Actraiser2

Okay, I admit. The pregame special is a nice touch, although I wish Tanzra was so easy to kill in this game.

Okay, what the FUCK was Enix thinking? What drugs were they on when this game was produced and released onto the streets of America? That's really all this article on this super mega crazy tough game needs. But I still feel that I need to poison your mind with the horrible tragedy that was ActRaiser2.

Let's be honest, now. We all know how much ass the first ActRaiser kicked. It was so much fucking fun playing God (or "The Master"), and building each town accordingly, along with using the powers of the weather to alter the landscape. The thrill of watching the little pixels scatter across your roads, sealing monster lairs and making little farmlands brought little riles. Also, before and after each town was 'complete' (that is, having sealed the monster lairs), you get to fight in a side-scroller, hacking and slashing your way to the boss of that level. Doing this over and over again in each town never really got old. And then you got to fight all the main bosses over again, along with Tanzra at the end. With the Starstorm spell, none of these bosses were hard, but that sure didn't keep it from being fun.

Oh! Well, why didn't you say that to begin with? Now the plot makes all kinds of sense!

And then came the sequel. Instead of the fun little interactive town sequences, game play was condensed to mainly side-scrollers. The angel representative was taken out too, and now The Master has wings. Not too bad. Magic is also avaliable at the beginning of the game. What made it so bad then? A combination of factors. Control was god damn horrid, first off... it's like controlling a fucking complicated flight simulator with a nintendo controller. Maybe worse at times. This wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that each jump across pits had to be made precisely - pretty damn hard when the controls themselves aren't precise. Oh yeah, you could also choose from three difficulty levels.

Even though the three difficulty levels ranged from Easy, Normal and Hard, it might as well have been fucking labelled Hard, Very Hard, and No god damn way you're beating this game. Don't take my word for it. Play through it yourself, without the instruction manual. The game is so vague on everything, you wouldn't know where to go first if it wasn't for common sense.

But wait, even common sense can't bail you out here - The first level is tough enough as it is! Right off the start of the game you're expected to be an expert at the controls. If not, you'll die before you reach the mini-boss of the stage. The boss of the stage is even worse.

THAT'S the damn ending I get for Easy mode? You couldn't have even had the fucking decency to spell "congratulations" right!

I mean, what the hell is this? There is no interaction with the townspeople - a brief description is all you get. Hell, even the guy who talks to you at the beginning even admits that. Basically, you're spending 90% of your time fighting in hard as hell dungeons. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying it's impossible to beat this game. Hell, with an emulator and save/load state capabilities, you too can beat this game simply by saving and loading at convient times! Yep, you too can then beat "Easy" mode, and make it to the final bo... wait, what the hell? You mean that after making it through some god damn tower with replayed sub-bosses and a new tough boss, I don't get to fight Tanzra? I just get a message telling me to try a HIGHER DIFFICULTY LEVEL?? WHAT THE FUCK? What kind of cheesy ending is this?

That's not even the worst part. I managed to track down a password to get by the shitty Easy ending, and get to Tanzra through the Normal password. After going through the main-bosses again using the save and load state, I finally made it to Tanzra. And I lost. Badly. I don't understand it myself, but I don't really think Tanzra was meant to be beaten. Maybe he edited the damn game script or something. Maybe Tanzra doesn't like to lose, so he sits there and kicks your ass (remember, your guy is supposed to be a God), and laughs as you lose over and over... and over and over again. It kind of gets old after the 20th time, after which you get the last laugh over his sick ass and just shut off the game and do something else.

Of course, now that you've read this, you won't have to go through the trouble of playing it and giving Tanzra his sick riles. Yep, the programmers have sold their soul to the devil... litterally!

Oh shit. Death Field brings another dead soul to the battlefield... The Master he ain't.

Overall Review:

Graphics: The enhanced graphics are better than ActRaiser's, true... but what good does it matter when the animation you'll see mainly is your dead rotting corpse sinking into oblivion?

Sound: Same logic applies here, too. If you're like most other players, the sound you'll hear most is the "raahh" sound, or the death sound.

Gameplay: hahahahahahahaha oh you want a serious response! hahaha! hoo...

Plot: The main damn idea is the fact that you're fighting against your own people possessed by devils. Little to no background on each town is given - and the fact that none of the towns are remotely close to the names in the first ActRaiser makes little sense, either. The plot blows, have your little sister or brother write one of their paper RPGs, and they'll come up with a better one, I'm sure.

Difficulty: Learning how to fly should present an easier challenge than this. And I'm not talking about getting your pilot's license, either.

So, don't buy this game. Simply download a ROM of this game, and play it off an emulator - using cheats, of course... then again, why bother? Even WITH cheats you'll still get pissed off.

~Shaun