Though I had a good time with it in retrospective, I feel Live A Live (2022) is an extremely conflicting game... literally.
When I played it, I felt like playing 2 separate games at the same time:
1) One being a somewhat closed and linear JRPG on the SNES whose fun comes from exploring and figuring out its mechanics and its world;
2) And another being an open JRPG released in the late 2010s/early 2020s which doesn't really care about immersing the player and is oh so scared of having them having to figure out anything: every item and interactible element is indicated visually, text boxes explaining you any form of new mechanics appear before you even have the chance to experience it, and there is even a mini map indicating where to go... at all time.
In other words, every quality of life "improvement" added in this remake of Live A Live feels completely disconnected from what you're actually playing, as well as being detrimental to the experience I think. And this is coming from someone who never played the original release.
I know for a fact that because the chapters are so self-contained and don't really offer much in term of world-building, battle system or other gameplay elements used by more traditional JRPGs to immerse the player in its world, the original release's enjoyment must have come from discovering the unique mechanics specific to each chapters, as well as their world.
Well this is completely thrown out in the remake. For example, there is no point in having to remember locations or memorize what might be of interest later, just follow the minimap. What eventually happens is that you end up only looking at the circle at the bottom-right corner of the screen, because that's the most logical and convenient thing to do if you want to progress. Adding to this, the world feels extremely empty now that items are highlighted. There is no more mystery or suspense like in other JRPGs where you're like "Will this closet have something inside?" as you just know it by entering the room a looking at it for less than 1 second.
I have so many other examples where the game just prevents you from interacting, engaging with it. All of this makes the game so much less interesting and memorable than it could have been. It's not a coincidence that my least favorite chapters were the first two ones I played... before I turned off the minimap and the advice boxes.
I feel like if they wanted to include all these QoL improvements, they should have completely remade that game, by making it bigger, more open, with more sidequests, longer stories and things like that, instead of making a faithful remake except with small dumb additions ruining it.
I still found enjoyment with though, especially after turning off the QoL things. I love the HD-2D artstyle (though I found the extremely slick, polished style not really suiting some parts of the game), the OST was great and didn't feel like simple arrangements of SNES tracks, I was surprised with how unique and varied the chapters were and the last part of the game was of course peak fiction.
But all of that didn't change the fact that I ended up really disappointed and even frustrated with this remake, which I thought would be the best way to experience Live A Live for the first time. I just wished I played the original instead.
When I played it, I felt like playing 2 separate games at the same time:
1) One being a somewhat closed and linear JRPG on the SNES whose fun comes from exploring and figuring out its mechanics and its world;
2) And another being an open JRPG released in the late 2010s/early 2020s which doesn't really care about immersing the player and is oh so scared of having them having to figure out anything: every item and interactible element is indicated visually, text boxes explaining you any form of new mechanics appear before you even have the chance to experience it, and there is even a mini map indicating where to go... at all time.
In other words, every quality of life "improvement" added in this remake of Live A Live feels completely disconnected from what you're actually playing, as well as being detrimental to the experience I think. And this is coming from someone who never played the original release.
I know for a fact that because the chapters are so self-contained and don't really offer much in term of world-building, battle system or other gameplay elements used by more traditional JRPGs to immerse the player in its world, the original release's enjoyment must have come from discovering the unique mechanics specific to each chapters, as well as their world.
Well this is completely thrown out in the remake. For example, there is no point in having to remember locations or memorize what might be of interest later, just follow the minimap. What eventually happens is that you end up only looking at the circle at the bottom-right corner of the screen, because that's the most logical and convenient thing to do if you want to progress. Adding to this, the world feels extremely empty now that items are highlighted. There is no more mystery or suspense like in other JRPGs where you're like "Will this closet have something inside?" as you just know it by entering the room a looking at it for less than 1 second.
I have so many other examples where the game just prevents you from interacting, engaging with it. All of this makes the game so much less interesting and memorable than it could have been. It's not a coincidence that my least favorite chapters were the first two ones I played... before I turned off the minimap and the advice boxes.
I feel like if they wanted to include all these QoL improvements, they should have completely remade that game, by making it bigger, more open, with more sidequests, longer stories and things like that, instead of making a faithful remake except with small dumb additions ruining it.
