Live-A-Live

[Sotenga]

It's time to focus on one of the finest RPGs to never make it to American shores. I played through all of Live-A-Live recently, and it is just excellent in every sense of the word. Instead of creating one massive focused quest, this game is comprised of several short RPGs that take place in different periods of time. Every story has unique elements, such as having stealth powers in the Ninja chapter or being able to read minds in the Mecha chapter. The graphics are colorful and well-designed, but the sound and music in this game is simply incredible thanks to Yoko Shimomura. Also, the battle system is unique and a lot more active than your typical RPG. One review I saw about the game described it as something to the degree of "virtual chess or checkers," what with positioning your characters so they can get into range with their skills.

I am normally not too fond of RPGs, but LAL is simply a fantastic game. Square made something innovative and enticing, and I'd go so far as to compare it to their Final Fantasy games of the SNES era. Man, a sequel examining more periods in time would have been super-great... I wonder why it didn't get a sequel? Oh well... discuss LAL here!

[Clownzilla]

Did it ever hit the USA? The only way I could find it was through a language hack on a ROM. Anyway, although it was a truly great game, I just could not get into the fighting system. Too much for me!

[Sotenga]

Did it ever hit the USA? The only way I could find it was through a language hack on a ROM.

Unfortunately, it was Japan-only, but the translated version does a good job, even if it has some glitches here and there. Apparently, there's another patch in the works that makes it all the more awesome, but I'm waiting for a VC translation... wishful thinking, but I've gotta have something to believe in!