Played this for Simulation for the Retro Achievements 2024 Challenge League. It was a blast. I remember as a kid that it was a lot harder but kinda blew threw it tonight. The action stages where fun! Got a little tough at the end but still manageable. There aren't any I-fames to be had in this game. The SIM parts of the game where refreshing but for a little overwhelming towards the end. The final boss rush was great as well. Glad I finally played it and finished it!
For perhaps as long as the gaming medium has graced us, there’s existed an enduring analogy framing us gaming faithful as gods, “controlling” the lives of our digital avatars in Mario, Sonic, and whatever you named your Dragon Quest hero over their respective treks over Freytag’s Pyramid -- a feat achieved only through our divine hand. ActRaiser, the earliest champion of Super Nintendo’s treasured third-party library, takes this interpretation to its literal extreme by situating us as a literal god, slaying demons and managing towns in a unique fusion of action-packed side-scrolling and a life sim stripped straight out of SimCity.
A bizarre marriage, yet one with undeniable appeal: there’s been much said over gaming’s broad appeal to immersion – ranging from the hours of Zen-induced concentration to the sadistic glee gleaned from inconsequential mass murder – and ActRaiser’s simulator sections supply the best sort of escapism. Our angel avatar juggles everything from land construction to playing guard duty against monsters – a round-the-clock gameplay loop forging a perfect balance of stress and gratification as we field one prayer after the other. (That is, if the never-ending deluge of villager requests don’t compel a murderous divine disaster; mind you, I’d never dream of assuming the role of such a capricious god, but Game Center CX’s Shinya Arino had other, more hilarious ideas.)
It’s all never particularly deep, yet addiction’s innate in simulators such as these, and grafting an episodic narrative upon it all demanded my full attention. It’s not enough that I rescue little Teddy from a monster’s lair; no, I simply must develop every square inch of every single town until they’re bursting at the seams. It’s never necessary, but I am a fallen god recovering from a millennia-long slumber, damn it, and I shall reward my devout people for their enduring faith. What sort of benevolent entity would I be otherwise? That I’m this absorbed into ActRaiser’s world speaks to its quality.
Alas, it’s a level of commitment that I wish the action setpieces could inspire. It’s not as if our godly knight needs Super Mario World’s acrobatics or Super Castlevania IV’s flexible whip – sometimes less can be more -- but while Yuzo Koshiro’s masterful symphonies remain some of the most rousing and melancholic SNES tunes today, they’re the only qualities elevating these awkward expeditions into anything but just that. It’s true that ActRaiser’s brisk pacing ensures neither segment wears out their welcome – that our mighty knight undergoes the ever-familiar feedback loop of perks and buffs ensures a synergy between the two -- but even that can’t dispel how the stiff controls echo your average bargain-bin platformer, and much of your magic arsenal trivializes boss encounters. It’s a shortcoming I imagine the game’s hidden hard mode would solve, but sadly, I’ve already had my fill of gods.
There are those who consider ActRaiser a 16-bit masterpiece, chugging away at their villages and dwelling upon the narrative's religious allegories; myself, I’d happily consider myself among their number if it proved itself a more focused package. Sadly, Enix’s disinterest in perfecting this formula was evident as far back as its obscure sequel – in a move undoubtedly fueled by both marketability and development priorities, it omitted the god sim in favor of a full-fledged side-scrolling focused game. Perhaps that’s crystalized ActRaiser’s uniqueness over the years, but with ActRaiser Renaissance’s sudden debut last fall, might our appeals to Go-, erm, “Master” bless us with the sequel of our dreams?
A bizarre marriage, yet one with undeniable appeal: there’s been much said over gaming’s broad appeal to immersion – ranging from the hours of Zen-induced concentration to the sadistic glee gleaned from inconsequential mass murder – and ActRaiser’s simulator sections supply the best sort of escapism. Our angel avatar juggles everything from land construction to playing guard duty against monsters – a round-the-clock gameplay loop forging a perfect balance of stress and gratification as we field one prayer after the other. (That is, if the never-ending deluge of villager requests don’t compel a murderous divine disaster; mind you, I’d never dream of assuming the role of such a capricious god, but Game Center CX’s Shinya Arino had other, more hilarious ideas.)
