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1990 · SNES · Super Famicom
| Region | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 16 Dec 1990 | Enix |
| North America | Nov 1991 | Enix |
| Europe and Australia | 18 Mar 1993 | Enix |
Half god game, half sword-swinging platformer, and nothing else on the SNES quite like it. You are the Master, a deity who wakes after centuries of sleep to find the world carved up by the Evil One, Tanzra, and his lieutenants, and your power faded because nobody believes in you any more.
Each of the world's regions plays in two modes. On the ground, you possess a statue and fight through a side-scrolling action stage to a boss. From the sky, you guide an angel over an overhead map as a small band of settlers grows into a civilisation: you point them where to build roads, clear land with lightning, rain and earthquakes, and shoot down the flying monsters that raid their homes. Seal the four monster lairs and the town flourishes. A bigger population means more hit points and magic for you, and a second action stage closes out each region.
Quintet developed it and Enix published it in Japan in 1990, within six months of the Super Famicom's launch. Yuzo Koshiro's score was one of the first to show what the console's sampled sound could do, and EGM named it best music of 1993.
In Japan the hero is God and the villain Satan. Nintendo of America's rules on religious content turned them into the Master and Tanzra, though the allegory is plain to see. The North American release also rebalanced the game, making the action easier and the town-building harder, and added a Professional mode of action stages alone. Quintet reported 620,000 copies sold worldwide.
The simulation half is the surprise. Nudging a village into a city, answering prayers and watching the population tick up is soothing and oddly moving, and the way it feeds your power in the action stages gives both halves a purpose. Koshiro's music is gorgeous throughout.
The action half is the weaker. The statue is stiff, jumps feel heavy, and the stages are short and plain next to the SNES's best platformers, though the bosses, drawn from mythology and religion, are memorable. The simulation can also get fiddly, with a lot of time spent shooting pests off the map. Taken as a whole, it is unusual and charming more than it is polished.
ActRaiser begins with a god who has lost power because nobody believes any more. You win it back the slow way: answering prayers, clearing land with rain and lightning, watching a few settlers turn into a town. It is a strange, gentle fantasy to put in a cartridge, and a revealing one.
Andrew Przybylski and colleagues found games are most engaging when playing a character brings people closer to their ideal self. So what ideal does ActRaiser offer? Not conquest. Care. Your strength grows with the population; you are only as mighty as your people are well. Donald Winnicott saw play as the space between inner and outer worlds, where people are creative and find a self. The town screens feel like that space: somewhere to try being patient, protective and useful, with nothing real at stake. Plenty of games let you be a hero. ActRaiser lets you be responsible, and makes that feel like power.
Read: Who you are when you play →
Verdict · 8/10
A one-of-a-kind blend of god game and action platformer with a superb score. The action is merely decent; the idea is what lasts.
