Actraiser Renaissance

Back in the day, loved the original Actraiser on the SNES. Given this, I do like the action sequences much better than the quasi-defense you do in the original, however - the interruptions on the original seem a bit more in pace with growing the town. Unfortunately, gave this remake one another go today just to see why I stopped playing it a while ago - and it's absolutely jarring in the amount of interruptions you get even in the first stage of Fillmore (past the initial 2 action stages). I get that they're trying to build you up for what's to come, but it's really horrible to be stopped every 5 to 10 seconds of gameplay with "hey, this happened"... also, fort mechanics? ugh. So - if you're more a fan of the "Action" than the tower defense style games, then this isn't for you - and if you like games that don't interrupt you FREQUENTLY in the first 10 minutes of play... then give this a pass.

I decided to stick with the game and finish it out of stubbornness, because the platforming segments were as good as they were in the original. I was hoping what I heard about the tedium of the town management part of the game was over-exaggerated but no, it was so bloody boring. The original game had a really good mix between some cool action platforming levels and some decent Sim City styled town management. The whole game can take like about 4 to 5 hours to finish. The amount of faff and really badly mobile-port tower defence segments slowed this remake down to a crawl, and the visual novel story segments were also so bloody boring compared to the brief but nuanced bits of narration in the original. By the time I had unlocked the second action-rpg platforming level, a full 1 and a half hours into the game, I was so soured towards the experience I almost didn’t care that those segments had been well recreated and were genuinely fun. Eventually I got into a flow with the tower-defence segments but only after putting the difficulty on easy, wouldn’t have gotten to the good bits of this if I hadn’t have done that. IMO, Quintet’s SNES games deserve so much better than this overblown …

They added a bunch of stupid mechanics to it. GRRRRRRRRR

There was a decent bug for me in special mode Bloodpool act 1, the boss did not trigger properly because the character kept running into the water and not jumping, it took me several attempts on normal, hard, and divine difficulty to clear because of this. Eventually i got so good at this stage i played it on divine crossing my fingers hoping to face the boss and eventually i did. Big fan of the original, i would say in some regards it is better, the platforming and combat is, but the simulation is not. The real time tower strategy bits are good, but, and this was the big but, there is just WAY too many interuptions. Do something - cutscene - do something 30 seconds later cutscene, and this happens in virtually all areas. The flow is not good. As an overall, i bought it on 60% discount and i liked it enough to get all the achievements. Yuzo Koshiro composed an absolute banger of a soundtrack, and if for some reason you do not like it, the original is there as well. It would have been nice if the OG Super Nintendo / Super Famicom was also included as a nice bonus, but not to take away from that. I would say it is an 8/10. Purchase for sure at a discount, at full price…

It's a fun remake except for two things. When you finish the main campaign boss, you have to sit all the way through the credits. After that, you can play the bonus stage. When you finish the bonus stage boss, you have to sit all the way through the credits again.

a great remaster of an already great game that mixes world building with platforming.