To the point
==================
Actraiser in name only, this is more of an exercise in how long you can endure awful tower defense mechanics. If you're expecting a faithful recreation, skip this one for sure.

+Cleared on Hard mode+

Good Stuff
================
- It sort of scratches that Actraiser itch since this isn't a very common genre of game with a bunch of random ideas thrown in. There are parts of each portion, like the side scrolling, town building and yes, even the awful tower defense, that I enjoy, it's just that the glaring flaws of each mode are a huge turn off.

Bad Stuff
==============================

- So in this version the gameplay was changed to have tower defense segments, where the enemies will spawn and try to attack certain objectives, which you use the heroes in the story to defend against.

It's hard to describe how annoying this system is, it's both incredibly slow and incredibly unbalanced. You'll have enemies that take all your forces working nonstop to injure that do 50% of a structures health in a single hit. In these kinds of fights you need to adopt a strategy of trying to dump all damage/spells/units possible while letting everything else burns, it makes the mode incredibly unenjoyable.

What's worse then that?

Oh you have to do it at the MINIMUM of 5 times per settlement? This is not including random horde encounters, which start appearing when you destroy all the monster spawners on a map.

The whole system is incredibly persistent, it almost makes me think Square thought this mode was fun or was trying to pad as much time as possible.

- The 2D sections have some of the jankiest hitboxes you're going to see in a modern game and it's inexcusable for a company as big as Square Enix even if this is so obviously a budget title. The funniest thing is it works to your advantage half the time, keeping you safe from enemy hits or making it easy to dodge harder attacks. Other time's you'll be getting hit by something that looks to be the size of a baseball with the hitbox of a hippo.

- You cannot control how fast buildings spawn things, this can lead to feeling like you are waiting forever for a resources or food spawn, especially on the smaller maps where you can only have 3 factories active at any given time.

- This title takes anime ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to a whole new level. I like the characters even if they're pretty damn one dimensional but my GOD does this game interrupt you every 5 seconds to hear them talk, or for your patrons to come and request something from you. It drags teh pacing of the game into the mud.

- You can't control where your faithful build things, which is annoying for 2 reasons. One, if you happen to have a "protect all farms" siege mission, but your followers build them all in a cluster across the map away from your very limited towers, well you can move the towers and demolish the town in the process or you can play the map on hard mode and the aforementioned elite enemies ♥♥♥♥ on your farm one by one.

The second reason is that towns can only reach a max population if the buildings are laid out " correctly" meaning the AI will place them as optimally as possible but if it can't it won't tell you and you'll be stuck with a lower population. Only way around this? Nuke all buildings on the map and hope they do it right the next time.

- Even if you want to play smart in tower defense mode, you really cannot since the placement of towers/gatehouses etc ii seemingly, randomly constrained for no reason.

The towers you can place are limited by town size but say you want to move a tower right next to a farm that needs defending? Can't do that since the game has decided you can't use that square for some reason.

To note, this is a little different then trying to place these towers on a house since it will just demolish the house which is easy enough, but what I am saying is that there are major choke-points on a map that you can't use because the game decides you can't put a gatehouse there. Just an incredibly bizarre choice.

To the point ================== Actraiser in name only, this is more of an exercise in how long you can endure awful tower defense mechanics. If you're expecting a faithful recreation, skip this one for sure. +Cleared on Hard mode+ Good Stuff ================ - It sort of scratches that Actraiser itch since this isn't a very common genre of game with a bunch of random ideas thrown in. There are parts of each portion, like the side scrolling, town building and yes, even the awful tower defense, that I enjoy, it's just that the glaring flaws of each mode are a huge turn off. Bad Stuff ============================== - So in this version the gameplay was changed to have tower defense segments, where the enemies will spawn and try to attack certain objectives, which you use the heroes in the story to defend against. It's hard to describe how annoying this system is, it's both incredibly slow and incredibly unbalanced. You'll have enemies that take all your forces working nonstop to injure that do 50% of a structures health in a single hit. In these kinds of fights you need to adopt a strategy of trying to dump all damage/spells/units possible while letting everything else burns, it makes the mode incredibly unenjoyable. What's worse then that? Oh you have to do it at the MINIMUM of 5 times per settlement? This is not including random horde encounters, which start appearing when you destroy all the monster spawners on a map. The whole system is incredibly persistent, it almost makes me think Square thought this mode was fun or was trying to pad as much time as possible. - The 2D sections have some of the jankiest hitboxes you're going to see in a modern game and it's inexcusable for a company as big as Square Enix even if this is so obviously a budget title. The funniest thing is it works to your advantage half the time, keeping you safe from enemy hits or making it easy to dodge harder attacks. Other time's you'll be getting hit by something that looks to be the size of a baseball with the hitbox of a hippo. - You cannot control how fast buildings spawn things, this can lead to feeling like you are waiting forever for a resources or food spawn, especially on the smaller maps where you can only have 3 factories active at any given time. - This title takes anime bullshit to a whole new level. I like the characters even if they're pretty damn one dimensional but my GOD does this game interrupt you every 5 seconds to hear them talk, or for your patrons to come and request something from you. It drags teh pacing of the game into the mud. - You can't control where your faithful build things, which is annoying for 2 reasons. One, if you happen to have a "protect all farms" siege mission, but your followers build them all in a cluster across the map away from your very limited towers, well you can move the towers and demolish the town in the process or you can play the map on hard mode and the aforementioned elite enemies shit on your farm one by one. The second reason is that towns can only reach a max population if the buildings are laid out " correctly" meaning the AI will place them as optimally as possible but if it can't it won't tell you and you'll be stuck with a lower population. Only way around this? Nuke all buildings on the map and hope they do it right the next time. - Even if you want to play smart in tower defense mode, you really cannot since the placement of towers/gatehouses etc ii seemingly, randomly constrained for no reason. The towers you can place are limited by town size but say you want to move a tower right next to a farm that needs defending? Can't do that since the game has decided you can't use that square for some reason. To note, this is a little different then trying to place these towers on a house since it will just demolish the house which is easy enough, but what I am saying is that there are major choke-points on a map that you can't use because the game decides you can't put a gatehouse there. Just an incredibly bizarre choice.