Actraiser Renaissance

amazon Actraiser Renaissance reviews

Actraiser Renaissance: Developed by Quintet and published by Enix in 1990, ActRaiser is an action-adventure game incorporating kingdom-building elements.

The game was released for the SNES and is still considered one of the “must-play” titles of this system.

However, as time passed and access to the SNES was no longer easy. Not to mention that the standards of the current generation of gamers are also different.

Understanding this, Square Enix has decided to Remaster (refurbish) the game and bring it to PS4, Switch, PC, Android, and IOS platforms.

Since the writer has not experienced playing the original ActRaiser, the following review will judge the game on its value, not what it does better than the original.

The story of the Actraiser Renaissance begins millennia after the apocalypse. Tanzra, a demon determined to achieve absolute destruction, defeated the Lord of Light and forced him to retreat to his Sky Palace to recover his powers.

The Lord of Light’s unexpected absence left all of humanity completely unprepared. They were brought to the brink of extinction by the monsters Tenzra brought.

After a long time has passed, the Lord of Light has returned, and together with his assistant angel, the two will lay the foundation for human development to fight the forces of evil.

Actraiser Renaissance is essentially two games combined to create a distinct experience. The story takes place in different lands where humanity is trying to grow back from despair.

The mechanics of playing in the lands are divided into two parts: Action and Management.

The action is chopping and slashing 2D scenes. In these sequences, the Lord of Light infuses his soul into a living statue, using his sword and magic to destroy demons that humans cannot defeat.

These segments are relatively simple; the player does not need to do much except defeating the level’s boss.

The other half of the game is Management. That is a mix of kingdom building and real-time strategy.

During these segments, the player will control the angelic assistant of the Lord of Light to assist in the construction and maintenance of the kingdom’s settlement.

That is done by guiding people where to live, using magic to help clear their way, and gathering resources to build defenses.

The defense system is part of the real-time tactical mechanics. More specifically, there will be times when waves of small monsters attack the kingdom. However, instead of directly protecting the people, we will build towers or barricades to defend themselves.

Although Square Enix shaped Actraiser Renaissance as a revamped game of the old version, the game seems to have been completely refreshed from the skeleton of the old version.

Everything from the character design, background, graphics, music, effects, and more have been remade.

This big change is even more noticeable when we compare the old version and the new version.

Square Enix still boasts that this is an old game brought to a modern platform despite the complete refresh.

That is shown through the main character’s design and the monsters that appear in the hack and slash game.

Instead of using sharp and beautiful designs, Actraiser Renaissance chooses designs that are a bit rough and jagged, creating the feeling that this is a game of the early 2000s.

Along with the above factors is the return of talented composer Yuzo Koshiro. He was the composer of the original game, and in this revamp, he composed new music.

Called new, but they have a very familiar feel, not too much different from the original. Of course, in terms of quality, the new songs are better than the previous version.

Those flaws include the auto-save mechanism is not good, the tutorial segments of the game are sometimes too sketchy, some instructions are not properly distributed, take place too late.

Many tasks assigned to players do not come with instructions, leading to having to… Google to find the results!

The kingdom-building mechanism has many limitations; there are not many options for players yet. Besides, the kingdom’s people also often disturb the player while the player is on the quest, leading to interruptions.

The real-time strategy array also has an element of absurdity that the story does not explain well, but the writer will not go into more detail because it may reveal the story’s details.

Overall, it seems that Actraiser Renaissance hasn’t gone through a lot of proofreading, which leads to many shortcomings.

Actraiser Renaissance is advertised as a balanced combination of 2D scene travel and kingdom building/defense. That is shown through the game’s trailers as well as the early game trailer.

However, the 2D scene array is only 1/3 of the game in the game; the other 2/3 will be building and defending the kingdom.

Combine this with the fact that the process of building and defending the kingdom is quite limited and annoying; players will count every minute, every second until the next brief action scene.

To put it simply, let’s take the Actraiser Renaissance as a Mcdonald’s burger. The thin slice of meat will be the action game, while the two pieces of bread will be the kingdom-building game.

where can you get a Actraiser Renaissance online

Actraiser Renaissance: Day One Edition – PC [Online Game Code]: Buy it now

Actraiser Renaissance: Standard – Nintendo Switch [Digital Code]: Buy it now