Games that Need Comebacks: ActRaiser - News
by Jake Weston , posted on 23 August 2011 / 4,995 Views
Some game series stand the test of time, seeing new, high quality releases every generation, sucking back in old fans while gaining new ones. However, for every Mario, Zelda, and Sonic, there are thousands of great games that had the potential to be great gaming franchises, that just never took off. In this new weekly feature, we examine the great games that need to be reintroduced to audiences today.
ActRaiser
ActRaiser is one of those games that was just too far ahead of its time. Released in 1990, it was one of the earliest games for the SNES, and also one of the most innovative. Combining traditional action platforming with RPG, simulation and light-RTS elements, Quintet created a game like no other.
Like many RPG's of the day, ActRaiser starts with giving players the choice to name their character. For all intents and purposes though, you play as God. The people of Earth have lost their faith in Him (in this case, the player), allowing the forces of evil to take over, led by Tanzra, "The Evil One" (read: Satan), and it is up to the player and his angel side-kick to eradicate the monsters that inhabit the earth and banish the Evil One.
What makes ActRaiser so unique and innovative is how it seams different styles of gameplay together. Each of the six lands, or levels, begins with the player inhabiting a stone statue, bringing it to life with sword in hand to fight enemies in a standard side-scrolling action manner.
After the boss of each level is defeated, the gameplay switches over to an almost Sim City-esque style. This is where the game becomes so wildy interesting. You must restore the shaken faith of your people, and this is done by helping them build their city, be it by directing where they construct their roads, houses, and temples, and using various acts of nature to clear obsctructions and defend them from enemies.
Given how old the game is now, it'd be impressive enough that it still plays as well as it does today, but it also has incredibly deep religious subtext that would be unheard for any game, even today. After defeating the ultimate evil and destroying all the monsters, your followers stop worshipping you, noting how they no longer feel they need to, since their is no danger and their lives are content.
Unfortunately, ActRaiser 2 abandoned the simulation aspects that made the first game so interesting, and, while still featuring quality action-platforming, soon fell off of everybody's radar. The ActRaiser franchise hasn't been heard from in almost 20 years, and now is as good as time as ever to bring it back into gaming's collective conscious.
How it Could Work Today:
The first ActRaiser worked because it successfully merged two wildy different genres in both a fun and intuitive way, and for a new hypothetical ActRaiser game to work, it must take this same direction. The recently released From Dust featured a very similar gameplay style to ActRaiser's simulation mode, albeit much more technologically advanced. A new ActRaiser could draw heavily from From Dust's basic concepts and make it work for its own universe.
The action in the ActRaiser series was epic in biblical proportions, and with today's graphics and technology, there's no reason why a modern, 3D action incarnation couldn't be just as epic as God of War or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. ActRaiser was drawing from biblical and mytholigical influences long before God of War and it would be really great to see what the series could do with those ideas today.
Finally, and this would be essential to make ActRaiser work, there would need to be the deep religious subtext that resided in both games. In today's world that seems destined to destroy itself in the name of religion, a game like ActRaiser could come along and deliver a truly poignant, powerful message that would really resonate with today's audience, in such a way that no game has ever done before. To not do so in a new ActRaiser would be an huge missed opportunity.
ActRaiser never set the gaming world on fire quite like it should have, even though it was much smarter than many of its game contemporaries at the time. A new incarnation could easily expand on the ideas and mechanics that were just a little bit too advanced for its time, and deliver a gaming experience like no other.
Check back next week for our next game in need of a comeback, and feel free to leave suggestions for us in the comments!
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Finally, an editorial on this site that I completely agree with!
I would throw almost all the neglected EA franchises in there. Their mishandling of sequels and abandoning of other franchises has made me boycott them for 10+ years. Which franchises am I talking about that they shouldn't have neglected/abandoned?
Road Rash
Desert Strike
Magic Carpet
General Chaos (the game that they abandoned that pisses me off the most)
and the list can go on...
That would be coul, but they'd probably screw up..... what happened to the good and original ideas???
I used to played it multiple times and finished it maxed out.
Then Actraiser 2... that thing took away the sim and made the action so hard. I think I got stuck at the early flying stage, LOL.
thanks for reminding me of yet an other deserving game I never took the time to play :x
A reboot could be nice, the principle is still fresh as only a couple of games set you as the all mighty.
If ever they could make a remake of Midwinter....
Man, I loved ActRaiser on the SNES back in the day. This was game was made at a time before Square acquired Enix to form SquareEnix. My favorite part of the game was the music in the Northwall stage of Act Raiser, it just had a mystical feel to it. I even bought ActRaiser 2, but I think they tried too hard to top the mythical masterpiece that was ActRaiser. Great piece....
