ActRaiser

"RuninRuder recommended me an excellent game as well"

OPENING STATEMENT
I asked RuninRuder one day which Super Nintendo game I should next get. He suggested Actraiser. I decided to listen to RuninRuder, and I searched it out and purchased it. I was treated to one of the best Super Nintendo games around.

GAMEPLAY--10
When I first played Actraiser I thought the entire object of the game was just to progress through typical action game levels. Luckily for me, and well I suppose everyone else who plays Actraiser, it is not.

There are some typical action game levels. While they are quite similar to mindless hack and slash levels, the levels in Actraiser do require some strategy. The enemies in Actraiser have distinct movement patterns that you need to pick up to succeed. For instance the bat like creatures from the second level in Fillmore, always swoop down towards where you were when they first laid eyes on you. Then they curl back up, in the shape of a ‘U’ with it’s sides tilted like on-ramps. Most enemies have their own distinct pattern, different from nearly all of the other creatures. If you can infer, predict, and learn what these patterns are, you can react to your opponents quicker, and you will hold the key to succeeding in Actraiser.

Once you defeat the first level in each of the areas, you come to the part of the gameplay that I prefer. After you defeat the monsters that overrun the land, you can go back and “Observe the People.” Luckily, all you do there is not observe. You need to guard the town from monsters while they are building it. These monsters come from Monster Lairs, which are placed strategically throughout each level. You need to seal these Monster Lairs to succeed in this half of Actraiser. Sealing them up is easy to do when you know how. All you need to do is direct the progress of your city directly to the Monster Lair, and the townspeople will seal it for you, so no more enemies can come out of it.

Once the townsfolk have sealed up all of the Monster Lairs in a city, you can go to work developing the city. Also, sealing all of the Monster Lairs will result in the second level being opened up. Ignore their please to go into the second level, currently, and now, instead of using the ‘Building Direction’ Option to seal the monster lairs, use it to plan out how you want your city to look. Level-ups, along with the additional Health and Magic Points that a level-up comes with, are obtained by your kingdom’s total population, so you need to cultivate your city so people will want to live there. I may as well say that beach front homes sell like hotcakes.

GRAPHICS--7
The graphics are a mixed-bag if there ever was one. First of all, the graphics in the action levels are excellent, especially for a first generation Super Nintendo game. The enemies all look realistic, or since though their styling is unrealistic, with the way that the developers carried developing the enemies out, they look quite realistic in an unrealistic way, and quite advanced. That may have been the most incoherent sentence that I have ever written. All right, what I am trying to say is that even though the enemies look mythical and unrealistic, the way that the developers portrayed them is very realistic. I give up. Putting that into words is hopeless.

Once you get out of the action levels and start viewing your people, the graphics suddenly go into a massive downgrading. The environments that these strategy stages, as I am going to call them from now on for the sake of having something to call them, look all right. But, once your town begins to develop, you will notice that the houses basically look just like boxes. They are not too bad, I have seen much worse on the Super Nintendo, but they could have used some work.

MUSIC--10
SOUND--6
While in comparison with today’s music I would hardly give the music in Actraiser a ten, but in comparison with that day and age’s music, Actraiser’s music is absolutely amazing. The music in Actraiser is completely orchestral, and the sound quality of it was unbelievable for a cartridge then. The orchestral music was moody, so whenever something bad happened, the music changed right along with it. Occasionally, though, the music changed just a bit early, so I could predict something bad was going to happen, and get into position to snipe off the enemy before they could destroy my houses.

The sound effects, however, are nowhere near as good as the music. First of all, I do not think that a constant menu sound effect was required in Actraiser. Especially a constant sound effect that was just at the right decibel level to make my ears go into great pain. The sound effects for the hacking and slashing of your sword are much better than the menu sound effects, but at times, I found them to be a bit excessive as well.

CONTROL--7
What on earth possessed the developers to make a game where ‘B’ accepts absolutely everything instead of ‘A.’ This absolutely annoyed me to know end, as I consistently pressed ‘A,’ to no avail, as that is what most every other Super Nintendo game uses to accept things.

Other than that, in the action stages your character, whatever you happen to name him, responds right on cue to what you command. In the strategy stages, however, your character responds about a second slower than you press the button, whether it be attempting to access the menu or fire your arrow at one of the opposing flying creatures.

FUN--8
Actraiser has absolutely no multiplayer capabilities. Which usually I pounce on for an action game, but the fact that Actraiser has just as many strategy stages as action stages makes the lack of multiplayer capabilities’s effect on the overall rating in the fun category zilch.

Basically, though, I just found myself mustering enough energy and excitement to just survive and make it through the action stages. All I really wanted to do was to be able to play the strategy stages, as they are well worth your time. Directing your town around the region is great fun, and shooting down the flying creatures from a great distance away is almost as fun as directing the villagers to new destinations.

CHALLENGE--HIGH
Actraiser is one of the most difficult Super Nintendo games, if not video games in general, around. The action stages are especially impossible. The first action stage alone took me more times than it should have to beat it. The action stages after the first one just kept getting more and more difficult.

The strategy stages are nowhere near as difficult as the action stages though. The most important thing to do in a strategy stage, seal the Monster’s Lairs, is done by simply directing the progress of your town to the lair’s location. Keeping the flying creatures from carrying off your townspeople is not that difficult either. The difficulty level is high throughout, but most definitely imbalanced.

REPLAY VALUE--LOW TO MEDIUM
After spending dozens more hours than I expected to playing through Actraiser’s grueling quest, there is little or no chance of me ever playing Actraiser again, no matter how good of a game it was. Since there are no multiplayer capabilities, that even further diminishes the replay value that Actraiser provides. Some people that I know of, however, have played through Actraiser’s quest three or four times, so that is why I gave Actraiser the benefit of the doubt and did not rate it a low in the replay value category.

PROS
*Strategy stages are great fun.
*Music years ahead of its time.
*Action stages give the game a broader appeal.

CONS
*Probably way to difficult.
*Little to no replay value.
*Sound effects behind their time.

CLOSING STATEMENT
What is most impressive about Actraiser, however, is the fact that it was basically a launch game. It was released in 1991 right along with the Super Nintendo. And if a first-generation game like Actraiser can stand the test of time that well, you know it has to be good.

OVERALL--9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/00, Updated 07/18/01