ActRaiser 2 (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
1,028A playthrough of Enix's 1993 action-platformer for the Super Nintendo, ActRaiser 2.
Played on the hard difficulty level.
Following up on previous hits ActRaiser (https://youtu.be/iJTnHa9aWiA ) and Soul Blazer (https://youtu.be/clPT-KSffOw ), Quintet in 1993 finally unleashed the highly anticipated follow-up to their popular pair of religiously-themed SNES games.
And it met with a much colder reception than the earlier two games had enjoyed. It reviewed reasonably well in magazines, but the game was universally criticized for its omission of the simulation portions of the original game, and it lacked the RPG world-building elements of Soul Blazer. ActRaiser 2 strictly focuses on its core platforming action, and everything else is relegated to the role of fancy window-dressing.
It still often meets with a somewhat icy attitude of indifference, and though I used to feel the same way about it, my opinion has shifted quite a bit over the years. For a long time I regarded it as a lame, soulless cash-in on something I thought was special - a half-measure and a half-game. I never gave it a fair shake because I was disappointed over the missing sim mode.
That was really unfair of me, though. By focusing on what it didn't do, I missed out on what it did well, and ActRaiser 2 does a lot of things well.
The platforming has evolved beyond recognition from the first game's. It's far more nuanced and provides an amazing amount of freedom of movement for a game of its time. Since your character now has wings in his earthly form, you can double-jump, glide, and dive, and each of those moves has its own set of attacks that you can use to lay waste to the corrupted enemy hordes.
You can swing your sword in any direction, and you get a full compliment of eight magical attacks that are usable from the outset. Though a couple of them are far more useful than the rest, having so many options gives players the leeway to decide for themselves how to tackle each area.
The controls do take some real effort to come to grips with, though. I've read a lot of people complaining about how difficult the game makes it to jump without flying straight into hazards, but it really isn't hard - it's just not as immediately intuitive as you'd expect coming from ActRaiser. ActRaiser 2's mechanics are significantly more complex, and the controls reflect that. After an hour or two it all feels quite natural, and I'm surprised, in all honesty, that it all works as well as it does with so few buttons.
The game's steep difficulty curve levels out somewhat as you come to grips with the controls, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the most challenging platformers I've played on the SNES. It's also one of the most satisfying I've played. You can tackle the stages in any order you like, and since you don't carry items or power-ups between stages, you aren't inherently handicapped in playing any stage before any other. The variety that this allows is a real boon when progress is so slow and so hard won in ActRaiser 2, but the legitimate feeling of accomplishment and improvement I had as I made it through the stages kept me coming back until I had finished it.
The graphics and sounds provide some excellent incentives to push on, as well. There are few, if any, other games on SNES that can compete with the show ActRaiser 2 puts on. The sprites, backgrounds, transparent foregrounds - at the risk of sounding completely ridiculous, I've got to say that there's something both miraculous and sublime in seeing this come from a Super Nintendo. It's gorgeous, and its art direction elevates the presentation well beyond the likes of even Final Fantasy III or Donkey Kong Country. The music is equally as fantastic. Yuzo Koshiro returns for the sequel, and though his score is a lot less melodic in ActRaiser 2, it's much better at evoking a mood, and the quality of the instruments has dramatically improved. It's not the sort of thing that you'd listen to outside of the game, but it perfectly balances with the art to create an impact. Some of these backdrops and set pieces are as memorable as you'll ever experience in a game. It's amazing that they somehow crammed it all into a 12 megabit cart.
I know that I'll never forget, for example, the first time I saw the stage beginning at 1:41:12. It was such a poignant scene to begin the final area with, and I clearly remember the eerily subdued and somber tone hitting me like a ton of bricks. It was so damned effective without overplaying any of its elements.
If it's not already crystal clear, I adored ActRaiser 2. It may not have been what I thought I wanted, but once I gave it a chance, I quickly came to realize that it was one of the best action games ever made for the SNES.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!