"How often do you think about Ancient Rome?"

There was a trend a month or so ago, where girls would ask their boyfriends/dads this question, and it was either a source of light teasing for being silly, or genuinely eye opening for how weirdly often it's thought about. It was a cute, innocent trend honestly, and I don't really get why some people I know got overly defensive about it. Because at its core, it is silly. Men are silly. While Live A Live does not have a chapter set in Ancient Rome, I feel like it delves into the core of this phenomenon. (I'm not going to mark this as [[SPOILERS]], though there may be a few. This is because I feel like the spoiler tag chases people away, even if they don't really care for the game.)
To preface this, I feel like there's a little bit of context needed. Live A Live is basically my personal Earthbound. Weird obscure SNES JRPG that didn't sell well and was only really discoverable via YouTube. I played this game a LOT during middle school, and a few times during my underclassman years of high school as well. I have always loved this game, and for a while it was by far my favorite RPG, maybe even game, ever. So there is a bit of nostalgia bias in my rating. I'll get into how that affects my thoughts while playing this game later.
This game is thematically heavy, deceptively so too, given its structure of 7+ extremely short stories on the SNES. This is a game about love, masculinity, and romanticism. I think any schmuck with an IQ over 3 could tell you about how this game talks about love, especially if they chose Pogo as their MC. So for that reason, I'll be focusing on the last two that I mentioned, and how the awkward and censored translation of this game ruins a few moments. (This is not a review just to bitch about the bad localization, we all know it sucks.)
Every chapter takes place throughout historical periods. You can be a cowboy, a mecha pilot, a robot, a ninja, etc.. These periods already have a strong sense of romanticism towards them, I find it difficult to believe that you guys have never imagined being big Grug beating up sabertooth tigers or being a master at Kung-Fu. This alone makes the game a young boy's dream game. You can be all these cool guys! But in each chapter you always play as a guy. This initially seems like it's for self insert purposes, but as you play through them you realize that it's thematic too. All of these stories are about a different kind of love, a man's love. Love for his community, for his art, for his romance, for his comrades, for his country, for his fellow man, and for competition. Of course, I'm not saying "bleeh only MEN can understand these kinds of love! femoids be damned they cant feel bleeeh". I'm just saying that all of these are viewed from the perspective of men. They can be explicitly stated, like the only word in the entire prehistory chapter (that in this version is comically left untranslated), or can be more subtle like in the wild west chapter. In almost all of these chapters, you are a damned man. A boy yet to come of age, a framed vagrant, an orphan left to rot, etc., etc.. Yet in every single chapter, the main character never stops loving what he loves. If you abandon your mission, you start to regret it, and watch as the country you love falls due to your cowardice.
Before you get on my case about Cube being a genderless robot, I think that this emphasizes the point of what a man is. Look at Cube, and look at Kato. Cube is literally just Kato's face. A testament to his own vanity. Men are vain romanticists. This is just a part of our core. Everybody wants to be a hero, something great, something worth remembering, or at least, an essential part of something greater. Something like Ancient Rome.
The translation is bad. I know it, you know it. It's especially bad if you have JP voice acting on, because its so wordy that lines don't even pan out fully before skipping to the next one if you have auto-advance turned on. The wording is awkward, especially in the endgame, and lines have been detrimentally changed (or as previously stated, left untranslated). There's also a lot more swearing than there should be, it honestly kind of bothers me, though I'm not the type to clutch pearls at swearing (I was unanimously elected the #1 potty mouth at the gas station I worked at, if that tells you anything.) But this is a game for middle schoolers and the surrounding years. I feel like they were just trying to justify that T rating.
One line that builds a lot on the themes and the character Lawless, is near the end of the Near Future chapter. After telling Akira the truth of their interwoven backstories, Taeko tries to interrupt, to try to save him. But he refuses, saying "It’s not a woman’s place to but in… When a man is setting things… Strai…ght…" with his dying breath. He chose to go out as a man, with his honor as intact as he could have left it. However, in the official translation, he just says "Sometimes you’ve gotta own up to your mistakes… Consequences be damned. Am I… Am I right…?" While conveying the same thing with the main story, it makes him seem less brash. It honestly doesn't even make sense when you think about it, he doesn't care about Taeko trying to help him, this just sounds like a decent line to go out on under any circumstance. OK I'm done bitching sorry

