Actraiser deserves a lot of credit for how it weaves its disparate halves - one part good-but-not-great action platformer, one part rudimentary town-builder sim - into something more than the sum of its parts. A lot of it comes down to the effectiveness of the premise: the main character (Master schmaster - we know you're playing an avatar of the Judeo-Christian God with a capital G) draws power from people's faith in Him, so building up the population and quality of life in the various cities you're building will net you level ups and magic spells which will increase your effectiveness in the action segments. It's pretty insightful too, showcasing both the foibles of man (asking you for help with problems they created on their own) but also their occasional bigheartedness (their first instinct on discovering something cool is often being to offer it to you and ask you to use it to benefit other cities too).

The other thing this game does really well is to give the player enough tools to mitigate the old-game jank that is inevitably a part of the package; almost as if it's aware of its own bullshit and gives casual players an out. The platforming sections are pretty strong; I'd liken it to a Classicvania-lite where the stiffness of your controls facilitate a more deliberate style of play. Its main weakness is some wonky difficulty spikes and the lack of a reliable way to attack above/below you, a deficiency that some boss encounters (most notably the final boss) cruelly exploit. However, many of these battles can also be cheesed with the right spell if you find yourself stuck. The town-building segments have a particular monster that is an absolute pain to deal with: the skulls are the fastest, most damaging, and cause the worst disasters... but given that you get access to several one-hit-kill bombs and any damage caused during the sim sections is temporary and reversible, things never get too frustrating.

Not bad at all for a 33 year old game, and one of the first to come out on the SNES!