Holy shit, this game was absolutely amazing! I'm so glad it got a remake, because if it hadn't, I would have probably missed out on it entirely. Now that I have played it, I can easily and without hesitation consider it one of my favorite SNES RPGs, and also (thanks to the remake) one of my favorite Switch RPGs. Heck, let's just call it one of my favorite turn-based RPGs, period. I think it's honestly that good.
It's kinda difficult to explain what makes it so great without digressing into an actual essay, but a quick summary is to say that Live a Live kind of uses the same premise as Octopath Traveller, but with a much better execution. The game features seven completely separate story lines for you to play through, with the only thing really connecting them being a shared battle system. Aside from that, they all really do their own thing. They play and feel completely unique from one another. In one story line, you might get a very traditional J-RPG, in another, you might get an almost open-world feeling game, and in yet another one, you might get a very story-focussed experience with multiple possible outcomes.
Each story line only takes around 3 or 4 hours at most, with the complete game adding up to roughly around 20-ish hours. So neither do the individual chapters, nor the game in general outstay their welcome. Everything only takes about as long as it needs to (or as long as you want it to). In terms of length, I'd say the game pretty much falls within that perfect sweet spot that really only RPGs of the SNES era managed to hit consistently. For example, 100%ing Chrono Trigger also takes roughly 20 hours.
So to get back to my Octopath Traveller comparison, one issue I had with that game in particular was that you had a party of eight characters, but they had nearly no interaction with one another. As a result, the party ended up feeling kinda soulless to me. By having completely separate story lines, Live a Live avoids this issue. Each story can just focus on its individual strengths and feature character development within it that feels much more natural.
I think all of this also directly ties into the game's gameplay strengths. One thing that typically makes traditional RPGs tedious for me to play is that they have a strong separation between story and different kinds of gameplay, yet try to achieve a balance between all of them at all times. What this means is that you'll constantly find yourself switching between story, exploration and battles, each feeling very different from one another. This is especially true in games that feature random encounters. Having to switch modes so often tends to throw me out of the flow, which means often times, I just get tired of these games.
Live a Live avoids this issue entirely, as every single story line only features exactly the kind of gameplay it needs to deliver its narrative. Almost no chapters use random encounters (there's really only one notable exception), and some chapters outright don't feature any encounters at all, aside from story battles. The opposite can be true as well: Some story lines might feature barely any story and just consist of battles. No other RPG would dare to do this. It's only possible because of Live a Live's unique structure. As a result, it was very rare for me to feel any of that usual tedium from playing. It rarely felt like the game made me do something just because it had to meet a quota. There was no strong separation between different aspects of the game working against one another. Even in that one story line that did feature random encounters and did slightly annoy me with them, I still kinda saw how they made sense within that very specific story to make it work.
Regarding the battle system specifically, I have to say that I really liked it. In its core, I'd say it's kind of a mix between a turn-based battle system and an active time battle system, with an additional positional component. The system is turn-based in that nothing happens as long as you don't do anything. However, it's active-time in that each character and monster has a time bar that needs to fill up before they can act. The bar always fills up after a character moves or chooses an action. The positional element comes into play with attacks. As mentioned, characters can move across the battlefield, and each attack targets specific panels on said battlefield. Usually, strong attacks either have a short range, or have a wide range, but a long charge-up time (which is also a thing tying into the ATB element). So strength, positioning/range and charge-up time are all things that need to be considered when selecting actions.
I honestly found the battle system to be surprisingly refreshing. Admittedly, there were few battles in the game that were really tough, but I didn't mind that at all, because the battle system itself was fun enough that battles didn't bother me (aside from maybe that slight tedium in the random encounter chapter). This alone is already rare for me when it comes to my RPG preferences.
Easily my favorite story line in the game was Edo Japan. Slight gameplay spoilers ahead:
This story features you playing a ninja and sneaking into a castle. The gameplay is almost open-world-ish, meaning there's a strong focus on exploration with multiple ways to the goal. Also, you're encouraged to use stealth and avoid battles where possible. In fact, it could even be argued that this story line by very nature features an optional genocide route and a pacifist route. This is the one chapter that I could see myself replaying multiple times on its own.
Not sure what else to say about the game, aside from mentioning that music and aesthetics are also both amazing. Honestly, don't sleep on it. If you have even the slightest interest in classic J-RPGs, you will absolutely love its very unique spin on the genre! I wasn't exaggerating when I said that this is now one of my favorite RPGs of all time!