Tobriand
Well-Known Member
Intro
Live a Live as a game is entirely unique. It feels completely unlike other Square RPGs if only because it isn't comprised of an epic story spanning 60 hours, but rather a set of 8 short scenarios that last from an hour to maybe 6. The resultant feel is rather like what you might think a pack of Gigas RPGs would feel like were it released - and it works. Just make sure you patch your rom with a recent translation before you play it, else you'll be staring at a load of Japanese incomprehensible (probably) characters for a fair while. Its done by Demiforce, iirc.
Graphics
The game's graphics are, outside of battles, pretty much at the same level as Final Fantasy 5, by which I mean that the sprites are about the same size as the tiles, but the tiles are nicely detailed and certainly provide atmosphere for each and every scenario - albeit less in some than in others. Those in the Mecha scenario, for example, are a lot more varied than those in the Samurai one; indeed, were the entire game's graphics like those in the latter, the feel would probably be frankly boring. BUt they aren't - most of the time the tiles are well drawn and well placed to build together an atmosphere exactly appropriate to each small game. Those in the Western and Robot scenarios, I think, are of special note, though that is likely as not simply personal opinion.
The battle graphics are typically lovely. The sprites are not animated most of the time, except when performing an action (which might explain why it runs so darn FAST) but could best be described as "Chrono Trigger" versions of each of the characters and the enemies (if chrono trigger characters didn't move). Action graphics are nothing breathtaking, but when in SNES games are they really? Enemies vary in size from a single tile (which iirc is rare in Square RPGs, especially the early ones where monsters are usually at least 8 times the size of the characters) to a massive 4x4 for the T-rex of the Caveman scenario. All of them are well drawn, I tended to think, and add to the game.
Sound
The music starts off as a delicious sonic accompaniment. Unfortunately it swiftly turns into a drone as most of the pieces don't last more than about 15-30 seconds before repeating with little or no variation. It does the job of adding atmostphere well, however, and never gets so annoying that you'll want to turn it off - its just not up to par with some of the other things Square's musicians have done in the past.
Sound effects are typical SNES rpg fare - the squeks of surprise, Kefka laughs, and either clicks or a slightly odd "swoosh" noise for doors closing. You know the things. Nothing special, but again - adds atmosphere.
Gameplay
This is, as with so many games, where Live a Live stands out. Each of the scenarios is well set up and presented (with the possible exception of the Boxer one which feels like a fighting game gone wrong) and most of them have some kind of quirk that is rarely seen in other RPGs. The Western one focuses not on battle, but on a treasure hunt for parts for traps to reduce the difficulty of the battle in the end. The Robot scenario has but one battle in it (unless you cound Captain Commando or whatever he's called, which is a side-game where you fight through the planets of the solar system; I don't know if you get any nice bits for doing it since it bored me...) and instead revolves around a "whodunnit" (ok, with a fairly obvious conclusion) set of murders and the avoiding of the one monster in it which doesn't go to a battle, but just instantly kills you on contact. The Samurai is a sneaking one - battles aren't prohibited at all, but every time you kill a human, you get a message telling you how many you've killed; the object being to do it with as few deaths as possible. In the caveman one, there's no speak in words - just pictograms. Similar twists are in the other scenarios, and all work well to add to the whole thing (with the possible exception of some of the mind-reading in the Mecha scenario).
Now we move to battles. They're a part of any RPG - or set of them - and they shouldn't be a drag. Live a Live gets the battles *right* in a way many RPGs don't (although anyone who's a fan of realism better stay away). They're set out on a grid with each attack either affecting an area or a spot or a line or something, fairly similar to Robotech for those that know it. Some attacks change the terrain to, say, fire or water or poison as well, adding another strategy element to it, though since the damage dealt by such effects is usually nominal, typically not that often. Though I will say in at least one battle the terrain states were what allowed me to win. Its all turn based - and its certainly not simultaneous, which granted is a problem; it should not be that battles are easier with 1 character than with the 2 characters (even if one of the two is the same as the first one). The problem is that who you move is decided sequentially - so if there is 1 monster with a kickass attack, and only one of your characters can damage it when you've got three of them, it will get to attack each turn, whilst you'll only damage it every third one. However, this is more of an annoyance than anything else - its just a quirk of the system that after playing for a while you work around. There's also the thing about health. Don't try to heal outside of a battle - you can't. You start every battle with full health (which does make building up a LOT easier in those few cases where its necessary). I think I'm sounding pessimistic about them, but if that's the case, don't worry. The battles are as fun as the rest of the game and add quite a bit to it. Which is as it should be. There are just a couple of quirks in it.
