- Joined
- Sep 19, 2018
I finally played the remake for myself and I've got some thoughts on it, since the original is one of my favorite games ever.
First of all, the game is gorgeous, especially considering the original was never really a looker in that department. I've actually never been a fan of mixing 3D backgrounds and 2D sprites, particularly with PS1 era games and further. I thought the art styles clashed with one another and I found them rather cheap looking. Somehow they managed to make it work here, probably because the backgrounds just look like they imported SNES textures and made them 3D. HD-2D definitely is a step forward in that regard for me.
Gameplay is mostly the same but it was overhauled to make it more user friendly and less obtuse. For one, there are actually descriptions for equipment and attacks now. The original game just kind of expected you to figure it yourself what anything does. The game does feel a lot slower, but that seems to be mostly because of the increased amount of animations per character than anything else. It's also a much easier. If you go in blind, you might still die a couple of times, but probably not as much as you would in the original.
Voice acting is good, though I did find it a bit inconsistent at times. It's not outright bad and it wasn't too distracting for the most part. It was great in parts where it really mattered, particularly in the more story based chapters.
The music has always been a classic in my eyes, so I was glad to hear it in all its orchestral beauty. There are some tracks I still prefer in the original chiptune, but I'd dare to say some of them really do benefit from having actual instruments in them. Gigalomania really is the musical culmination I didn't think I needed. I damn near cried.
The story is completely the same, but there wasn't really anything about it that needed to change. The game was already ahead of its time with how it handled its overarching story. There are some short blurbs here and there for flavor text, but that's really it. At its core, the story is still fairly simple and it conveys its message perfectly. It's a story about humanity, its great faults and capacity for evil--but also potential for good, even when we are at our lowest point.
The biggest change is of course the new final boss. In the original, the game would end right after the boss rush. It's a good addition--for one, it gave every playable main character a chance to participate and secondly, it gave Oersted the means to break away from his hatred. He still dies, but goes off on better terms.
You can see a lot of DNA of this game in Chrono Trigger--makes sense, since it's the same director--though they really focused on refining one big aspect and made the entire game revolve around it. Personally though, I still prefer Live A Live. I've played both games over a decade ago and LAL left a much bigger impression on me, one that's stuck with me for years.
It's nice more people get to experience this game. I even encourage them go back to the original, just to appreciate it better for the things it set out to do so early on. Multiple gameplay quirks and gimmicks, an omnibus style of storytelling, hiding the plot across what is seemingly a sequence of unrelated events and one of the earliest examples of a tragic character masquerading as a generic doomsday villain.
We've come a long way since then and still we can do so much more.
First of all, the game is gorgeous, especially considering the original was never really a looker in that department. I've actually never been a fan of mixing 3D backgrounds and 2D sprites, particularly with PS1 era games and further. I thought the art styles clashed with one another and I found them rather cheap looking. Somehow they managed to make it work here, probably because the backgrounds just look like they imported SNES textures and made them 3D. HD-2D definitely is a step forward in that regard for me.
Gameplay is mostly the same but it was overhauled to make it more user friendly and less obtuse. For one, there are actually descriptions for equipment and attacks now. The original game just kind of expected you to figure it yourself what anything does. The game does feel a lot slower, but that seems to be mostly because of the increased amount of animations per character than anything else. It's also a much easier. If you go in blind, you might still die a couple of times, but probably not as much as you would in the original.
Voice acting is good, though I did find it a bit inconsistent at times. It's not outright bad and it wasn't too distracting for the most part. It was great in parts where it really mattered, particularly in the more story based chapters.
The music has always been a classic in my eyes, so I was glad to hear it in all its orchestral beauty. There are some tracks I still prefer in the original chiptune, but I'd dare to say some of them really do benefit from having actual instruments in them. Gigalomania really is the musical culmination I didn't think I needed. I damn near cried.
The story is completely the same, but there wasn't really anything about it that needed to change. The game was already ahead of its time with how it handled its overarching story. There are some short blurbs here and there for flavor text, but that's really it. At its core, the story is still fairly simple and it conveys its message perfectly. It's a story about humanity, its great faults and capacity for evil--but also potential for good, even when we are at our lowest point.
The biggest change is of course the new final boss. In the original, the game would end right after the boss rush. It's a good addition--for one, it gave every playable main character a chance to participate and secondly, it gave Oersted the means to break away from his hatred. He still dies, but goes off on better terms.
You can see a lot of DNA of this game in Chrono Trigger--makes sense, since it's the same director--though they really focused on refining one big aspect and made the entire game revolve around it. Personally though, I still prefer Live A Live. I've played both games over a decade ago and LAL left a much bigger impression on me, one that's stuck with me for years.
It's nice more people get to experience this game. I even encourage them go back to the original, just to appreciate it better for the things it set out to do so early on. Multiple gameplay quirks and gimmicks, an omnibus style of storytelling, hiding the plot across what is seemingly a sequence of unrelated events and one of the earliest examples of a tragic character masquerading as a generic doomsday villain.
We've come a long way since then and still we can do so much more.
