SolSeraph Reviews

Heavily influenced by ActRaiser, but it stands on its own as a really solid, if kind of short, game. Nice combo of Tower Defense and Platformer. It makes for a really nice speedrun, and it is frequently on sale for just $5. It is absolutely worth a try. My biggest complaint...there is no hard mode.

Just saw some 2+ hour review/guide of Actraiser for SNES on Youtube and it got me thinking of buying the remake on steam but then I remembered I've had this in my library for awhile so gave it a shot. I'm gonna have to say it is not that good. Certain aspects are ok, the world map is actually beautiful and the music is great as well. The gameplay however is kinda bad, it's very janky and just something about the game models and animations just gives me this vibe that it was rushed. Almost as if the developers wanted to make a spiritual successor of Actraiser but just tried to get it out as fast as possible. So yea the action areas of the game are very bland and like I said the combat is not good. Which brings me to the city building part of the game... or should I say lack there of. It's not a city builder at all, it's a tower defense game, sure you need to build houses and farms just to create people so that you have people to enter your tower defense structures. That's not a city builder in the least bit. From looking at screenshots or quick clips it might look like one but I assure you it is not. This to me is not worth more than 5 dollars which I think I bought it for when it was on sale. If you are curious and don't mind paying that then go for it but it's really not a good game. 1.5 star out of 5 for me.

Having finished it I can say this doesn't quite capture the feel of Actraiser. This game Helio go from area to area (5 areas in total and 2 more that connect more to the ending) killing the Younger gods. While it fun at first and they got the feel of the character down well for the action stages, the levels themselves have much to be desire. In most cases the stages were harder than the bosses. Arrows and enemies would coming flying off screen. There are only a few checkpoints which not bad seeing how short some of the levels were, but would of been nice to have before the bosses. The overworld part is a tower defense game, gone is the days of town sim. It is fun as first, but soon your realize the progression that happens is you just protecting your campfire long enough to open the next lair until the final lair opens. You get different buildings and each land has it own troubles, but not much actually changes much between how each land is tackled. Helio is given a few powers for these sections: rain, thunder, a solar guardian, and a spell that suppose to speed up time. The thunder spell and sun guardian you could use to help protect the camp fire and there were times I had to use them. Rain help for infertile land and Speed helped to speed enemies along although they never seemed to go much faster. Also each time you beat a lair, the only thing it did was bring you 1 step closer to be able to enter the final lair of the area, they still stayed active until the final lair is beat. Music wise the main theme is quite good, but the rest of it fell flat and is pretty forgettable.

Not sure why this game gets so much hate, it's actually very good. Does it measure up to Actraiser? Realistically no, but that is a high bar to cross because it is legitimately one of the best games on the Super Nintendo. That said, it is an excellent take on the genre and I can recommend it to fans of that type of game. The "building" mode is essentially a Tower Defense game, the ultimate objective is to build out your town enough to where you can seal the enemy lairs by building temples near them. You do the building yourself rather than the town auto developing based on where you place roads, but you can place roads so you can spread out the village a bit, and this is key to being able to seal the lairs, as there is finite building resources that you have to manage, as well as managing food and population and arming your towers. After you get the temple built and manned, then you can enter the lair as long as it's not in the middle of an enemy wave. Once you defeat all of the lairs in an area, the final one will open up so that you can beat the area permanently. And the 1st and last stage follow the same basic formula as Actraiser, where you go through a linear stage and eventually face up against a boss. The regular lairs act as mini stages rather than the people sealing them, you usually get a minor upgrade such as to magic or health when you clear these. My main complaints about the game is that the difficulty is kind of all over the place, not to a ridiculous degree but the mini stages are super easy compared to the regular stages, you'd have to really try to die on those. I still haven't beat the 2nd area boss yet as it's very tough, but I was able to kill the 3rd area boss with a lot of ease comparatively. Also there are definitely some cheap hits that have that old trial and error feel of the old school games, perhaps that's intentional, but still pretty annoying. If you want a game LIKE Actraiser, I think you'll really enjoy this. Gameplay is solid, tower defense is basic but fun and fast paced, and it has very good graphics and music for a cheaper indie title. However, don't expect it to be exactly imitating Actraiser, it is definitely inspired but if you're looking for a game that plays exactly like it, this isn't it.

