Playing on: Nintendo Switch
year: original SNES release (1994), Switch remake release 2022
Live a Live was a Japan only SNES title from 1994 that I had always heard about but never really looked into much. The game had an English fan translation for quite some time but was recently officially translated and remade for the Switch. After doing a lot of research it seemed that the Switch version was the definitive version and the version I wanted to play as it seemed to stick strictly with the plot and soul of the original while only improving sounds and visuals to a 2.5 graphical style. There are some quality of life features such as a sort of map guide to help determine where to go next but you can disable these, as I did, so your experience is more like if you were playing the original SNES version.
The game is quite interesting and was pretty innovative for its time as it lets you tackle a number of seemingly unrelated stories from different time periods stretching from prehistory to the far future. In the end after completing all stories a separate scenario opens up and eventually everything is tied together.
The game varies in playstyle as well with some scenerios playing as very traditional JRPG fare while others may involve very little combat and may play out very unconventional for an RPG. When combat does take place it is done in a turn based side view but you can move around the battle area as opposed to being stuck on one side and trading blows akin to something like the early Final Fantasy games.
The first area that I tackled is the prehistory scenario. This scenario basically amounts to trying to
“get the cave girl” while playing as a caveman accompanied by his…ape man(?) friend. the girl is continuously captured and recaptured by a rival tribe of cavemen to be used in a King Kong style sacrifice. At multiple points in the scenario, the player faces off against the rival tribe’s pretty boy war chief and ends in a climactic battle against, of course, a T-rex-looking dinosaur. Some interesting things in this scenario are the total lack of any language or voice acting as communication is done via grunts, images, and pointing as well as the players’ ability to use scent to reveal enemies on the map. This scenario overall is sort of played on a comedic angle complete with flintstones style rock cars.
The second scenario I tackled in roughly historical order was imperial China. This scenario plays much more seriously than the first which the player controls an aged kung fu master as he searches for and trains three new disciples to carry on his art. The king-fu master started at level 10 and unless you screw up royally is mostly unbeatable through most of this story-driven scenario. The first half is played out exploring a relatively small area around your mountain school to recruit three students. After this is a section where you continuously battle these students in order to raise their levels. This section is quite repetitive but short. After this, in a sad and unexpected twist, two of the three students are killed as local bandits from a rival martial arts school raid your mountain school. I believe the student that survives is dependent on which one you trained the most. The last portion of this scenario is the master and his last remaining student storming the rival school ending in a confrontation with the school’s master and its students. Unlike the prehistory scenario, this one was much more serious in tone though as I mentioned earlier, it can be repetitive in parts.
The next scenario I played was the Twilight of Edo Japan. In this scenario, you play as a ninja or shinobi trying to infiltrate a castle and ultimately slay the rival clan leader who is in league with demons and plans to conquer the whole of Japan. It seems like a pretty simple setup but the castle complex itself is quite large and even a little maze-like. There is an extra challenge as you can attempt to complete the scene using stealth with no kills or the opposite and kill every human. I just went in killing anyone that stood in my way but didn’t go out of my way to kill everyone. The castle is full of secret areas and there are several ways to reach the endpoint with the opportunity to pick up characters to help you as well as a few secret super bosses that grant you some powerful items upon defeat. Besides the final confrontation and the castle guards and demons there are also several enemy “generals” you can face. The castle and its inhabitants have a lot of character and I really enjoyed playing through this area.
The next chapter I tackled was the Wild West chapter which once again plays out differently from the prior scenario and is also very short, easily being able to be completed in a single sitting if you’re determined. The setup is a pretty classic old-west movie scenario where a town is about to be attacked by a villainous outlaw gang and it’s up to a mysterious gunslinger stranger who wanders into town to rally the meek townspeople and fight off the attack. The meat of the chapter plays out within a short time span where you and your impromptu ally, a bounty hunter that’s been previously on your trail have to score the town for random items and then use these items to make traps which you assign to various townspeople to set up in anticipation for the attack. Each townsperson takes different amounts of time to set up the traps. Traps include distracting girly posters, pit traps, Molotov cocktails, and hidden dynamite. On my first attempt, I was able to eliminate all but two members and their leader. There are no experience points or leveling in this chapter so completing it is all about strategy and setting up the traps. The final battle of this chapter was quite difficult and I failed it on my first try as the boss seems to have a virtual one-shot kill attack that he employs sometimes though I found the positioning of my characters was very important in this battle.
