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- ConnectionsFeatured in Video Game Vault: Golden Axe: The Duel (2011)
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Sega's rare Golden Axe beat 'em up
This game was released on the ST-V hardware in arcades and later ported to the Sega Saturn.
The game is comparable to games like SNK's Samurai Showdown, Atlus' Power Instinct and Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha series. For a 1994 game the animation is excellent, easily up there with anything SNK, Capcom or Atlus were producing for Arcades at the time. The backgrounds have some fun detail like the sleeping Polar Bear looking animal or the turning cogs. The backgrounds also have a sort of 3D effect. It's definitely eye-candy.
What lets it down then? The characters are seemingly related to the characters from the original Golden Axe games and bizarrely they are all similar characters so there is an axe-wielding dwarf like Gilius Thunderhead, a sword-wielding woman like Tyris Flare, a Stern Blade type macho male. The Death Adder boss from the earlier games is a welcome original character and playable from the start. Like a lot of fans I would have preferred the original characters. There's some new characters as well Jamm whose a bizarre girl wearing cheetah-type animal skin and wielding claws - she wouldn't look out of place in Dark Stalkers, Green who looks a lot like Blanka from Street Fighter II, Panchos who looks a lot like the fat, bald bad guys from the earlier games and a few others. These new characters aren't that interesting.
The actual action is pretty good. The game runs fast and I couldn't detect any in game slowdown during fights on the Saturn. The special moves are hard to pull off. The difficulty is also solid, in my opinion as tough as most SNK fighters. So overall it plays well, but it just isn't as fun as Capcom's fighters from this time or as in-depth as SNK's.
The Saturn version has about 30 second loading times between fights. This is the norm for games of this time. I recall some PS1 games also having similar load times.
Worth playing for Golden Axe fans and 2D Beat 'em up fans. Anyone else can skip this. It has the Sega polish, but not the magic. It is clear a lot of work and fan service has gone into this game though.
The game is comparable to games like SNK's Samurai Showdown, Atlus' Power Instinct and Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha series. For a 1994 game the animation is excellent, easily up there with anything SNK, Capcom or Atlus were producing for Arcades at the time. The backgrounds have some fun detail like the sleeping Polar Bear looking animal or the turning cogs. The backgrounds also have a sort of 3D effect. It's definitely eye-candy.
What lets it down then? The characters are seemingly related to the characters from the original Golden Axe games and bizarrely they are all similar characters so there is an axe-wielding dwarf like Gilius Thunderhead, a sword-wielding woman like Tyris Flare, a Stern Blade type macho male. The Death Adder boss from the earlier games is a welcome original character and playable from the start. Like a lot of fans I would have preferred the original characters. There's some new characters as well Jamm whose a bizarre girl wearing cheetah-type animal skin and wielding claws - she wouldn't look out of place in Dark Stalkers, Green who looks a lot like Blanka from Street Fighter II, Panchos who looks a lot like the fat, bald bad guys from the earlier games and a few others. These new characters aren't that interesting.
The actual action is pretty good. The game runs fast and I couldn't detect any in game slowdown during fights on the Saturn. The special moves are hard to pull off. The difficulty is also solid, in my opinion as tough as most SNK fighters. So overall it plays well, but it just isn't as fun as Capcom's fighters from this time or as in-depth as SNK's.
The Saturn version has about 30 second loading times between fights. This is the norm for games of this time. I recall some PS1 games also having similar load times.
Worth playing for Golden Axe fans and 2D Beat 'em up fans. Anyone else can skip this. It has the Sega polish, but not the magic. It is clear a lot of work and fan service has gone into this game though.
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- ninjaalexs
- Apr 15, 2020
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