after watching a particular game review on youtube i became reinterested in playing actraiser. unlike most of the games i’m interested in replaying, i don’t really have a long involved history with actraiser. in fact, i remember only renting it for a weekend and becoming quickly disinterested. i don’t think i ever played it past the 2nd town. not necessarily disinterested because it was a bad game, it just took a really spectacular game to hold my interest when i was a teenager.

the game is a hybrid of arcade fantasy fighters (like magic sword or golden axe), a city simulation, and an rpg. revisiting the city sim portion is what wanted me to play the game again. i played for a little while last night and then some more this morning and was able to finish the game. it’s not that long of a game with 6 cities that have two stages each and then a final boss showdown. i’d say the game has a medium difficulty level. some of the bosses are fairly easy and others are pretty tough. i used the magic stardust spell often to get through the tougher bosses. the stages vary in difficulty as well, the harder ones being in the jungle and winter climates. the 1up system is interesting. 1up’s only apply for the stage you are currently playing. so if you have 3 lives and you lose them all on one stage the game isn’t actually over. you just end up back at the sky palace with another chance to try again. that being said, i think i could have beaten the game when i was younger if i had put some effort into it. 1ups and health are fairly placed throughout the stages so that they aren’t impossible to beat. i’d say the most difficult and frustrating part is trying to avoid dying by falling into a pit, lava, or spikes. also the more you play a stage and get used to the layout and enemies, the easier it becomes to play.

play control for the game is actually pretty fluid. the jumping is kind of stiff, but the game is very lenient with landing on ledges. many times i thought i misstepped a jump yet ended up securely on a ledge anyways. so this aspect makes up for the somewhat stiff jumping. my only other minor complaint is that it’s kind of difficult to land a jump attack without getting injured in the process.

i mentioned that i was intrigued by the city sim gameplay peviously. playing it now, i’d be hardpressed to call this a “sim”. there’s hardly any sim elements besides growing the population of the cities. so it’s somewhat clumsy with the city simulation attempt, however, i really like the idea how the sim and combat portions are interrelated. for instance, the population of the cities determines which experience level you are, not how many enemies you’ve killed in combat. also the type of spells you can cast and how often are determined by the goings on of the city folk. solving the quests of the citizens is the more interesting aspect of the cities, not really the simulation gameplay itself.

now to backtrack some…actraiser was one of the first games to launch with the north american release of the snes. i remember getting all hyped up by the teaser shots of actraiser in nintendo power. i remember the initial game coverage as well. i was amazed by the graphics, it was a such a huge departure from the capabilities of the NES. the game still looks pretty awesome (during the combat portions at least). it especially is impressive considering this was basically a launch title. the music is good too, some of the tracks reminded me of music from the snes star wars games.

overall, i’d say that actraiser is indeed a good game. however, i don’t think i’d label it a must play classic.

i’ve just begun playing dragon warrior 2. it’s interesting that i never had dragon warrior 2, 3, or 4 when i was kid since i loved the first game so much. i think the reason for that is because nintendo power greatly dictated which games i knew about and which games i became interested in. there was only brief coverage of dragon warrior 2 & 3 in the 1991 issue (vol. 27). nothing like the previous coverage of dragon warrior 1. and during this same period, nintendo power was previewing the super nes which was soon to come out. knowing the younger me, the nes was probably dead to me at this point as i anticipated the snes debut. side note: looks like super nes games didn’t become the main focus for nintendo power until the first issue of 1993 (vol. 44). another side note: i believe the august 1993 issue (vol. 51) was the end of my subscription (approximately). this would be the time period were i ignored the snes and focused on playing PC games. i got back into the snes and nintendo power near the end of 1994/beginning of 1995 w/ vol. 67 and 68.

i’ve only briefly played dragon warrior 2 during the late 90’s and that was for probably an hour or so. i’m counting this play-through as my true first impression. dragon warrior 2 maintains a lot of the same style of the first game. menu actions have been simplified. there is no longer a separate option for stairs, when you walk on stairs it’s assumed that you want to use them. there is no longer a door option either. when you need to use a key you use it from the item menu. and finally the “take” functionality is now part of the search action. dragon warrior 2 introduces a party/group of playable characters. enemies can also appear in groups.

the 2nd playable character to join the party is the prince of cannock. he is the magic user of the group. thus far he’s proven to be fairly good at getting killed…but at least he can cast heal and antidote. dragon warrior 2 introduces enemies that can poison party members…always my favorite thing in an rpg :/.

my biggest complaint about the game so far is that the enemies are ridiculous. mostly nonsense cartoonish things that are incredibly ugly. the color palettes used for enemies in this game are vomit-inducing. i always viewed the enemies in dragon warrior 1 to be crude renditions of the awesome illustrations in the strategy guide. and some looked incredibly good such as the dragons. the point i’m trying to make is that i always thought the enemies of dragon warrior were meant to be serious (except perhaps for the slimes). so it’s disappointing to me that the rest of the series retained a very cartoonish look. it’s hard to immerse oneself in a fantasy game where you’re controlling a party of warriors, mages, what have you, and you have to go around fighting cartoons. i prefer the more serious depictions in the final fantasy series.

update 6/2/2013:
the game is pretty decent. i have all 3 characters in the party now. the prince of cannock actually isn’t that bad of a character. he’s kind of a warrior/mage hybrid and he can somewhat hold his own in physical combat. the last addition to the party is the princess of moonbrooke and she is solely a magic user. her physical combat skills are almost non-existent and she becomes the character most likely to die. in fact, she is a burden to have in the party for quite some time. the princess’ infernos spell is very useful for damaging large groups of enemies though.

having the victims of moonbrooke exist as ghostly flames was pretty cool, as was the princess being transformed into the form of a dog. i also liked the geography of alefgard from the first game existing in dragon warrior 2. i was surprised by there being a ship in a dragon warrior game, for some reason, i thought vehicles were exclusive to the FF series.

after visiting tantegal and charlock, it’s not really clear on where to proceed to next. i’m kind of just wandering around at the moment. right now the hero is level 18, prince is level 16, and the princess is level 12.