 There are so many great sequels in the Super Nintendo library, great games that were often times made even better the second time around. Actraiser, still a fantastic game to this day, was released in Japan in 1990. Actraiser 2 was released in 1993, so with three years to brainstorm, tinker, and improve on an already quality piece of work, you'd think Actraiser 2 would be an instant classic. But instead on improving on the original Actraiser, the developers Enix decided to just go in another direction. They abandoned the town building aspect of the game for better or for worse. In fact it's rumored that the American Department of Enix specifically requested this because they felt the town building stuff was holding the game back, and that it was too hard to understand. Whether that rumor is true or not, I totally disagree obviously, as Actraiser is a perfectly good game even to this day. But I won't slag its sequel for something it isn't, taking a look at it here for what it actually is, and what it is is a beautiful looking, but extremely difficult platformer. What stands out about Actraiser 2 right away is how it looks, the art style is beautiful and detailed, and a decided improvement on its predecessor, which looked pretty good in its own right. Seriously the graphics in Actraiser 2 would make my top 10 for the Super Nintendo, it's up there with Earthworm Jim, Super Mario RPG, Yoshi's Island, and the like. But don't spend too long gawking at the pixel art in animation though, because you'll die, and die again, and again, and again. This game does not let up for a second, right away in this first level you've got like 6 enemies coming at you from all directions, and when I mean all directions, I mean any direction at any time, some patterns here are impossible to predict. The biggest problem with Actraiser 2 is that your character does not match the speed of its enemies, everything is too fast, and your character is too slow to keep up. You can fly and float a little bit, but that can be really frustrating because you can't control yourself when you're in the air, and the hit detection on your flight attack never seems to register, or at least it didn't very often for me. Sometimes your best bet is to just take damage and keep going. Move on to the next part, fuck those guys. You are given magic at least, you charge up your attack by holding the button like the X Buster in Mega Man X, but you still have a limited amount of times you can do this. Given the capabilities of flight and magic, and you know the fact that, you know, you're God, it's very tempting to try and power your way through this game, but if you try and do that you will hate this game. You have to be slow and deliberate, like your character really. And you have to take things slowly and let things come to you, but on some levels there's just no advice that'll work. The sheer amount of enemies here, for example, is absurd, and this is on the easy mode, by the way, and on the surface this seems ridiculous. I mean, you're God, but you're taking damage from dragonflies? That makes no sense. As brutally hard as this game is, it is playable. I've read places call this game broken, but I don't think it's that bad, it's just absurdly hard. But its best incentive it provides to endure the frustration and keep playing, to be quite honest, is just to see what the next level looks like. Seriously, this game is so damn cool looking, that was my main motivation to get into the next level, to see what it looks like. For the story, it's kind of vague. There's hints that this could be a prequel, or a true sequel, since it hints that Tanzra, the main villain, was resurrected. But it may be a separate world entirely, because everything here is new. Anyway, you again play as a God that has to go down to Earth to vanquish demons presenting themselves in the seven deadly sins. Fight your way to Tanzra, or Satan, as he's called in the Super Famicom version. Like the first game, the levels are in two acts, but in actors or two, both acts are platforming. They still have you float around above the world with your assistant, but you do have to finish each stage somewhat in order. Anyway, it's hard to know to recommend this game or not. If you're looking for a challenge, go for it. But don't be fooled by your character's capabilities. You can't play this game like Sonic, or Sparkster, or even Castlevania. Actress or two is a slow, deliberate game that's hard as hell. If you're up to the challenge, then check it out.