In 2019 I did the review of the first ActRaiser and I remember that in one of the comments that a person had left me, that person recommended me to play its sequel since it was equally good as the first game and that it also had a great graphical improvement. My response to that comment was that "in a short time I would play ActRaiser 2", but you all know by now that it wasn't like that. In fact, before writing this review I had my doubts about whether or not I had done the review of this game, because I really thought that I had done it, but it was not, and it has been a little more than 3 years since that day, but today I finally got to play and I bring you the review.
Being quite honest I remember practically nothing of the story of the first game and I was also lazy to read anything about it, so when playing this sequel I went in totally blind. The only thing I remember regarding the first game is that we controlled the representation of God on earth or something like that, I think I'm ranting, but anyway. The story of this sequel focuses on the classic battle of "good vs evil", but being very literal in this aspect, since the main protagonist of this game will be "The Master" a kind of very powerful God, which is fighting against Tanzra, which logically is a representation of God vs Lucifer. In this battle, Luficer, I mean Tanzra is defeated and expelled from heaven (obviously it is Luficer). Then, after his defeat, "Tanzra" falls to the underworld, defeated and destroyed, where his anger for God gives him enough strength to plan again a rebellion against God. Tanrza has the help of his Deadly Sins, who will be his landlords, and he also has an army of demons that he has spread throughout the world. Therefore, controlling the "Master" we must stop again this evil that threatens the world.
If we compare it with its prequel, ActRaiser 2 has a quite remarkable graphical improvement. Not only did it improve its artistic style, but in aspects such as sprites and colors it is practically a different game, but with enough details and elements to be recognized as a sequel or at least a derivative product of the first ActRaiser. The design of our main character, besides having a larger size than the protagonist of the previous game, also has much more elements and details in its design. As well as many more animations, being these animations in addition to good and varied, also have a decent fluidity of movements. Nothing spectacular, but they are very good. The scenarios also improved a lot with respect to its prequel. These have even more details and elements that create a better atmosphere and are visually more pleasant. It has more scenarios of diverse variety, so we will not get bored of always seeing the same types of scenarios.
The transparencies, visual effects such as lights stand out quite a lot on screen, plus we will always find some kind of animation in the backgrounds of scenarios, filling with life every place we go with our character. Undoubtedly this game visually is a graphical wonder of its time. The design of the enemies, some of them are quite basic, but the final bosses have very good designs, being mostly quite original and represent demons from the underworld itself, so the designs are nightmarish.
The whole sound aspect of this game is quite good, ActRaiser 2 has a good variety of melodies composed to fit very well with the scenarios and situations that we will live along this adventure for world salvation. I was doing some research on who was in charge of the soundtrack of this game and it was a person named Yuzo Koshiro, who was in charge of the soundtrack of Street of Rage, so the musical quality of this game is very assured. On the other hand, the sound effects also stand out in this game, sound effects adequate and very well done that contribute much to the immersion of the gameplay. I think that many times sound effects are not much appreciated and really this is a very important aspect in a video game.
ActRaiser 2, unlike the first game, completely eliminates an aspect that made ActRaiser 1 quite fun, which was the civilization building and management section. I really don't know why they took this decision to completely eliminate this game mode that, interspersed with the platforming and action parts, made ActRaiser 1 a more fun game. But in this sequel, ActRaiser 2 is now a totally action game, which is still fun and entertaining, but it really misses that management part that the previous game had. Therefore, ActRaiser 2 remains in the line of the classic games of this style, where we will have to advance along side-scrolling scenarios, which will be full of enemies to defeat. Using the available skills of our character as: jump, fly, a basic attack with his sword and we can also defend ourselves using the shield, we will fight with a horde of enemies from the underworld itself that want to eliminate us. We will also be able to use diverse types of magics that are of great utility.
I would have liked that in this sequel they kept the construction and resource management section that was in the first game and although it was a fairly simple mode it was quite entertaining, plus it created an interesting contrast in the gameplay. But unfortunately in this sequel they eliminated it, as I mentioned before, but even so we will have a side action game with a fairly easy and entertaining control over our character. On many occasions the difficulty of this game rises to very high levels and becomes a little unfair and frustrating, that change of difficulty so fast often leaves you a little blank, but nothing that with a little practice and patience can be overcome.
Although not having the construction mode subtracts points in the overall score of ActRaiser 2, it is still a game that is still very entertaining in its side-scrolling action mode, the action is part from start to finish so there will be a lot of fun, plus this is a sequel that greatly improves the graphics compared to the first game. Highly recommended, but again: it lacks the construction mode that was so characteristic of the previous game.
