Golden Axe - PC Engine CD Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ย. 2024
- Most of us are familiar with the Genesis port. Many have even played the Master System edition. But what about the Japanese PC Engine version??
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
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By: Jan Neves
TH-cam Page - / jan3d
Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tses...
Episode Notes:
1. Captured on real hardware.
2. There is also a WonderSwan version of this game.
3. I've played a few of the home computer versions of this. C64, Amiga, Atari ST, etc. I consider this worse.
4. Is this as bad as the Sega Ages 2500 remake? Maybe.
5. My favorite Golden Axe is still The Revenge of Death Adder.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
This makes me appreciate the Sega Genesis version of the game. It’s amazing how close the Genesis conversion was to the Arcade big brother.
yes indeed, they did their best with that conversion.
Agreed, rather no cutscenes with better graphics
The Genesis had very similar hardware to Sega's 16-bit arcade board, just a bit weaker in terms of CPU and memory. It was basically built to handle their current-gen arcade games, like how the Famicom/NES was designed to play Donkey Kong.
@@jasonblalock4429 The Genesis was an amazing piece of hardware when it was designed, it had one limiting factor and that was its color pallet, but that same limiting factor also helped it with speed and memory size and complex processing. The fact it can only put 61 colors on screen means that the video ram does not need to be that large and because of that, it was able to do more with less. Everything back then was a balancing act between price, performance, and features. I think the Turbo Grafx was very capable, but it took clever tricks to pull off some things that the genesis did for free. So like this example, it was just lazy programming and time to market. The Snes was not raw, like the Genesis and Turbo, it was a box of tricks that took over lots of the processing and that made games look good without much work, but when you peal back the paint, it really was not that much better than the other 16 bit systems, it was just easy to make games look and sound good... At the end of the day that is all that really mattered anyways.
Yeah Sega did a great job
A major factor here was the fact that they put this on the CD-Rom to begin with. The original PCE CD-ROM had only 64KB of program RAM (the later Super CD added an additional 192K to that 64 for a total of 256KB). While it doesn’t seem like it at first, a beat-em-up like this requires a lot of memory for the animation frames, and 64KB to cram program data, background tiles, and multiple character animation frames is asking for a lot. Hence the tiny sprites, chunky animation, and woefully bland background graphics.
In all honestly, this game would have been better off ditching the intermission scenes and coming on a 4mb chip (like the Sega Genesis version). That way, you could essentially load/stream as much of that game data as necessary at one time. The main character animation (of each character) for the Genesis cart is probably 64KB all by itself. On a CD system, you’re limited by the amount of RAM at any given time, despite how much space you have on the disc.
The problem with that is that 4mb PCE cards were very expensive and only started to become widely available in 1990. If you recall, the PCE version of R-Type was released on two separate 2mb cards, but was later combined into one 4mb card in the US once they became more affordable.
If you want more evidence of the RAM limitations of the PCE, realize that Street Fighter 2 was released not on a Super CD, but on a 20mb card in 1994 (the largest ever made). The 2mb of RAM even on the Super CD would not have been enough to store the animation frames of the two characters at any given fight.
Compared to something like Rondo of Blood… that is an amazing game, but the levels and characters are built around this RAM limitation, and are kept relatively (but intelligently) small. Golden Axe didn’t have that luxury.
Despite all of that, this game on the PCE is awful. I own it. Bland graphics or not, the gameplay and control are terrible and it plays nothing like the real game. I can accept the fact that a perfect conversion, even one on the same level of the Genesis port, was impossible, but it should have been better than this.
That's the thing we've seen the NES/master system and various other consoles that shouldn't have been able to achieve what they did achieve the impossible. You could tell they tried to paper over or obscure the limitations and other horrible aspects with the CD soundtrack and cinematics.
It should have been so much better and I'd honestly be extremely curious to find out what exactly all went wrong to get this where it is. I do feel like it was probably rushed out but I also feel like there's other things that led to how bad this is.
You aren't wrong. While I still think the graphics should still be better, the original PCE CD hardware was certainly a hurdle for the visuals. But even then, nothing excuses the gameplay. It should play better regardless of how it looks. This was just a shit show from start to finish.
Very interesting. One minor correction: SFII for the PCE was released in '92.
Given how bad the gameplay is I wouldn't be surprised if the horrible presentation is more than just a matter of limited RAM, everything is pointing at a shoddy work.
