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Live A Live - this year's sleeper hit?

Keyboard Koala

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Keyboard Koala

Keyboard Koala

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hero?v=2022021100

 

 

Without a doubt the weirdest and most interesting announcement of the last Nintendo Direct.

 

Live A Live is a role-playing video game in which the player takes on the role of eight different protagonists through nine scenarios.

While each narrative has the same basic mechanics, individual stories have unique gimmicks; these include the use of stealth, a lack of standard battles, or using telepathy to learn new facts to progress the narrative. With the exception of one scenario, the player character navigates themed environments, ranging from the overworld area to dungeon environments. Battles are triggered differently for each scenario; some are random encounters, some have enemy sprites which can be avoided, while others are entirely scripted.

 

The turn-based battle system is used across all scenarios, and features the player character and sometimes a party fighting enemies on a 7x7 grid, with characters able to move and perform actions such as attacking or using particular skills. Skills can be used without limit, though some take multiple turns to charge. Some abilities imbue tiles with extra properties, such as healing a character or dealing elemental damage.There are also different skill systems in place; there is gaining levels with experience points, which unlocks new abilities, though in others character progression is locked behind story events. In one scenario techniques are learned through seeing an opponent use them. Each character can also equip and use items, such as accessories to boost attack or items to recover health. If the player character, or party, is defeated, the game ends.

 

Live A Live was originally developed in 1994 by Development Division 5 of [then] Square.

The game was the directorial debut of Takashi Tokita, who had previously worked in a designer role for Hanjuku Hero and Final Fantasy IV. The original concept was born from the desire to make an RPG where players could experience multiple standalone stories at once, contrasting against Final Fantasy where smaller stories served a grand narrative arc. The production was made possible by the expanding storage capacity of the Super Famicom ROM, with the aim being for players to be able to complete each section within a day. Several staff members, including designer Nobuyuki Inoue and lead programmer Fumiaki Fukaya, had worked on either Hanjuku Hero or the Final Fantasy series.

Active production began in December 1993, though the entire development including early planning lasted one and a half years.

 

Tokita once said it would depend entirely on fan demand, whether a remake or sequel would happen or not. He later revealed that multiple attempts at a sequel or remake had fallen through over the years. Almost three decades after its initial release, a remake was eventually announced in February 2022 for Nintendo Switch.

 

After joining the Square Enix team developing Octopath Traveler, known for its "HD-2D" graphical style which blended sprite art with 3D graphics, Tokita was inspired to remake Live A Live using the wonderful graphical style of Octopath Traveller. Work on the remake already began in 2019, with development proving challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the need of preserving the variety of playstyles. The UI and sound effects were updated, and the gameplay was re-balanced. The character designs were redrawn by Naoki Ikushima. Shimomura returned to orchestrate and arrange the soundtrack, and voice acting (!) for main and important characters was included, with the cast being chosen by Tokita based on his initial concepts for what the characters would sound like.

 

 

Debut trailer:

 

 

 

Latest trailer:

 

 

 

 

The remake is scheduled for release on July 22, 2022.

Square Enix will publish the game in Japan, while Nintendo will be the publisher in the West. It comes in both a physical and digital version, and a collector's edition will be available from Square Enix Japan's website. 

 

Spoiler

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revlob

revlob

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It's difficult to convey just how surprising an announcement this was. Of all Square's output, this is amongst the least well known from its golden 16-bit era. If it wasn't for Super Play's import coverage, I'd probably have never heard of it. Despite the Switch proving itself as fertile territory for classic JRPGs, I'd never have predicted a Live A Live remake, never mind one bound for Western release.

 

What an exciting time to be a Square fan. What's next? Bahumut Lagoon? Treasure Hunter G? FF6 in the HD-2D style?

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Sarlaccfood

Sarlaccfood

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1 minute ago, gossi the dog said:

 

£39.99. I’d pay that for a physical copy, will wait for a minimum 50% sale if digital only.

 

Hopefully the Japanese release will have English language as an option.


Ah yeah I’ll wait for a sale then. I’m only curious rather than MUST BUY for me.

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Keyboard Koala

Keyboard Koala

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12 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

Anything to hammer home that Squenix should make more HD-2D games (VI or Chrono Trigger being the holy grails). 

 

I'd add FF V to that as well. We've had brilliant remakes with III and IV on the NDS, so we'd need V & VI to complete that. 

Ahh, who are we kidding, SE probably thinks they're already doing us a huge favour with those bloody lazy pixel remakes. 

I hope they will at least continue doing the DQ series in that fabulous 2D-HD style.

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

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I have to go and look up the original now because just going on the name, I'm sure I found this as an obscure fan translation ROM or something, decades back ... Like right back when ROMs and emulators first became a thing. And played it and quite liked it, but now I can't remember anything about it. 

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Rex Grossman

Rex Grossman

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25 minutes ago, revlob said:

Strange view to have. That you only played it because you had access to a fan translated ROM doesn't speak volumes about its reknown.


But that if even I, something who doesn’t really pay attention to JRPGs, knew about it’s existence it’s not that hidden away.

It’s a post-Secret of Mana Square game from a time when magazines in the West were paying attention to JRPGs.

 

Am I surprised that it’s getting a rerelease? Yes.
Do I think a JRPG from the biggest JRPG house of the era that was fan translated almost as soon as fan translation became a thing is an obscure oddity? No. 

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dug

dug

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The burning question to me is: is it pronounced Live A Live or Live A Live? On the other hand, I suppose it could be Live A Live. Sounds completely unnatural in English, but many Japanese game titles do. It's almost certainly not Live A Live, though.

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Cyhwuhx

Cyhwuhx

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3 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

I’ve barely played any JRPGs but even I’ve played the fan translation of this. Im not sure it’s that obscure.

 

Counter: I had to spend quite some time explaining to a large part of my Squenix-fan friends what this was over IM. I'm sure it is that obscure.

 

It's [laif-a-laif] btw. (TIHI.)

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Keyboard Koala

Keyboard Koala

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22 minutes ago, dug said:

The burning question to me is: is it pronounced Live A Live or Live A Live? On the other hand, I suppose it could be Live A Live. Sounds completely unnatural in English, but many Japanese game titles do. It's almost certainly not Live A Live, though.

 

Seeing as the original Japanese title is pronounced "Raibu A Raibu" I'd say Cyhwuhx is right.

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