But how about the game itself, the remaster?
I will say this: I miss playing this on an emulator because I could speed that up HOLY SHIT were the battle animations always this long? I love the gameplay, as barebones as it honestly is. A bit more streamlining, and I would LOVE to play a full length RPG with this combat system. I felt like there was one part that traversing kind of sucked at the end of the game, but other than that I think the worlds and "dungeons" were fun and fine, I never felt like they took too long.
This run I went for no kills in Edo Japan, Yun as my shifu, and Akira as my MC as I hadn't done him before. I think this is my 6th time playing the game?
Anyways, the true final boss always gets me going like mecha fans at Char's counterattack. Every time I feel so happy. The additional final phase adds so much and is honestly one of my favorite moments in video games.
The remaster is beautiful. I love the arranged soundtrack, and for an HD2D game, I feel like this one actually does really well with not being too full of bloom. The JP voice acting is amazing, and the new animations kick ass. This is how I always imagined the game looked as a kid.
I love Live A Live with all my heart, and I'm glad that this remake brings it over to modern systems, and lets people experience this absolute masterpiece, despite my issues with the translation. The only thing holding this game back at its core is the SNES it was originally on.
Please, give this game a shot, even if you don't end up liking it, it makes me so happy to see people playing this

Cry for the moon...

Entering the infinite void of what's beyond the thermosphere of our planet, we gaze upon her majesty. That moment we take in the supposed sanctuary of our mother goddess is where our unknowable enemy launches their sneaky surprise attack at the start of the round, we don't even notice there's two moons until it's too late. The imposter of our beautiful rock in the sky slowly approaches from the background as warning sirens blare through your speakers. I hope you're prepared fellow pilot, because it's only downhill from here when it comes to questioning what lies in front of your eyes.

The mechanics of your ship are shoddy and experimental at best, just as rough and rugged as the scenery you'll be digesting in your next trip through your shmup smorgasbord. The unknowable enemy will not make things easy with their positioning and method of approach, and your ship may be ill-equipped to deal with their lunacy and onslaught of Space Mambos. Persevere through it all and your Black Fly getting inevitably crushed and sandwiched between the ceiling and floor by a funny rascal, and you may just find yourself in a fight against a phantom phallus utilizing your own kind's history and imagery of what may be your childhood pet cat to drag you deeper into it's method of madness.

Once all is said and done, you will be led to wonder, were you dreaming or was it reality? Perhaps it's time to wake up...you were born to be free....

Wake up.

MERCURY STEAM HQ, 2015:

“Alright team, time to plan this Metroid II remake. And I want to say up front: there’s no bad ideas in brainstorming! So, what‘s on your mind?”

“Hmm…well first, how about we make the game look like dogshit? Just real gross. Muddy colors, weird blurry lighting and totally indistinct area themes. I want the player to feel totally lost in an endless maze of poop caves. And while we’re at it, since past Metroid games did such a good job immersing the player in their worlds, what if for this one we took the opposite approach. Shoot for a really unconvincing 2.5D aesthetic with incredibly blocky level design, that way the player is constantly reminded they’re playing a game. Like, the monochrome Gameboy original should feel more immersive than this.”

“That’s brilliant, Dave. Sarah, you had your hand up?”

“Yeah well I was just thinking, what if we made the level design like, way worse? Metroid II split its map into these open, easy-to-digest chunks that have aged pretty well all things considered. So why not throw all that bullshit in the trash and replace it for something really cramped and labyrinthine? Just really arduous to navigate, make exploring feel like a hassle. Maybe instead of interesting power-up gating we also could just fill the map with power bomb tiles, so exploration just becomes a dull game of spamming the scan pulse every few steps.”

