Actraiser is a spectacular game for the SNES. It manages to combine SimCity with a side-scrolling action RPG. This is a combination that I didn’t know I wanted until I played it.
My friend Drew and I rented this game in the mid-1990s. He was my only friend who had an SNES, and he knew the console’s library better than I did. From what I remember, he had rented the game at some point, so he knew a little about it. I don’t think we beat it that night, but I do remember beating it later. It was probably when I downloaded the game’s ROM.
The game left an impression on me, and I picked it up when I started collecting retro games. I’m pretty sure I bought it for the Wii as well. It is a game that I don’t always think about when I’m writing about my favorite SNES games. Actraiser deserves to be considered for my top 25 SNES games, if I ever decide to make that list.
TLDR: A Classic SNES game that received an Excellent remake.
Narrative
The story is fairly simple. It had to be changed for North America due to Nintendo of America’s policies on depictions of religion. Only the names were changed as the core parts of the story are still here.
You play as The Master, who was defeated by Tanzra and his six lieutenants. The Master was in a deep sleep in his cloud castle. Once his wounds have healed, he wakes up, and the game takes place.
Because the people have stopped believing in The Master, he has lost most of his powers. To get them back, you have to travel around the world and defeat Tanzra’s minions. Once all the minions have been killed, you can travel to Death Heim to fight Tanzra.
The story is perfectly fine for a game like this. Back in the early 1990s, an elaborate story and game weren’t expected for a console game. It is a short but good story. The developers tried to add a message at the end of the game. What I got from it was that people only turn to religion in times of trouble. I’m sure that other people have taken different things from it, if they bothered to think about it at all.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very good. It is split into two parts, which are quite different from each other. The first section is a traditional side-scrolling action platformer, and the second is a city builder. This second section is my favorite part of the game.
The side-scrolling action sections are very good if not a little easy. The levels were simplified for the North American release. Your main attack is a sword, and you can also get magic over the course of the game.
During the simulation stages, you’ll gain levels that are tied to the overall population of the land. This will increase your health during the action platformer stages. These stages take place before and after the simulation stage.
These are straightforward. You move through the levels fighting bad guys and collecting items. These are what you should expect:
- Health items
- Extra Lives
- Bonus Points
Both stages end with a boss fight. The first boss is a mini-boss that unlocks the simulation stage, and the second boss purifies that region. There are six regions in total, and each presents unique challenges.
Each region has a specialty. These are things like music, medicine, and wool. You’ll need the items to help each region develop. It is a cool way to tie them all together, and to give you a reason to visit them.
With the city building section, you control a cherub, and you fly around shooting demons. There are four types of demons:
- Bats – These kidnap citizens
- Dragon – They use lightning to destroy buildings
- Red Devil – Uses the Sun ability to dry up crops
- Flying Skulls – I think they cause Earthquakes
On top of your little cherub’s arrows, you have some God powers. These are needed to clear paths for the city to develop, find items, and beat the stage. Here they are:
- Lightning – Breaks rocks and burns bushes
- Rain – Douses Fires, clears deserts, and restores fields
- Sun – Melts Snow and Dries Marsh Lands
- Wind – Blows monsters away and turns windmills
- Earthquake – Destroys houses and can create landmasses (This only comes into play once, as far as I know)
This is all in the game’s manual. You can find it in a few places online, and here is a link to it (Link). The game does a good job of explaining the controls, which is a rarity for the time.
Overall, I really like the gameplay. There is some nice variety in what you’re doing, and the controls are great. Games like this are really special. The developers did a great job of giving the player something different.
Visuals
This is a great looking SNES game. It tries to use the console’s Mode 7 capabilities, which aren’t used often but look good. Because this is a hybrid of two genres, there are two sections to discuss. There are side-scrolling scenes and city-building scenes.
The side-scrolling sections of the game look quite good. It doesn’t have the most complex level design, but it works well for what it is. Enemy sprites look very good, you can see enemy projectiles fairly well, and the backgrounds look great.
