It's all in the mind! Let's play Live A Live

Hello, and welcome to Live a Live! This is a Squaresoft RPG that came out around 1994 and was never released in the States. However, there's a fan translation by Aeon Genesis which allows you to play the game in glorious English.



The game's main gimmick is that it's split into a number of independent stories which take place in various time periods. You can play them in any order, and most have their own quirks that make them a little weird and experimental.

This is no democracy, and starting out with the "Present Day" chapter seems appropriate, so let's pick this guy.



He will see many unique techniques, and use them to achieve his ultimate goal:

The title of "Strongest in the World"







I must be adaptable





I will learn much from each fighter



Let the games begin! Bring it on!

We've got a name menu, but this is no time for PANTS. This is a time for action!



I look forward to the coming battles!

Present Day Chapter

-The Strongest-



Masaru's chapter is kind of like an alien hybrid of Mega Man, Street Fighter, and an RPG. You can fight the listed opponents in any order, and getting hit with some of their ~signature moves~ will cause Masaru to learn them. Live A Live has some typical RPG trappings like levels and equipment, but Masaru doesn't gain levels or buy new equipment, so there's no real point in digging into the menus just yet. This chapter also has no overworld. It's all about the FIGHTS until we move on.

First of all, let's take a look at this dude.

Jackie Iaukea



Unfortunately, he failed, and instead uses his sumo skills in international wrestling.

Skills:
Aloha Clap
Ogre Grip




The combat in Live A Live functions a bit like a roguelike. All actions, including moving, attacking, and using items (not that Masaru has any) take a certain amount of time. Generally, the stronger the attack the more time it will take. There's no MP or equivalent, so the only cost of acting is the time spent.

Masaru doesn't have any ranged attacks yet, so we head into melee range.



Jackie decides to start things out right before we can attack him. Most enemies in Masaru's chapter have attacks he can't learn, and Thrust is one of them.



Here are our attack options right now. Blazing Fist deals damage and does nothing else. Roundhouse has the sorta useful property of turning an enemy around, forcing them to spend a bit of time righting themselves before attacking you again. Battle Cry heals a bit, restores status, and buffs our attack (the effect of the buff seems negligible, however.)

We'll be spending most of the fights spamming Battle Cry off and on and waiting for the opponent to use their learnable moves.





Like so. The buff indicator spins, so it can be a pain to screenshot.



Eventually he starts to oblige. Ogre Grip knocks enemies a square away from you, so it's very handy, and a good reason to take out Jackie first.





Eventually he decides to throw out Aloha Clap as well. Aloha Clap's area of effect properties don't do much for Masaru since he only fights single enemies, but it can hit enemies from a square away, making it a nice counterpart to Ogre Grip.

By using Jackie's own techniques to keep him away and hitting Battle Cry like a maniac, Masaru manages to stomp Jackie.





And with that Jackie's attacks have been permanently added to our repertoire.



Now we can move on to Masaru's second opponent.



Next Time: GREAT ASIA, THE MASKED MENACE

(I'd appreciate feedback of any kind. I know I went a little heavy on the images this time, but I wanted to show off Masaru's intro a bit. I might make the images a bit smaller for future updates.)

Aside from one chapter (screw you Akira!), Live a Live is fantastic. I'm looking forward to this, and it looks like it's off to a good and entertaining start.

My old boss Peer Schneider was a big Live A Live fan, used to talk it up a lot. I never did get around to playing it myself, though. This is interesting stuff. Good luck!

This is a great game, but your thread title had me expecting a Parappa LP.

I've been fascinated by Live A Live ever since the initial translation was completed in 2001; it's a thoroughly imaginative, off-beat delight. I've never possessed the fortitude to see it all the way through (which is why my own plans to LP this never went anywhere), but I could play the Bakumatsu chapter over and over again.

One interesting fact about the game is that the character design for each chapter was done by a different Japanese artist. Finding any meaningful information on this was basically hopeless back around '01, but now we enjoy such futuristic conveniences as Japanese Wikipedia.

