Actraiser Renaissance

Action platform game with strategy elements. Actraiser Renaissance is a remastered version of the game released on the SNES in 1990 and offers additional gameplay mechanics and new songs in the soundtrack in addition to graphical improvements. It was published by Square Enix.

Plot

In Actraiser Renaissance we take on the role of a being called "Lord of Light". Together with his angels, he used to protect humanity until one of his enemies summoned six of his servants to this world. With their help the Lord of Light was overthrown and put to sleep in a place called Sky Palace, but after some time he managed to wake up. At this point the action of the game begins.

Our task is to rebuild human population and defeat hostile demons. We do it both by exploring available locations and eliminating all enemies on our way as well as by developing the city which is the main bastion of humanity in this world.

Mechanics

Actraiser Renaissance is divided into two parts: moving through platform locations and developing the settlement in the strategy section. In the first one we observe everything from a 2D perspective, typical for platform games. As Lord of Light we face many types of opponents, both regular mobs and powerful bosses. We can perform normal attacks and ones supported by spells, using our mana reserves. Among them we'll find both spells that simply strengthen the attacks, as well as those that allow us to perform special attacks such as fireball. We regain health and mana by destroying special objects in the game or by reaching the appropriate shrines. We gain experience points by defeating enemies and each level we gain automatically increases some of our character's stats.

We go to each of the locations to perform one of the available tasks. Their goals are not particularly complicated and revolve around defeating specific enemies or gaining special resources for our settlement. From time to time we also talk with other characters, asking us for help or offering us support in our efforts to rebuild humanity.

In the strategy window we deal with the development of the human city. We decide where to put buildings, acquire resources for their construction by cutting down trees or getting rid of rocks, and set up fortifications. These are especially important, because from time to time we will be attacked by enemy forces, and a good positioning of forts is the key to effectively repel the attacks. Thanks to the appearance of new characters in the game, expanding the settlement and completing available tasks can take up to twice as much time as in the original game.

Technical aspects

Actraiser Renaissance features a polished, pixel art graphics and the soundtrack is composed by Yuzo Koshiro, who was responsible for the music in the original production.