zippdementia's ActRaiser review

I played ActRaiser in the mid 90s or so and loved it to where I was thinking about playing it again. I'm not so sure I want to now. Good review that really shows how a game can age poorly. You're right about the sim parts. Completely different than expected for an action game, but they were thread-bare as hell.

In playing it again, the music still struck me as the strongest part. Most of my modern-day emotional stirring came from that part of the game. And the action isn't bad... but like I state in the review, it isn't stand-out enough to recommend it as great. And it is totally dominated by the lengthy simulation scenes. Threadbare is a word I could have used in the review, definitely.

Nice review, Zipp. I remember ActRaiser for being a mostly easy, basic hack and slasher with amazing music and lame simulation/interruptions. Seems like you feel the same way. At least they learned from their lesson with ActRaiser 2, which was just super hard ass platforming and nothing more!

I haven't had many positive experiences with emulation, but ActRaiser was an exception. When I was attending college and living in the dorms (so... a long time ago, when my wife was still my girlfriend), I downloaded the game and played through it in one night using the default keyboard setup. It was awkward but I was addicted and cleared the whole game. The only other truly positive emulation experience that springs to mind is when I downloaded Paperboy for NES and beat the whole game without losing a single Paperboy (again controlling things with the keyboard).

I own both games now in cartridge form. ActRaiser is still a great game, as it always was, and the sim elements remain enjoyable without ever becoming a chore. The game doesn't hold up if you're expecting a hardcore experience, but ActRaiser was a great idea and I've said often that I wish the Quintet team could develop a new ActRaiser game using today's technology. It might help us all forget about ActRaiser 2.

Well, it looks like I just lost the Penguin contest ;)

Masters, I never got a chance to play Actraiser 2. It was much harder to find than the first one. I'd heard that it wasn't a great action title, either. Have you played it? What did you think of it?

AR2 isn't BAD, but if you're looking for anything more than really tough platforming, you won't find it. It is really pretty, though, so it's kinda worth playing through on emulation just to see it. I had fun writing descriptive paragraphs about levels. Just not so much with other aspects of the game.

Oh, and it's one of those where you HAVE to play on hard or something to see the true final boss and get a good ending. I finished it and thought things were pretty anti-climactic...and then saw that playing on a tougher level gives you the real end of the game.

Or to condense...the TRUE AR2 is Soul Blazer. Which shall remain forever praised by me.

Yes. Soul Blazer really is. And that one still holds up for me. Maybe not as fun now that I've played it enough times to memorize all the lines of text. But still awesome.

Rob's got it right. AR2 is pretty and really punishing, but not a great game by any stretch.

And yes, Soulblazer is the shit.

I would be curious, Jason, to hear what still enthralls you about the simulation aspect of the game. I don't know if you read the full review yet or were just responding to my score, but I didn't make anything up in the review or exaggerate the linearity or lack of depth in the simulation segments. I also clearly point out that this opinion comes from a long-time fan of the game who has become aware of its defects as age struck the game hard.

Really, the simulation segments are just interludes with very little to do and very specific tasks which are completed with a couple button presses. All I can imagine is that you found the story-telling of these segments charming, which I could understand.

I'm not calling you out; but I am curious to hear your take on how those scenes held your attention.

I liked the simplicity of the simulation mode, Zipp. It was a solid interface that worked well on consoles (no small feat) and it didn't require so much attention to detail as to be overly complex. I haven't yet read your review, except for a few paragraphs I skimmed. I'll be going over it later, of course, and I can comment on it at that time, as appropriate.

I think ActRaiser is the quintessential "sum of all its parts" game. I played it for the first time past 2000, so no nostalgia here. I could recognize that the action and simulation segments wouldn't be remarkable if either was on its own, but with everything combined, it works. It's the pacing that makes the game addictive. As soon as you begin to grow weary of one aspect of the gameplay, the other makes its appearance. It keeps the experience far fresher than in most games, and the simplicity of the sim parts make for a nice vegging out game. And call me crazy, but I find the tale of Teddy pretty moving.

Thanks for clarifying, Jason. It sounds like we actually come at the game from the same angle and just walk away with different opinions. I'll be really curious to know what you think of the way I present the argument.

I see Actraiser as having been practice for Soul Blazer which was practice for Illusion of Gaia which was practice for Terranigma.

And it all culminates there, folks. Terranigma is truly an awesome game and it's a shame it was never released in the States.

My thoughts exactly, though I cannot speak to Terranigma, as (like you say) it was never released in the states. And don't mention emulators. I'm on a Mac.

It has a far better translation than Illusion of Gaia.

But to be fair, most translations are better than IoG's. It may have been grammatically correct, but it was incredibly stilted.