Support NeoGAF

[Kazza]

Price: $15
Release date: 10th July 2019
Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4 Xbox One
Publisher/developer: Sega/ACE Team

Back in 1990/91 (93 for us poor Europeans), Enix/Quintet released a unique little game called ActRaiser. Offering a unique blend of sim city style god simulation and traditional 16-bit style action-platforming, as well as an atmospheric soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, the game became a minor hit, selling around 620k copies worldwide. Unfortunately, the developers decided to scrap the god-simulation parts for the sequel, leading to the game losing its uniqueness and being lost in the countless scrum of other 16-bit platformers. However, on June 27th Sega made the surprise announcement that they would be resurrecting the game, with a spiritual sequel called SolSeraph. They even got Yuzo Koshiro to do the opening credits music, but the rest is being composed by ACE Team's in-house musician, Patricio Meneses.

In the beginning, there was only Chaos...

...as far as the eye could see; until one day, Sky Father and Earth Mother drove the Chaos away and made the world. They made the stars and the sun and the waters and the land. And then they made plants and animals, and finally, their favorite creation: humankind.


When they were done, Sky Father and Earth Mother left the world, so it could grow freely on its own. But the Younger Gods were arrogant and cruel. They resented humans because humans had been granted the gift of storytelling; the gift of memory. So they tormented humankind with fires, storms, and floods, until all the tribes were scattered across the land, struggling for survival.


But Helios, Knight of Dawn, the child of god and man, came to humanity's aid...

STRATEGY MODE

In strategy mode, Helios will guide each tribe to expand their territory, building new homes, farms, roads and other means of daily life, while also manipulating the weather to the village's benefit. As he helps expand each population, they'll gain knowledge of new facilities that can be built, which Helios shares between the tribes. But with the constant threat of attacks from creature lairs, the tribes will also need defenses at the ready, constructing warriors' barracks, archer towers, spike traps, and more to prevent the monsters from reaching their bonfire, each tribe's heart and center.


The tribes will ultimately need to expand to the lands shrouded by dark fog, but by building a temple nearby to channel the light of Helios, the fog can be dispersed to reveal the creature lairs that lie within. It will be up to Helios alone to venture into these domains and defeat the creatures at their source, allowing the tribes to carry on life without Helios' divine intervention.

ACTION MODE

In action mode, Helios will delve into the creature lairs where he'll need to fight his way through utilizing his sword, shield, and magical archery. In his way stand various traps, creatures large and small, and even the embodiment of the dark fog itself. Destroying smaller lairs will help ease the monsters' attacks, but ultimately Helios will need to uncover the lair where the region's Younger God resides, putting an end to it and the monster attacks in the area for good.


With the destruction of each lair, Helios grows in power, strengthening his resilience and magical power. Defeating each Younger God will imbue Helios with new magical abilities, aiding his defeat of those he has left to strike down. He'll need all the help he can get, should Chaos ever return...

Spoiler: the different tribes/locations you will be taking control of

Travel through five different regions where you'll help the local tribe expand their territory while defending against the onslaught of monsters. Clear the dark fogs shrouding the lands and descend into the creature lairs to destroy them from within and strike down the Younger God that torments each region for good!

Plains of Widhu
Help Pria take on the responsibilities of her tribe from her aging grandfather, Manu, expanding the lush forests and plains of Widhu while defending against the threat of goblins and forest hulks. Amber slimes also plague the region, spawned by the King of Trees, Lord of Thorns and Amber.

Sekh Desert
Despite their barren lands terrorized by skeletons and giant scarabs, Arta and the shaman Xian remain optimistic they can return the Sekh desert to prosperity. The two elders are often heard bickering with a friendly rapport, even as the Queen of Bones strikes at their village with her serpent's tail.

Mount Agnir
In the valleys of Mount Agnir reside Perkunos and his young daughter, Pleto. Surrounded by a land of pitfalls and grotesque beastmen under reign of the King of Fire, the reluctant leader struggles to do his best to look after her and their tribe. Pleto remains hopeful, having faith in the light of Helios to guide them.

Arunan Isles
Their leaders all stricken down in unfortunate accidents, Maldai, Swadesh, and Attartu find themselves leading on their own, despite their youth. With the isolated nature of the Arunan Isles, they'll need to find a way to reconnect their people, even if it means offending the King of Floods and the undersea and jungle-dwelling creatures he commands.

Vale of Yeg
As the tribal elder Yemo lives out his last moments, his grandchildren Dehanu and Welnos must find a way to contend with Guma, who has risen as a leader among some of the tribe. Their lands buried under snow treaded by the cold minions of the Queen of Ice, they'll need to settle their differences for the greater good of the tribe.

Reviews have been dropping in the past few hours and, from what I've seen, they all seem to be pretty positive. Some criticise the sim/god elements as being a little too simplistic (IGN), whereas those with less experience of the genre seem to think they are a little hard/complex (DreamcastGuy). Whereas the strategy part seems to have been expanded somewhat (with tower defence aspects being added to the ability to attack monsters using your angel, as in ActRaiser), the platforming seems to be a much more straightforward copy from the original 16-bit game, with some difficulty spikes, few save points and knockback when you get hit (some reviews have complained about stiffness in movements, but this was the case with ActRaiser too). I played ActRaiser for the first time last year (I was Megadrive boy back in the day), and from watching actual gameplay (see John Riggs and Giant Bomb ) it does very much look like a slightly modernised ActRaiser that remains very faithful to the original (which is a good point, as far as I'm concerned).