“I like where your head is at, Sarah. Who else?”

“Well while we’re talking about the original, I’ve been looking at some reviews and it seems like a common complaint with that game was that the Metroid boss fights got kind of monotonous after a while. So I was thinking—and hear me out on this one—what if we made each Metroid encounter take like twice as long? And not because it’s any more engaging or anything, just way more tedious. Like, half of their new attacks make them invincible so most of the fight is just running around wasting missiles while you wait for an opening. And then make the player do that 50 times. Maybe instead of having them ambush you in interesting locations we could also just place each one in a big game-y boss arena and give the player a grating beeping notification every time they’re near one. You know, that way they never feel any sense of surprise or any illusion this is a believable fragile ecosystem and not a checklist of Goombas for them to stop. It’s not like that’s thematically important to Metroid II or anything.”

“Goddamnit Brian, you’re a loose cannon, but maybe that’s just exactly we need for this project. What next?”

“Well, grinding for health and ammo was always really annoying in previous games. So let’s exhaust that by really spreading out the recharge stations. That way if you need a refill after a boss you have to run around the entire area. Oh, and then let’s make enemies not always respawn when you leave a room, so when you inevitably do have to farm it’s super inconvenient. Fuck it, let’s even add a third type of meter while we’re at it to triple the grinding!”

“I’m gonna be honest Larry I didn’t 100% make out what you said because I was doing coke off Brian’s desk, but fuckin sure dude put it in the game!”

“Hey boss, I was just replaying the GBA games and noticed how fluid their combat felt. So I was thinking for our game we could add this melee counter move to really fuck up the pacing. That way instead of being able to quickly move and shoot your way through enemies, every single goddamn one requires you to stop in your tracks and wait for their attack animation to start so you can do your stupid fucking parry move. Y’know, that way the movement and exploration never get too exciting. Wouldn’t want that in a Metroid game! Then let’s make every enemy have a ton of health when you try to kill them without the parry so players are locked into having to play this way. And—what the hell—let’s not improve enemy variety at all, so you’re stuck seeing the same 20 or so guys without any change in strategy the whole time.”

“Leslie, you son of a bitch. I think you’ve just cracked this thing wide open. In fact, I’m giving you a raise and some of this desk cocaine.”

Did not complete

My thoughts on this game really are just about what you would expect from a well made fan game: the changes from the actual mainline Pokemon games are superb, while not feeling entirely unique in the process. This is still more than enough for a really good experience.

First things first, I want to talk about something that this game does that I've wanted out of a Pokemon game for a very long time: it changes up wild Pokemon on pretty much every route. What this results in is an early game that is much more interesting and less slow than most standard Pokemon games. I've grown beyond tired of seeing the same Pokemon showing up on half the routes in the game, and as a result of this, I feel like in a replay I would get to choose a much different team than I was expecting going into things.

This is achieved by having a regional dex of about 500 Pokemon. It's utterly baffling to me that they don't do this in more games, but it kept things feeling quite fresh.

While this solves a lot of problems that most Pokemon regions encounter, it doesn't fix everything. Because the game has the relatively linear nature that most Pokemon games have, there are a lot of Pokemon that you won't be able to capture until mid to late game. Because there are so many Pokemon, it's impossible to really introduce all of them at a time when teambuilding still feels reasonable in the story. By the time some new Pokemon were encountered, my team was beyond set in the stone. Each route having new Pokemon is a perk that loses its effect over time.

Some of the damage here is negated by the level adjustments. Difficulty usually feels about right because important trainers in the game have teams that are based on the level of your highest Pokemon. This is good for keeping difficulty fair, but also for forcing players to go with a full team of 6 approach.

