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.