The Present Times chapter is perhaps the shortest in the game. This is a very strange chapter and barely feels like an RPG but more like a condensed session of Street Fighter. You play as a martial arts fighter battling to be the world’s best. To do this you must face and defeat five of the world’s best fighters, one of which is a blatant Hulk Hogan rip-off, right down to the “brother” catchphrase. There is no experience to gain in this scenario. The main goal is to let the opponents use their special moves on you which you then learn and can use on other opponents, It kind of reminds me of Mega Man and stealing boss weapons which other bosses are weak against. I found the majority of fights to be extremely easy and it was more of a chore waiting for them to use a special move on you that you can learn before you accidentally defeat them too early. It’s an interesting idea and they nailed the Street Fighter feel but it’s a little boring and repetitive. You can defeat this chapter in well under an hour. After all the fighters are defeated and you are proven the best you face a final challenger. The last battle was far more challenging than the others but I still managed to defeat him on my first go. The scenario ends with the realization that you’re going to be hounded the rest of your life by new challengers hoping to tear your title away and become the new best of the best.
The near future scenario is the one I tackled next and it plays out much more like a “typical” RPG, at least compared to the two previous scenarios. This scenario has a strong Japanese mecha anime feel to it and it revolves around trying to stop an evil corporation by reviving a huge robot named the “Steel Titan”. This chapter takes place in “near future” Japan where you play a character that has the ability to read minds. It’s an interesting mechanic to speak to an NPC and then read their mind and see what they are really thinking, as a matter of fact, this is crucial to advancing. The chapter features leveling and an overworld map and takes noticeably longer to complete than the previous two chapters. The final part of the chapter has you piloting the fabled “Steel Titan” through a city as you’re are attacked by the military. It concludes with a battle against a bird god statue who was brought to life via liquified human consciousness, it’s strange.
The final scenario I tackled was the far future chapter. This is a strange one as again, there is no leveling and very little combat outside of a gamer within the game you can play. The chapter takes place on a spaceship transporting a dangerous creature when things onboard suddenly go deadly wrong. You play as a small defenseless robot and the game mostly plays out as you simply observe events and flee from trouble. The chapter plays out like a strange mix of an Alien movie and a murder mystery. It’s an interesting change of pace but to be honest it could get kind of boring just running back and forth looking for the next room to enter or character to talk to in order to trigger a cut-screen and move the plot forward. Long story short, a lot of drama takes place between crew members, people die, the coms are cut off and the beast inevitably escapes. In the end, we learn the ship’s AI went rogue and was behind it all, a pretty predictable concussion that ended with a boss battle against said AI.
With all the initial chapters completed a secret new chapter taking place in the Middle Ages became available. I have to say, this chapter ties in with the other chapters and also introduces one of the most justifiable villain transformations I have ever seen in an RPG. This chapter plays out almost as a homage to classic JRPGs. You have a classic medieval setting, random encounters, and a princess captured by a “Lord of Darkness”. The princess also happens to be your newlywed wife. As with any classic RPG the king sends you off on your quest and you are quickly joined by your magician friend/rival. After finding and convincing the kingdom’s prior heroes to join you the group confronts the dark lord only to lose the legendary hero and your friend in the battle. It’s also revealed the dark lord was just an imposter. This is where things get interesting as you end up being framed for the murder of the king turning everyone except the priest Uranus, who also dies, against you. When you go back to battle the dark lord and save the princess you learn it was your friend who faked his death and was behind everything. He framed you for the murder because he was jealous of you and was also in love with the princess. After slaying him in battle what you expect is a heartwarming reunion with the princess and the clearing of your name. Instead, the princess, your wife, scolds you for not saving her fast enough and then, if that wasn’t bad enough proclaims you the bad guy for killing your former friend, the same guy that framed you, and claims he was really the one loved her. She then pulls a Juliet and stabs herself in the gut ending her life and any chance of clearing your name…..Now I’m a little unsure if she always loved the other guy but the flashbacks indicate this isn’t the case and she just came down with the largest case of Stockholm syndrome to ever exist. Our hero, understandably is a bit upset after losing everything and everyone and thus, takes up the mantle of the dark lord.
Now we encounter the final act. The final act works to bring all of the storylines together as after choosing any of the previous heroes you are transported to the medieval world we just played through except this time everyone is seemingly dead and there are no NPCs outside of the other main heroes. The goal of this area, other than defeating the dark lord is to find the other heroes hidden around the world and convince them to join your party. You can only have four of the heroes travel with you so choose your favorites. Another thing you can do is defeat optional bosses and acquire eatch hero’s ultimate weapon. Some of the heroes are quite easy to discover whereas some are harder to find and require certain actions done in a certain order.
This is a sold and interesting hidden gem of an RPG overall. Some of the chapters are better than others though and whereas some players may enjoy the style of one story they may hate the style of another and this can bring the experience down. In my own opinion, chapters like Edo Japan were excellent while others like the street fighter themed modern era was very ho-hum. I really didn’t see the end coming though with the Middle Ages chapter and I actually felt really bad for the protagonist of that chapter after he lost everything and decided to become the dark lord. Overall a sold enjoyable game overall.
Grade: B
Random Battles: my life long level grind 