Live A Live is a 1994 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Famicom. A remake was published by Square Enix in Japan and Nintendo worldwide, being released first for Nintendo Switch in 2022, and the following year for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows. The game follows seven distinct scenarios scattered across different time periods, with two more unlockable scenarios linking the narratives together through the recurring antagonist Odio. Gameplay is split between exploration with story-specific twists, and turn-based combat played out on a grid.
Production began in late 1993, and was the directorial debut of Takashi Tokita. Tokita wanted to tell multiple stories within a single game, with each section drawing inspiration from different sources. Character designs for the seven main scenarios were handled by different manga artists. The music was composed by Yoko Shimomura as her first large-scale project after joining Square.
Reception of the game has been positive, with praise going to its unique gameplay and narrative mechanics, though its short length was faulted. The remake was praised by Western reviewers, particularly its overall design and redone graphics and music, though several noted gameplay elements that had aged poorly. Selling 270,000 units, the original release was considered a failure, while the remake sold 500,000 copies worldwide. Tokita's work on Live A Live influenced his later projects.
Gameplay
Live A Live is a role-playing video game in which the player takes on the role of eight different protagonists through nine scenarios. While each narrative has the same basic mechanics, individual stories have unique gimmicks; these include the use of stealth, a lack of standard battles, or using telepathy to learn new facts to progress the narrative. With the exception of one scenario, the player character navigates themed environments, ranging from the overworld area to dungeon environments. Battles are triggered differently for each scenario; some are random encounters, some have enemy sprites which can be avoided, while others are entirely scripted.
The turn-based battle system is used across all scenarios, and features the player character and sometimes a party fighting enemies on a 7x7 grid, with characters able to move and perform actions such as attacking or using particular skills. Skills can be used without limit, though some take multiple turns to charge. Some abilities imbue tiles with extra properties, such as healing a character or dealing elemental damage. There are also different skill systems in place; there is gaining levels with experience points, which unlocks new abilities, though in others character progression is locked behind story events. In one scenario techniques are learned through seeing an opponent use them. Each character can also equip and use items, such as accessories to boost attack or items to recover health. If the player character, or party, is defeated, the game ends.
The 2022 remake carries over the basic gameplay from the original, though redesigned and updated for the new graphical style, and with some features intended for ease of play compared to the original. Bars are added representing a character's health and "charge" time before their move is executed. Other additions include a sparkling effect over items and materials that can be gathered, a display showing a move's area of effect, and an optional radar system which shows the position of objectives on the map.
Synopsis Live A Live is split into seven chapters, covering prehistoric, ancient Chinese, feudal Japanese, Wild West, present day, near future, and distant future eras. In each scenario, the protagonist confronts a powerful enemy whose name is or incorporates the word "Odio". After completing these scenarios, an eighth chapter set in the Middle Ages is unlocked, which in turn unlocks a final chapter tying the narratives together.
Prehistory: The First: The caveman Pogo is exiled by his tribe after rescuing and hiding Beru, a woman intended for sacrifice by a rival tribe to their dinosaur god, Odo. Pogo and Beru, having fallen in love and allied with friendly members of both tribes, successfully kill Odo and unite their tribes. Imperial China: The Successor: The aging Shifu of the endangered Earthen Heart martial art chooses three disciples to inherit his skills. A rival school led by the ruthless Ou Di Wan Lee kills the two less experienced students. The Shifu and his surviving student defeat Ou Di Wan Lee and his students, with the Shifu sacrificing his life force to empower his surviving student. The Shifu dies after this battle, and his student begins passing down his teachings. Twilight of Edo Japan: The Infiltrator: Trainee ninja Oboromaru is sent by his master on a mission to rescue a politically important person and kill his captor Ode Iou, a demon disguised as a daimyo intent on conquering Japan. Oboromaru defeats Ode Iou and rescues the man, who turns out to be Sakamoto Ryōma, who is helping to open Japan to the West. The Wild West: The Wanderer: A wandering gunslinger called the Sundown Kid meets with the bounty hunter Mad Dog in an isolated town for a gun duel. The pair end up working together to liberate the town from the Crazy Bunch bandit gang, led by O. Dio. After defeating O. Dio, revealed to be a horse possessed by the dead of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Sundown Kid leaves the town having rediscovered the value of protecting others, with his final encounters with Mad Dog varying depending on player choice. Present Day: The Strongest: Masaru Takahara wants to become the strongest person in the world, believing