It didn't need to be like this.
I've never sat down to research the development of this game, though I suspect the city building mechanic in the first game wasn't viewed in as favorable of a light as it is today. Tastes of course change, and it's certainly plausible that early 90s audiences just weren't receptive to ActRaiser's balancing act of sim and action the way folks are today. It's also possible there was a gas leak in Quintet's offices. I don't know, who's to say!
In any case, ActRaiser 2 abandons the unique identity of its predecessor in favor of mediocre action. Even using just the action stages of the original as a guide, ActRaiser 2 falls short by a mile. Level layouts just aren't as fun to navigate, and given how punishing the difficulty is, I often found my patience being tried on repeat attempts. It's not like trial and error is something I inherently have an issue with, after all I love the Castlevania and Souls games, but this is a fine case of a game that struggles to maintain the balance between difficult and fun, often falling on the wrong side. Ultimately, I was never able to fully find my footing here, and whether that's due to poor design of the game simply failing to grip me, I couldn't say.
I'm sure this game has its defenders, but when it comes to action games on the SNES, there's a long list of other titles I'd rather play before going back to this one. It's also a hard game to approach as a proper sequel to ActRaiser. Perhaps my opinion is a bit too colored by that, but it does make it really hard to get into this game when so much of what I liked about the original just isn't here.
I've never sat down to research the development of this game, though I suspect the city building mechanic in the first game wasn't viewed in as favorable of a light as it is today. Tastes of course change, and it's certainly plausible that early 90s audiences just weren't receptive to ActRaiser's balancing act of sim and action the way folks are today. It's also possible there was a gas leak in Quintet's offices. I don't know, who's to say!
In any case, ActRaiser 2 abandons the unique identity of its predecessor in favor of mediocre action. Even using just the action stages of the original as a guide, ActRaiser 2 falls short by a mile. Level layouts just aren't as fun to navigate, and given how punishing the difficulty is, I often found my patience being tried on repeat attempts. It's not like trial and error is something I inherently have an issue with, after all I love the Castlevania and Souls games, but this is a fine case of a game that struggles to maintain the balance between difficult and fun, often falling on the wrong side. Ultimately, I was never able to fully find my footing here, and whether that's due to poor design of the game simply failing to grip me, I couldn't say.
I'm sure this game has its defenders, but when it comes to action games on the SNES, there's a long list of other titles I'd rather play before going back to this one. It's also a hard game to approach as a proper sequel to ActRaiser. Perhaps my opinion is a bit too colored by that, but it does make it really hard to get into this game when so much of what I liked about the original just isn't here.