/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9903435]

I wanted to like Golden Axe but I had to accept that I just don't. Playing a game like Sor2 and this side by side makes it clear as day that GA is miles behind in terms of quality. I think I wanted to like it because its a cool concept, a beatemup in a magic and warriors fantasy setting, ad maybe some nostalgia, but now its time to let it go. Golden Axe kinda sucks.

[Anonymous No.9903465]

>>9903435
One of the most based games I ever played.
Couldn't be done today.

[Anonymous No.9903481]

>>9903435
>Playing a game like Sor2 and this side by side makes it clear as day that GA is miles behind in terms of quality.
That's fair. Golden Axe came out years before in the arcades and doesn't quite showcase the Genesis' capabilities as well as the Streets of Rage games. You might like its sequels though, especially Revenge of Death Adder which I have yet to play myself. If you like the fantasy setting I would also give Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons games a go. They pretty much nailed this imo.

[Anonymous No.9903492]

>>9903435
I played the Master System verison after playing all of those. No excuses.

[Anonymous No.9903525]

Sor2 is just a Final Fight style button masher. Golden Axe is a bit more like Double Dragon and requires you to pay more attention to positioning and enemy movement.

[Anonymous No.9903551]

>>9903435
Golden Axe draws to it a certain elite type of gamer; sophisticated, a man of the world, if you will. It's okay and in fact commendable to admit that you aren't among them.

[Anonymous No.9903630]

>>9903525
spoken like a faggot who has never beaten SOR2.

[Anonymous No.9903691]

I love the C64 version music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWkT180hNLE

[Anonymous No.9903759]

>>9903630
Idk about the Final Fight comment but I can sort of see what he is saying. Crowd control is important in both games but Golden Axe is a little slower paced and it's a little easier to get surrounded. Idk though, it's been a while since I've played either

[Anonymous No.9903783]

>>9903481
I played the sequels and while they had more polish I found them to be somewhat boring.

Not to shit on someone else beloved franchise, but I noticed that I have a habit of not realizing that I don't have to like a game just because it has some appealing elements and is popular. I had the same realization with Sonic.

[Anonymous No.9903847]

>>9903435
>ax battler
>doesn't use an axe

[Anonymous No.9903996]

[Anonymous No.9904028]

>>9903783
Yeah, early arcade games are definitely not for everybody. I like SEGA but never really got into stuff like Altered Beast or even Fantasy Zone really. I guess there is always Guardian Heroes, it's a lot more stylish and "wacky" like Treasure's other games. There's also some fighting game spin-off on Saturn

[Anonymous No.9904056]

Death Bringer is a cheating whore.
>Two unkillable skeleton dudes as backup
>Can cast undodgeable screen nuke magic spells infinitely

You really need to keep the pressure on him or he'll just delete you.

[Anonymous No.9904073]

>>9904028
It's strange that no one has tried to bring a Guardian Heroes port forward onto PC.

[Anonymous No.9904074]

>>9903435
Me and my cousin used to play co-op all the time as kids. I always played as the tall guy with brown hair and he would play as the short blonde guy because that's what we were like in real life (still are). The music and sound effects are nostalgic as fuck for me.

[Anonymous No.9904105]

>>9903783
maybe people just like the game. for all the reasons you dont like it, other people may find enjoyment. its not a game that wears out its welcome, it has a different setting, it started a lot of what you like about SOR (a lot had been copied from golden axe; ie screen clearing attacks and three characters who play differently, the way levels scroll diagonally downwards), as well as how it plays more methodically than its faster paced successor SOR2, are reasons why people like it. but thats fine either way you can have your preference, however, its not broken or shitty. it was loved when it came out and is still a great game on its own. you can pick it up and have fun without taking in its place in history. plus Revenge is unquestionably awesome. GA and R are both great series. I didnt find any great reasoning behind your opinions besides you wanted it to play more like SOR, but its an older medieval game based on using melee weapons and riding mini dragons. its not going to be like SOR and its better off for it.

[Anonymous No.9904107]

>>9904105
> *GA and SOR are both great series

[Anonymous No.9904124]

GA is so fucking metal.

SoR 2 is the best belt scroller ever made so no shame in not being as good.

[Anonymous No.9904545]

>>9904028
>GA is an "early arcade game"
What are single-screeners like Space Invaders or Pac-Man then...GA is like two generations after those...

[Anonymous No.9904675]

ITT: filtered by skeletons

[Anonymous No.9904704]

>>9904545
perhaps you should compile an comprehensive list of fantasy based beat em ups of note which were released before Golden Axe anon-kun.

[Anonymous No.9904741]

>>9904028
They were more technically impressive given the time period. Sprites that large and well defined were especially rare. Yet mechanically they just didn't hold up. I remember game magazines of the time ranting and raving as if their release was a grand event.

