Lost Classics: Actraiser (SNES)

Long before merging with Squaresoft, Enix released this launch window SNES title which bought together Castlevania-caliber action and Sim-City style level building. Playing as “The master” (or God, as he was known in the Japanese release) you awaken from a sleep of hundreds of years to take down “The Evil One” (or Satan, as he was called in Japan). First however, you have to restore your powers by restoring the people’s faith in you by helping re-develop their land in simulation-style segments and by destroying the Evil One’s minions via side scrolling action segments. By preforming certain tasks during the simulation levels, the Master will unlock new powers and magic. For those who didn’t care much for the simulation levels, a hidden professional mode was available which featured a high difficulty and maxed out attributes for the main character. A sequel was released a few years later which left out the simulation levels altogether, although it was still every bit as enjoyable as the first. Actraiser has already been re-released on the Japanese and European Virtual Console, so I have no doubt that it will be arriving here shortly.

A little trivia on this game: Although the game was heavy on Judeo-Christian themes, Nintendo of America policy strictly forbade content which could remotely be deemed offensive (i.e. gore and religious themes). This same policy caused the spells ‘holy’ and ‘death’ from the American SNES versions of Final Fantasy 4 and 6 to be renamed ‘pearl’ and ‘doom’.