I've theorized that maybe the best way to build a Pokemon game would be to split it into two main non linear sections. The first section could act as a team building phase where all wild Pokemon in the game are accessible, but would require hefty exploration. The second part could be focused on your Pokemon League challenge, which might make more sense when your team is getting stronger anyway. Gym Leaders having level 12 Pokemon never made sense anyway. The adaptive level adjustments in this game could maybe fit this approach pretty well and give a ton of flexibility in team building.

If you fight all the trainers in the game, your Pokemon League challenge will result in using and facing off against Pokemon level 90 and above. That was awesome, and all movesets are truly available as a result.

In terms of features / choices, there was a lot of good here. HMs exist but are incredibly efficient / quick and based on if you have Pokemon that could learn the move, rather than forcing them to waste a move slot. 1 time use items are used once a battle, and don't disappear permanently after the battle is over.

Mega evolution is also in the game, the best and only good gimmick GameFreak came up with after Generation 5. The inclusion of Chanseys on routes, like the doctors in Gen 5 are also a nice way to make longer routes with more difficulty. I would've liked to see even more of them. Pokemon is more fun when the challenge is based on strategy for battles, not just going through a gauntlet with little access to healing. Spending resources never feels good in any game, even when you can afford it.

Gym battles were unique in that each gym had its own gimmick that changed things up quite a bit. To be honest it seemed annoying because all your expected advantages were usually wiped out, but I didn't downright hate it because it was unique. The last gym especially had an unexpected one.

The mix of gen 3 / 4 graphics was nostalgic even if what you would expect for a mod. I can't really give the game credit for reusing some assets because it didn't innovate that much in that regard, but it looked nice. I can compliment the map itself though.

The map is utilized in a thoughtful way. There is a large focus on underground travel once you have been somewhere the first time, and that allows for pretty quick travel even without flying, without disrupting a first time playthrough. Getting around is not a hassle whatsoever and often I found that they use the underground in clever ways to get you to certain points at certain times without you noticing that you took a shortcut.

I wasn't a big fan of the AI because it straight up knows your moveset and as such, does not act like a normal, rational player. I had my suspicions, but there was a moment where they swapped out Pokemon when logically speaking, it would've had no reason to know it was at a disadvantage. I like rational AI, not all knowing AI.

Finally, story. It was okay - I think at times it took itself a little too seriously, but I can't give it a knock for trying to come up with something interesting. There was a little too much text for a Pokemon game in some cutscenes. I appreciate a good story, and I think Hoopa was the right Pokemon to choose to focus on. Admittedly I think my own bias here is that this is a mod, and something I played when I had a couple of minutes to spare, rather than being something I was invested in like a traditional RPG. This story may be great for some others, but typically I play Pokemon fan games for just some quick, addictive, gameplay.

The characters aren't particularly interesting and I found that some were big characters because of how often they showed up rather than based on first impression. But they were certainly better than some actual Pokemon characters. The character definitely has some plot armor, I'll just leave it at that.

All things considered, there's a lot more good than bad here, and this was incredibly well polished for a mod. While I wasn't looking for a grand story here per say, there were lots of other benefits that were convenient that I also covered earlier. It makes this an easy recommend to someone looking for a fun Pokemon mod they can take on the go.

Holy shit dude. Game doesn't have an original bone in its body but oh my god the movement, the combat, the moment to moment flow, easily the punchiest 2D action platformer I've experienced in like a decade. Old Inticreates basically did most of this game's entire homework for them (down to several story beats too lol) so I can't give anything here TOO much credit but grabbing dudes mid-jump, chain-chucking them at each other and piledriving bosses out of their special attacks is something no Megaman clone I know of does better than this so I can safely say they nailed that part. Wish the hookshot was utilized a bit more in stages and some of the abilities are flat-out better than others, but I'm already looking forward to doing a no-upgrade playthrough so they definitely got the important parts right. Capcom what are you fucking doing