Good lord, this is weird.
In my original ActRaiser review, I mentioned that its simulation aspect was really charming, and that I'd be skipping ActRaiser 2 in favor of Renaissance since I read the latter brought back the sim stuff.
... I guess I need to pay more attention to what I read, because this game went WAAAAAAAY too far with it. On top of the town building and helping your followers, you now have tower defense segments. And all of them are stretched super far.
One of the things I enjoyed about the original SNES game was its pacing. You do a little bit of sidescrolling, a little bit of town building, then back to sidescrolling, and neither aspect felt dragged out or overstayed its welcome. I actually don't mind the tower defense segments of Renaissance; I grew up with those kinds of games, so I can appreciate it. What I don't appreciate is how there are multiple segments in the same land. If it was one big demon invasion per land, that would've been fine; kind of a way of testing how well you helped your followers before the showdown. But that's not how it's structured here.
Also I don't appreciate the writing. Another cool thing about OG ActRaiser to me is how... Honest it is. You're God, you have an obedient angel to do your bidding, and your followers constantly display their faith on you. No witty commentary, no jokes. Very straightforward, and it made that game's ending feel very effective as a result.
Here, the angel is a smug bastard who eats your offerings and says shit like "I mean, you could strike your faithful children's houses with lightning, but we know you wouldn't do that right? LAUGH TRACK", and while the followers mostly remain the same(from what I've played anyway), you now have "Heroes" that you can recruit for the tower defense segments who are not very enthusiastic about your godhood.
Finally, while this isn't a negative to me: This game looks fucking rough dude. I actually laughed out loud when the first stage loaded and I could count the pixels around everything except the HUD. I kinda loved it actually???? In a twisted way, I guess. (Props for the Alucardesque afterimages, too)
I'm kinda disappointed honestly. I didn't grow up with ActRaiser, but after finishing it just hours before trying Renaissance, this felt far less enjoyable than the original. And by what I've read from other users' reviews, the game just gets more and more bloated and repetitive later on.
Careful what you wish for, I guess.
In my original ActRaiser review, I mentioned that its simulation aspect was really charming, and that I'd be skipping ActRaiser 2 in favor of Renaissance since I read the latter brought back the sim stuff.
... I guess I need to pay more attention to what I read, because this game went WAAAAAAAY too far with it. On top of the town building and helping your followers, you now have tower defense segments. And all of them are stretched super far.
One of the things I enjoyed about the original SNES game was its pacing. You do a little bit of sidescrolling, a little bit of town building, then back to sidescrolling, and neither aspect felt dragged out or overstayed its welcome. I actually don't mind the tower defense segments of Renaissance; I grew up with those kinds of games, so I can appreciate it. What I don't appreciate is how there are multiple segments in the same land. If it was one big demon invasion per land, that would've been fine; kind of a way of testing how well you helped your followers before the showdown. But that's not how it's structured here.
Also I don't appreciate the writing. Another cool thing about OG ActRaiser to me is how... Honest it is. You're God, you have an obedient angel to do your bidding, and your followers constantly display their faith on you. No witty commentary, no jokes. Very straightforward, and it made that game's ending feel very effective as a result.
Here, the angel is a smug bastard who eats your offerings and says shit like "I mean, you could strike your faithful children's houses with lightning, but we know you wouldn't do that right? LAUGH TRACK", and while the followers mostly remain the same(from what I've played anyway), you now have "Heroes" that you can recruit for the tower defense segments who are not very enthusiastic about your godhood.
Finally, while this isn't a negative to me: This game looks fucking rough dude. I actually laughed out loud when the first stage loaded and I could count the pixels around everything except the HUD. I kinda loved it actually???? In a twisted way, I guess. (Props for the Alucardesque afterimages, too)
I'm kinda disappointed honestly. I didn't grow up with ActRaiser, but after finishing it just hours before trying Renaissance, this felt far less enjoyable than the original. And by what I've read from other users' reviews, the game just gets more and more bloated and repetitive later on.
Careful what you wish for, I guess.