Retro Views: Actraiser

Actraiser might seem like it's pretty original for casting you as a literal God, but games have been doing this for what seems like forever – Actraiser is perhaps the first game to make no bones about playing into the "God complex" so openly, though, which makes it interesting. Truth be told, though, that central conceit, the thing I expected to have some issues with when I first booted up Enix's strange little game, was the least of my concerns by the end of it. Instead, what Actraiser boils down to is a very interesting experiment that falls flat not because of misplaced power fantasies or theological bullying, but because of the thing that most games fail upon: bad game design.

But at least Actraiser is interesting, interesting enough to pull you through its weak gameplay elements. Essentially, Actraiser represents an attempt by Enix to smush together two of the most popular genres of the time into a more-or-less seamless whole. Playing as God, the game has you "cleansing" the land below of demons so that your followers can begin to settle the land and prosper. This breaks down into two broad gameplay types: sidescrolling action-platform sections where you have to kill all the enemies on the screen, and city-building simulator-lite sections where you "direct" your followers to build cities and ensnare the enemies flying around for good.

If it sounds like these two types of gameplay are incongruous, well, they are. The idea is that a God can be everywhere and that there are two aspects to a God's life – direct and indirect intervention. At least, that's what I can glean from the game from a thematic standpoint. The problem is that the gameplay never coexists peacefully. One gameplay segment doesn't really affect the other, making Actraiser feel like two separate games.

That wouldn't really be a problem if both segments were designed well in and of themselves, but that's not really the case. The sidescrolling sections (and I don't mean to piss off any Sega Genesis fans, but still) feel like they belong on the Sega Genesis – this feels like a poor man's Golden Axe a lot of the time, minus any of the personality. The jumping controls are stiff, the penalty for making a mistake is steep (if you get hit by an enemy, that same enemy can hit you multiple times in a span of a second or two – there's almost no "grace period" after getting hit like in many other platforming games), and the combat never grows or changes. It's a one-button, swing to kill enemies affair throughout the entire game, making it pretty mindless rather than interesting. Some special attacks or at least some combos would make the sidescrolling sections feel like less of a chore, but alas, it wasn't to be.

When I finished the first of these sidescrolling sections, I looked forward eagerly to the city-building section of the game, and while it does fare a little better than the platforming portion, it's hardly enough for the game to stand on. You do little more than "guide" the townspeople to build in certain directions, occasionally intervening with a variety of natural powers at your disposal, all while flying a little angel around and shooting down enemies. It's not terrible or anything, but it is pretty boring and has very little depth to it. Essentially, the only real control you have in these segments is to destroy your followers' creations, which isn't really satisfying from a gameplay or a "what the hell, let's burn down all these crops!" standpoint. 

And considering that that's the whole game, Actraiser can't help but feel like a disappointment. It's interesting that in a game ostensibly about systemizing the ideas of religion (or, you know, at least the "vengeful God" ones) that you so often feel less like a God and more like, well, a powerless human. If that had been explored more fully it might have made for an interesting game, but unfortunately it comes across as the side effect of poor game design. There's something interesting going on in Actraiser, but that dichotomous gameplay mindset and the overall lack of polish or interesting gameplay makes it hard to see through all the cruft.

Side note: Actraiser 2's solution, which was to gut the city-building sections completely, wasn't the right move either. More polish and more thoughtful game design was all that a sequel needed, but unfortunately, Enix ended the series after Actraiser 2. Like I said earlier: there's something interesting here that I'd like to see explored more in depth, so it's unfortunate that all we're left with are two massively underwhelming games that have such fertile ground to explore.

Thanks to Peter Broda for the suggestion! Want me to review a game? DO IT.