About ActRaiser

ActRaiser is a single player mix of alternating overhead city-building simulation and side-scrolling platform action. The protagonist in the English version is 'The Master'. A deity who's been away for a while and returns to find his people have been lead astray and their civilization destroyed by the demon Tanzra, "The Evil One". The player is controls things as the Master descends from heaven on a cloud to observer the people and causes a stone statue to be possessed with his spirit. Using this this living statue armed with a sword, demons are slain and souls are freed. The sim mode begins with the creation of a male and female to tend a population center as the Master eliminates more demons and miraculously prepares the way for the people to build and multiply in their little corner of the world. In this view, and angel armed with a bow and arrow is directed against demons emerging from their layers to attack the people. Meanwhile, the people are directed to seal the layers and build where the master directs. At a certain point, the local demons and their leader will regroup to stop the progress. At this point the Master inhabits a statue to finish the job in action mode. This continues for 6 regions until one final standalone action stage completed.

The game's story is in fact a Judeo-Christian allegory; confirmed by the Japanese story of ActRaiser 2 where the protagonist and antagonist characters are revealed to be named God and Satan. No religion/faith tag yet applies to this game entry, however, because the religion of the game's creators is currently unknown to the uvl community (stay tuned). Even without the revelation of the true names of these characters, the allegory is pretty blatant. The Master descends and ascends to heaven, is accompanied by angel(s), creates life (beginning with a male and female), frees souls, performs miracles, destroys demons, creates order and peace out of chaos and strife, he cannot lose (though the player can), defeats the evil one, listens to and answers prayers, accepts offerings (which in turn benefit the people), casts false gods out of his temple, and is totally ignored by the people as soon as they perceive their problems have been eliminated and he loves them anyway.

Hint: Preforming better in the action mode will actually cause more demos to inhabit the lairs in the sim mode. This in turns leads to a higher population potential for the region.
The world map resembles North America
The English version was much easier than the original. But, upon beating the game, the Japanese difficulty level for the action mode is unlocked.
ActRaiser was provided for Wii's Virtual Console in 2007.