Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

Live A Live (SNES) artwork

Live A Live (SNES) review


"It’s rare these days to see the Square-Enix name within a mile of anything original. “Rehashing sells” has been their motto for the past few years, to the detriment of the JRPG genre as a whole. However, Square wasn’t always like that (well, okay, yes they were). There was a time, back in 1994, when Square released the second-best JRPG on the SNES, second only to Earthbound. That game is Live A Live, which unfortunately never saw a release outside Japan. "

It’s rare these days to see the Square-Enix name within a mile of anything original. “Rehashing sells” has been their motto for the past few years, to the detriment of the JRPG genre as a whole. However, Square wasn’t always like that (well, okay, yes they were). There was a time, back in 1994, when Square released the second-best JRPG on the SNES, second only to Earthbound. That game is Live A Live, which unfortunately never saw a release outside Japan.

The premise behind Live A Live is simple – Square gathered a whole bunch of popular manga artists (most of whom no one in the US has heard of, even to this day), gave them a generic JRPG engine, and told them to have at it. What resulted is a 20-or-so hour long RPG that makes Final Fantasy as a series look like the crap it is (or at least, the crap it has been since Final Fantasy 6).

Like Earthbound, Live A Live isn’t your standard JRPG. The game itself consists of nine parts, each done by a different artist, and each with its own design choices. While Live A Live isn’t exactly a Shigesato Itoi masterpiece, it definitely has its moments. The first eight chapters each focus on a single character – ranging from a caveman, to a ninja, to a cowboy, to a robot. Each character’s chapter is wildly different from all of the others, and as I mentioned before, each has their own well thought-out design decisions.

Take the Caveman’s chapter as an example. Cavemen had no spoken language, and thus the entire chapter contains next to no dialog (only a single word is spoken the entire time). The story is relayed through pictures and the character’s actions, which works surprisingly well. The Caveman theme is even bought into the battle system – all of the caveman’s move names are simple sounds (“BashBash” and “BangBang” as examples). Naturally, the caveman chapter contains a ton of combat, and has one of the hardest optional bosses in the game within. Level design in the caveman chapter is very, very simple, consisting mostly of linear caves and open areas.

In stark contrast is the ninja, Oboro. Oboro’s chapter is his mission to infiltrate a feudal Japanese castle, free a prisoner, and kill Ode Iou, the lord of the castle. The castle itself is mostly enclosed spaces, and is filled with secret passages, hidden rooms, and traps. You’re given a few different ways to complete the chapter as well. You could go through and kill every man, woman, and child in the building (which is actually much more complicated than you’d think) for a total of 100 kills. On the other hand, you can go through the castle without ever killing anyone (which again, is far more complicated than you’d think). Or you could just slaughter everything you come across in a fit of wanton destruction, disregarding your killcount entirely. Whichever way you do it, the chapter is an interesting one.

As splintered as the chapters may sound, they DO have one coherent, overarching plot. To discuss exactly what this is would completely ruin the game.

The battle system is the only thing that the first seven chapters appear to have in common. Battles take place on a small grid, using one of the only non-boring ways to do a turn-based battle system. When it’s your turn, you move your characters around the grid and set them up to attack, while at the same time trying to avoid your enemy’s attack range. This means you actually have to pay attention during battle – mashing the frameskip button will usually lead you to a swift death. There is no MP, and lost health is automatically recovered after finishing combat, meaning there’s no need to carry around 99 of every potion.

Live A Live also exhibits one of the hallmarks of a good JRPG – very little to no grinding. Unless you plan on taking out all the optional bosses and min-maxing your characters, there really isn’t a need to grind.. at least, not until the very end of the game, when some slight grinding becomes a necessity. I’m not even sure what the maximum level is, but there’s no need to hit it in order to finish the game.

LAL also has at least some replayability, unlike most JRPGs. There’s a bunch of different endings depending on which character you choose as your main in the final chapter – including one of the coolest design ideas I’ve ever seen in a JRPG. You see, one of the choices for the final chapter is the villain. Choosing the villain allows you to play as the various bosses you’ve fought in all the other chapters against the characters you spent so much time levelling up (and yes, you fight them exactly how you left them at the end of their respective chapters). Don’t ask me why, but that feels exactly like something Shigesato Itoi would do, and is one of the reasons I love this game.

