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ActRaiser 2 is a an action platformer developed by Quintet and published by Enix. It was released in late 1993 for the SNES. It is the sequel to ActRaiser, but only includes action moments and has no city building simulator levels like the previous game.
Gameplay[]
Actraiser 2 is notable for removing the city building segments to focus primarily on the action segments. The player assumes the role of The Master (referred to as "God" in the Japanese version in reference to the almighty God depicted in Judaism), controls a floating palace to survey the people below. The world becomes infested with monsters and evil, so the Master descends from his palace to save his subjects. Similar to the original, each area contains two acts. The first act of an area consists of fighting monsters that spawned from a lesser demon. The second act consists of fighting monsters spawned from one of the seven deadly sins. As expected, the second act is more difficult than the first. The side-scrolling action for ActRaiser 2 (now the main focus of the game) is much more advanced than that of ActRaiser. Controlling the Master, now with wings (similar to an angel), the player must navigate through dungeons by jumping, falling, flying, and floating between platforms. The Master has a sword and a shield at his disposal, but use of magic is crucial to success. Magic can be executed by holding down the designated button (to charge) and then releasing the button, consuming a magic scroll. The Master only has a limited number of magic scrolls for each area. Magic has various forms that it may take. These forms depend on The Master's position, as opposed to the first game's approach. Each magic in ActRaiser 2 is designed for certain situations, and some types of magic are more powerful than others.
Increasing the difficulty level in the options menu causes the game to take more time to charge magic attacks. Also, monsters will have more health than normal.
Plot[]
Development[]
Due to the good sales of the first ActRaiser, Enix requested that Quintet make a sequel. The sequel was made according to Enix's specifications, to the detriment of the game's quality. The team that worked on the game was almost identical to the team that worked on the original.
Reception[]
ActRaiser 2 received generally positive reviews. Critics thought that the game's approach to storytelling was particularly good. However, many believed that the game was worse than the original due to the lack of city building segments. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a 8.75 out of 10, the game's best review. Nintendo Power gave the game its worst review with a score of 3.675 out of 5 (or a 7.35 out of 10 for comparison).
Sales[]
ActRaiser 2 didn't quite live up to the success of its predecessor, as the origninal ActRaiser sold four times more units than its sequel worldwide. In Japan, the game sold 40,000 units, and it sold the same amount in Europe. In North America, 100,000 units were sold. Interestingly, the North American sales of the sequel were 55% that of the original. In Europe, both games sold the same amount of copies. However, the main reason for the drop in sales between the games was due to lost interest in Japan. ActRaiser sold 400,000 units in Japan, and its sequel sold a tenth of that.
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