This week in Game Recommendations is Live-A-Live, a great game that I wouldn’t blame most people for not knowing about.
For those who are unfamiliar with the game, Live-A-Live was a SNES JRPG developed by Squaresoft in 1994. While sadly it never officially came out overseas, it has thankfully seen an English translation patch made available from fan translators on the internet.
The premise of Live-A-Live is rather straight forward and unique for its time. Rather than focus on one greater narrative, Live-A-Live can best be seen as a series of short stories that are all semi-connected in the end. Upon starting up the game, you are presented a wheel of various characters from history to play as. This ranges from a caveman, to a cowboy, to a ninja, to even a robot. Select a character, play its story, and then return to the wheel to play through another character’s story. Upon clearing all the initial characters’ stories, there is still to do as 2 additional scenarios unlock afterwards.
As a designer, what really makes Live-A-Live always stand out in my mind are the play mechanics presented in each character’s story. While the combat is universal in how it plays in the game, each character has a very distinct style of how you proceed through their story. For example, in the Ninja’s story, you are given a very large amount of freedom in how you pursue your assassination target and traverse the castle in which he dwells. There are multiple paths to take, a constant kill count is kept as you are given the freedom to slay both innocent people and guards alike, and you can even choose from the very beginning to turn around and abandon your mission. Players choosing the last option will find themselves in a smaller but very different narrative where you must battle against your home clan that sent you on the mission. While you are still given a game over even if you complete that side narrative, it is extremely refreshing to have the freedom to take this choice to begin with.
Overall, Live-A-Live really does seem like Squaresoft had some basic premises for a variety of JRPGs that they could’ve made and instead opted to integrate them all into one game under the premise of short stories. That is awesome! While not all mechanics presented end up being that interesting, as is the case in the Professional Fighter character’s story; you still do get some very interesting narrative and gameplay concepts emerge that make for compelling gameplay.
If you’re a fan of JRPGs and 90s Squaresoft, with a passion for wanting an extremely varied but overall fun experience; I can’t recommend Live-A-Live enough. While the graphics are dated and actually very reminiscent of Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy 2 in the US), if you love older SNES titles and good JRPGs, you owe it to yourself to check out Live-A-Live. Admittedly, you won’t get as strong of a story as you do in most Squaresoft titles from that era; the amount and diversity of scenarios more than makes up for it. For all you villain lovers out there, one of the options presented in the final scenario of the game should definitely bring an evil smile to your face. Although don’t let that scare all you hero lovers out there as there is still plenty of charm to be found in many of the other characters and scenarios.
One Gamer's Thoughts 