I still found enjoyment with though, especially after turning off the QoL things. I love the HD-2D artstyle (though I found the extremely slick, polished style not really suiting some parts of the game), the OST was great and didn't feel like simple arrangements of SNES tracks, I was surprised with how unique and varied the chapters were and the last part of the game was of course peak fiction.
But all of that didn't change the fact that I ended up really disappointed and even frustrated with this remake, which I thought would be the best way to experience Live A Live for the first time. I just wished I played the original instead.
6 Comments
@SunlitSonata
I totally disagree with the fact you would need the objective marker in the more open chapters. In fact, I'd argue it's even worse here. Figuring out where to go, exploring the area, remembering places for later, all of that was part of my enjoyment when I played those chapters, like it always is when I play any other games where I have to explore.
Of course, it's never enjoyable to wander around for an hour because you don't know which NPC to talk to to progress the story. I get that. However, this never happened to me once in that game even when I turned off the minimap, given how little there is to explore and how straightforward everything is. The only times I got "lost" in Edo Japan allowed me to explore the maze-like dungeon, get some stuff, solve puzzles and- oh! I just found where to go! As for Near Future, like I said earlier, I got to memorize where some locations are and even to grind a bit.
But for the Distant Future, I am sorry but getting lost is absolutely the whole point of it. If you played that with marked objectives all the way through, you completely missed the oppressive, monotonous atmosphere the developers originally tried to convey. The way everything looks the same, how you're suppose to backtrack for the whole story, how tense this is because you don't know where to go, the way literally nothing happens in those corridors at the beginning even though you know the space-behemoth will eventually escape and roam free at some point. Getting lost here is intentional.
I think I'd have much prefered if the objective marker was toggled off and you had to go out of your way in the settings to toggle it instead of the opposite. Because as it is now, it's not just accounting for the audience who might be lost like you said, but it's also actively imposing a way of playing which discourage exploring and engaging with the world.
I totally disagree with the fact you would need the objective marker in the more open chapters. In fact, I'd argue it's even worse here. Figuring out where to go, exploring the area, remembering places for later, all of that was part of my enjoyment when I played those chapters, like it always is when I play any other games where I have to explore.
Of course, it's never enjoyable to wander around for an hour because you don't know which NPC to talk to to progress the story. I get that. However, this never happened to me once in that game even when I turned off the minimap, given how little there is to explore and how straightforward everything is. The only times I got "lost" in Edo Japan allowed me to explore the maze-like dungeon, get some stuff, solve puzzles and- oh! I just found where to go! As for Near Future, like I said earlier, I got to memorize where some locations are and even to grind a bit.
But for the Distant Future, I am sorry but getting lost is absolutely the whole point of it. If you played that with marked objectives all the way through, you completely missed the oppressive, monotonous atmosphere the developers originally tried to convey. The way everything looks the same, how you're suppose to backtrack for the whole story, how tense this is because you don't know where to go, the way literally nothing happens in those corridors at the beginning even though you know the space-behemoth will eventually escape and roam free at some point. Getting lost here is intentional.
I think I'd have much prefered if the objective marker was toggled off and you had to go out of your way in the settings to toggle it instead of the opposite. Because as it is now, it's not just accounting for the audience who might be lost like you said, but it's also actively imposing a way of playing which discourage exploring and engaging with the world.
While I do agree that some parts of the game shouldn’t tell you where to go (like in some distant future parts), having played the original prior to the remake, the qol is absolutely a massive net positive. Fumbling around in near future and edo japan (the traps are also horrid in the original release) in the original was way more annoying than fun. You still want to explore and check everything even though you know where to go… it actually makes it easier to make sure you’ve checked every optional path before continuing to the objective. You didn’t make any direct references to it in your review but the combat having loads of information available in the remake made it far surpass the original without losing any of the core ideas of the game. The original has no atb bars, charge time info (not even if the move charges or not), poor indication of what element moves are, no way to know what’s effective and what’s not besides trial and error that doesn’t get you very far. That all made for the very combat focused end game to feel like a mess with all the different enemy types and moves available; an issue you’ll never encounter in the remake.
@rockman
You're right, I didn't mention the combat in my review because I thought there was nothing wrong - but also nothing outstanding - about it. But if it's truly as confusing as you say in the original, then yeah I'm glad the remake made it more accessible.