To wit: any '90s anime/manga fans might be interested to know that the Present Day Chapter was illustrated by Ryouji Minagawa of Spriggan.

Have no fear about going too heavy on images! This is GREAT.

It's a small thing but I'd like to see more of the description text for all of Masaru's skills. But you could just transcribe that instead of showing screenshots.

Glad I'm not the only one.

This LP though, I'll be following closely. I've never played this game but always heard the name and that it was a 90s Square RPG, so it greatly interests me.

How the hell do you pronounce that? Liv a live? Live a liv? Frahnkensteen?

This should be fun. Also well-timed, in that I finally got around to playing this a few months ago after it had sat on my backlog since 2005, and it was one of those games I wanted to play for myself before being spoiled by an LP. It'll be interesting to see what you think of it.

(I think the cowboy chapter was my favorite of the lot.)

Your boss is completely right. Live A Live is a superb little game. Short enough to be punchy, but with enough depth to be robust. T\l]here's tons of secrets and end-game options to make it feel like a full-fleged RPG. It walks the line between straightforward and complex to make for a very rewarding experience. For example, it's possible to learn Masaru's ultimate technique from Jackie here if you're patient and lucky (it kinda sucks though so no big loss).

And the game is just chock full of charm. I mean look, this guy's a big fat sumo wrestler with a straw hat and ukulele! Just about every other character is as imaginative and fun. It's a shame we missed it back in the day (though that would mean we would've missed Aeon Genesis' excellent localization). It really is a capital-C classic... even if it served as the prototype for The After Years.

oh man, THIS GAME.

I've spent a lot of time with the various translated SNES RPGs, but this is the one I keep coming back to. Most of the chapters have fun secrets hidden around, and the game overall is a great example of doing different things with the same toolkit. It's like Square's very own RPG Maker.

Battling spirit, prepare for battle!



A Japanese wrestler who has mastered the techniques of the Mexican Lucha Libre champ, El Rudo.

His moves are considered to be extremely rough, and he has been called the Dark Angel.

Skills:
Frankensteiner
Tornado Press



You obviously have no skill! I'm gonna chop your head off!!

SCRUB CAN'T EVEN AIM AT HEADS



Those pants....




Like most people from Mexico and the southern United States, Great Asia has a poisonous bite. The bite itself isn't too powerful, but he can hit you from almost anywhere and it forces you to use Battle Cry even more often to cure the poison.




Eventually we get one of his learnable moves, Frankensteiner. We keep fighting, but learning Tornado Press takes priority over finishing him off.




Well.....

After a few more tries, Masaru manages to learn both of his moves





Frankensteiner is a straightforward melee damage move. It has the same enemy turning effect as Roundhouse.





Tornado Press has the most range of any of Masaru's moves. It's handy for attacking enemies from outside their range. It also has a cute little GON! SFX graphic when it hits. We'll be seeing that later.

And with that we can take him out.







Chewing on people's faces will do that to you.



This is a good time to list the descriptions for the moves we've learned so far. Some of the extra notes are for flavor, while some describe the move's effects.

Blazing Fist—Hand Tech/Smash 30 Tiles
Roundhouse—Kick Tech/Change target's facing
Battle Cry—Recovery Tech/Recover Status
Aloha Clap—Wind Tech/Storm of jabs
Ogre Grip—Charge Tech/Hurl away strongly
Frankensteiner—Jump Tech/Spin to the rear




Next time: DEVASTATING HIGH KICKS

This one's been on my backlog for quite a while! I'd love to follow along in real-time but I don't want to ruin the experience.

However, I did want to say that this looks great! Keep up the awesome work and I look forward to checking back once I have the game under my belt.

Aw you missed the super hard to get and not worth it at all secret scene where Great Asia up and kills a dude.

I spent some time trying to get this today and it is ridiculous. There's a slim chance of the scene triggering when Great Asia uses Bite while standing in the bottom right corner of the screen, and I managed to get him there a few times, but I never got the scene. It seems to be really rare.

Oh well, who knows what the future will hold?

