Actraiser Renaissance (Switch eShop) Review

The original Actuator it was a truly seminal release. Released alongside the Super Famicom in the late 1990s, the deft combination of platforming action and PopulousThe world-building style was immediately praised as a stone-cold classic, and it is surprising that in the 30 years that have passed since, it has never been improved upon. Direct sequel Actraiser 2 recklessly dropped the ‘God Sim’ sections, and the recent ‘spiritual successor’ SolSeraph he tried and failed to capture the same magic. Then, out of nowhere in September 2021, Square Enix fell into shadow. Actraiser Renaissance, a full remake of the original game developed not by Quintet (that studio was long disbanded), but by Sonic Powered, a Japanese team best known for their Boku wa Koukuu Kanseikan: Airport Hero Serie.

Actraiser Renaissance retains the unique two-genre setup of the 1990 version, with the player assuming the role of a benevolent deity seeking to free the world from the evil clutches of the Dark Lord Tanzra, who has cruelly subjugated various regions through his obedient sub. – lieutenants. Each area offers two different styles of play; First, you must take the form of a warrior character, your physical incarnation on earth, essentially, and tackle a side-scrolling action section that culminates in a boss fight. When you’ve done this, the game switches to a top-down view of the region, where you directly control your talking angel helper. Here, you can guide the direction your settlement grows while using your angel to take down the reappearing aerial monsters with holy arrows. The goal is to locate and board a second side scrolling section and defeat the Tanzra champion for that region, providing lasting peace and prosperity before moving on to the next location to repeat the process.

Sonic Powered has dramatically improved the scope of both styles of play in Actraiser Renaissance. In action sequences, your character’s move set has been expanded to make things feel less tight and restrictive. He can back away using the ‘L’ button, for example, which is perfect for dodging boss hits, and his basic attacks have also been updated. Pushing forward while repeatedly pressing attack will see your character perform a lunge attack at the end of a combo, while pressing down and attacking during a jump executes a powerful downward slash. Pushing up and attacking unleashes an airstrike that is perfect for dealing with enemies on platforms directly above you. All of this contributes to a level of control that is much more flexible and less “stiff” than seen in the 1990 original.

Another novelty in the action sections is the ability to collect gems from fallen enemies and boxes located around each level. These enhance your attack and magic ability, eventually increasing both to 100% of the base level as well as earning you an additional ‘resurrection’ at that particular level. This creates a system where the more time you spend on each level searching for enemies, the more powerful you will become, and therefore have a much higher chance of defeating the boss in the end. Of course, you can just run towards the boss and ignore the gems, but the fight will eventually be tougher for you.

The side scrolling stages themselves have been completely overhauled and are now more expansive than before, and come complete with optional branching paths that hide stat-boosting collectibles. The bosses also feature different attack patterns that require entirely new tactics compared to their counterparts in the SNES version. It means fans of the original will still find a new challenge here, even if some of the bosses are slightly easier to defeat this time thanks to its broader repertoire of moves (on the subject of difficulty, the default setting provides a severe challenge, but you can switch between difficulty levels at will).

The significant changes made to the side scrolling sections pale in comparison to the overhaul that Sonic Powered has designed into the strategy portion of the game. While the core mechanics are the same as in 1990 (it still relies heavily on ‘miracles’ like lightning and sunlight to change the terrain and make it habitable for its people, for example), the scope of these segments is has expanded dramatically. So much so that each region offers at least two hours of gameplay, which is a huge step up from the SNES version.

In Actraiser Renaissance, each location has its own cast of characters, including townspeople and a special ‘champion’ who is an integral part of the game’s overall plot and can be leveled up as you complete objectives, from of which there are many, even some who present themselves after having “finished” a region. Your angel also has a more powerful charge shot, and you can power miracles at the expense of SP to improve her potency. Another clear wrinkle is that the HP, SP, and materials generated by your people must be physically collected by the angel to add to your stock.

