Live A Live (PS5) Review

In July of last year, a new version of an atypical JRPG released for the SNES in 1994 called Live A Live. The title came out for Nintendo Switch, as a temporary exclusive and Square Enix, announced last month that it would be coming to PS5 and PS4. So, for those of you who don’t own a Switch and are interested in the game, now is a good time to get it.

For this occasion, this will be a summary analysis since for more details you can read the one that was carried out on Nintendo Switch here.

eight paths

In its premise of being a different game, Live to Live it carries that into its story and how it is told. It allows us to select one of seven protagonists to live their particular adventure. Each of the characters lives in a different timeline such as: Prehistory, Present, Near Future, Far Future, Old West, Imperial China, Edo Period in Japan and this even affects the gameplay. In addition to that, later we will have another adventure that is better to discover for yourself.

It is not a Octopath Traveler, in which the main characters get to know each other as we travel the world. However, Live a Live is the foundation on which this idea of ​​a choral cast is based. In principle, none of the characters are known and each story is more or less brief, almost as if they were different games.

RPG Simplified

Just as there are individual plots, the gameplay varies from character to character. For the most part, the usual JRPG tropes are here: conversations with NPCs, exploration, items, turn-based combat, and boss battles. Each character has their own way of playing, while some can roam the maps freely, others have to use stealth, and others jump right into the action.

You can choose one or the other character, regardless of whether we have started the chapter of any one. Each of the seven eligible characters takes a maximum of three hours or less to complete, there’s also no set order in which they must be chosen.

It’s interesting how they managed to make each character different, for example, Pogo the prehistoric man communicates through babbling but basically you understand what happens in his story. Some chapters are easier than others, and this makes the gameplay feel uneven at times. While Feudal Japan has a more serious tone, prehistory bets on being more comical, that includes the way to progress from one to the other, in which the latter feels simpler and more linear.

The combat is a mix between a turn-based RPG with some touches of strategy. On the one hand we have an ATB bar that when filled we can perform an action, both us and the enemies; on the other hand, each action has a range marked by grids and these vary depending on the different characters. Some characters can gain experience, while others cannot; others even do not even have to fight battles. It really is a very unusual system.

HD-2D with more power

The HD-2D graphic style in the current generation is where it looks best. Although it doesn’t have the same level of detail as Octopath Traveler 2, subtle changes are noticeable. Movement feels smoother, it has a brighter color palette, better lighting, and load times are much shorter. Undoubtedly the best version.

As for the soundtrack, the reinterpretation of the songs from scratch is a delight for our ears. Each era reflects very well the feeling it wants to convey and has pieces that we can listen to over and over again. The characters are voiced in English and Japanese for punctual dialogue.

Verdict

There is no doubt that live to live is a one of a kind JRPG. Its approach of eight different stories, eight different gameplays although with the same bases and eight settings, make it a very varied game. As for the fighting, it’s an interesting mix between turn-based role-playing and tactics, although not all of the adventure has the same rhythm, feeling somewhat irregular. As for the graphics, we cannot deny that the jump to more powerful consoles than the Switch suits it very well, in which its great artistic section and its soundtrack make it an essential for fans of the genre.

Note: This review was made on the PS5 version and the code was provided thanks to Square Enix.