Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
See topic. The concept of the game seems cool enough (with the mini-RPGs in different eras), but how's the gameplay and story?
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Live A Live: Worth playing?
- Thread starter Chairman Yang
- Start date
Howard Alan Treesong
Member
Simply listen to the awesome soundtrack and save yourself some old-school pain!
RevenantKioku
PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
I'm a big fan of "old school" gameplay, but I just couldn't get into this one. It sits in the "maybe one day if I'm really sick and lost everything else" pile.
Azure Dream
Member
Darn, I know of a pretty detailed site about it with impressions and media, but now that I look at it, it includes a downloadable ROM of it, so I can't link or I'd break TOS. :/
Here's a few quotes from the "About" page, though, maybe they'll help:
The game's always interested me, personally, kind of a shame it's that type of game that never saw the light of day in the US back when it would've been reasonably current (even if it did look a little dated for the time). Just one of those situations where people say, "Why didn't they ever make a game that was like [...]", but the truth is they did, it just never saw release outside of Japan.
Here's a few quotes from the "About" page, though, maybe they'll help:
The game's always interested me, personally, kind of a shame it's that type of game that never saw the light of day in the US back when it would've been reasonably current (even if it did look a little dated for the time). Just one of those situations where people say, "Why didn't they ever make a game that was like [...]", but the truth is they did, it just never saw release outside of Japan.
Even though the battle system is kind of odd and quirky, I really enjoyed the game... It's not some 50 hour long game so even if you don't like it, you won't really feel cheated out of your time. The music is great and some of the scenarios present are definitely unique for RPGs.
I wrote a big thing a year ago for my 1up blog which I actually wanted to maintain regularly... yeah that never happened. But here's the writeup:
Live A Live was a Super Famicom game released by Square in 1994. Sadly, the game was never released in the US, but AGTP has released an excellent translation patch for the game.
Live A Live chronicles the adventures of 8 different adventurers, set in different time periods, and their eventual meetup in one of the most memorable final chapters of RPG history. Players can select from one of 7 characters and complete their individual story, before unlocking the 8th chapter. Upon completion of the 8th chapter, the final chapter will start, where all of the original 7 heroes meet up to defeat an evil existing throughout history. Each chapter has character design by a different artist, and some of them feature unorthodox gameplay, which adds to the originality and enjoyability of the title.
Prehistoric Chapter - A classic love story, told not with dialogue, but with descriptive pictures filling up word bubbles. (insert description of story here) Lots of lighthearted, slapstick humor, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security... Threats lie in hiding, so you'll need to sniff your way through the land to find them before they get to you!
Kung Fu Chapter - An old martial arts master, Shinzan, is searching the countryside for a suitable disciple to hand down his "Shinseikan" fighting technique to. His journey introduces himself to the beautiful girl Lei, hard working little boy Yun, and chubby Samo. It's up to the player to pick out the warrior best able to preserve the art of Shinseikan.
Wild-West Chapter - The Sundown Kid, your classic Wild-West cowboy, rides into a small frontier town, and confronts a bandit harassing the villagers. He then learns from the townspeople that, after 8 strikes of the town's bell, the rebel gang Crazy Punch will come through the town and annihilate everything, seeking revenge for the slain bandit. This chapter involves setting traps and arming townspeople, to surprise Crazy Punch before they arrive.
Feudal Japan (Bakumatsu) Chapter - Oboro, a ninja, has to break into a feudal shrine during the turbulent Bakumatsu era and rescue an important prisoner. How you accomplish this is up to you... you can either storm in, killing everyone in your path, stealthily rescue the prisoner without setting foot in battle once, or pick and choose who you want to fight.
Modern Day (Wrestling) Chapter - Masaru dreams of becoming the strongest warrior in the world. He achieves this by entering a tournament against 6 warriors, culminating with a battle against the tournament's organizer - Odie Olbright. Masaru learns the moves of his defeated opponents, and this chapter is just a constant stream of fights, with no story or item management to worry about. One of the wrestlers is a funny parody of Hulk Hogan, dressed in some patriotic garb.
Near-Future Chapter - An orphan named Akira, with the psychic ability to read people's minds, strikes against the evil Crusader gang, with the aid of a giant robot. Very confusing and awkward story, with some interesting twists. It really plays out like an anime, complete with its own "theme song".