It’s all never particularly deep, yet addiction’s innate in simulators such as these, and grafting an episodic narrative upon it all demanded my full attention. It’s not enough that I rescue little Teddy from a monster’s lair; no, I simply must develop every square inch of every single town until they’re bursting at the seams. It’s never necessary, but I am a fallen god recovering from a millennia-long slumber, damn it, and I shall reward my devout people for their enduring faith. What sort of benevolent entity would I be otherwise? That I’m this absorbed into ActRaiser’s world speaks to its quality.
Alas, it’s a level of commitment that I wish the action setpieces could inspire. It’s not as if our godly knight needs Super Mario World’s acrobatics or Super Castlevania IV’s flexible whip – sometimes less can be more -- but while Yuzo Koshiro’s masterful symphonies remain some of the most rousing and melancholic SNES tunes today, they’re the only qualities elevating these awkward expeditions into anything but just that. It’s true that ActRaiser’s brisk pacing ensures neither segment wears out their welcome – that our mighty knight undergoes the ever-familiar feedback loop of perks and buffs ensures a synergy between the two -- but even that can’t dispel how the stiff controls echo your average bargain-bin platformer, and much of your magic arsenal trivializes boss encounters. It’s a shortcoming I imagine the game’s hidden hard mode would solve, but sadly, I’ve already had my fill of gods.
There are those who consider ActRaiser a 16-bit masterpiece, chugging away at their villages and dwelling upon the narrative's religious allegories; myself, I’d happily consider myself among their number if it proved itself a more focused package. Sadly, Enix’s disinterest in perfecting this formula was evident as far back as its obscure sequel – in a move undoubtedly fueled by both marketability and development priorities, it omitted the god sim in favor of a full-fledged side-scrolling focused game. Perhaps that’s crystalized ActRaiser’s uniqueness over the years, but with ActRaiser Renaissance’s sudden debut last fall, might our appeals to Go-, erm, “Master” bless us with the sequel of our dreams?
An underwhelming platformer & a monotonous city builder combine into a lacklustre game. Good music though.
Conceptually, I think this game is really neat. But I really dont like playing these side scroller sections. And while I think its fun watching the little cities grow, its also just kind of boring
The blending of genres is really neat, but it isn't all that great or fun
(This is the 35th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
The final game I played for my 1990 play-list is Actraiser, the fourth SNES game to ever release, which released on December 16th and is unique for combining two genres that you don't see combined often: City building and platforming.
There are multiple towns that you have to liberate from monsters in order for humans to live in them. You then help them establish themselves there and help them out with all their needs. Basically, you play god. Each town has a few monster lairs that you need to close and then a final one that you need to venture into in platforming sections to kill the boss. Once a town has no monsters left, you can move on to the next one.
Each town tells its own little story, which adds a lot of motivation to playing this game to completion. The gameplay itself offers a fun loop for a few hours, but due to its age and limitations does get repetitive after a while, at least it did to me.
But the mix of these genres works pretty well here and this game was yet another standout for the SNES, which looks to provide a lot of fun as I move on to 1991, where the world was greeted by classics like Street Fighter II, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Castlevania IV, among others.
OVERALL
Should be in your play-list if you're looking to find out what some of the better games of the early 90s were. It has a unique mix of city-building and platformer that is pretty simple in execution due to the time it released in, but overall pretty successful in offering the player a fun 10 hours or so of gameplay.
The final game I played for my 1990 play-list is Actraiser, the fourth SNES game to ever release, which released on December 16th and is unique for combining two genres that you don't see combined often: City building and platforming.
There are multiple towns that you have to liberate from monsters in order for humans to live in them. You then help them establish themselves there and help them out with all their needs. Basically, you play god. Each town has a few monster lairs that you need to close and then a final one that you need to venture into in platforming sections to kill the boss. Once a town has no monsters left, you can move on to the next one.
Each town tells its own little story, which adds a lot of motivation to playing this game to completion. The gameplay itself offers a fun loop for a few hours, but due to its age and limitations does get repetitive after a while, at least it did to me.
But the mix of these genres works pretty well here and this game was yet another standout for the SNES, which looks to provide a lot of fun as I move on to 1991, where the world was greeted by classics like Street Fighter II, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Castlevania IV, among others.
OVERALL
Should be in your play-list if you're looking to find out what some of the better games of the early 90s were. It has a unique mix of city-building and platformer that is pretty simple in execution due to the time it released in, but overall pretty successful in offering the player a fun 10 hours or so of gameplay.
Christian City Builder
what a game!!! i love controlling a funny little angel and burning down houses for no reason because im god.
This game is the best genre-bender, for me. I wish the sequel had kept to this format, though it probably still wouldn't have held up to how neat this game was.