You can make a solid argument that ActRaiser is a top 20 game on the Super Nintendo. For those unfamiliar, ActRaiser was a very early SNES title made by Quintet, otherwise known as the goofy game that combined action platforming with town simulation stuff. The game got a sequel a few years later, ActRaiser 2, and while it's definitely got some of the best graphics and art direction on the Super Nintendo, the game was a disappointment, because Quintet decided to do away with the town simulation mode entirely. It’s just a regular old action platformer, and a dreadfully difficult one at that, and it’s not all that fun to play. Fast forward to 2019 and we get a trailer for a game called SolSeraph, and the reaction was unanimous. "Hey look, it's modern ActRaiser! It's a sidescroller with town sim stuff, only with more fleshed out real time simulation mechanics!" But sadly, this game is a total stay-away. Sure, it's nice to see that games like ActRaiser haven't been forgotten, but SolSeraph completely misses the point of what made ActRaiser great. See, ActRaiser was unique, but not JUST because of the gimmick of having two genres mashed together. It was the rhythm between the two gameplay modes that worked so well -- the pacing was spot on. SolSeraph does not have anything close to a similar rhythm. The time you're in RTS mode goes on seemingly forever, and some of the quote unquote stages in the sidescrolling mode, are like 15-30 seconds long. That's before i even get to what a mess these stages are. The first introductory level is whatever, pretty standard stuff, and it's clearly wearing its ActRaiser influence on its sleeve, with the same proportions and a similar layout, only with modern addenda like a double jump and a charged up attack, as well as a ranged attack with your bow and arrow. But geez louise everything just comes across as thrown together, like all this sidescrolling stuff is just there for the sake of being there. It really comes across like blatant pandering, like "Hey folks, remember ActRaiser? If it were remade today, I think it'd look a little something like this!" And, that's the end of it. There's no actual substance here. The worst of it are these abrupt stages where enemies just materialize from nowhere. There’s plenty of stuff here that’s frustrating for the wrong reasons, like these goblins that shoot you with arrows the mere split second you appear on screen. The enemy patterns in general here are just generic and, like I said, thrown together. The town simulation mode, or the real-time strategy mode, boils down to a simple tower defense game. You set up your town structure, making sure you have enough food and wood to supply your army, and it's the same as about a gazillion other tower defense games. You just sit and wait out all the waves. Throw in some deity powers that are mostly cosmetic, and you go and build a temple by the enemy spawn points (which activates the sidescrolling levels) and you've got something that can kinda sort call back to ActRaiser. But as you'll see, the overall presentation is really no different than a mobile game. The fact that they're charging $15 for a half baked platformer combined with a simple tower defense game you'd find for like a dollar on your phone, is pretty inexcusable. It all comes across as just being thrown together in a very short time, and as a result, I cant help but feel like this game is just pandering. I will say, I think the RTS stuff is okay for what it is, but again it's like, why am I paying $15 for this? I think the most positive thing to glean from SolSeraph is the lesson that games like ActRaiser don't grow on trees, and there's a reason they're more than the sum of their parts. It's because they get stuff like pacing and flow down correctly. SolSeraph doesn’t even come close to getting the individual elements correct, let alone big picture stuff like pacing. If you're hoping to find something close to a "spiritual sequel" to ActRaiser that’s actually worth playing, I think the best you'll find is one of the Dark Cloud games. because unfortunately, SolSeraph is a stayaway.

So, let me start by saying I was a huge fan of ActRaiser 1. I was massively disappointed by ActRaiser 2 because they took everything that was AR1 then removed the best part of the game - The town building. SolSeraph, despite saying it's a spiritual successor to ActRaiser, did something very similar - It didn't remove the best part of the ActRaiser franchise, it just ruined it. Instead of a casually paced approach to assisting helpless villagers towards creating a save haven of a town you're tasked with a mundane and cumbersome session of tower defense. On top of that, you're periodically interrupted by villagers having meaningless and annoying conversations that pauses the game and forces you to read it. As for the side-scrolling slash-em-up, it's very basic and it also feels very cumbersome. The character often moves and attacks in ways that don't feel natural. The enemies in both gameplay modes are woefully underdeveloped... A green goblin with long ears. A spider. A fish with teeth. A giant bug. None of these look or feel original, and it made the game feel that much more generic. I really, REALLY was excited for this game and I really wanted to like it, but I found myself getting frustrated and bored playing this game, and feeling disappointed because they hyped the title up to standards it didn't meet. Sorry devs. I really wanted you to knock this out of the park.

Yes, this is the ActRaiser spiritual successor in the same spirit of Bloodstained, Yooka-Laylee and Mighty Number 9 were to their series. Right down to the near-identical SNES controls. Instead of Christian lore, we have Greek mythology this time. You are Helios, personification of the Sun, and you are worshiped by tribes who need your guidance to build and defend their lands. The side-scrolling stages are almost a 1:1 gameplay match to ActRaiser. You have a sword, spells, and double-jump thanks to your wings (the only feature inspired by the less popular ActRaiser 2). There are even some Sim-mode power upgrades hidden in some stages, so explore. Yes, there are "checkpoints" in most stages, despite what some other reviews said. "Sim" mode is similar to ActRaiser, complete with weather effect spells. New is the fact that you have to build barracks and archery towers to defend your town base. There are Monster Lairs too, but this time YOU go into them and clear out the monsters rather than the townspeople (but you still need to to guide their roads to the Lair like in ActRaiser). If you were worried that the game is described as "tower defense" rest assured the sim mode is primarily about building huts, fields and roads to Monster Lairs just like ActRaiser. The tower defense aspect is an additional feature. The graphics are adequate. The music is regrettably less epic than ActRaiser and especially ActRaiser 2 (the only aspect of ActRaiser 2 that was better than the original game). The main thing is that the gameplay is accurately inspired and expanded upon, and thankfully not too inspired from ActRaiser 2. Difficulty is closer to ActRaiser than ActRaiser 2, thankfully. Worth the price if you were a fan of ActRaiser. This is obviously a labor of love for the genre. Thank you, Sega and ACE Team. If only Square Enix would someday give us an official ActRaiser 3.