...Then a decade later we got Code of Princess and all demand for that series disappeared.

Was it just never good? I borrowed my friend's copy on Sega Saturn but even then couldn't get into it. I understood their significance on a technical level, but...

[Anonymous No.9904746]

>>9904704
I actually have a MAME collection of fantasy themed beat 'ups and there's a few that were released before Golden Axe. It's just not an "early arcade game" for people who actually know and appreciate arcade games.

[Anonymous No.9904748]

Golden Axe is garbage and literally every beat em up released after it is better

[Anonymous No.9904756]

SoR3 has so many improvements but it's really tough to beat SoR2's soundtrack. Genuinely feels like the best console beat 'em up.

[Anonymous No.9904790]

>>9904746
refresh my memory please anon, open that MAME compilation of yours please and cite me 3 fantasy based beat em ups released before january 1989.

[Anonymous No.9904804]

For me, it's Alien Storm.

[Anonymous No.9904808]

>>9903435
i dont like beat em ups in general
but normies seem to love them
Cadillacs and dinosaurs
Knights of valour
Battletoads
sengoku 3
xmen
my girlfriend seems to enjoy being able to "win"
cant always be a profound lifechanging jrpg or ridiculous shmup anon

[Anonymous No.9904815]

>>9904790
NTA, but I ind this topic really interesting.
The closest I can come up with off the cuff is Tecmo Knight/Wild Fang, which was released in May of 89, which means it was in development before Golden Axe appeared so the Sega game unlikely had any influence on the Tecmo one, which is a fantasy rearrangement of Ninja Gaiden.

[Anonymous No.9904819]

>>9904790
>>9904815
Also, not a beat'em up strictly speaking, but 1987's Rastan made full use of Sword and Sorcery tropes and might have inspired Sega to try them on.

[Anonymous No.9904828]

>>9904790
There's plenty of predecessors, including martial arts themed and so-called hack and slash games. At the time, we didn't have the same definitions of genres, hack and slash, side scroller, belt scroller, bla bla, that all came after the fact. The point is, calling Golden Axe an early arcade game is pretty ignorant considering the decade plus of arcade games of all genres prior to 1989. They sound like the words of a man who never enjoyed a game of Moon Patrol or (vector) Star Wars in the arcade in 1983. Which is fine, but you out yourself somewhat.

[Anonymous No.9904834]

>>9904675
Golden Axe might have some of the most aggressive skeletons I've seen in a video game. Those fuckers hit you ONCE and they'll chain together another 6 hits and take four pips off your life bar. Horrible bastards. I don't even play fair with them, knock them off a ledge and be done with it.

[Anonymous No.9904843]

>>9904819
good call on rastan anon, both rastan and golden axe definitely share a direct influence from the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan movies.
>>9904828
i accept your concession

[Anonymous No.9904854]

>>9904843
I might also put forward Gladiator as a notable fantasy action game.

[Anonymous No.9904859]

[Anonymous No.9904872]

>>9903435
GA iz good gaem, it's just different so different strategies must be used in order to beat it. The "delay" in your hits is not input lag, just a way to make apparent that you're carrying a 5-10 kg weapon.

[Anonymous No.9904873]

>>9903435
There are several things I find weird in the post, I enjoyed them as different games in the genre but didn't occur to me comparing them side to side (that sounds autistic LOL). In which case I wouldn't know, maybe some mechanics are better in the other. Still, the other one is the assumption that SOR is sort of a 'default' beat em up setting and Golden Axe distinguishes itself through the setting. Isn't Battletoads fantasy? Either game is for the same console, so I'm sure the history and implication a beat 'em setting is SOR must be from previous consoles? I suppose Street Fighter I also is of such a setting? I never kept track or realized such a fact. That's besides them being videogames and games in general having all kinds of settings, the appeal to it never stuck as 'the setting' itself I think.
Still, I suppose if you say to have evaluated the games' mechanics that meticulously, you...are allowed to have an opinion.

[Anonymous No.9904897]

>>9904834
Aha, but what do you do deep on the fiends path where you have to confront them with no pits?
And what of the final scene where Death Adder has two of them as his guards?

[Anonymous No.9904903]

>>9904859
Ideal female warrior physique.

[Anonymous No.9904921]

>>9904897
I headbutt them a lot as Gilius until they die, if they're knocked down, then they're not kicking my ass.
I'm not even sure if you can kill the two skellies during Death Bringer's fight, I ignore them there and just wail on him

[Anonymous No.9904975]

>>9904854
nah
don't see any connection desu.
thinkan about GA it seems to take its influence directly from Double Dragon in terms of mechanics and its look from the Conan movies.
It does do some unique things with the mounts, character specific back attacks and scalable magic.
Very interesting for early 1989.