The game should have been designed to use the super cd upgrade to 256k...64k is just way to small even in the 90s for a cd base system.. Look at the Arcade card 2mb it make a few great almost arcade quality games.
I am still baffled that Sega did not have the arranged CD audio as an option for the SCD Golden Axe in Classic Arcade Collection.
My dream Golden Axe is one that has all the graphical flair of the Arcade release, all the added content from the Genesis release, and the animated opening/expanded story of the PCE-CD version, and finally modern QoL improvements like being able to replay specific levels, and tracking progress with different characters, etc. (and of course ideally new content like the extra characters from later Golden Axe sequels). I think a super special edition of it could be really...well, special.
That would be amazing! I wish Sega would have done something like this for Golden Axe's 30th Anniversary. Maybe even include The Revenge of Death Adder, too! It has been over a decade since the last Golden Axe game, so I hope Sega does a revival of the series at some point!
QOL? Wait, wait...Quality of Life?
Openbor GoldenAxeGenesis3.0 and Golden Axe Legend.
@@Sinn0100 Correct!
Master Linkuei has you covered! Golden Axe Returns!
Honestly if it weren't for the CD music, I would assume this was a Master System game with its colors, bordered screen, and sound effects.
Yeah, same here! It definitely looks like a Master System release graphically.
The Master System Golden Axe looks and plays better than this Golden Ass by a mile!
@@RolandoMarreroPR That is for certain!
The anime-style arrangement is horribly inappropriate for Golden Axe. This music would sound fine in a Valis game
Timing is perfect, today Golden Axe Returns was released, a quality fan game for PC/Android created by ZVitor.
The PC Engine was an incredible piece of hardware with an excellent library of games.
Yep, the TG-16 may not have done great in the US and elsewhere but the PC Engine is and was incredible. I'm so glad it's been re-evaluated and given new life and that people can use their old TG-16 with a little bit of tinkering.
This is my absolute favorite beat em up of all time. This needs to be next on the beat em up revivals series by DOTEMU.
But they should take inspiration from revenge of death adder.
I said this exact thing in another thread last year.
I couldn't agree more, DOTEMU could do justice to this series no question.
thats a great idea !
Play guardian heroes and you'll have a different opinion entirely.
So this ran on the same hardware as Rondo of Blood? Amazing
Mind boggling
Golden Axe always a major nostalgia hit. I remember watching the demo mode over and over and OVER at my local pizza joint when I was a kid. Seemed like that arcade cabinet was there forever. In reality it was probably only a year or two lol
Mr Sega Lord thank you for playing this so the rest of us don't have to. You've done a great service to the community
Watching this gave me the same feeling I had when I got Double Dragon C64 when I was a kid and playing it for the first time.
That's a super under rated game 🎮.
What-in-the-Game-Gear-remake happened to these graphics?!?
Even the game gear can do better than this.
Lack of ram in the CD addon seems to the be the real issue, limiting animation, sprite size and detail, but the limited number of enemies is a limitation of the PC-Engine’s display hardware.
Had no idea there was a pc engine cd port
personally enjoyed the MS-DOS port, which also has the closest arcade graphical quality as well. What's better is that the game can be modded to play as enemy characters as well by simply replacing the main playable chara file with any other character file data. ;)
The first time I saw this it blew my mind. It's like they made it bad on purpose.
I didn't know what to expect when he said it was going to be bad and wow it's literally worse than I could have imagined.
The sound effects and graphics are the worst I've personally seen on the PC engine itself not even CD. This just is an amazing letdown cutscenes and music notwithstanding.
"Well below what this system was capable of" is a very kind way of putting it. The PC-Engine was deficient compared to the Megadrive when it came to the lack of a secondary background layer and that's about it. It could handle larger sprites than the Megadrive could (32x64 for a single sprite opposed to the MD's 32x32) and in 256H mode, the same number of sprites on a sprite line. (The PC-Engine's 8-bit CPU was also every bit as competent as the MD's 16-bit 68k. More bits does not always amount to "always faster and more powerful.") There's absolutely no reason he PC-Engine port couldn't have been the exact same thing the MegaDrive port was, minus a background layer.
