Act Raiser was developed by Quintet Co. Ltd and published by Enix Corporation (formal name to Square Enix Co. Ltd ) for the Super Nintendo in 1990. The game was widely popular at the time, and it spawned a sequel three years later. But does Act Raiser shine after 16 years buried in the dust?From the game’s point of view (not the bible), you play God. In other words, you share his elemental abilities, travel the world in a sky palace-like edifice and control all that resides on Earth, other than the devilish hell-bringers. The Master, or the God (if you may), falls into a deep slumber which enables the vile Tanzra to muster up a evil plan, and capture the six different lands of the world. When he awakens, the Master must conjure his powers and prowess to win back the lands and defeat Tanzra. While the story revolves around a very cliche plot, it’s not difficult to see bible references. As author Thomas C. Foster would say”, When in doubt, look toward the bible…or Shakespeare.

The real action starts in the Sky Palace, where you’ll be given a set of menus which contain myriad commands (God controls, basically). Act Raiser is broken up into two ways to play, though both coincide every now and again. Upon starting the game, The Master (you), is given a very straight-forward objective by your angel assistance: destroy the monster which reside in the land and help restore order for the people. In order to destroy the monsters, you’ll embody yourself into a knight figure, and take on ravenous creatures via side-scrolling. After battling hell (literally), you’ll be taken to the citizens who live in the lands, in which more God work is given to you. From here, the game splits into a RTS Deity simulator. The only reason I say “God Work”, is because Act Raiser feels like the movie Bruce Almighty, the game literally takes your hand and tells you what to do.

The real problem is comparing the equality of the side-scrolling action, and the deity-styled RTS. When playing the RTS feature, you’ll be able to direct the citizens to build upon their town, while battling an infinite amount of creatures ready to destroy everyone. The entire sequence is time consuming and hectic, but it all works. The game isn’t built on a non-linear scale, which enables you to fight and give commands freely. God willing (pun not intended) Act Raiser could act as a RTS on it’s own, because it can.

While the simulation part is amusing and exciting, the side-scrolling becomes the mind-numbing problem of the game. Trying to adapt a Valkyrie Profile styled game (though this came first), you’ll engage in side scrolling action to fight off monster which couldn’t be reached by the Sky Palace. Not to heckle the style, but it’s quite obvious that the developers put more time in one part of the game over the other, because the ratio doesn’t balance out. Your objective is to make it out of the level alive, and defeat the master-boss who controls that domain. Act Raiser doesn’t even come close to the likes of Castlevania because of clunky gameplay mechanics and controls. In other words, the idea was good, but it was poorly executed. Despite being God, you can only use two buttons to slash and jump. It’s disappointing that the other four SNES buttons were disabled, because the action becomes tiresome and tedious after 10-20 minutes. In order to actually kill something, you literally have to abut an enemy to deliver damage. It doesn’t help because the minute you die, it’s back to the beginning of the level.

Act Raiser is a very engaging title which breeds different genres of gaming. While the deity simulations is witty and enjoyable, the side scrolling falls flat on it’s face. But it’s up to the buyer to decide whether the ratio is balanced out equally or not.

Overall Score: 7 / 10