It’s a damn shame that Live A Live was never released stateside. The only way you’ll ever play it in English is to download the ROM and the translation patch (which actually makes the game BETTER). LAL is definitely a game worth playing, no matter how you look at it. My final rating for this game is a 9/10, with one point subtracted because of some rather annoying terrain issues late in the game (namely having to walk through a bunch of trees with no clear path through them). Other than that, this game is golden.



timrod's avatar
Community review by timrod (April 29, 2009)

A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.

More Reviews by timrod [+]
I-Fluid (PC) artwork
The Longest Journey (PC) artwork
The Longest Journey (PC)

About a week ago, I got introduced to The Longest (-winded) Journey, which people told me was the best point-and-click adventure game ever made, and that I would instantly love it the second I began playing it. So I downloaded it, installed it, and played about halfway through. What I found is that The Longest Journey...
3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houkan (SNES) artwork
3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houkan (SNES)

There comes a time in every man’s life when for the sake of a seemingly pointless competition he is required to review a game whose name is a number because he wasn’t lucky enough to be one of the twenty-six other people and get a letter. Unfortunately for me, I have a terrible university internet connection, which rul...

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Live A Live review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

board icon
zippdementia posted April 30, 2009:

An FF hater, huh? I have to say... FF7 was very good, FFX was amazing, and FFXII and FFIX were both interesting in their own right. So the only FF to truly suck since FFVI was FFVIII.

But I digress.

Your review, aside from the FF silliness, made me actually want to play this game, though I would've liked to know whether there's a coherent story here, or just a range of scenarios.
board icon
Suskie posted April 30, 2009:

Bahaha. Arguing with this guy about FF will get you nowhere.

Also: Yeah, Final Fantasy VIII did, in fact, suck.

On topic, I actually did, um, "buy" Live A Live a while ago but never got around to playing it. Might just boot it up sometime if I'm bored.
board icon
EmP posted April 30, 2009:

People who enjoy FFXII should be locked away before they can do harm to others. Or, worse, breed.

Yay! We're ignoring a review on a different series in favour of bickering about FF games!
board icon
sashanan posted April 30, 2009:

It's been a while since I played Live a Live. Back then, what was available in translation patches was decidedly less than aesthetically pleasing. Might have to give it another shot one of these days.
board icon
zippdementia posted April 30, 2009:

Arguing with ANYONE over their FF tastes is pointless, because it, like religion, is one of those things that people either love or hate, and never the twain shall meet.

I could list a bunch of reasons why you're wrong, but then you'd list a bunch of reasons why you're right. Still, I couldn't help but open the can of worms slightly... just to see what sort of Kraken lurked within.

Maybe some other day.
board icon
joseph_valencia posted April 30, 2009:

I've learned to neither love nor hate Final Fantasy, but to embrace its inconsistency. As for the review, it's good enough to make me want to play the game. Nice job. :)
board icon
timrod posted April 30, 2009:

zipp: There is one coherent story, but you wouldn't recognize that there is until the eighth/final chapter.

sash: The translation patch was updated last year, it looks far better now. Each character has their own font.
board icon
randxian posted May 01, 2009:

Good review. I like how you provide examples of two different chapters to give us a feel what the game is like while showcasing the game's strength. Well done.

What I don't like is how you suddenly spring the game's one weakness during the last paragraph. I think that should've been incorporated into the body somehow.

Then again, I'm really one to talk about organization and incorporating ideas together.

About FF, I've played FF 1-7 and 12. I think 6 is outstanding, the rest are good, but not spectacular. FF games are good, just overrated. I even enjoyed FF 7, but I don't think it's anywhere near the best RPG ever. I even enjoyed 12 from what little I've played of it.
board icon
darketernal posted May 01, 2009:

Kung Fu era was the best to me. Awesome main character, that being a cool old guy, which are always the best sort of characters, fun "80's martial arts movie" storyline, and great, GREAT music. Well, the entire game has above average music. Also, the Wild West era was awesome, I don't know why, but I really liked the protagonist of it, very Clint Eastwood like.

As for FF's, I liked them all more or less, with the exception of FFVIII in which I hated the junction system more then all else really. Haven't yet played FFXII. Favorites would be FF7, IX, IV and VI, probably in that order.

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Live A Live is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Live A Live, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.