Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
According to Tomoyoshi Miyazaki, it was finished after a major change of direction from a point where production had progressed about 70% as an RPG depicting the life of a star.
In the areas opened up by clearing ACT1, a temple and 2 humans, a man and a woman, are created, and from that starting point the aim is to develop the land, increase the population, and seal the several monster nests.
In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu, it received a total of 26 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine, the ratings for each category are as shown below, and it scored 23.68 out of 30.
As of 1993, this score placed it 26th among all Super Famicom titles (323 titles in total).
In addition, in the "Best 30 by Category" printed at the end of the "Super Famicom All Catalog '93", a special supplement to the 1993-8 information issue of SUPER FAMICOM Magazine, it took No. 26 overall, No. 11 for music and sound effects, and No. 17 for originality.
It shipped 40,000 copies in Europe and 100,000 copies in North America.
In Japan, whereas the previous title shipped 400,000 copies, even though it was close to a launch title and so was easily one of the first choices for early buyers of the hardware, this game came to 40,000 copies.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 7, 5, 6, and 6, for a total of 24 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 20.3 out of 30, as shown below.
Quintet reported that ActRaiser sold 620,000 copies worldwide, with 400,000 copies sold in Japan, 180,000 copies sold in North America, and 40,000 copies sold in Europe.
In 2007, ScrewAttack ranked ActRaiser #1 on their "Top 10 Big Names That Fell Off", which listed games that were popular in days past, whether good or bad, but have since faded into relative obscurity (ActRaiser was discussed positively).
In 2018, Complex ranked ActRaiser 33rd on their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time" list.
In 2017, Gamesradar ranked ActRaiser 23rd on its "The best SNES games of all time" list.
In 1995, Total! placed the game 91st on its "Top 100 SNES Games" list.
It is 1 of the earliest titles released within 1 months of the launch of the console, and it was Enix's first SFC software.
It is also the only former Enix game to have been distributed on the Virtual Console.
They praised the unique combination of gameplay styles and its hypnotic atmosphere that makes playing the game seem more like a religious experience than other games on Super NES.
They praised the gameplay, calling it a good mix of 2D action and city-building simulation.
The Japanese version, released ahead of the version for outside Japan, was adjusted to be slightly lower in difficulty.
The Japanese publication Micom BASIC Magazine ranked ActRaiser eighth in popularity in its March 1991 issue, and it received a 23.68/30 score in a 1993 readers' poll conducted by Super Famicom Magazine, ranking among Super Famicom titles at the number 26 spot.
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