Was Live A Live Worth It?

Follow the stories of seven characters across the entirety of history in this classic JRPG. Was Live A Live worth it?

Background

Live A Live originally released on the Super Nintendo back in 1994. It didn’t sell well, and never got an official worldwide release. It’s gotten a second lease on life as an HD-2D remake on the Switch.

You follow several characters throughout history. Eventually, they team up to take on a larger threat. The best parallels to this game are Octopath Traveler or Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3). Like those games, you have multiple narratives happening, with some eventual intersection. However, Unlike either of those titles, you don’t have access to your party early. Instead, you’ll need to complete their stories first and then gather them all up for the latter part of the game.

Did this time traveling RPG suffer from bad timing?

Quite possibly. Back in 1994, Live A Live dropped a few months after Final Fantasy VI, which had sold like gangbusters. Live A Live lifelessly sat on store shelves for six months before being absolutely massacred when Square released a better time travel game: Chrono Trigger. Even if this game had legs, competing with the tidal wave of other RPGs at the time would have been a tall order.

Live A Live would get a fan translation around 2008, but again, that was unfortunate timing. This is purely conjecture, but I believe these are some factors here that kept the game from getting a second lease on life:

• The fan demographic may have gotten older or less interested
• Live A Live didn’t have the same diehard fanbase as say, the Mother series
• Numerous other retro JRPGs were getting official ports/rereleases: the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, etc.

I can’t speak to LAL’s initial lack of appeal with the home market, but contrast its legacy with Trials of Mana, which was fan translated in 1999 and reached a lot more Western players, including myself.

What does Live A Live do well?

The aforementioned HD-2D visuals are nice.

The grid-based battle system lends itself well to actually planning your moves instead of just spamming attacks. System mastery is rewarded here – fights can be cheesed if you position well and take advantage of your range.

The music is good, and if you’re a fan of Toby Fox, then you have this game to thank.

I complain about cumbersome menus a lot, but in a strange turnabout, I’m really surprised at the elegance of this game’s interface. It’s easy to navigate and looks great.

What could Live A Live do better?

This title is old enough to be paying off student loans, and as such, it has some quirks.

Inconsistency

Difficulty is all over the place. It’s never insurmountable, but it’s awkward. Chapters with less party members feel rough compared to chapters that actually let the battle system shine.

Pacing

Each chapter is interesting, that’s for sure, but some of them are over way too soon. Characters leave and rejoin at awkward times: in one chapter a character comes back and then the chapter ends about 10 minutes later.

For better or worse, the chapters are short enough to where you can just restart them, but arguably that goes against the central conceit of RPGs. There’s a bit of replayability, but I’m not so enamored of the individual stories that I want to replay them.

If you’re really just here for the “Bill and Ted” experience of having a party full of historical characters, then know that it’s going to take a while to ramp up to that.

Was Live A Live fun?

It’s fun, but the uneven difficulty can make certain chapters frustrating. The ninja scenario really comes to mind here.

Is Live A Live good value?

As far as JRPGs go, it’s pretty short. Most of your time will be spent in the individual narratives rather than the group phase. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, except for the fact that this game is going for $50.

Compared to Trials of Mana: they’re both SNES-era RPGs that got remade/released at the same price point, but that was a ground-up re-envisioning while this retains the original aesthetic.

Compared to Chrono Cross: CC was a PS1 title that got rereleased recently, and while the port is pretty crappy, it’s also only $20.

Who is this game for?

Live A Live is for retro JRPG fans who may not have had a chance to experience this title before.

Was Live A Live worth it?

Live A Live is an interesting game that had the misfortune of releasing at a time where it had to compete with some of the most enduring JRPGs in history. It is the “also-ran” of Square’s classic JRPG titles.

Ironically, that theme would persist into the present with this remake. For a game about time, it’s amazing how poor their timing was. I’m floored that they chose to release this as a Switch exclusive a week before Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Digimon Survive.

Live A Live has a lot of heart, and is an interesting piece of JRPG history, but I would recommend waiting to buy it when it inevitably goes on sale.

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