[Anonymous No.9904983]

>>9904975
I think another likely influence on Golden Axe was the Amiga classic Sword of Sodan. It takes after the Spartan games but might have influenced some of Golden Axe's choices. See pic.

[Anonymous No.9904984]

>>9903435
It's just a very archaic beat'em up.
It came out before Final Fight established the conventions of the genre. Comparing it to Streets of Rage 2 is like comparing the original Street Fighter to Street Fighter Alpha 2.

[Anonymous No.9904986]

>>9904983
Mind you it's from the prior year, so I don't know how quickly any influence it had was put into action. But many things are remeniscent.
>>9904872

[Anonymous No.9904998]

I got this little nigga recently and I gotta say I wasn't planning to but I ended up playing Golden Axe and Lost Vikings all the time.

[Anonymous No.9905005]

>>9904998
What's that thing, anon?

[Anonymous No.9905012]

>>9904998
That looks nice.

[Anonymous No.9905117]

>>9905005
>>9905012
Sorry guys I was fixing something so I disappeared. It's the Miyoo Mini+

I installed a custom OS which is better miles better than stock and also replaced the SD card it came with and the roms and it's awesome now.

[Anonymous No.9905124]

>>9903435
Golden Axe sucks ass.. So does altered beast. Also, all of the 2 button beat em ups fucking suck too. They're mindlessly simple and repetitive.

Good beat em ups are the ones with some extra depth like guardians denjin makai 2.

You should try revenge of death adder though. That one shits on the other 3.

[Anonymous No.9905181]

The select screen was cool

[Anonymous No.9905191]

>>9904105
>as well as how it plays more methodically than its faster paced successor SOR2
well the thing I didn't like about GA was how it actually was the opposite of methodical. like you having to spam your screenwide dash and jump attacks every five seconds. in sor2 there's more breathing room in between the spam moves.

[Anonymous No.9905193]

If you're interested in pre-final fight beat em ups, you should check out Sega's D.D. Crew.
Its weird to try after being used to the FF way but if nothing else it has an amazing soundtrack.

https://youtu.be/zdf1wK5vVDw

[Anonymous No.9905283]

>>9903847
I'm sure the idea isn't that he battles with an axe, but rather, he battles the guy with the axe (Death Adder).
>>9903435
God Tyris is so fuckable, does Ax Battler fuck her or is she single?

[Anonymous No.9905340]

>>9905283
I like Sarah from III. She dosen't get much fan art, though which is a shame because they gave her a phenomenal body.

[Anonymous No.9905638]

>>9905283
Don't know the in universe lore enough to know if Tyris fucks but my video store had giant Megadrive posters in the corner with Tyris Flare and Alisia Dragoon on them and one day I was a horny teen alone who couldn't take it anymore and had to crank it to them, dunno how no one noticed but for as long as they were open the jizzstain on the floor at their feet never went away lol, wonder if it's still there.

[Anonymous No.9905659]

>>9904921
You can kill them, but they have 255HP, compared to Death Bringer's 128.

[Anonymous No.9905746]

Let me put it another way... Is it really Golden Axe that tries a "cool concept", a Swords&Sorcery in a beat'em up? Isn't it Streets of Rage that tries the unique concept of having a urban fantasy setting in beat'em up?
I think, sure, SOR doesn't have gameplay, cool magic items, mounts and all sorts of unique elements of GA, sure, but SOR does have an unique urban fantasy setting that makes it stand out, specially in video games where fantasy is the norm. Sonic, Zelda, Samus, Kirby...all play up a fictional angle. SOR really stands out, although...I have to admit it sucks! Even while pretending to give an unbiased review. If I don't just straight-up shit on it to prop a rival game then it can't be a /v/-tier thread with faggot opening posts.

[Anonymous No.9905983]

>>9905283
Well Tyris and Gilius have descendants in The Duel so fucking is canon but they didn't fuck each other, dunno who Gilius fucked but either Ax Battler fucked Tyris Flare or he's as gay as He-Man. Fuck.

[Anonymous No.9906798]

>>9905191
>like you having to spam your screenwide dash and jump attacks every five seconds.
you didnt play the game based on what youre saying. you cant spam screen attacks due to having to save up for the potions, and considering that your moves only consist of 'attack/jump attack/dash attack' then I dont know what you mean by saying 'you have to spam them.' there isnt anything else you can do but use those attacks.

[Anonymous No.9906950]

>>9903435
I wish there was a version of Dragon's Crown that made it a simple linear beat em up without the RPG elements.

[Anonymous No.9907259]

>>9905638

[Anonymous No.9907436]

>>9904741
3DS is right around the time I stopped playing modern games altogether. Those games might be good but it just doesn't feel the same to me.

>>9904808
I like being able to win too, that's why I always play on easy mode.