Masaru's bite wounds are healing and he's got two more new techniques figured out, so it's time to take on our next opponent.



An incredibly flexible warrior who fights using the Muay Thai style.



Skills:
Punchama Kick
Spiral Knee



Too bad you won't be able to so much as bruise my pretty face!!



Namcat has the smallest sprite of all of Masaru's opponents.



Spiral Knee is a ranged attack that can hit anywhere two spaces away along a side or diagonal





Panchama Kick functions like Ogre Grip. I have a suspicion that it comes out faster, though.



Lightning Upper is his filler move.






Namcat is a lot easier to deal with than Great Asia.

And we've got two more techniques!



Panchama Kick—Kick Tech/Kick target away



Next time: CUNNING AND ENDURANCE

This is a baffling thing I see before me. Please continue.

With half of his opponents out of the way, Masaru has made good progress through the tournament. Now it's time to take on his fourth.




Tula Han is a master of close-quarters combat.

He fights with both mind and body as one, and can bend both to extreme measures.

Skills:
Armlock
Cross Heel Hold



Let's do this.







We hit him with a quick Ogre Grip and he counters with one of his signature moves: Arm Lock. Arm Lock doesn't do much damage, but it disables moves like Blazing Fist that rely on the arms. Battle Cry will cure its effects. Counters happen randomly, and Masaru himself has a chance of using Arm Lock and Cross Heel Hold (plus Panchama Kick) as counters once they've been learned.




Tula Han also has some filler moves. His reliance on quick, not too powerful melee strikes in addition to his disabling moves sort of gives the impression of an enemy who fights cautiously and intelligently, though it also means he doesn't do too much damage.




Occasionally he'll pull out something sort of nasty, though we've seen much worse.



Eventually he hits us with Cross Heel Hold, Armlock's counterpart. Cross Heel Hold prevents movement in addition to blocking leg skills.

They're both a pain to screenshot, since they have flashing images of arm/leg bones breaking. You'll be seeing them later.




His ability to counter can complicate the strategy of using Ogre Grip to keep him out of melee range, since a countered Ogre Grip won't knock him back.



Of course, Masaru can counter as well.

Tula Han isn't too bad. In fact, I should have fought him earlier.

Cross Heel Hold—Hold Tech/Pin legs, prevent move
Arm Lock—Hold Tech/Pin arms



Next Time: THE BODY EXPLOSION

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Bulk Brogan the Body Explosion

I'm surprised you didn't tackle Tula Han earlier either, seeing as his techniques are consitantly useful against everyone else.

But now,



Oh yeah!

Next Time:

Yeah, Live-a-Live's pretty neat! The thing that really stands out to me is how different all the chapters are -- not just in the settings but in the game format, too. It's kind of like SaGa Frontier but even more divergent. I'm looking forward to the rest of the LP.

I dunno if you were already going to mention this, but Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter 2 / Parasite Eve / Legend of Mana / Kingdom Hearts) did the soundtrack ... it's really not one of her better efforts, though, IMO.

I hope y'all are PUMPED because it's time to take on Hulk Hogan Bulk Brogan Max Morgan.



He's grown bored, however, and is seeking a challenger who can provide him with a new thrill.

Skills:
Max Bomber
German Suplex



Max Bomber Number 1!!



IT'S HERE










THE BODY EXPLOSION

German Suplex does a ton of damage and paralyzes. This usually gives him a free hit, which he'll often use to hit you with his other special move, Max Bomber. Max Bomber doesn't do as much as German Suplex, but it hits every space around the user and sometime knocks targets away.





Morgan can fuck you right up if things go wrong.

Of course, all of his moves are melee, so by carefully using moves like Ogre Grip and Spiral Knee you can keep him away safely. You could also shut him down almost entirely with Arm Lock, but when did I say I was going to play smart?



Sometimes he'll even turn away from Masaru to showboat.



German Suplex does a lot of damage.




Max Bomber—Hand Tech/Wide-range lariat
German Suplex—Hold Tech/Powerful paralysis



Next Time: The Final (?!) Foe