Actraiser Renaissance is a management, platform, strategy game, developed by Square Enix and Sonic Powered, published by Square Enix, released on September 24, 2021 and available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC (Steam), App Store and Google Play.
As soon as announced, as soon as released, Actraiser Renaissance is a remaster of Actraiser released on Super Nintendo in 1993 in Europe.
Actraiser puts us in the shoes of a returning deity after being driven out by the Demon King, it aims to help the weak and fragile humans to reconquer the Earth. It's a rather atypical game offering several types of gameplay divided into several phases.
First, aboard the celestial castle, you have to travel the planet and go to a region. Before humans can return, the area must be cleared.
The first phase of the game begins. We thus find ourselves taking control of a terrestrial avatar, in side-scroller and having to fight the various demons and monsters, until eliminating the boss of the temple.
Once this is done, the management phase begins. Humans begin to come, and it is then possible to guide them to begin building their city and developing their civilization in the region.
You don't directly control the placement of buildings, etc. In reality, humans can only be told a "direction" in which to build. This also allows you to set up the "roads", which will be extremely useful and important, especially during monster invasions (which I talk about a little later in the article).
Thus, humans will build houses, workshops, fields, etc. Houses naturally serve to house humans and increase their population. The workshops allow you to recover construction resources as well as barricades (useful during invasions). The fields, meanwhile, allow you to recover food, used to restore life to our angel, as well as drinks, used to recover magic points.
Food and drinks are also useful during this phase of gameplay, because while your humans are developing their civilization, we control our angel, intermediary between humans and us, who will have to protect humans by killing the demons that regularly come to us. offensive.
It is also during this phase that it is possible to use the many miracles at our disposal. Lightning, rain, sun, wind and earth. The effects are very different and varied from one to another, as well as from one phase of gameplay to another.
In the “civilization development” phase, the various powers are used to “terraform” the regions. For example, to destroy a forest, you must use the power of lightning. If the area is full of swamps, the power of the sun can dry them up and make the area habitable. In a desert area, rain makes it livable and brings water, etc. However, be careful, in this phase, certain powers (such as earth or lightning) destroy human constructions. This will be necessary if you want them to "reorganize" their civilization, but also to destroy old buildings and allow humans to build more advanced ones.
Regularly, your civilization will suffer from monster invasions. Then enters a new phase of gameplay: strategy. It's like a kind of tower defense. The objectives differ, but most often boil down to protecting your temple and your hero.
Thus, several waves of enemies will be sent (appearing randomly). To defend yourself, you will be able to build and place different buildings, such as archer or magic towers, walls/gates and, above all, your hero! Each region has its own protector that you can lead, with its specificities and powers, and that it is possible to evolve. As you "liberate" regions, you will summon heroes from other regions to come and help you in a different region.
During this phase, miracles will also be usable. Unlike the construction phase, you can use them without worrying about human constructions, the latter will not be affected, only enemies will take damage. Each enemy is weak or resistant to certain miracles. Each of these miracles comes with secondary effects: slowing down the enemy, blocking them in place, etc.
After having sufficiently developed the civilization of a region, the demon responsible for the region will be accessible and thus begins the last phase. The latter is similar to the first, since you will embody your avatar on Earth who will have to explore a temple, a forest, a castle, etc. in side-scroller before defeating the final boss.
Once this is completed, the region will be totally free! You can then either move to a new region to help other civilizations, or stay in the current one to continue to evolve the civilization. Throughout the game, your humans will offer you many quests and will have many requests. These allow you to develop your heroes, your earthly avatar, as well as your civilizations. Some quests will require you to evolve other civilizations in order to retrieve a requested resource or item.
Conclusion
Actraiser Renaissance is a wonderful surprise. Coming out of nowhere and available at the very minute of its announcement, the game has retained all the charm of the game of the time, while offering a very good quality remaster and some improvements that make the game much more enjoyable.
The game may seem "cheap", but it actually offers many hours of play if you want to evolve your different civilizations, your heroes and your avatar to the end.
