly easy encounters at you. Even some boss battles could be cleared by just parking in one spot and alternating your Healing Skill and Damage Skill, or just damage-racing the boss if your character couldn't naturally heal because that's how the boss encounter was designed. Maybe you'll need to use 1 of the 20 healing items the game threw at you. It's such a waste of an interesting system, and while the combat does eventually open up and show its teeth with some difficult encounters, this happens when you only have around 3 hours of playtime left.

The game has cool and unique ideas, but doesn't do anything cool with them.

Game Finished In 2024 #6:

I Swear, I Really Didn't Mean to Finish Three Square Enix SNES Remakes In A Row but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time

Also, because One Piece Odyssey was too mid to continue playing.

Anyway, Live A Live is really good. Somehow, 20+ years later, it is still astonishingly unique among JRPGs and games as a whole. Not only with the inventive chapter structure, but also with the choice and combination of settings. How many other games do you know that contain scenarios about cavemen, cowboys, and psychics at the same time? But more than just thematically, each chapter of Live A Live contains unique gameplay mechanics, making each chapter stand out.

You can tell the game is great, because the remake really does not change much about the core game, and instead chooses small tweaks to go along with the new coat of paint. And boy, that new coat of paint. HD-2D is such a wonderful engine to make games in. I can't wait for the DQ3 remake. The multiple settings feel both unique and cohesive, thanks to the HD-2D at work. The OST is masterfully done too, giving each chapter further character, but bringing it all together at the end of each one with Megalomania, a truly excellent track. As a reminder, Toby Fox made Megalovania because he wanted to put Megalomania into his hack but couldn't get it to work. Megalovania would not exist without this game.

The game also maintains cohesion by sticking to a set of core mechanics that each chapter provides a slightly different take on. Those core mechanics add an almost SRPG feel to the game due to the grid based system. Conventional resource management more or less does not exist, as things like gold and MP are removed, and you are healed at the end of every battle. This streamlines things significantly, which helps the pacing of each chapter immensely. Live A Live chapters are not meant to be fully fledged JRPG experiences, and this allows for scenarios that wouldn't be possible otherwise. If there is only one thing Live A Live does well, it is taking this anthology format and doing as much as possible with it.

I'll now go through all the chapters and my thoughts on them, from least good [but, importantly, still good] to the best ones.

Prehistory:
While it's still good, there has to be a weak link, and I think the plot here, while cute in how it avoids using dialog due to the setting, is not that special. Mechanically, it's biggest addition is a crafting system, which allows you to craft the best equipment in the game early if you know what to do, but it means there's not a lot else to it. Despite this, I think this makes one of the best starting chapters due to how those mechanics let you get accustomed to the intricacies of Live A Live

Edo:
I think this one is kind of more interesting to talk about than it is to play. While it is very cool to have a sort of nonlinear structure, and to offer the choice between pacifism and bloodshed, because I wanted to do pacifist I found my nose buried in a guide most of the way through. It is also light on plot, because most of your time is spent exploring. It's cool to see what was likely a huge inspiration for Undertale, though.

Middle Ages:
I debated mentioning this one, because it's kind of hidden-ish, but on the other hand if you count the characters on the box art you'll notice there's eight and not seven so I think it's fair game. The plot is great, and the lack of a unique mechanic doesn't hurt the gameplay too much, because Live A Live's core is great.

Distant Future:
This one is great because it is almost entirely plot. Luckily, that plot is very good, and there is SOME non-combat stuff to do that's enjoyable. Plus, it makes the one moment there IS combat much more hype.

Near Future:
Another candidate for a good starting point, Near Future is a mecha setting which means it wins points by default. It's unique mechanic, being able to read NPC minds, isn't too special, and the world map is cool but not a particularly game changing addition. The plot has a lot to like, and the finale is especially amazing.

Present Day:
I have a special fondness for this one, as it's the one I tried, along with Prehistory, when I attempted to play the SNES version years ago. The premise, a boss rush where you can learn the moves of each of the bosses, is basically an RPG version of Mega Man X, and while it is short as a result, the fact this is something that could basically only be done in a game with this format seriously elevates it for me, borderline excuse plot be damned.

China:
This one manages to marry a compelling story with unique mechanics amazingly. In this one, you play an old martial arts master who trains three students. The students learn in part based on what moves you use on them, incorporating that bit from Present Day as well. While it's best to focus on one student, luckily that pays off. Another excellent use of the format.

Wild West:
This one is my favorite because, surprise surprise, it uses the format amazingly. Much like Distant Future, combat is limited, but in this chapter the entire scenario is structured around it. There is only one real fight, and you and an entire town have to prepare for it. If you prepare well, the fight is made easier. If you prepare poorly, the fight will be one of the hardest in the game. This is accompanied with a timer, ensuring you have to budget the little time you have effectively. The story is compelling, and despite being one of the shorter chapters, gets you invested in the characters quick enough to make an impact.

It is kind of a miracle this game got remade. It was relegated to cult status for the longest time, but somehow, the game made enough of an impact to get remade. And it's a good thing it was, because the remake is a great modernization of an already very good game.

Almost thirty years after its initial release, this is still bizarrely overvalued as an emotional experience, and the remake leans into this with a florid translation meant to shore up its artistic cred. "Look, your counter-cultural adolescent fixation is actually deep and literary after all!" Square now claims of a game where you can fart on a dinosaur until it dies. The effort to canonize games as art has given birth to a whole lot of anecdotal overexaggeration, but I seriously cannot comprehend forming a legitimate bond with any of these caricatures, cute and expressive as they are.

The dishonesty is a shame, because even taken at its truer comic-book face, Live a Live has always been ambitious and rich with the spirit of experimentation that characterized Square's best work in the mid-to-late 90s. Unfortunately none of these virtues extend to the inane battle system, in which nearly every character sports ten or twelve different moves when there are at most two optimal options for any given encounter. It is no coincidence that the best chapters in the game (Sundown and Cube) are the ones that downplay the combat the most.

The Distant Future, in fact, has always been the most interesting chapter for this reason. While many of the other chapters pioneer early iterations of genre systems - item synthesis (Pogo), a crude skill point gimmick (Shifu), performance-based storytelling/rewards (Oboromaru) - Cube's chapter is brave enough to ask whether JRPG storytelling can survive without any mechanical hooks at all (save the last boss, only necessary as a justification for the frame narrative). Does it succeed? Insofar as anything ripping off two of the best sci-fi films of all time will, sure, but it's also hampered by its lack of depth. There just isn't enough time to take any of these characters anywhere interesting, and that goes for every chapter. It's a double-edged sword, because the breezy pace is a positive (and this battle system could not support a 40-hour game), but none of our seven protagonists make for especially strong anti-hate thesis statements when the time comes to wrap the whole thing up. The narrative is left fundamentally wanting, doubly so if you have even basic knowledge of English prefixes and can predict what lies in store for the final chapter.

Even if it doesn't make good on its lofty pretenses, there is plenty to enjoy here and it's one of the more justifiable expressions of the remake fetishism running rampant through the industry right now. We should at least be thankful that we got this and not Bahamut Lagoon.