Ricky G

Its a good solid jrpg. I wasnt a fan of the character models and i found the plot fairly predictable. The backgrounds get a little better as you traverse through the world. To me it was kind of like a mix of xenoblade and persona.

Reba and melissa are fantastic. Rex does a great job. And everyone else makes this borderline unwatchable.

I have not finished the game yet. BUT careenas english voice actress is terrible. I switched it to japanese but the subtitles are hard to read and theres so much banter that happens while traveling that i want to hear that its annoying. Careenas voice actress is on par with red 13's voice change when he does his reverse puberty thing. And no one from her village talks like that it makes no sense. Other than that im having fun. Kind of nonsensical the heroes motivation but im hoping they grow more mature.... hopefully.

The story follows the crossbell and the erebonia protagonists, and a new masked character. It does a great job of weaving all of them together. And it also includes all the great sidequests- the card game, the robot fights, pompom, etc. There are minor translation issues, but I will take it because this series is fantastic for jrpg lovers.

There is a crazy squeaking that happens everytime one of the characters moves. It happens after she gets a new outfit and I read one review describing it as nails on a chalkboard, which is accurate. I also feel like it is way too similar to ff15, main character is a prince.... dad dies... time passes... his hair gets longer... he becomes more confident after feeling cursed... i mean at least this game has a female, who they had to add a squeak to everytime she moves. I think this is a good game, but not up to the standards of what i expect from Final Fantasy. It panders too much to what other games are doing in style and tone. A lot of cursing and nudity for no real reason. You also have to kill chocobo. Theres no reason the enemy has to be a chocobo. So why make us kill them? And the weapons are all boring. Cait sith used a megaphone, rinoa used a pinwheel, quina used a fork, wakka used a ball and lulu used a doll, hope used a boomerang, and everyone here uses a sword. How. Creative. (An occasional guest uses an axe)

Live A Live is very reminiscent of games like saga frontier and octopath traveler, even though this game came first and we are just getting it now in NA. It gave me an appreciation that this game most likely helped shape many games in jrpg. Different artists created each character, and each character's story is unique and plays very differently. Old school gamers will appreciate the street fighter reference. There's puzzles to solve, stressful time limits, multiple endings in different chapters. And each story can be done in a couple hours. Another reviewer said the game needed something to connect all 8 stories..... which it does. Play all the chapters 😅

The original was a lot better. The motivation for the characters near the end were really... Uhhh contradictory. The implementation of grenadiers and arc arsenal combat was an interesting addition from the original. I've also read a couple of reviews that mentioned you dont have to play the original before this one, but it does help understand a lot of the lore and there are a lot of references to previous characters.

I really liked the first 2 trails of cold steel, but 3 and 4 rely heavily on knowing the other trails games that havent ever been localized unfortunately. Love the combat system, but because characters who I have no idea about randomly burst in, takes away from the story's continuity for me.