Square Enix dips a toe into the wide world of Virtual Console this week with Actraiser. Certainly it is not one of their bigger properties, but hey: does the fact that it's awesome count for anything?
A mashup of simulation games and platform action, Actraiser simplifies both of its seemingly disparate genres enough so that it's accessible to any gamer. I hate sim games and liked this; the effort/payoff system is so well-paced that you don't really need a whole lot of patience to start seeing results as you rebuild your ruined world. And getting to descend to Earth and kick ass with a sword to clean up the town? Icing on the cake.
Two more adventures round out the lineup: Sega's popular Kid Chameleon, in which you play a kid who LITERALLY GETS SUCKED INSIDE OF A VIDEO GAME WHOA THAT IS TOTALLY GNARLY DUDE and has to radical his way out by taking on different game-hero disguises. And J.J. and Jeff, a Hudson game that I hear is a pretty decent argument for not buying Hudson games.
At least I've got something to do with my Memorial Day!
