ActRazer

This game is apparently a parody of ActRaiser in some ways, but since I didn't even know what ActRaiser was before plating ActRazer, I'll ignore this and pretend this game is entirely unique.

ActRazer is very strange. It is also very good. Though I will anticipate an average score, this game is not average in most senses. It has got some distinctly great features, and some notably bad design mistakes.

You play as Kefka (from Final Fantasy VI) who's just lost his powerful 3 statues and now needs a power source replacement in order to cast the mega-powerful spell Light of Judgement, so he can carry on with his daily world destruction routine. He finds an angel that tells him about this other powerful statue, much more powerful than the former 3 ones. Kefka gets the statue, but someone breaks it in 3 pieces and scatters them all over the world. Now Kefka must find the three pieces of the statue and bring its power back together, with the help of the for-some-weird-reason loyal angel... and a panda.

GAMEPLAY
After the bizarre comedic intro, you would expect a bizarre comedic game, but it's nothing like it. ActRazer's gameplay is solid, interesting, diverse and appealing. It is also very clearly structured:
The world is divided in four areas. Three areas contain a piece of the statue, plus one warm-up area (4 areas total). The first thing you have to do in each area is destroy enough buildings and kill enough people so the villagers will fear you and tell where the statue is located.
The first aspect of the gameplay is this building destruction thing. You take control of the angel, and you're thrown in a map full of buildings and monsters. You must fire arrows and kill the monsters to get Skill Points. Skill points are used to cast Light of Judgement, which destroy buildings/kills people, and they're also required to activate other special abilities. Some monsters are pretty easy one-hit kills, while others will chase you, or take more hits to kill. On later areas, there are also monsters that will rebuild whatever you destroy. It comes down to being quick, accurate and smart. It is actually fun, and not that hard.
After you've destroyed enough buildings, villagers will tell you where the statue is. That will open a new area on the map. This second area contains a different gameplay style, more RPG-like. Now you take control of the full group (Kefka+Angel+Panda). This part is very straightforward. Maps are somewhat small (no mazes or XL maps), enemies are few (9 each area), and you mission is basically killing enemies and solving puzzles. A counter will tell you how many enemies are left to kill. Puzzles will open the way to the other sections of that area. Finally, there's a boss battle at the end of each area.

You can also set a difficulty level at the beginning of the game and change it if you like before entering areas. Easy difficulty allows you to skip puzzles, but you don't learn extra abilities. I'm not sure if there are any other differences, because I played on easy the entire time.

So, basically, this game combines 3 different gameplay aspects: 1) Building destruction minigame, 2) regular RPG battles, and 3) puzzles.

1- BUILDING DESTRUCTION
This part is really fun and quite easy to get the hang of. You play it 4 times, and each time the difficulty is slightly increased, but it never gets too hard, nor it's too easy, so balancing is just right. There's also enough variety and dynamism to never make it boring. Sadly I only played on easy and didn't get new abilities, but I never needed them anyway. You need to destroy a certain amount of buildings to proceed, but you can return to previously beaten areas any time and try to top your own score.

2- RPG BATTLES
Standard RM2K3 DBS. You get a party of 3, and enemy groups are 2-4 taking 2-5 hits to kill each. They don't do much damage, and you get enough skills and items to make sure battles are never a real threat. Battles are few, so they don't get annoying, but they aren't really fun either. You don't get XP on battles, but your party level increases after you kill all enemies in one area or after you kill the boss... but to be honest, I didn't feel much power difference with new levels. Mostly battles felt like fillers, and a small-strategy factor (like elements or stuff) would have done good... or maybe a CBS or ABS (like the original ActRaiser), if that's not asking too much.

3- PUZZLES
Puzzles in this game are interesting, but some of them are too hard. The worst part is that most of them give you little to no instructions. Not only you have to solve the puzzle, but you also have to guess what to do sometimes. The goal of some puzzles is quite clear: you get 4 switches and 4 objects that can be pushed around... so place one object above each switch. At other times, the goal is very obscure, like on Narshe Mines, where you get a maze of rail tracks and dozens of switches that change rails direction, and your goal is... no idea.



This part could greatly benefit from clearer instructions. Other than that, puzzles were my favorite part of this game. Most of them were quite clever and challenging, not for beginners or puzzle-haters.
Luckily, easy mode allows you to skip puzzles, so it is very unlikely that you will ever get stuck in this game.

STORY
The game starts with a very long intro cutscene taking place somewhere in Final Fantasy VI storyline (close to the ending, I'd say). I won't spoil anything because the intro is 90% of the game's story, but I can say it is very bizarre, but not pointlessly random. It's actually very funny.
After that, you'll see small dialogs at the beginning and the end of each area, but they don't add anything to the story.
And then... there's the ending.
MINOR SPOILERS
After you get the 3 pieces of the statue, the game opens a new area and warns you that you're about to face your final challenge. Turns out that there is no challenge at this point, since the final battle is scripted, and it's purely dialog. This final dialog is actually interesting, but feels rushed, and the game ends too abruptly. I expected something much different from a game with such interesting gameplay concepts.

So, basically, the whole story of the game happened in the intro and in the ending sequence. Story twists and funny cutscenes in the middle of the game would have been welcome.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Graphics are mostly FFVI rips and other they-all-look-the-same fantasy graphics. Mapping is good, and I see no big consistency issues.
Music tracks are mainly from the original ActRaiser. They are nice, don't get annoying, and fit the game just right.
I can say that the author did a good job with the presentation of this game, but I don't think there was a lot of particular effort put into this. It does its job well.

SO WHAT?
There are two things that made me like this game very much. First thing is gameplay variety. This is no RPG, but it contains RPG battles, RPG puzzles, RPG story, and yet the gameplay is heavily oriented to a completely different strategy/sim aspect. I won't say it's innovative because it was strongly based on the original ActRaiser, but it's very refreshing to see a game that doesn't stick to traditional formulas. Gameplay parts are very dynamic and well paced, so it's a game that doesn't get boring easily.
Second, ActRazer contains the coolest, most charming group in a game ever: Kefka, the angel, and the panda. I can't explain how, but there's a lot of chemistry among the three of them. I think I'll actually miss this party.



I would never imagine I could enjoy a parody story that made fun of my all-time favorite RPG.
Bottom line, ActRazer is a great well-thought game, but could benefit from some effort in all areas. If you're tired of games that all feel the same, this one is definitely worth a shot.