So on the GP32?
This is and the conclusion is probably what you're all skipping to first, I think. The game, on OS9x 0.2, with sound on (in stereo, no less) at 22Khz and frameskip 2 at 166MHz plays very very very fast. Its at least full speed, I think, with the only exception being (possibly) when selecting moves, or in the caveman scenario ending when there are about 16 sprites on screen at once... maybe quite a few more. And even then it doesn't slow much. There are very very few graphical glitches (only obvious one is when bosses die, they're surrounded by a black box and disintegrate rather than simply disintegrating), and I've yet to find a need for a key that doesn't fit into our 6 buttons. The only thing you might notice is in the robot one, the alarm doesn't have much staying power - which in my opinion is a blessing more than a bug!
Conclusion
Live a Live is far from the best of things Square have produced. It is by no means an undiscovered Chrono Trigger. What it IS is the perfect GP32 game. Each of the scenarios is pretty pick-up-and play and the whole thing runs mind-bendingly fast at clockspeeds available to most of us *with* sound. As a whole it feels like Square decided to just use it as a showcase for a few experiments they never actually turned into full games, possibly allowing the sound people to have a go at designing maps and the coders to have a shot at sound or something. They clearly had fun making it. And now you can go and have fun playing it.
Its probably an 8/10, I think. Or maybe 7/10 for the game, but boosted to 9/10 for the GP32 playability. Pity they never seem to have used the engine again - if they did there'd be other similarly fast games we could all play.
Live a Live as a game is entirely unique. It feels completely unlike other Square RPGs if only because it isn't comprised of an epic story spanning 60 hours, but rather a set of 8 short scenarios that last from an hour to maybe 6. The resultant feel is rather like what you might think a pack of Gigas RPGs would feel like were it released - and it works. Just make sure you patch your rom with a recent translation before you play it, else you'll be staring at a load of Japanese incomprehensible (probably) characters for a fair while. Its done by Demiforce, iirc.
Graphics
The game's graphics are, outside of battles, pretty much at the same level as Final Fantasy 5, by which I mean that the sprites are about the same size as the tiles, but the tiles are nicely detailed and certainly provide atmosphere for each and every scenario - albeit less in some than in others. Those in the Mecha scenario, for example, are a lot more varied than those in the Samurai one; indeed, were the entire game's graphics like those in the latter, the feel would probably be frankly boring. BUt they aren't - most of the time the tiles are well drawn and well placed to build together an atmosphere exactly appropriate to each small game. Those in the Western and Robot scenarios, I think, are of special note, though that is likely as not simply personal opinion.
The battle graphics are typically lovely. The sprites are not animated most of the time, except when performing an action (which might explain why it runs so darn FAST) but could best be described as "Chrono Trigger" versions of each of the characters and the enemies (if chrono trigger characters didn't move). Action graphics are nothing breathtaking, but when in SNES games are they really? Enemies vary in size from a single tile (which iirc is rare in Square RPGs, especially the early ones where monsters are usually at least 8 times the size of the characters) to a massive 4x4 for the T-rex of the Caveman scenario. All of them are well drawn, I tended to think, and add to the game.
Sound
The music starts off as a delicious sonic accompaniment. Unfortunately it swiftly turns into a drone as most of the pieces don't last more than about 15-30 seconds before repeating with little or no variation. It does the job of adding atmostphere well, however, and never gets so annoying that you'll want to turn it off - its just not up to par with some of the other things Square's musicians have done in the past.
