

No chapter is bad, but it's disappointing when one of your favorites ends up getting less attention. While no other chapter is quite so disappointing, there are a clear set of chapters that feel more fleshed out and "whole," and others that could use more meat. Otherwise, you're fighting relatively easy enemies and trying to bait out their attack.

All it has going for it is the vague amusement at seeing the many references to 1994-era fighting games. The "Present Day" chapter, which is the aforementioned Street Fighter homage, is easily the low point of the game. However, there is a pretty huge gulf in quality between some of the chapters.

Even if you don't particularly like any one character, you'll be done with them quickly enough that it never drags down the game. The chapters can vary in length from about an hour to several hours, and almost every one has secret quests, bosses, or alternate endings that you can discover by replaying the levels. This keeps Live A Live feeling incredibly engaging because you're not playing any one thing for long. The chapter where you play as a shinobi is effectively a puzzle, where it's possible to finish the stage without killing a single person or by killing every living person in the castle you're invading, both of which require puzzling things out and potentially replaying the level. The Wild West chapter is a short story largely about rallying a town to battle a group of bandits, and your end goal is to set enough traps to take out most of the bandits before they can reach town. Then there are chapters that throw everything out the window for new concepts. Probably the most standard "RPG" of the seven chapters has you playing as a caveman, and all of the dialogue is done through pictures and grunts instead of written text. You can't level up, but how you fight determines what moves those pupils learn and who will eventually take over for you. One chapter has you playing as an old martial arts instructor who takes on three pupils. There are also more standard adventures, but even then, they throw interesting wrenches into the fold. Almost the exact opposite of the other story I mentioned, it basically involves playing through the arcade mode of a fighting game - but with JRPG combat. Another story is basically a Street Fighter homage, where you play as a martial artist trying to defeat the world's greatest fighters while also learning their special moves.

This story has almost no combat at all and is largely about building up tension while dodging danger. One chapter can be described as "R2-D2 vs Alien," where you play as a cute little beeping robot on an interstellar cruise ship carrying a mysterious alien creature. What really makes this interesting is just how distinctive each chapter is. There is a bonus chapter that brings everything together at the end, but it is only vaguely connected to the character's stories.
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No two characters play alike, despite sharing the same basic gameplay engine, so it feels akin to playing a series of JRPG short stories. The game revolves around seven separate protagonists, similar to something like Saga Frontier, but unlike that game, each protagonist has their own story and genre. The most obvious thing that stands out about Live A Live is the structure. At long last, Live A Live can be played in English, and despite it being almost 30 years since the original's release, the game has stood the test of time like few other titles from its era. (For example, the big battle theme, Megalomania, was the inspiration for the name of Toby Fox's "Megalovania.") It's a weird and quirky game that seemed like it might be lost to the mists of time until a remake was announced. Despite this, it was a huge inspiration for a lot of game developers. It was one of the RPGs that was never released in English, so a lot of people have never heard of it, let alone tried it out. Live A Live was one of the "lost gems" of the SNES era of SquareSoft.
