Square Enix could end up bringing a Live A Live remaster to the west, officially localizing the game for the first time, assuming fan demand is high enough.
Square Enix held a special live stream for the 26th anniversary of legendary omnibus SNES RPG Live A Live on October 3. The stream featured Live A Live Director Takashi Tokita, Composer Yoko Shimomura, Battle Director Nobuyuki Inoue (Zoom), Character Pixel Art Illustrator Kazuyuki Kurashima (Zoom), and Nobuo from comedy duo Penguins (huge Square Enix fan and always on SaGa streams). Takashi Tokita jokingly started the stream introducing himself as Hironobu Sakaguchi since he has the same stache now due to Covid-19 stay home. After everyone introduced themselves and a kanpai, the stream started for real.
The stream alternated with chit chat between the staff, answering fans’ questions sent in beforehand via Twitter, and a watch together of the “Live A Live A Live in Shinjuku 2019” concert. Stay tuned as we’ll soon update this article with a full summary of the live stream.
During one of the Q&A segments in particular, a non Japanese fan sent in an English question asking if Live A Live could be officially released in the west soon. Similarly to how Japan exclusive Square games such as Romancing SaGa 3 and Seiken Densetsu 3 were finally localized for the first time recently.
Director Takashi Tokita first translated the question back in Japanese for the Japanese fans watching, and then answered. Tokita first noted that while Live A Live is celebrating its 26th anniversary, they never did a sequel, a remaster, a remake, or any new game project. The only new release was the game coming to the Wii’s Virtual Console some years ago. Tokita said it’s thanks to the fans’ support that they could do this anniversary stream. And if fans keep passionately supporting Live A Live, something might happen one day in some form.
You can hear that part of the stream at the 2:17:20 timestamp.
Long story short, no announcement happened on stream, but Square Enix is teasing something might happen one day.
Here’s a summary of everything that happened on the Live A Live 26th anniversary stream.
Note that this contains spoilers for Live A Live.
Takashi Tokita first explained how the Live A Live project came to life. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Seiken Densetsu (Mana series) and SaGa already existed, so they wanted to do something different. The first idea they got and kept, was making an atypical story with independent chapters where everything would tie up together at the end with a typical story instead, to surprise players. That’s why they wrote the medieval chapter first, but it’s the last one you unlock along with the final chapter. Later on in the stream, they also explained Live A Live was born because the ROM size on Super Famicom kept increasing, so they realized they could make an RPG with tons of different themes like Westerns, Sci-fi, hot blooded fights, etc. And instead of a very long RPG with the same themes for many hours, players could be able to freely change themes/chapter when they feel like it for a change of pace.
The Near Future chapter is one of Nobuo’s favorites, especially how passionate it is, be it the dialogue or everything else. So he’s wondering how the dialogue was made during their meetings back then. Takashi Tokita answered the Near Future chapter was first written by Nobuyuki Inoue and then him and the others did a few changes and added the screenplay etc. Famous lines like “Rerero hoge” or “Keep apologizing to me in the afterlife” were all written by Nobuyuki Inoue. Takashi Tokita also explained that back then, they used to polish scenario and dialogues lines in games until the last minute. Checking what works best when play testing the game, since they didn’t have to worry about voice acting.
At the end of the Modern Age chapter, protagonist Masaru has dialogues lines explaining he’ll uses the skills of all the previously defeated opponents at the tournament to beat the final boss. At some point in his lines though, Masaru says he’ll use “Jackie’s power (“chikara”) and Morgan’s power (“Power”)”. So he’s basically saying the same trait twice. Tokita explained he only realized that years later when seeing fans chat about Live A Live and that scene on the net. He said they were probably supposed to change “power” with something else but forgot.
There’s a message saying “congratulations to the newlyweds” at the end of the Bakumatsu chapter of the game. It was to congratulate Nobuyuki Inoue and his wife Yukiko Sasaki, a designer who worked on the backgrounds of the Bakumatsu chapter and the Middle Ages chapter. The Bakumatsu Chapter was made by planer Okuma.
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