Patricio Meneses' music is REALLY GOOD in this game. Yuzo Koshiro did ONE track and it's the blandest thing on the whole soundtrack. They've really been hyping up his involvement, but it's nothing. Meneses, however, killed it. Anyway. I was really excited for this. ActRaiser is one of my favorite games and ACE are a developer who don't always make great or even good games, but always make interesting games full of ideas. Sadly, they've really missed what made ActRaiser greater than the sum of its parts. -You can't speak to your villagers -You can't use your miracles to help your villagers -You don't receive offerings and give gifts to your villagers -You do not facilitate trade between your villages to unify the world -Aiding your villagers does not grant you extra MP and spells -Growing your villages does not increase your HP -There is no reason to go back and forth between multiple villages or revisit a village you have cleared -There is no reason to care about your villagers. All of this has been removed. Villagers speak during the game, and they have problems and their dialogue is well written, but you play no part in it, there is no way to interact with them at all. Your villagers were the glue that held ActRaiser's two parts together and made them feel like a whole. You cared for them and they strengthened you in return. They were the heart of the game. SolSeraph is instead a tower defense game and a platformer game which you take turns playing in almost complete isolation, and they are both overly simple and mechanically archaic. This was originally a Do Not Recommend review, but honestly I was just having a bad day yesterday. I really am rooting for Ace Team, always, and for a $15 price tag I can adjust my expectations. I can only hope they've had a good long think about what made ActRaiser special before starting SolSeraph 2. Oh and get rid of the tower defense stuff too, we're all sick to death of TDs.

I bought this game because some early reviews compared it strongly to ActRaiser which was one of my favorite games growing up. While that comparison is accurate initially, it falls apart very quickly. SolSeraph is far from the polished in depth game that ActRaiser was. The town-building component of the game is lackluster and misses all of the tiny factors that made ActRaiser the great game it was. Where ActRaiser intentionally had mechanics to make you care about your people, such as small story driven events during town building, interwoven with the overall platforming game, SolSeraph is merely a fascade with no depth. Here, your people are pawns to fight off waves of enemies in a poor interpretation of a Tower Defense game with no mini-events during town-building at all. The combat mechanics (deity powers and town defenses) are more annoying than intriguing and you jump into the platforming levels only to break up boredom of waiting for waves of enemies to assault you. And while all platforming levels have the annoying "perfect jump or fall to your death" mechanics from time to time, I can wholeheartedly say that failing to make a 100% perfect jump has killed me 10x more than any of the fighting elements which is just a poor way to present challenge. The "cut scenes" with the 2D animated still characters feel unfinished and thrown together in a poor attempt to bring some kind of plot line to the game where there really is none. Had the developers of the game put the polish into SolSeraph that it deserves it could be a really great game, but it just feels unfinished and disappointing. I'd wait until it shows up in a humble bundle or steep discount before buying.

First impressions: OK, so like many of us someone at Sega wanted more Actraiser and got sick of waiting on Square Enix. To that end we have Sol Seraph, and it makes no secret of its inspiration (why would you bother, really?) From the jump it will seem familiar to anyone who has played Actraiser. Don't let that trip you up because it's doing a lot of things differently. In a way it's mirror image, because now the action sequences feel like an afterthought and the strategy sequences are much more involved. The action sequences are, frankly, a little disappointing. The controls are noticeably sluggish. Not unplayable by any means, but there is a definite delay between press and action. There is a lot of afterswing animation that cannot be interrupted as well. Combine this with enemies that attack right at the edge of the screen (ranged are the worst about this) and you get a number of cheap hits that are pretty frustrating. It's hard to find a flow. There are an array of attack and defense moves but a lot of time the best option is to just jump and attack. The use of foreground and background is neat but it's hard to tell if the enemy is on your plane. Leads to a lot of waiting or just running headlong into them. All in all the action bits have left me a little flat so far. The world building is considerably better. I don't play tower defense games so it took a minute for me to shake the mindset I had around Actraiser's simple building and shooting. Careful resource management is a must because you can paint yourself into a corner quickly. The hints are helpful but don't hold your hand so you at least *feel* like you're figuring it out. You have to stay on top of things because multiple waves of demons will start streaming in ruining everything before you know it! I've died a few times this way but it doesn't feel as unfair as the action sequences. All in all it feels like the bulk of the attention was paid to this part of the game. Visuals and sound are both just serviceable. Graphics are pretty plain but nice enough. Music is a little repetitive but fine. It's a budget title so I'm not about to go in hard on the assets. They get the job done. All things considered it's worth the asking price. If someone tweaks the controls for the action sequences in a patch my feelings will definitely not be hurt though.