As for the game telling the player where to go, I don't see how me "fumbling around" during most of my playthrough after I turned off the objective marker should be different if I were playing the original, unless they did significant changes to the level layouts or something like that? (I'm genuinely curious why you think that.) Because I never really got lost long enough to become annoyed even after disabling the objective marker.
Again, I'm not saying they should outright remove the marker, but instead having it toggled off at the beginning. Maybe that's just me, but I think it's better to force players to engage with the world and then allow them to be guided if they're lost, rather than guiding them right from the start and have some not feeling engaged with the world because they were never pushed to do so by the game design... unless they turn off a mechanic added in the remake which is supposed to enhance the experience.
You're right, I didn't mention the combat in my review because I thought there was nothing wrong - but also nothing outstanding - about it. But if it's truly as confusing as you say in the original, then yeah I'm glad the remake made it more accessible.
As for the game telling the player where to go, I don't see how me "fumbling around" during most of my playthrough after I turned off the objective marker should be different if I were playing the original, unless they did significant changes to the level layouts or something like that? (I'm genuinely curious why you think that.) Because I never really got lost long enough to become annoyed even after disabling the objective marker.
Again, I'm not saying they should outright remove the marker, but instead having it toggled off at the beginning. Maybe that's just me, but I think it's better to force players to engage with the world and then allow them to be guided if they're lost, rather than guiding them right from the start and have some not feeling engaged with the world because they were never pushed to do so by the game design... unless they turn off a mechanic added in the remake which is supposed to enhance the experience.
In original edo japan a lot of the traps in the attic areas are near unavoidable until you defeat the related boss making for many additional walks back. There is also that one enemy that once you trigger it chases you indefinitely in certain hallways, in the original every time they touch you it’ll start a battle and they run way way faster than you. In the remake you have to interact with them for a fight to start so after the initial battle they won’t interrupt your exploration. As for near future there were just a lot of encounters and many parts were very vague about where to go. I actually really agree with your sentiment generally, I like having to thoroughly explore and interact with objects and all in older jrpgs but I did not miss it here due to it generally just feeling like a waste of time in these chapters when I played the original game (almost fully due to excessive additional battles with no real reward stopping me from finding my way). I also think it should be off and a lot of the tutorials off by default as well (like pogo's chapter should not have tutorial boxes at all). At the end of the day it’s small stuff for me compared to what I really love about live a live. The remake enhanced all that I liked greatly without trimming much soul out of the equation. Glad you agree the end is peak unlike some of these goofy reviews complaining about the final chapter.
@rockman
Huh I would have never guessed they changed the level/overworld, that's interesting. I thought they just faithfully recreated the original game and simply added an objective marker and called it a day.
The thing is that I can't really judge this game as a remake, as I didn't play the original, and even if I did, I think remakes, but also ports and even adaptations in general should be reviewed and enjoyed on their own for the most part. So I don't know which part exactly does this remake improve or worsen over the original experience. What I do know however is that I noticed hindering discrepancies between some gameplay elements, that there were clashing design choices which I assumed were due to changes brought by the remake, and which - apparently for the most part - I wrongly assumed to be lazy.
Also I can't help but notice that despite all the shortcomings of the original that you wrote, you still rated it 5 stars lol, so I still believe I would enjoy it more than the remake.
Huh I would have never guessed they changed the level/overworld, that's interesting. I thought they just faithfully recreated the original game and simply added an objective marker and called it a day.
The thing is that I can't really judge this game as a remake, as I didn't play the original, and even if I did, I think remakes, but also ports and even adaptations in general should be reviewed and enjoyed on their own for the most part. So I don't know which part exactly does this remake improve or worsen over the original experience. What I do know however is that I noticed hindering discrepancies between some gameplay elements, that there were clashing design choices which I assumed were due to changes brought by the remake, and which - apparently for the most part - I wrongly assumed to be lazy.
Also I can't help but notice that despite all the shortcomings of the original that you wrote, you still rated it 5 stars lol, so I still believe I would enjoy it more than the remake.
SunlitSonata
11 months ago
In chapters like Edo Japan, Near Future and Distant Future, you basically NEED the objective marker on so you don’t spend actual hours finding the one specific NPC to talk to at any one time. It’s accounting for the audience who would just say f it and turn to a guide the moment they get stuck.
But other chapters like China or the Western one have small enough maps to were it isn’t necessary