Sound effects are typical SNES rpg fare - the squeks of surprise, Kefka laughs, and either clicks or a slightly odd "swoosh" noise for doors closing. You know the things. Nothing special, but again - adds atmosphere.
Gameplay
This is, as with so many games, where Live a Live stands out. Each of the scenarios is well set up and presented (with the possible exception of the Boxer one which feels like a fighting game gone wrong) and most of them have some kind of quirk that is rarely seen in other RPGs. The Western one focuses not on battle, but on a treasure hunt for parts for traps to reduce the difficulty of the battle in the end. The Robot scenario has but one battle in it (unless you cound Captain Commando or whatever he's called, which is a side-game where you fight through the planets of the solar system; I don't know if you get any nice bits for doing it since it bored me...) and instead revolves around a "whodunnit" (ok, with a fairly obvious conclusion) set of murders and the avoiding of the one monster in it which doesn't go to a battle, but just instantly kills you on contact. The Samurai is a sneaking one - battles aren't prohibited at all, but every time you kill a human, you get a message telling you how many you've killed; the object being to do it with as few deaths as possible. In the caveman one, there's no speak in words - just pictograms. Similar twists are in the other scenarios, and all work well to add to the whole thing (with the possible exception of some of the mind-reading in the Mecha scenario).
Now we move to battles. They're a part of any RPG - or set of them - and they shouldn't be a drag. Live a Live gets the battles *right* in a way many RPGs don't (although anyone who's a fan of realism better stay away). They're set out on a grid with each attack either affecting an area or a spot or a line or something, fairly similar to Robotech for those that know it. Some attacks change the terrain to, say, fire or water or poison as well, adding another strategy element to it, though since the damage dealt by such effects is usually nominal, typically not that often. Though I will say in at least one battle the terrain states were what allowed me to win. Its all turn based - and its certainly not simultaneous, which granted is a problem; it should not be that battles are easier with 1 character than with the 2 characters (even if one of the two is the same as the first one). The problem is that who you move is decided sequentially - so if there is 1 monster with a kickass attack, and only one of your characters can damage it when you've got three of them, it will get to attack each turn, whilst you'll only damage it every third one. However, this is more of an annoyance than anything else - its just a quirk of the system that after playing for a while you work around. There's also the thing about health. Don't try to heal outside of a battle - you can't. You start every battle with full health (which does make building up a LOT easier in those few cases where its necessary). I think I'm sounding pessimistic about them, but if that's the case, don't worry. The battles are as fun as the rest of the game and add quite a bit to it. Which is as it should be. There are just a couple of quirks in it.
So on the GP32?
This is and the conclusion is probably what you're all skipping to first, I think. The game, on OS9x 0.2, with sound on (in stereo, no less) at 22Khz and frameskip 2 at 166MHz plays very very very fast. Its at least full speed, I think, with the only exception being (possibly) when selecting moves, or in the caveman scenario ending when there are about 16 sprites on screen at once... maybe quite a few more. And even then it doesn't slow much. There are very very few graphical glitches (only obvious one is when bosses die, they're surrounded by a black box and disintegrate rather than simply disintegrating), and I've yet to find a need for a key that doesn't fit into our 6 buttons. The only thing you might notice is in the robot one, the alarm doesn't have much staying power - which in my opinion is a blessing more than a bug!
Conclusion
Live a Live is far from the best of things Square have produced. It is by no means an undiscovered Chrono Trigger. What it IS is the perfect GP32 game. Each of the scenarios is pretty pick-up-and play and the whole thing runs mind-bendingly fast at clockspeeds available to most of us *with* sound. As a whole it feels like Square decided to just use it as a showcase for a few experiments they never actually turned into full games, possibly allowing the sound people to have a go at designing maps and the coders to have a shot at sound or something. They clearly had fun making it. And now you can go and have fun playing it.
Its probably an 8/10, I think. Or maybe 7/10 for the game, but boosted to 9/10 for the GP32 playability. Pity they never seem to have used the engine again - if they did there'd be other similarly fast games we could all play.
