It's hard to know what to say about this. I'd already fallen in love with the SNES original, so from my own perspective, crediting the remake with what a good game LIVE A LIVE is feels redundant. But it's also good to know for the vast majority of people coming to it as their first experience with the game. I'll focus on the details of the remake here, since that's the perspective I'm bringing to the game. For reference I'd probably rate the original 4.5 stars, which in my journal tends to mean "beloved game with noticeable flaws".
The remake deals with most of those flaws handily. There are two overarching issues I'd ascribe to the SNES original. The first is opacity in the combat system - the effect of your moves is described in a single line of text, which is even more compressed in the fan translation due to the efficiency of Japanese. Each character has a whole host of moves to try and figure out what they do, and you don't stay with them long enough to really learn it. It was overwhelming. The remake updates the battle screen to have all the information you need in the UI - a much longer description, elements and status effects summarised by icons, and a tracker for enemy health and weaknesses. The combat feels so much better now that you can easily tell your moves apart and see when to apply them to weaknesses.
The other big issue was the old school JRPG event flag jank. Several chapters involve wandering from point to point trying to figure out what progresses the plot, with navigation sometimes being difficult and objectives unclear. The remake adds an objective radar to the screen. Much has been said of how objective markers are the scourge of modern game design etc etc but I think it works really well here. It only ever points to the main objective to progress the plot of the chapter, players are still expected to find things on their own where that was originally true, such as exploration in the Western and Ninja chapters. Otherwise, chapters are short and linear enough as a result of their bite-sized nature that it's not like there's some grand adventure they're spoiling.
With those issues solved, what about other improvements? Well, the new translation (and of course remember the fan translation was never official) is largely fantastic, though some the punch isn't quite there for some one-liners the Japanese community seems to love. This is presumably a result of SE's localisation policy being holistic rather than line-by-line, and overall I think that's a good thing, so this is just a natural trade-off with that approach.
It barely bears saying that the HD-2D style looks fantastic. What stands out here is how the enemy designs are fundamentally the same, compare and contrast any sprite with the SNES original, and it transfers so well to the style here. It's a perfect fit for the Octopath style of "tiny protag, giant boss", 24 years earlier.
To be completely honest, I was kind of unsure how I felt about the arranged OST from some of the trailers - but seeing it in practice, no, it's great. Shimomura's original compositions still stand up, and the new arrangements breathe them some fresh air for the modern era.
I don't want to get too into the weeds here but there were a host of small mechanical changes to individual things that I found were all improvements.
All in all, this is exactly the remake the game has always needed. It's the same fantastic core game, with a beautiful new presentation, and fixing the janky accessibility issues with the original. I couldn't be happier.
The remake deals with most of those flaws handily. There are two overarching issues I'd ascribe to the SNES original. The first is opacity in the combat system - the effect of your moves is described in a single line of text, which is even more compressed in the fan translation due to the efficiency of Japanese. Each character has a whole host of moves to try and figure out what they do, and you don't stay with them long enough to really learn it. It was overwhelming. The remake updates the battle screen to have all the information you need in the UI - a much longer description, elements and status effects summarised by icons, and a tracker for enemy health and weaknesses. The combat feels so much better now that you can easily tell your moves apart and see when to apply them to weaknesses.
The other big issue was the old school JRPG event flag jank. Several chapters involve wandering from point to point trying to figure out what progresses the plot, with navigation sometimes being difficult and objectives unclear. The remake adds an objective radar to the screen. Much has been said of how objective markers are the scourge of modern game design etc etc but I think it works really well here. It only ever points to the main objective to progress the plot of the chapter, players are still expected to find things on their own where that was originally true, such as exploration in the Western and Ninja chapters. Otherwise, chapters are short and linear enough as a result of their bite-sized nature that it's not like there's some grand adventure they're spoiling.
With those issues solved, what about other improvements? Well, the new translation (and of course remember the fan translation was never official) is largely fantastic, though some the punch isn't quite there for some one-liners the Japanese community seems to love. This is presumably a result of SE's localisation policy being holistic rather than line-by-line, and overall I think that's a good thing, so this is just a natural trade-off with that approach.
It barely bears saying that the HD-2D style looks fantastic. What stands out here is how the enemy designs are fundamentally the same, compare and contrast any sprite with the SNES original, and it transfers so well to the style here. It's a perfect fit for the Octopath style of "tiny protag, giant boss", 24 years earlier.
To be completely honest, I was kind of unsure how I felt about the arranged OST from some of the trailers - but seeing it in practice, no, it's great. Shimomura's original compositions still stand up, and the new arrangements breathe them some fresh air for the modern era.
I don't want to get too into the weeds here but there were a host of small mechanical changes to individual things that I found were all improvements.
All in all, this is exactly the remake the game has always needed. It's the same fantastic core game, with a beautiful new presentation, and fixing the janky accessibility issues with the original. I couldn't be happier.