‘Live A Live’ remake took three years to create

Original Live A Live director Takashi Tokita has revealed that the upcoming remake for Nintendo Switch has taken his team three years to create.

It was announced in February during a Nintendo Direct that a remake of Square Enix’s Live A Live is coming to the Nintendo Switch this summer. A RPG originally released in 1994 and only in Japan, the game revolves around linking up multiple characters and their stories who are scattered from the distant past to near future.

Speaking to Famitsu (and translated by NintendoEverything), Tokita revealed that the remake has been in the works since the beginning of 2019.

Tokita went on to say that the fact the team knew they wanted to make a HD-2D game saved them lots of time. “Deciding on whether we should go with 2D or 3D in the pre-production alone usually takes about six months and the fact that we didn’t waste time on that was a big deal.”

He went on to say that “when it came time to actually implement it however, Live A Live had a different system for each of the game’s scenarios, which turned out to be more difficult than we expected. Fine tweaking things like Bakumatsu and the more elaborate motions in the Prehistory arc took a lot of time.”

He continued: “To top that off, this was in the middle of the pandemic. COVID-19 was in full swing as we were entering the pre-production and production stages. Being in the middle of a pandemic meant it took us some time to finish off the project.”

However, Tokia added that the team’s love for the game also added extra time to development. “The staff in charge of pixel art loved Live A Live so much they drew twice as many movements as we had expected. Even during the development period, everyone had 1.5 times the passion and momentum. We were able to develop passionately until the end and it ended up as something over and above our expectations.”

Live A Live makes its worldwide debut in HD-2D on Nintendo Switch on July 22, 2022.

In other news, former Nintendo Of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé has spoken out about various reports of union-busting coming from within the company.

“It struck me, this isn’t the Nintendo I left,” Fils-Aimé said. “I know I was able to achieve [a healthy culture at Nintendo], and certainly what’s being described does not seem like a healthy culture.”