It's true more bits doesn't always mean faster and more powerful, but the Mega Drive had indeed a more powerful processor. The team that ported Marble Madness to it considered the PC Engine first, but dropped it and went with Mega Drive because 8-bit wasn't enough to calculate the ball physics. I think the problem here is that the PC Engine can't stream new graphical assets mid-level, which is why there are so few tiles. It also cannot flip tiles on the X or Y axis like the Mega Drive can, so it needs to waste more RAM on mirrored assets. Other than that, the Mega Drive also has higher horizontal resolution, 320 vs. 256 pixels and four more sound channels. PC Engine could have used its major strength, more colors on screen, but didn't.
@@KaskelotenZebbe You're correct when you say that the PC-Engine can't mirror flip its background tiles (its sprite tile functionality certainly can), but the fact of the matter is computationally the 6820 is faster than the MD's 68k. There's several benchmarks available on TH-cam that demonstrate this; granted they cover simple instructions like ADC (add plus carry) and nothing terribly complex but even the simplest form of benchmark is a more solid comparison than the anecdote of a development team deciding for one platform against another. If the modest 1.79MHz Famicom 6502 can handle Marble Madness' physics, then there is no question about the 6820's ability to do the same.
You're also incorrect also when you say the Mega Drive has a higher HRES. In fact, out of the three major 16-bit consoles, the PC-Engine is the most versatile when it comes to screen resolution, and they've been using this versatility since the system's inception. R-Type I + II both run at 352H. Sherlock Holmes for the PCE-CD uses the system's 512H mode. The Arcade CD Art of Fighting port uses the PC Engine's unique ability to increment and decrement HRES and VRES on-the-fly to simulate the zooming in-and-out of the original Neo Geo game. Chris Covell has also demonstrated that the machine can also deliver 448i when it comes to the VRES. Granted, the Megadrive's 320H mode enjoys an extended number of sprites per scanline over its 256H mode which the PC-Engine can't duplicate.
@@CplEthane Well, a simple benchmark doesn't really decide overall CPU performance. 16-bit instructions are much more efficient at multi-tasking, which is necessary if you want to have lots of animation, sprites and background layers. But the problem in Golden Axe's case is probably the RAM, which may be linked to the reason why they made those upgrade cards (and, maybe made Sega decide to have lots of RAM on the Sega CD, which even then wasn't enough for 2 player on Golden Axe). Correct, PC Engine has those hi-res modes, but they weren't the standard, were they?
Sure, Marble Madness is on NES too, but it just doesn't play as good tbh.
I love both my Mega Drive and PC Engine, but for different reasons. PC Engine has the colour, the CD as a standard format, some cool exclusive games. Mega Drive has a higher horizontal res standard, more sound channels, 2 bg layers, better CPU and its exclusive games.
@@KaskelotenZebbe You're right, a simple benchmark doesn't really decide overall CPU performance but again, it's still better than anecdotal testimony. It would take a great deal of time and effort to exhaustively compare the performance of a 6820 vs a comparably clocked 68k, but keep in mind that most software for both systems relied on the add + compare instructions most of the time.
I believe you're thinking of _pipelining_, not multitasking. Multitasking is (for sub 32-bit hardware, anyway) strictly a software endeavor. And 16-bit CPUs aren't any more special at pipelining than 8-bit CPUs are. The 6820 doesn't suffer as many clock cycles per instruction as the 68k for that matter either. You can't say that the 68k is a "better" CPU than the 6820 because it doesn't offer any real advantages over the 6820 when it comes to tile-based software titles.
As someone who has developed for the PC-Engine, I can tell you from experience that the problem with Golden Axe is _not_ with the CD system RAM. PC-Engine CD Golden Axe uses the comparably measly 64k System 1.0/2.0 card, which amounts to half of a megabit. The original Mega Drive port is only 4 megabits (half a megabyte), and this _includes_ the entire bonus final level after you defeat the original Death=Adder. I'm pretty sure that even with 64k, the PC-Engine would have little to no issues loading an entire level, all the player/enemy sprites, and sound FX provided all these assets were simply ported over from the Mega Drive version untouched. There's a *lot* of PC-Engine game assets and code that you can pack into 64k.
The Mega-CD had 6 megabits of RAM which means the entirety of the original 4 megabit Mega Drive Golden Axe port (with two-player capability) could have easily fit into a single load. I couldn't tell you how they managed to botch the Mega-CD port of that game.
Officially produced games used horizontal resolutions from 256 to 320 to 352 to 512 (it could drop as low as 160H but no game ever used this mode.) And if officially-produced games used these resolutions, then they were standard, simple as that. The PC-Engine could also smoothly increment between these resolutions on-the-fly while the game is running with no hit to performance (see: Art of Fighting.) The Mega Drive is incapable of anything besides 256 and 320.
