ActRaiser is a 1990 Super Nintendo Entertainment System side-scrolling platform game with a SimCity-esque urban planning simulation developed by Enix and Quintet.
In this game, the player assumes the role of a deity seeking to restore life to a world overrun with evil with the aid of a statue that serves as an avatar. The player fulfills several duties ranging from protecting your followers from monsters to causing it to rain during a drought. As each town or settlement develops, you are either praised for your benevolence or shunned for your malevolence.
The two sides of the game are cleverly linked; the deity's strength increases with the number of people in the world (in gaming jargon, the player will level up as the number of people increases), so it is in the player's interest to do well in both sides of the game.
While the gameplay was clever and well excuted the music in the game was jaw dropping. Using the old SNES sound chip, the sound designers and composer Yuzo Koshiro came up with some amazing music for the game.
In 2003, Square Enix made an EZWeb port of the original Actraiser for Japanese cellular phones. In 2004, music from the game was performed live at the second Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany. That medley had been arranged by the composer himself, Yuzo Koshiro.
Ending
After all of the towns have been populated, and the evil defeated, the angel takes the player on a tour of the various areas of the game. At the end of the tour, the first temple is visited, but it's empty. The angel speculates that perhaps, now that the deity isn't needed, the people will ignore and eventually forget about him, possibly a satiric reference to modern religion.
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