Getting Slain in Actraiser by the Level 1 Boss
Have you ever wanted to be the mayor, savior, city planner, statue, and sword wielding avatar of an entire planet? If so, Actraiser for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a game for you. It turns out that you play the character called, “The Master.” And you are some kind of benevolent urban planning, magic wielding, warrior god. The game is ridiculously awesome and it gets better stage after stage. The main things that make Actraiser a must play are: The music, gameplay, graphics, replayability, learning curve, challenge and interactivity. Actraiser starts you out in a sky fortress then switches to a Two-Dimension (2D) Side Scrolling action game. The gameplay is very intuitive, you can jump and slash with your sword. You can also duck which is a plus. An awesome thing about the beginning of the 2D part of the game, is that you are a glowing orb of energy coming from the sky. And then you enter into a statue and the statue comes to life. I love games that start bombastically like that.
The action in the first stage is similar to that of Strider for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). You jump around and either avoid or kill monsters. One thing to remember is that if you don’t necessarily walk in a straight line and explore a little bit, you may find statues that you can open by slashing them and inside you may find powerups like apples that give you health, or gems that give you points, or ammunition for your magic. But the most fun part of the stage is when you get to the boss. My suggestion to beating the boss is to observe the patterns of the boss. Then get in tight and slash like crazy. Also make sure that you have a good amount of health before fighting the boss because they can take a lot of damage.
After you beat the first stage you then get redirected to your Sky Fortress and you are told by your assistant who is a little cherub that you can go to the surface of the planet, to where you purified the land from monsters. This is where the urban planning comes into play. This part of the game turns into a 2D Top View (Bird’s Eye Perspective) City Simulation Game. This is almost like a very simplified version of Sim City. But instead of doing zoning, you direct the flow of how the people will build. The problem is that there are monsters flying around and they can abduct people or sometimes cast lightning on people and it is very unfortunate. But the cool thing is that during this part of the game you control the Cherub. And he is equipped with a bow and arrow and can shoot the monsters. When this happens the Master gets magic points which you are able to use towards creating impressive natural weather and seismic miracles. These miracles include, rain, lightning, earthquakes and others. These become more important as the game progresses and you need to do them in order to solve certain problems for your people.
Speaking of your people, when the citizens of a town need to tell you something they pray at the temple. This is a really beautiful part of the game because you start to have empathy for the citizens for the towns and cities you protect. And some of the interactions that happen in the game are really emotional and heart wrenching. As the game continues, you free other towns from monsters and then direct the growth there. But sometimes the people have problems that you cannot immediately solve. For example, there was this one town that was doing very well and was growing nicely. But for some reason there was unrest in the town and the people became violent and started to fight with each other. I was unable to help then and they wouldn’t stop fighting even if I caused earthquakes or rained on them. They were upset. So I decided to help another town and eventually there was a person who went looking for some strange ruins in the desert. The people of this town were really worried for this man because they loved him very much. After much searching I was able to find the person. So when I directed the flow of growth in that town to spread forth and rescue the man, they rushed him to the temple to help him. But they were too late at the man died. But even though it was very sad the people of this town coped with their suffering by composing a piece of lamentation music for the man. At this point in the game you can actually hear the song that they created and it is such a touching and beautiful song. And they offered the gift of “Harmonious Music” to the Master so you can use it at a later time. So what I did next was to give the Harmonious Music to the town that was engaged in fighting and unrest, and the music calmed the hearts of the people. They were able to feel the emotions of the composer and it brought peace. That is just one of the many deep experiences you will have while playing this game.
After you help a few towns become cities the people may find new magical powers that you can use when you are in the 2D Side Scrolling action mode. These spells are very visually impressive but there is one in particular that does insane amounts of damage. It’s called, “Star Fall.” When activated Star Fall will rain down tiny meteors on your enemies, hitting everything on the screen. The reason why this spell is great is because each meteor counts as a hit of damage. So if you use it on a boss, you can hurt them bad. Other spells require you to line up the shot or be really close in order to get a hit. But Star Fall just requires that you stand there for a minute. It is easily the best spell in the game.
Another great thing about Actraiser is that as your towns grow in size, you actually become more physically powerful in your avatar form. So if you have enough healthy citizens in your towns you will end up having more hit points when you play the 2D Side Scrolling stages. This becomes increasingly important as you enter more difficult stages and fight more challenging bosses. By the time you get to the last stage you will need all the health you can get. One thing that you might encounter in the game is the fact that technology and civilization levels change as towns become cities and people become more advanced in their dwellings. Some town have homes that can hold more people and are more efficient. But since you want the most amount of Hit Points when you play the game you will probably want people to be living in an efficient of dwellings as possible. So one way to “Encourage” people to upgrade their towns and houses is by intentionally destroying homes and citizens and then letting them build more advanced ones. People get killed in the processes. But destruction is a fitting punishment for sloth. If you are a kind god then you won’t resort to such drastic measures. I guess it all depends on your personality type.
The 2D Side Scrolling Stages are so fun. There are enemies to jump over and attack almost everywhere. And the environments are interactive as well. There sometimes are hills that you can run down and pick up speed when you do. Dangerous bridges cross your path. Traps including pits of spikes lurk in the lairs of some areas. And the enemies you fight are all different in their movement patterns and attack types. So it is a varied and challenging experience. This game isn’t as hard as many other 2D action Side Scrollers but it never loses fun and excitement. The challenge is perfect for someone who wants difficulty, without massive amounts of frustration.
Fortunately, you can download and play Actraiser on the Wii Virtual Console. So if you have a Wii then I really hope you bust out Actraiser. Because it is the kind of game you can beat in a couple sittings over a couple days with little stress or gamer’s thumb. You are able to save your game and you don’t need to use a password system or anything.
Overall, this is one of my favorite games of all time. It is the perfect blend of action, fun, interactivity, story and inspiration.
-Tyler