that defeating opponents in each fighting style would accomplish this goal. While Masaru succeeds, he is confronted by another fighter Odie O'Bright, who has been killing his opponents because he deemed them weak. Odie O'Bright challenges Masaru, who kills him using his combined learned abilities, becoming the strongest fighter. The Near Future: The Outsider: Psychic orphan Akira Tadokoro goes in pursuit of a biker gang called the Crusaders, seeking retribution for his father's death. Together with his friend Matsu, Akira pursues the Crusaders, learning that they are being used by the government to obtain sacrifices for an idol dubbed Odeo, which seeks to bring an enforced peace by assimilating all of humanity. Matsu−confessing that he killed Akira's father as the Crusaders' original leader−sacrifices himself trying to move the mech Steel Titan. With his powers, Akira uses the Steel Titan to destroy Odeo, ending the conspiracy. The Distant Future: The Mechanical Heart: The cargo ship Cogito Ergo Sum is carrying a monster to Earth. Maintenance robot Cube ends up investigating the incident when the monster escapes and begins killing the crew, which, combined with fatal accidents, causes the survivors to turn on one another. The ultimate culprit is the ship's computer, OD-10, who wants to curtail the crew's recurring antisocial behavior by wiping them out. Cube hacks and deactivates OD-10, allowing the survivors and Cube to arrive to Earth after killing the monster. The Middle Ages: The Lord of Dark: After the knight Oersted defeats his friend Streibough in a contest for the hand of Princess Alethea of Lucrece, Alethea is kidnapped by subordinates of the Lord of Dark, having apparently returned. Oersted leads a party that includes Streibough to rescue Alethea. They defeat the Lord of Dark, revealed to be a lesser monster in disguise, but Streibough is apparently killed and Alethea remains missing. Back at the castle, Oersted is tricked by a magical illusion into killing Lucrece's king, causing its people to denounce him as a demon. Escaping and with his party dead, Oersted discovers that a jealous Streibough faked his death. Oersted kills Streibough and finds Alethea, but she blames Oersted for Streibough's actions before killing herself. A despairing Oersted becomes the new Lord of Dark, taking on the name Odio.
In the final chapter, "Dominion of Hate", Odio draws the seven protagonists—Pogo, the Shifu's student, Oboromaru, the Sundown Kid, Masaru, Akira and Cube—to Lucrece to confront their heroism; the player then chooses who to play as. Choosing Oersted begins a scenario where he fights each hero using their respective Odio incarnations, either wiping out humanity and living in a world devoid of life, or obliterating the universe in a final devastating attack if he loses. Choosing any other protagonist has that character assemble and lead the party to a final battle with Odio's true form. The party can either kill Oersted, trapping them in Lucrece forever; or spare him, leading to final battles with each form of Odio, which Oersted describes as the physical incarnation of hatred. In the remake (provided the player recruited all playable characters at least once), Oersted's hate manifests into a demon called Sin of Odio that initially overwhelms the party, but Oersted breaks free with their help and destroys it. A repentant and dying Oersted sends each protagonist back to their time periods, warning them that enough hate can create another Lord of Dark.
Development Live A Live was developed by Development Division 5 of Square, noted as creators of the Final Fantasy series. The game was the directorial debut of Takashi Tokita, who had previously worked in a designer role for Hanjuku Hero and Final Fantasy IV. The original concept was born from the desire to make an RPG where players could experience multiple standalone stories at once, contrasting against Final Fantasy where smaller stories served a grand narrative arc. The production was made possible by the expanding storage capacity of the Super Famicom ROM, with the aim being for players to be able to complete each section within a day. Several staff members, including designer Nobuyuki Inoue and lead programmer Fumiaki Fukaya, had worked on either Hanjuku Hero or the Final Fantasy series. Active production began in December 1993, though the entire development including early planning lasted one and a half years. It was produced for the Super Famicom's 16-megabit cartridge.
Tokita had difficulty adjusting to his role as director, particularly as he could not be as hands-on with the graphical elements as he had been for Final Fantasy IV. Except for menus and battles, Fukaya was responsible for all the game's programming. Tokita put an equal amount of effort into each world design. Many of the world suggestions came from other members of staff, with Tokita choosing what he thought were the best. The first world created was the Middle Ages edition, which informed both the wider narrative and the gameplay design. The scenarios originally had a graduating difficulty scale, but Tokita abandoned this so players could tackle the scenarios in any order they wished. Inoue was responsible for the battle system design, wanting to make a strategic experience which Tokita described as "real-time shogi". Another goal was to evolve the standard gameplay of RPGs at the time. One idea of Tokita's that was rejected involved not displaying hit points, but having the character physically act like they had been injured or look weakened as they took damage instead. Once production finished, the team split up to work on other projects within Square.
Scenario and art design