In addition to the basic goal of expanding the city and closing down the monster-spawning lairs (with a neat twist, you can now tackle a short action segment to achieve the latter, rather than having your people do it automatically), you’ll have to build forts around of the city to withstand enemy assault during what might turn out to be the most controversial element of Actraiser Renaissance: its “Tower Defense” sections. During these parts of the game, your angel is powerless and instead you must rely on your aforementioned upgradeable strongholds (ranging from gateways to magic towers that shoot fireballs) and a series of palisades that can temporarily block the advance of your enemy. You can use your miraculous powers to strike down enemies, but the most powerful tool at your disposal is your ‘champion’ character, who can be guided around the map to tackle the most pressing matters.

If there’s any part of Actraiser Renaissance that is likely to upset hardcore fans of the original, it’s these sections. They’re nice enough and they don’t last long, but they seem to be too much of a part of the game; At each location, you will find yourself playing with them multiple times to advance through the plot, which becomes more and more repetitive. However, the introduction of different types of forts and palisades helps alleviate this problem, as does the ability to summon up to two additional champions from other regions that you have liberated. There is also a lot of strategy involved here; You can use gateways and palisades to stop the advance of ground enemies, and when they group together, you can unleash a bolt of lightning to eliminate them in one go. Similarly, these structures can be used to occupy enemies while your champion is assigned a combat duty elsewhere on the map. It’s much deeper than it might appear at first glance, and it’s really nice once you get into the swing of things.

The presentation of Actraiser Renaissance is likely to cause as much discussion among fans as its beefed-up gameplay. For the most part, it is a huge improvement; The new artwork of the anime-style characters is superb, and each cast member gets a very detailed portrait, including the townspeople constantly engaging you in surprisingly well-written conversation. In the SNES original, these were just little sprites, so it’s great to see them with more personality here. Your champions are interesting individuals too, each with their own backstory and motivation to come to your aid (although the design of some of them, like the cowboy Alonso, feels very out of place in front of the rest of the cast of ‘high fantasy’) . It’s also nice to see the wide range of visual variety between the game’s regions, and the buildings are largely unique to each location.

Unfortunately, the side scrolling action sections don’t do as well when it comes to the overall presentation. While they appear to be 2.5D in nature, everything is actually pre-rendered. This means that many of the enemies and bosses exhibit impressively smooth animation, but they look quite crude at the same time – the main character, for example, looks quite pixelated and low-res. The stage designs are equally inconsistent; While there are some impressive lighting effects at Fillmore’s opening forest level, with sunlight streaming through the trees in the background, the stage has an ugly, pre-rendered appearance that makes it look a lot like a low cost smartphone game (we should add at this point that Actraiser Renaissance is also available on iOS and Android).

To make matters worse, the action segments suffer from some disappointingly choppy shifts. It’s never enough to impede your enjoyment, but there really is no excuse for this kind of performance when all we’re looking at here are 2D sprites on flat backgrounds. It’s worth noting that scrolling is just as uneven in other formats, so this isn’t a problem unique to the Switch. While we’re on the subject of technical quirks, loading times when moving between regions and the overall world map can be a bit egregious.

One part of the package that is totally and absolutely beyond reprimand is the soundtrack. Video game music legend Yuzo Koshiro returns to deliver a reorganized version of his original music, as well as some brand-new compositions. In a fancy touch, SNES music is still included and can be turned on and off during gameplay; there are even 16-bit versions of the new tracks. Both versions of the soundtrack are absolutely amazing, so much so that it is really difficult to choose between them when playing games.

conclusion

While the updated graphic style and choppy scrolling don’t make a great first impression and there may be some who feel like the ‘Tower Defense’ sections are given too much screen time, Actraiser Renaissance is ultimately a successful attempt to update a solid gold classic. of yore. There are rarely two totally different playstyles fused in this way, and the improvements made by developer Sonic Powered really make things better; Combat in the action sections is more fun, while the ‘God Sim’ parts of the game have greater depth thanks to improvements in gameplay. To top it off, Yuzo Koshiro’s music, available both on his SNES and in its rearranged form, is masterful. While not perfect, Actraiser Renaissance will nonetheless find favor with fans of the original, and it will also get plenty of new fans along the way.