Just beat Actraiser on the SNES for the first time
Well I just finished playing through Actraiser on the SNES for the first time and ... I have to say that I genuinely enjoyed the title.
The game felt a little off at first. Everything felt a bit clunky and the first thing I know is I'm down on the ground smiting monsters with no forseeable end in sight. The first time I spent any length of time on this game was about 2 years or so ago with my best bud and we both were like meh, lets go to another title. So I put it on a shelf and didn't do much with it.
Fast forward 2 years to now ...
I decided to pick it up again and give it a whirl. I spent some time figuring out the menu system and getting a basic idea of what they wanted you to do. Once I did, then I got the overall feel for you have to clear so many monsters. Then you find out that you have to clear a boss stage area and this is more of the side scrolling combat that I thought the game was more about. What I didn't expect was that after playing and clearing out most (if not all the monsters) that there would be a second [final] boss for that particular town. I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be the case. After addresing the needs of that town then I moved onto the next town and so on and so forth. I liked the simplistic RPG theme in having multiple towns have problems that they themselves can't solve but oh wondrous deity that you are you take the offerings from one town and imbue them to others. My favorite example of this was the discontented town that required the blessed offering of 'music' to calm and soothe their agitated state.
After working my way through all the different areas (those Northwall skulls were a pain in the rump) I opened up the final stage and proceeded to get my butt handed to me. Not by the boss rush mode of the six previous bosses but rather the final bosses second form which has such a ridiculously large life bar that it fully stretches across the x-axis of the screen. I was like what the heck is that?!? So I proceeded to lose several times to this punk and then finally tonight tried again and skated by with about 2 bars of life left.
Overall I was happy with the blend between RPG/sim and the combat stages. No, this wasn't the deepest game ever but it was much more involved than I gave it credit for.
Not that anyone who really has a desire to play this game for the first time would've read this far and learned about so many spoilers but regardless I would recommend for anyone that's played this for only like 10 or 15 minutes and couldn't get into to it, to sincerely give it another try and spend some time getting comfortable with the mechanics of the game. I'm very glad that I picked it back up.
Graphics: 4/5 - Decent graphics for the time and really did enjoy the use of Mode-7 action when dropping down into the lairs of the monster bosses.
Sound: 4/5 - Only reason this didn't get higher than a 4 was because of the sim-based parts musical monotony. The music in the combat areas was surprisingly very well done.
Control: 3.5/5 - Controls did not seem that response to me. I swear on several different instances that I pressed the jump button and nothing happened. Conversely, I would jump and somehow lost life from colliding with the hitbox of the enemy which was seemingly larger than the sprite showed onscreen.
Fun Factor: 4.5/5 - This may be higher than what some others would say but I think this is rated somewhat higher for me because I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I thought this would be a mediocre to poor title and ended up thinking it an above average to good title that is recommended for most to give a try. I once again thought that the blending of simulation/RPG and combat was executed quite well.
Overall: 4/5
Something I did not figure out within the game is that I do wonder, on the Jungle Island, do they ever end up finding anything worthwhile when they go and search the "bird-shaped island?" Would love to know ...
The game felt a little off at first. Everything felt a bit clunky and the first thing I know is I'm down on the ground smiting monsters with no forseeable end in sight. The first time I spent any length of time on this game was about 2 years or so ago with my best bud and we both were like meh, lets go to another title. So I put it on a shelf and didn't do much with it.
Fast forward 2 years to now ...
I decided to pick it up again and give it a whirl. I spent some time figuring out the menu system and getting a basic idea of what they wanted you to do. Once I did, then I got the overall feel for you have to clear so many monsters. Then you find out that you have to clear a boss stage area and this is more of the side scrolling combat that I thought the game was more about. What I didn't expect was that after playing and clearing out most (if not all the monsters) that there would be a second [final] boss for that particular town. I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be the case. After addresing the needs of that town then I moved onto the next town and so on and so forth. I liked the simplistic RPG theme in having multiple towns have problems that they themselves can't solve but oh wondrous deity that you are you take the offerings from one town and imbue them to others. My favorite example of this was the discontented town that required the blessed offering of 'music' to calm and soothe their agitated state.
After working my way through all the different areas (those Northwall skulls were a pain in the rump) I opened up the final stage and proceeded to get my butt handed to me. Not by the boss rush mode of the six previous bosses but rather the final bosses second form which has such a ridiculously large life bar that it fully stretches across the x-axis of the screen. I was like what the heck is that?!? So I proceeded to lose several times to this punk and then finally tonight tried again and skated by with about 2 bars of life left.
Overall I was happy with the blend between RPG/sim and the combat stages. No, this wasn't the deepest game ever but it was much more involved than I gave it credit for.
Not that anyone who really has a desire to play this game for the first time would've read this far and learned about so many spoilers but regardless I would recommend for anyone that's played this for only like 10 or 15 minutes and couldn't get into to it, to sincerely give it another try and spend some time getting comfortable with the mechanics of the game. I'm very glad that I picked it back up.
Graphics: 4/5 - Decent graphics for the time and really did enjoy the use of Mode-7 action when dropping down into the lairs of the monster bosses.
Sound: 4/5 - Only reason this didn't get higher than a 4 was because of the sim-based parts musical monotony. The music in the combat areas was surprisingly very well done.
Control: 3.5/5 - Controls did not seem that response to me. I swear on several different instances that I pressed the jump button and nothing happened. Conversely, I would jump and somehow lost life from colliding with the hitbox of the enemy which was seemingly larger than the sprite showed onscreen.
Fun Factor: 4.5/5 - This may be higher than what some others would say but I think this is rated somewhat higher for me because I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I thought this would be a mediocre to poor title and ended up thinking it an above average to good title that is recommended for most to give a try. I once again thought that the blending of simulation/RPG and combat was executed quite well.
Overall: 4/5
Something I did not figure out within the game is that I do wonder, on the Jungle Island, do they ever end up finding anything worthwhile when they go and search the "bird-shaped island?" Would love to know ...
Comments
As far as the squeal goes, be prepared for an ass woop'n. It gets tough. It is a great game though despite it being only action.
Dat OST, though.
I rented it at my old video store, then towards the end of the SNES life cycle I bought it from that same store... still have the original copy.
Epic game.
Enix must have thought that the original was too easy so they upped the difficulty of the sequel to an insane degree. I can't beat a single stage in "ActRaiser 2." Not only did they remove the sim aspect, they made the controls terrible and level designs unforgiving. "ActRaiser 2" looks and sounds gorgeous, but it's almost unplayable.
"ActRaiser" might seem like a generic action platformer at first, but then it sucks you in. The sim city aspect is especially engrossing. Even with both sides to the gameplay, it's a very short game. But it's a lot of fun.
Enix must have thought that the original was too easy so they upped the difficulty of the sequel to an insane degree. I can't beat a single stage in "ActRaiser 2." Not only did they remove the sim aspect, they made the controls terrible and level designs unforgiving. "ActRaiser 2" looks and sounds gorgeous, but it's almost unplayable.
I nominated ActRaiser 2 for most disappointing sequel in that thread (as did a few others).
I just wanted to piggy back on the difficulty.... I beat the first level and that was it. I haven't tried it in like 6 years, but my word that game is HARD AS SHIT!
This thread is inspiring me to play through ActRaiser again, it's been a few years for me.
Glad to hear that you finally were able to play this masterpiece of a game.