In something of a bumper day for previously Japan-only games getting released in the West, in amongst the innumerable announcements in today’s Nintendo Direct was a remaster of the 1994 RPG Live A Live. The game never released outside of Japan, but is finally finding its way to Western shores this summer, bringing with it a flashy HD-2D glow-up and a story spanning multiple protagonists and time periods.
Live A Live, originally released for the Super Famicom back in the 90s, sees players take control of seven different heroes across different eras. From the wilds of prehistory to the distant future, and stopping off in locales such as Edo Japan and the wild west along the way, players can play through each storyline in whatever order they wish. The new release of the game will also completely redo the original’s 16-bit graphical style, updating it to the HD-2D style as seen in more recent games like Octopath Traveller. On top of that, the game seems to be at least partially voice-acted. It remains to be seen if the voice acting will persist throughout, but some scenes, at least, will feature it.
The game is coming to Switch on July 22, and preorders are open from today.