Sci-Fi Chapter - This starts with a small group of travellers, and their helper robot, Cube, on board the spaceship Cogito Ergosum, returning home to Earth with an alien specimen known as the Behemoth. Suddenly, the Behemoth escapes its cage, and the passengers of the ship start dying in strange "accidents", and its up to Cube to investigate. There are no battles in this chapter, aside from the final battle, but the atmosphere is tense (aided by a droning, minimalist hum of a soundtrack), strongly resembling Kubrick's classic movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". More survival horror than typical RPG, as you try to avoid the escaped Behemoth and piece together clues of what's running amok on the ship.
Medieval Chapter - Finally, after completing the first 7 chapters, it comes down to this. Orstedd, a young adventurer, is battling in a duel against Straybow, his childhood friend, for the privilege to marry the princess. After winning the duel, and having the princess accept his marriage proposal, a giant feast is held... but something is wrong. The princess gets kidnapped by a winged demon, and it's up to go and rescue her. Sounds like the most cliche plot ever? Well, the shocking events at the end of this chapter lead directly into the final chapter... where all of the warriors from the past quests unite to save the world.
Aesthetically, the graphics are rather primitive, with squat, 16x16 pixel characters and clearly tile-based graphics. It resembles Final Fantasy IV and Romancing SaGa in terms of appearance, a stark contrast to some of the excellent sprite artwork done in other Square RPGs from that time. The game was released a few months before Final Fantasy 6, for instance. The music, done by Yoko Shimomura, is one of this title's strong points. Musically, the game sports a very diverse set of tunes, from your trumpet heavy orchestral tracks to ethnic Asian music to some futuristic synth-rock, depending on the setting. The droning, ambient hum of the Cogito Ergosum spaceship will send shivers down your spine, while the "Go! Go! Buriki Daioh!" tune, complete with Japanese lyrics displayed as a subtitle, will remind you of a cheesy, low grade anime.
Gameplay wise, Live A Live features a rather confusing battle system. The characters and enemies are lined up on a 7x7 grid, with a set of battle techniques that affect surrounding squares in various ranges, like a typical strategy RPG. But, characters have a free range of movement on this grid, and each has a number of steps they can move before enemies attack. It's really difficult to explain, but provides for some great strategic battles. Some of the battles in this game are really tough, relying more on you having a suitable strategy than brute forcing your way through. You can use any of your vast, ever increasing, repetoire of techniques an unlimited amount of times per battle, and due to their various effects and ranges, will need to make use of quite a few of them to survive.
Another innovative element of Live A Live's gameplay beyond traditional fair is that each of the leads has a special talent that they need to use to make it through their journey. Oboru, the ninja, is able to hide from enemies as he makes his way through the dreaded castle. Akira, the cyberpunk warrior, has the ability to read townspeople's minds, which leads to some comical situations. This gives the game a sense of originality and provides for a more interesting assortment of puzzles than your standard push-block puzzle that has haunted games since the 8 bit era.
If you think modern day Japanese RPGs have been getting too stale and chock full of anime cliches, give this game a try, provided you can overlook its graphics (undoubtedly the weakest point of the game).
I wrote a big thing a year ago for my 1up blog which I actually wanted to maintain regularly... yeah that never happened. But here's the writeup:
Live A Live was a Super Famicom game released by Square in 1994. Sadly, the game was never released in the US, but AGTP has released an excellent translation patch for the game.
Live A Live chronicles the adventures of 8 different adventurers, set in different time periods, and their eventual meetup in one of the most memorable final chapters of RPG history. Players can select from one of 7 characters and complete their individual story, before unlocking the 8th chapter. Upon completion of the 8th chapter, the final chapter will start, where all of the original 7 heroes meet up to defeat an evil existing throughout history. Each chapter has character design by a different artist, and some of them feature unorthodox gameplay, which adds to the originality and enjoyability of the title.
Prehistoric Chapter - A classic love story, told not with dialogue, but with descriptive pictures filling up word bubbles. (insert description of story here) Lots of lighthearted, slapstick humor, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security... Threats lie in hiding, so you'll need to sniff your way through the land to find them before they get to you!
Kung Fu Chapter - An old martial arts master, Shinzan, is searching the countryside for a suitable disciple to hand down his "Shinseikan" fighting technique to. His journey introduces himself to the beautiful girl Lei, hard working little boy Yun, and chubby Samo. It's up to the player to pick out the warrior best able to preserve the art of Shinseikan.