Spoiler: Reviews

 

[ChuyMasta]

While the game is great and highly recommended, be sure to never die....which is near impossible on your first playthrough.

This game needs either balancing, better enemy placement or check points
Heck even a rewind feature will be awesome.

If you die during the 2D action sequences, you will potentially lose 15-20 minutes of progress.

 

[Punished Miku]

While the game is great and highly recommended, be sure to never die....which is near impossible on your first playthrough.

This game needs either balancing, better enemy placement or check points
Heck even a rewind feature will be awesome.

If you die during the 2D action sequences, you will potentially lose 15-20 minutes of progress.

I've taken 15-20 min shits before. What are you on about?

 

[cireza]

I wrote a review of the game (French website though, here is the link if you can read French Sega-Mag), sadly it was a bit disappointing. You can easily see the strengths of the game, with a pretty good presentation and soundtrack.

However, the level-design feels amateurish, with bad enemy placement, and the way they come in contact from the background and the foreground being a bad idea more than a good one (as they tend to come at you, but are invincible until they finally enter the same plan as the player, and the player is heavy to move).

Town management phases also lack strategy as you pretty much stack everything near the town, and resources management is a bit tedious, especially as the game does not indicate how much of each resource you are actually using (you only see the maximum).

Finally, on Xbox One X, the game runs extremely bad. The framerate is low and inconsistent. The game is probably locked to 4K which is really stupid, the option to choose between 1080 and 4K should be mandatory in games.

I don't want to be harsh to a small team with potential, they need to improve on their weak points and Sega/Atlus should have helped them more. In my opinion, it is the level-design that is the biggest problem here. They should greatly rework the levels, they have all the graphical assets...

Also, is this the only Atlus game we will be getting on Xbox ? With BC Catherine ? Come on Atlus.

 

[Kazza]

I wrote a review of the game (French website though, here is the link if you can read French Sega-Mag), sadly it was a bit disappointing. You can easily see the strengths of the game, with a pretty good presentation and soundtrack.

However, the level-design feels amateurish, with bad enemy placement, and the way they come in contact from the background and the foreground being a bad idea more than a good one (as they tend to come at you, but are invincible until they finally enter the same plan as the player, and the player is heavy to move).

Town management phases also lack strategy as you pretty much stack everything near the town, and resources management is a bit tedious, especially as the game does not indicate how much of each resource you are actually using (you only see the maximum).

Finally, on Xbox One X, the game runs extremely bad. The framerate is low and inconsistent. The game is probably locked to 4K which is really stupid, the option to choose between 1080 and 4K should be mandatory in games.

I don't want to be harsh to a small team with potential, they need to improve on their weak points and Sega/Atlus should have helped them more. In my opinion, it is the level-design that is the biggest problem here. They should greatly rework the levels, they have all the graphical assets...

Also, is this the only Atlus game we will be getting on Xbox ? With BC Catherine ? Come on Atlus.

Thanks for the review (Google Translate does a decent enough job, for non-French speakers interested in reading). I didn't realise Atlus had any hand in this (I thought it was just Sega and ACE Team). I don't think the short length is a problem, seeing as it is only a $15 game. The bad performance on Xbox X is definitely disappointing. Ironically, it might end up performing better on the S, if the game targets a 900p resolution. I only have my laptop available, and I don't think its Intel 620HD graphics will be able to handle it. While enemies coming in from the foreground and background looks cool, I can see it becoming annoying if they can take cheap shots at you without you being able to return fire. I don't like how the monsters follow the roads into town. You would think monsters wouldn't give a shit about obeying traffic laws!

 

[Tesseract]

bummer about some of the designs, still buying to support these dudes, hope they get it right next time

 

[Kazza]

I've taken 15-20 min shits before. What are you on about?

I think the game is trying to imitate the 16-bit style of platformer, but many folks today just don't have the patience to replay a segment longer than a couple of minutes. I fine with it, so long as it is actual gamepley you have to repeat, and not just cutscenes.

 

[cireza]

I didn't realise Atlus had any hand in this

Atlus has an history of publishing games from Ace Team. Since Sega bought Atlus, both merged and I believe that a big part of Sega USA is actually Atlus now. So I think that this release is handled by the same persons, even though it is now branded as Sega and not Atlus.

I will double-check in the credits of the game eventually.

 

[Pejo]

Just picked this up this morning, the wait to try it out is going to be painful at work today.

I've been waiting and hoping for an Actraiser sequel for like 20+ years, so I will take the good with the bad on this game and just be grateful to have it. The Steam reviews told me everything I needed to hear.

 

[Kazza]

Just picked this up this morning, the wait to try it out is going to be painful at work today.

I've been waiting and hoping for an Actraiser sequel for like 20+ years, so I will take the good with the bad on this game and just be grateful to have it. The Steam reviews told me everything I needed to hear.

Be sure to come back with a quick review once you're finished with the game. It would be great to hear what a hardcore ActRaiser fan thinks of it.

 

[Pejo]

So I wanted to mention, this is on sale on Steam right now for less than 8 bucks. Super worth it if you were a fan of the original Actraiser.