After the side-scrolling sections, you go to the SimCity parts of the game. These look fairly basic and more cartoonish. It works for me since you’re playing as a cute cherub. It also provides some contrast to the more serious-looking and more detailed graphics from the side-scrolling section.
There are a few graphical glitches in both sections. Each part of the game has some slowdown when there are too many things on the screen. This is fairly common for console games released at this time.
Actraiser is a very good looking SNES game. The side-scrolling stages look much better than the simulation stages. The bosses are well-detailed and look cool.
Reviews at the Time
The reviews for this game were universally positive when it was released. They didn’t change much over the years, which is nice. There was the predictable dip during the 2000s, which happened to just about every retro game. I looked at three reviews for this one.
Computer and Video Games gave it a 95/100. The reviewer liked the combination of genres. They spent most of the review explaining things, which is nice for a game like this.
EGM had four people review the game, and each of them gave it a 9/10. They really liked this game and gave some hyperbolic quotes. Actraiser was released early in the console’s life, so there wasn’t a lot of competition yet. They called it “truly awesome” and said it was “one of the best games” for the SNES.
Mean Machines did something interesting. They reviewed the Japanese version of the game. I think this is what Computer and Video Games did as well. Two people reviewed the game, and they gave it a 91/100. The publication called it a “brilliant game that has it all.”
It wasn’t all 9s and 10s for this game when it was released. The lowest score it received was in the 7s, which was still good for the time. In the 2000s and 2010s, the lowest score was a 3/5, but the publication isn’t all that credible.
Renaissance of Actraiser
A few years ago, a remake of Actraiser was released. There were significant changes to the main game, and it was overall an improvement. The additions to the game made it much longer, but added more variety to the gameplay. I’ll briefly touch on it here and expand on it when I review the game.
The biggest addition to the game came on the city building screens. A tower defense mechanic was added to the game, along with a few heroes to defend against the demons. This was really cool! It added a lot to the core gameplay and gave the player more to do.
It isn’t all great. When you seal a monster lair on the city building screen, a short side-scrolling action scene is added. This really served no purpose. This isn’t a necessary change to the gameplay.
This was my favorite game from 2021. It reminded me of the original, and it had enough new content to make it feel different. While I didn’t like all of the changes made to the game, it was a lot of fun. The additions to the city-building game made it feel different.
Censorship
Nintendo of America made several changes to this game when it was localized for the North American market. The religious themes from the Japanese version were altered. It is still in the game, but Christian ideology was stripped out of it.
The core themes of the game are still there. Citizens still give you offerings, they worship and pray, and they seal the demon lairs. At the end of the game, it is revealed that the population no longer needs you.
The monster lairs were also changed. The Japanese version has a Star of David marking the demon lairs, and the North American version has a skull. The European version is closer to what was released in North America.
9/10. There is nothing like this game on the SNES or other home consoles at the time. It is a unique combination of a city builder and an action RPG. It is a little short, but still a very fun game.
Pros
- Variety of Gameplay
- Good Controls
- Great Graphics
Cons
- Short
- City building is fairly basic
- Lots of backtracking
Conclusion
This is one of my favorite games, and the remake is also very good. I don’t have a lot of memories of renting SNES games, but this is one of them. It was great to come back and revisit this game.
I don’t remember it being as short as it is. For whatever reason, it always took me longer to beat games than most people. Probably because my friends and I didn’t take them as seriously as other people.
My experiences of playing video games in the 1990s feel so different from other people on the internet. They were something my friends and I played for a bit, and then we would go outside to play. It wasn’t until I got a PC and then a PS1 that I would spend hours playing video games. I really spent more time outside, regardless of what season it was.
Going back to revisit Actraiser is always fun. I love playing the games that I rented back in the day. There is something fun about reliving those memories, even if I find most of the games to be a little different.
If you liked this post, please check out my others on SNES games, such as Secret of the Stars or Ogre Battle.