In action, how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. This is handy. In SolSeraph, you play a sort of blend of an angel and a god, as far as I can tell. You have wings and armour and a sword, but you can also inspire people, make the land fertile and cast lightning at your enemies. You’re pretty swish, in other words, but then you land and a spider will dangle from above and hurt you, and then you’ll step in some brambles. Ouch.
SolSeraph is a spiritual successor to ActRaiser, and ActRaiser was really, really interesting. You were a god in ActRaiser and you lead your people. Sometimes you wandered around side-scrolling bits sticking it to baddies. Sometimes you flew over a map encouraging your people to build towns and roads and to seal evil-doers away for good. It was such a harmonious blend: beat-’em-up and god game. A bit of a classic. And SolSeraph stays pretty close to the original design.
So once again you divide your time between wandering around 2D platforming levels and fighting monsters, and then taking to the skies and leading your own people as they get their civilisations back in order, building a town, fighting off waves of enemies and then smashing up a local baddie god for good measure. Let’s look at this second part of the game first, because I had a fair amount of fun with it, and that’s because SolSeraph has taken ActRaiser’s god game stuff and turned it into a tower defence number.