A fantastic concept, mixing platform/action with city building / god game / sim. Gorgeous graphics, phenomenal soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. Gameplay during action sequences is a bit rough, though.
Masterpiece!
Loved the platforming segments, but wasn't a fan of the building segments.
Soul Blazer > This Game
Cool game. I would love a modern game with the exact same setting, but with more fleshed out combat/platforming/rpg elements/a better sim mode. But as an idea really cool
This game is so cool and unique. Very cool concept that no one has successfully aped yet.
This game brought me such joy in the early '90s -- from that kickin' soundtrack to the never boring RTS elements, to the final big side-scrolling boss. It was a game that seemed to scratch many itches at once, and one that never failed to delight me. Still largely holds up for me, although I now find the RTS sections the most enjoyable.
It's fun but I feel a little cheap playing it because I just tanked damage a lot of the time instead of learning how to dodge certain enemies and bosses, it's just easy enough to let you do that despite movement being a little clunky too. I had the chance to play this a few years ago since it was in my family's old game collection but I never actually beat the final boss rush until now, which also turned out easier than I'd thought.
I like Japan's version of Catholicism better than the one I grew up with. Better Satan. Enix was killing it in this era with innovative games like this one and Soul Blazer. Looking back, they're not flawless, but they're top tier for SNES. The audio for this game is unrivaled. The music's legacy still perseveres, and they absolutely nailed the "getting hit" moan when your character takes damage; nobody has topped it yet.
Very cool fusion of RPG, Civilization, and Sidescrolling action game, but none of the pieces are as good as the whole.
Art is kind of bad, music is great in some areas, terrible in some other places, but all in all a fun time.
Art is kind of bad, music is great in some areas, terrible in some other places, but all in all a fun time.
This review contains spoilers
The genre-bending nature of this game as an action/sim/RPG hybrid is quite cool. I was really attached to this game as a kid for that reason, but it's a little underdeveloped in retrospect. A sequel would've been great to expand on the game's design, but sadly ActRaiser 2 sucks.
One thing that draws me more to this game as an adult though is the heart behind it. Your people plead for help and their plight is felt. A man dies in the desert and your people invent the concept of music to mourn for him. Your little angel assistant philosophizes on the nature of God and man. All the temples are empty by the end of the game, all you did for your populace forgotten. The game isn't really in-your-face about its more poignant elements but I find it unexpectedly beautiful.
Oh and the graphics are awesome for 1990, and the music is sick. Sometimes composer Yuzo Koshiro rips off John Williams just a little too closely, but at least he knew what kind of music was appropriate for this game.
ActRaiser is an early high point of the Super Nintendo library for sure. It's not perfect but you should absolutely play this one. Ignore the stupid sequel that took out the sim elements.
One thing that draws me more to this game as an adult though is the heart behind it. Your people plead for help and their plight is felt. A man dies in the desert and your people invent the concept of music to mourn for him. Your little angel assistant philosophizes on the nature of God and man. All the temples are empty by the end of the game, all you did for your populace forgotten. The game isn't really in-your-face about its more poignant elements but I find it unexpectedly beautiful.
Oh and the graphics are awesome for 1990, and the music is sick. Sometimes composer Yuzo Koshiro rips off John Williams just a little too closely, but at least he knew what kind of music was appropriate for this game.
ActRaiser is an early high point of the Super Nintendo library for sure. It's not perfect but you should absolutely play this one. Ignore the stupid sequel that took out the sim elements.
Short, simple, and utterly charming. ActRaiser was unique for its time, and surprisingly, still is. An excellent example of a game that's more than the sum of its parts. That said, it is somewhat half-baked and the concepts are not fully realized, it seems. If you're churning through the 16-bit era though, it's worth a visit.
super short, action segments are a little wonky but damn it's so much fun and charming
9/10
9/10
Something of an unexpected experience the first time playing. You start off with an action-platformer, and then are suddenly put in charge of building a city! Though the gameplay is wildly different between these phases of the game, it works well, particularly as one informs the other. It's an innovative approach that I haven't seen done since. Sure, there are great city building games and great platformers, but no one seems to have successfully touched this specific formula.
i love the idea of a god sim city builder where you can go out and fight on behalf of your people in these sidescroller hack and slash sections
but both in execution, both elements are rather half-baked, particularly the sidescrolling sections with its awful controls, jank hit detection and outright bad bosses. the city builder sections are almost good, but its just so time consuming, you need to wait on everything and grind points to do anything
but both in execution, both elements are rather half-baked, particularly the sidescrolling sections with its awful controls, jank hit detection and outright bad bosses. the city builder sections are almost good, but its just so time consuming, you need to wait on everything and grind points to do anything
My brother in christ, don't be an asshole to your villagers...