[Anonymous No.9907438]

>>9904545
If I call it an early Genesis game, people will be screaming that it's an arcade game

[Anonymous No.9907441]

>>9904545
Early in the sense that it's not SoulCalibur or DDR, yes

[Anonymous No.9907806]

Stfu no one cares what you think about a half hour arcade game, it will always be a classic. Go back to eating tide pods

[Anonymous No.9907872]

>>9906798
I didn't mean the item crush when I said screenwide. what I mean by spam is that you're going to be constantly locked into either the dash attack or the jump in order to keep up. it feels stilted compared to most other games where you spend less time locked into an animation moving around the screen jabbing.

[Anonymous No.9907884]

>>9904741
Code of Princess is quite a lot of fun. I think the outward and unabashed cheesyness turned people off, but it's basically Guardian Heroes 2 in every way and has boatloads of content.

[Anonymous No.9907974]

>>9907872
I don't agree, really, outside that it does not play like other games - which is all to the good but either you like it or you don't.
I think that if you feel that you're locked into dashing or jumping most of the time then you haven't explored the fullness of your options. For example, did you know you are invulnerable while throwing like final fight? You can use this to evade charges from behind.
You should also get used to the back attacks. In GA2 and 3 they become attacks that hit on both sides of you but in GA1 they are A powerful one hit knock down that you use while facing away from the enemy.
Then there is the sword plunge. This has to be set up or enemies will avoid it 100% of the time. You can't do it from a charge, but if you knock down an enemy normally, you can run, jump, and plunge your sword into them as they stand. This kills most foes instantly in the first few stages.
Overall, I think there is quite a bit of good strategy in the golden axe battles. There is a lot of fighting for position to attack better or to be safe, especially with skeletons.
The game kind of cheats itself with how much of it can be played while riding the beasts which are very powerful, but I suppose that is also one of the central gimmicks.
Anyway, if you give it a solid try and don't like it, that's alright. You'll be a better anon that all the idiots who try it and flip out at the first sign of not being final fight.

[Anonymous No.9908821]

Hint: Enemies won't attack you while you're walking northwards or southwards.

[Anonymous No.9910220]

>>9905638

[Anonymous No.9910362]

>>9905746
Among beat em ups? You already had double dragon, final fight, and less closely kunio kun/river city ransom. Streets of rage, despite its gameplay differences, is very similar in setting to those games, while there was no big sword and sorcery beat em up (and most of the sword and sorcery games at all were RPGs)

[Anonymous No.9910486]

>>9905124
Beat em ups are for when you had friends over, they definitely grow tiresome in single player unless you're playing something like River City Ransom

[Anonymous No.9911516]

>>9904056
he only casts spells if he hits you thought, doesnt he?

[Anonymous No.9911631]

>>9903435
so much weird vitriol in this thread. sad.

Both GA/SoR are great, feels like GA series has a more limited move set, which sucks. wish it had more

[Anonymous No.9913682]

>>9904986
Kek those baby steps

[Anonymous No.9913689]

>>9904986
Barbarian was the firstest of all in doing beheadings

[Anonymous No.9915262]

>>9903630
>>9903759
Golden Axe AI is more aggressive although also more stupid. Often you feel the need you got to cheese to play it most optimally. I know I feel that way whenever I go back to it but I don't mind that about it at all just part of the series identity and being among the first in the genre ever. The running attack and running jumping attack here is what comes to mind. You will be hit with running attacks often and you should also hit them with it often. The enemies will outright bully your vulnerability in these games. Deathbringer is an absolute bitch in the game you must cheese him to beat him. His magic will F you up fast. It also does health in a weirder way that makes it harder to gauge how much you can take before death or losing health. I think they are much harder games overall than the SOR series.

SOR2 meanwhile feels pretty manageable but gets progressively more difficult. By the end though it feels very overwhelming and perhaps even like the game is purposefully cheating you with the difficulty creep and forcing you to fight all the bosses again. Once you get the tricks down though any competent player can go through these games utilizing the tactics with minimal damage or death.

SOR 1 and 2, Golden Axe 1 and 2, and Bare Knuckle 3 (because SOR 3 was borked) are the best beat em ups on the console and are all great. Did not like GA 3.

[Anonymous No.9915926]

When they were making a reboot for Xbox360 the had the right idea who to make the single playable character. (and butchered her)

[Anonymous No.9917426]

>>9903465
>One of the most based games I ever played.
>Couldn't be done today.
I agree. Fans have so much respect for themselves that the attempted remake/reboot on steam got BTFO so hard for being so shit that SEGA immediately pulled it off the store

[Anonymous No.9917718]

>>9915926
The art is rad ngl

[Anonymous No.9919165]

>>9903435
You have to put the games in perspective. GA is an older game.

[Anonymous No.9920794]

>>9903465
If it was done today it would be given bad reviews so that's prolly why