Two Square Enix producers recently took part in an interview discussing Live A Live's remake. The interview revealed that the remake of the game was partially done with hopes for an international release. The game was a hit in Japan among Square Enix's prolific library of Super Famicom games released in the 1990's, but was only released in Japanese.
During the interview with Live A Live's Takashi Tokita and Octopath Traveler's Masashi Takahashi, some talk seemed to allude to the potential idea of future Japanese exclusives releasing overseas as future remakes or remasters.
Takahashi: We were just starting a proposal to use HD-2D created for Octopath Traveler to remake a past work. Tokita joined in on the discussion on which game to remake.
Tokita: We put the past games side by side, and while it wasn’t a tournament battle, we did scrutinize which titles would be better remade. So it’s not like it was decided based on just my personal bias. The game won due to its own sheer merits.
Takahashi: Games that had remakes already were removed from the list, and we whittled it down to the games that had a strong cult following. Live A Live was the game that remained, and personally I also thought naturally, “If I’m making it with Tokita, then wouldn’t Live A Live be a good fit?”. Furthermore, Live A Live hadn’t been released overseas up until this point, so it was a new challenge in that regard, and one of the reasons for the remake.
Tokita: I had continued to hoist the flag for Live A Live all these years, from the Wii/Wii U Virtual Console release of Live A Live, to the anniversary concert. Thanks to that in part, there were a lot of voices of fans excited for a remake. Furthermore, as it hadn’t been released overseas, there was value in a worldwide release. That factor became a pushing factor in Live A Live’s favor.
Find Live A Live's remake today on Steam, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