Infernally hard and addictive.
Full review over at my website: https://www.nepikigaming.com/reviews/actraiser/
''Quintet did the unthinkable and grabbed not one, but two completely different genres and combined them into a truly memorable experience. And not only that, but they synergize really well with each other–both through themeing- and gameplay. A weakened God has to restore the world by taking out demons in the platforming stages, while restoring his power by having more believers in the simulation part. Both of these aspects are also easy to understand, as the platforming has a satisfying difficulty curve to it where patience- and observance is always rewarded. Surprisingly, the simulation part might actually be my favourite aspect of the game as it is pretty easy to work with for someone not usually a fan of the genre, and it also has some engaging combat while the digits go up. Due to it being relatively easy to understand, neither of the gameplay are necessarily deep. The simulation part does have some advanced tech to it that you most likely won’t even know about unless you are a completionist, and the platforming does allow for a lot of situations where just whaling at enemies will do the job–particularly when it comes to the fun-but-not-very-difficult bosses. And while deeper gameplay could possibly have made the game even better, I am already highly satisfied with the amount of fun I had playing through the game, which is the most important part to me.''
''Quintet did the unthinkable and grabbed not one, but two completely different genres and combined them into a truly memorable experience. And not only that, but they synergize really well with each other–both through themeing- and gameplay. A weakened God has to restore the world by taking out demons in the platforming stages, while restoring his power by having more believers in the simulation part. Both of these aspects are also easy to understand, as the platforming has a satisfying difficulty curve to it where patience- and observance is always rewarded. Surprisingly, the simulation part might actually be my favourite aspect of the game as it is pretty easy to work with for someone not usually a fan of the genre, and it also has some engaging combat while the digits go up. Due to it being relatively easy to understand, neither of the gameplay are necessarily deep. The simulation part does have some advanced tech to it that you most likely won’t even know about unless you are a completionist, and the platforming does allow for a lot of situations where just whaling at enemies will do the job–particularly when it comes to the fun-but-not-very-difficult bosses. And while deeper gameplay could possibly have made the game even better, I am already highly satisfied with the amount of fun I had playing through the game, which is the most important part to me.''
Let's see, a game where you get to play a god and build towns of loyal followers as well as do a little light platforming as a knight or something with a sword and magic? Yes, please!
ActRaiser was definitely one of my favorite SNES games. Pretty sure I never owned it but just rented it from Hollywood Video several times. Dragon Warrior, also made by Enix, was one of my faves for the NES and a few of the callbacks to that JRPG style but in an action RPG/sim/platformer mix was entrancing. It's like a Castlevania/Sim-City mashup with the added benefit of god-like powers. Incredible.
The soundtrack absolutely rules with orchestral tunes, angelic melodies, and baroque-sounding vaguely-hymn-like jams. The graphics are classic 16-bit goodness with a couple Mode-7 tricks for funsies. Balanced difficulty and a decent pace made it fun and appropriately challenging for middle-school me.
Fantastic.
Review from thedonproject.com
ActRaiser was definitely one of my favorite SNES games. Pretty sure I never owned it but just rented it from Hollywood Video several times. Dragon Warrior, also made by Enix, was one of my faves for the NES and a few of the callbacks to that JRPG style but in an action RPG/sim/platformer mix was entrancing. It's like a Castlevania/Sim-City mashup with the added benefit of god-like powers. Incredible.
The soundtrack absolutely rules with orchestral tunes, angelic melodies, and baroque-sounding vaguely-hymn-like jams. The graphics are classic 16-bit goodness with a couple Mode-7 tricks for funsies. Balanced difficulty and a decent pace made it fun and appropriately challenging for middle-school me.
Fantastic.
Review from thedonproject.com
Extremely forward-thinking synthesis of two seemingly disparate genres. The gears only truly grind against one another when you need to farm population size for more HP. Combined with an early but considered Quintet protonarrative about stewardship of humanity and the planet, ActRaiser has a wealth of ideas but never over-iterates them. Criticisms of its simplicity seem off base; what more does this game truly need? I do wish the action segments were less clunky but they made this shit in 1990, we can't get too crazy here.
god is cool and all, but you'd think he'd be featured on a less mechanically-shallow game