ActRaiser Review

Lots of games out there let you play God. Spore lets you create creatures, The Sims lets you control people's lives, and God's Playing Field lets you end people's lives.

But how many games let you fight monsters in a land cursed by evil and create a safe haven so your people can live free?

One. And it's called ActRaiser, for SNES. Well, technically two, since the game has a sequel.

You play as a god who has had much of his power stolen by a demon named Tanzra. To regain your power and defeat the demon, you must rekindle the peoples' faith in you by ridding the lands of monsters and leading and protecting the people as they build their cities.

In each of the six areas, there are two fighting rounds (each with unique enemies and bosses) and a building round in between. The first fighting round is for killing off enough monsters so that your people can live without all being ripped to shreds. In the fighting rounds, you play as a mighty swordsman, who appears to be a statue that you give life to. During the building round, you play as a little angel who can tell the people in which direction to build their city, take offerings from the people, and kill the monsters that spawn from monster lairs scattered throughout the land. Don't worry, you can direct the people to build toward a monster lair and they will eventually seal it up. You can also send "miracles" and use them to help your people. You can send sunlight to dry up marshland or melt snow, send rain to restore a dead field or wash away desert sands, and even send earthquakes to destroy most of your buildings (more useful than it sounds).

Once your people have sealed all the monster lairs, some calamity will happen and you will be obligated to go to the second fighting round and kill the next boss. Once you have defeated all the bosses, the land of Death Heim opens up and you can go fight Tanzra.

No one said this was all going to be easy though. The fighting rounds are certainly hard, with powerful enemies and very few chances to replenish your health. You'll need the reflexes and button-mashing skills of a Smash Bros. champion for this. There are certainly frustrating moments, but the sheer awesomeness of the game makes up for it, and you will certainly swell with pride when you defeat that boss after four tries.

The graphics of this game are excellent, and the music is top-notch, especially in the fighting rounds and on the bosses. One boss, the Northwall dragon, looks like a constellation with plates of ice between the stars, and could almost be called beautiful (if it wasn't trying to kill you).

ActRaiser is an old game, but the kind many call "a classic". An excellent game for the middle of the night, after school, after dinner, or anytime you have it handy, either on a real SNES or on the Wii's Virtual Console.