Wild-West Chapter - The Sundown Kid, your classic Wild-West cowboy, rides into a small frontier town, and confronts a bandit harassing the villagers. He then learns from the townspeople that, after 8 strikes of the town's bell, the rebel gang Crazy Punch will come through the town and annihilate everything, seeking revenge for the slain bandit. This chapter involves setting traps and arming townspeople, to surprise Crazy Punch before they arrive.
Feudal Japan (Bakumatsu) Chapter - Oboro, a ninja, has to break into a feudal shrine during the turbulent Bakumatsu era and rescue an important prisoner. How you accomplish this is up to you... you can either storm in, killing everyone in your path, stealthily rescue the prisoner without setting foot in battle once, or pick and choose who you want to fight.
Modern Day (Wrestling) Chapter - Masaru dreams of becoming the strongest warrior in the world. He achieves this by entering a tournament against 6 warriors, culminating with a battle against the tournament's organizer - Odie Olbright. Masaru learns the moves of his defeated opponents, and this chapter is just a constant stream of fights, with no story or item management to worry about. One of the wrestlers is a funny parody of Hulk Hogan, dressed in some patriotic garb.
Near-Future Chapter - An orphan named Akira, with the psychic ability to read people's minds, strikes against the evil Crusader gang, with the aid of a giant robot. Very confusing and awkward story, with some interesting twists. It really plays out like an anime, complete with its own "theme song".
Sci-Fi Chapter - This starts with a small group of travellers, and their helper robot, Cube, on board the spaceship Cogito Ergosum, returning home to Earth with an alien specimen known as the Behemoth. Suddenly, the Behemoth escapes its cage, and the passengers of the ship start dying in strange "accidents", and its up to Cube to investigate. There are no battles in this chapter, aside from the final battle, but the atmosphere is tense (aided by a droning, minimalist hum of a soundtrack), strongly resembling Kubrick's classic movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". More survival horror than typical RPG, as you try to avoid the escaped Behemoth and piece together clues of what's running amok on the ship.
Medieval Chapter - Finally, after completing the first 7 chapters, it comes down to this. Orstedd, a young adventurer, is battling in a duel against Straybow, his childhood friend, for the privilege to marry the princess. After winning the duel, and having the princess accept his marriage proposal, a giant feast is held... but something is wrong. The princess gets kidnapped by a winged demon, and it's up to go and rescue her. Sounds like the most cliche plot ever? Well, the shocking events at the end of this chapter lead directly into the final chapter... where all of the warriors from the past quests unite to save the world.
Aesthetically, the graphics are rather primitive, with squat, 16x16 pixel characters and clearly tile-based graphics. It resembles Final Fantasy IV and Romancing SaGa in terms of appearance, a stark contrast to some of the excellent sprite artwork done in other Square RPGs from that time. The game was released a few months before Final Fantasy 6, for instance. The music, done by Yoko Shimomura, is one of this title's strong points. Musically, the game sports a very diverse set of tunes, from your trumpet heavy orchestral tracks to ethnic Asian music to some futuristic synth-rock, depending on the setting. The droning, ambient hum of the Cogito Ergosum spaceship will send shivers down your spine, while the "Go! Go! Buriki Daioh!" tune, complete with Japanese lyrics displayed as a subtitle, will remind you of a cheesy, low grade anime.
Gameplay wise, Live A Live features a rather confusing battle system. The characters and enemies are lined up on a 7x7 grid, with a set of battle techniques that affect surrounding squares in various ranges, like a typical strategy RPG. But, characters have a free range of movement on this grid, and each has a number of steps they can move before enemies attack. It's really difficult to explain, but provides for some great strategic battles. Some of the battles in this game are really tough, relying more on you having a suitable strategy than brute forcing your way through. You can use any of your vast, ever increasing, repetoire of techniques an unlimited amount of times per battle, and due to their various effects and ranges, will need to make use of quite a few of them to survive.
Another innovative element of Live A Live's gameplay beyond traditional fair is that each of the leads has a special talent that they need to use to make it through their journey. Oboru, the ninja, is able to hide from enemies as he makes his way through the dreaded castle. Akira, the cyberpunk warrior, has the ability to read townspeople's minds, which leads to some comical situations. This gives the game a sense of originality and provides for a more interesting assortment of puzzles than your standard push-block puzzle that has haunted games since the 8 bit era.
If you think modern day Japanese RPGs have been getting too stale and chock full of anime cliches, give this game a try, provided you can overlook its graphics (undoubtedly the weakest point of the game).
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