Release Date: September 2, 1994, & July 22, 2022
Systems: Super Famicom, Nintendo Switch, & Windows
Publisher: Square & Nintendo
Developer: Square & Square Enix
This may or may not be a difficult game to talk about and it will definitely be a difficult game not to reveal spoilers about, especially the end-game. I have also decided to split this article up into two sections, with the second section being somewhat spoiler-filled, so if you have not yet played the game and plan to, I recommend skipping Friday's article. LIVE A LIVE is (mostly) a JRPG where you play different characters in different time periods. Each character's story is self-contained, letting you experience a particular event in their life. The stories themselves are independent of each other and each has its own mechanical quirks that help differentiate between the characters and time periods. That is the general gist of the game, but let us get some context out of the way that will also help to explain the existence of this game.
The original LIVE A LIVE was released in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1994, directed by Takashi Tokita, who would go on to direct Chrono Trigger, released the following year in 1995. There are similar bones between the two games, both containing different characters set in different time periods with their own separate motivations and goals. It would be like if you took out all mechanics of time travel and played as Crono in 1,000 AD and completed his story, then played Frog in 600 AD, then played as Ayla in 65,000,000 BC and completed her story. Then played Robo in 2300 AD and completed his story. There is significantly more nuance to it in Chrono Trigger than that as there is a fair amount of crossover between stories that require the characters to travel back and forth through time to complete, but again, that is the general gist.
There are several other aspects to each scenario that do not directly impact gameplay, but I still find it greatly interesting. First, each character and time period was written by different writers, and the art was done by different artists. From what I read, this was to maintain a different look and feel for each character. The art style is still very 1990s Japanese, but the feeling of the stories varies quite a bit. From the Prehistory caveman Pogo, written with a lot of fart-jokes (there is even a fart-based attack) to the Distant Future with Cube, an autonomous maintenance robot who explores their own individuality while the humans around them span the gauntlet of emotions and interpersonal relations. The music though was all composed by Yoko Shimomura and while I think it would have been interesting to have different composers for each different time period, I have absolutely nothing negative to say about any of the music in the game (stay tuned for Wednesday). Plus having the same composer for all stories allowed several of the tracks to be reused to create emotional thruways between the events even when there might have been no direct connections.
The stories also vary in their mechanics and length, with some lasting fewer than 60 minutes and others taking a couple of hours, depending on how much grinding and exploring you want to do; in some scenarios, there is no option to explore while in others you can explore to your heart's content or are even constrained by a time limit before the story forces you along. Some play as traditional JRPGs with grinding for levels while another is just a string of battles.
Lastly, you can decide on the order to play through each of the stories so there is no incorrect or better way to progress through the game or which order you choose to play characters/stories, but I am 100% sure that you could find dozens upon dozens of people giving "the best," "the most emotional," "the most efficient" order. For me, I played through in the following order:
- The Present Day
- The Distant Past
- Imperial China
- Twilight of Edo Japan
- The Wild West
- The Near Future
- The Distant Future
When I started the game I was not sure which order I wanted to play through, only knowing a little from what was revealed in the Direct trailer as I did not do any research about the game or the stories before jumping in. So, I decided that "The Present Day" would be a good way to start out since I am currently in my own Present Day (yeah, deep, I know). After that, I decided to play through the rest of the characters/stories in real-world-chronological order, although I will be honest that I had to look up when "Imperial China" and "Edo Japan" were in relation to our US's Wild West and we will just blame me and not public schools on that one because I am notoriously bad with historical dates.
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I cannot comment if this order is better than any other, but I can say that it offered a very varied progression through the game as the play styles and mechanics were greatly different from one to the next. There were turn-based Street Fighter-style battles (somewhat reminiscent of Hybrid Heaven), more traditional JRPG leveling and outfitting of party members, there were stealth missions (although that even depended on how purposefully stealthily you wanted to be), timed resource collecting and management missions, and straight-up horror. There is the option to replay stories, presumably to reach a higher level or achieve a different outcome, but I never felt compelled to replay through any of the stories as I was always happy with how I progressed.
The next thing I want to talk about is the endgame, and if you have not played LIVE A LIVE yet (looking at you Dr. Potts!), then I highly recommend not reading any further because yes, there will be spoilers, but as few as I can with how much I want to get across. So if you do not want to be spoiled, please do not read Friday's article, but thanks for reading today.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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