@@CplEthane I would say they are both good CPUs/systems that are good at different things. You can see it in the different libraries, PC Engine does graphical adventures and shmups better while Mega Drive does run and guns and other action-heavy action titles with lots of sprites and animation better. You just don't see stuff like Alien Soldier, Gunstar Heroes or Contra Hard Corps on PC Engine, the Mega Drive can do multi-jointed sprites very well and doesn't need the 64x32 sprite option. Sega actually originally planned to go with an 8-bit CPU for Mega Drive, but changed to 68k despite making it more expensive and selling the system at a loss. I don't think they would have done that if the CPU was worse.
So you'd say the Golden Axe port is just bad because they couldn't code it properly? They even went an extra mile in redrawing most assets to compensate for that if so.
I don't know either why the Mega-CD port is missing the 2 player option. Maybe the new sound and bad optimization prevented them from it. Another example is PlayStation has more RAM than the entire Final Fantasy VI, yet again it requires 10 seconds of loading every time you want to open the menu.
Well, yeah, but I think there are more 320H games on Mega Drive than there are games with that or higher resolution on PC Engine. I wouldn't say either is better at all times, it depends on the genre. The Mega Drive has 16-bit CPU, 4 more sound channels, uses hi-res more often. PC Engine more resolution options, efficient 8-bit CPU etc.
Man........the one night I am like....I'm going to bed early....you decide to drop more EPICNESS for us all!! Thank you @SegaLordX!!
Interesting the CD version on the Mega Drive on the Sega Arcade Classics collection included with the Mega CD is also one player only.
...I guess it's obvious why this one wasn't brought over and released on the TG-CD.
The Sega CD version of Golden Axe is basically is the Mega Drive version but strangely lacks a 2 player mode for some reason? GBA version is another great conversation of Golden Axe but everything thing is zoomed in more.
I still remember the moment like yesterday. It was in the late 2000s and when I got my hands on a working PC Engine Bios along with a fully working copy of Magic Engine emulator for Windows, I started trying out PCE-CD games like Dracula X. I was surfing along for ISOs when I stumbled upon Golden Axe just chillin there waiting for download. I was thinking, "Wait a minute...there's a Golden Axe for Turbo Grafx 16?" Anxiously waited for the download as internet speeds were notoriously slow at the time, then when I fired it up after the intro I was in utter disbelief at how bad the game is. It was so bad that I honestly thought that it was a hack or a homebrew (not throwing shade at the homebrew community). I think Telenet were the ones that sold this stinker and it's almost as if they never even bothered to reference the Arcade or Genesis versions for side-by-side comparisons while developing it.
It's remarkably bad.
It almost does seem like they tried to make it as bad as possible and the worst version they possibly could. If it wasn't for the music and cinematics it would have nothing redeemable at all.
the most shocking fact was the the IBM-PC DOS port was actually decent but had horrible music and sound effects, but as far as graphics goes, it was great.
I totally agree with you. I am a huge Golden Axe fan boy. I got a Odin pro and 27 systems emulated. I have several versions of Golden Axe. I was excited to see the PC engine version but was quickly let down. I did like the cenamatix. The game play was not what I was expecting.
I loved how you said it "shocked you" before the intro but didn't say if that was a good thing or bad thing. Nice build up for the video 👍
I can't believe this is the same hardware that runs the best Street Fighter 2 version when it came out
love your videos
Thank you!
This makes me appreciate the Amiga and even Atari ST versions much more. Those were contemporary machines to the PC Engine and played fine, the ST version suffered from choppy scrolling and a crushed viewport, and both systems had a shallower palette than the System 16 or the Mega Drive but it was workable. One thing I've noticed looking at ports from this era is the home micros are slower, but don't have limits in the same way, here the PC Engine needs to use the background layer to do the magic, but the home micros could just sling it all up there, sure it slowed down quite a bit but hey it's non-interactive so enjoy the spectacle. There's a comparison vid online should you search and see for yourself, though some of the 'wiggle' you may see in those versions feels like a 50/60FPS encoding issue.
The coin-op cabinet used to steal the show. That music belting out. The magic animations. You were completely drawn to that machine
When I was a kid my uncle had a small shop at his house and had Golden Axe in Arcade. I played this game so much there. He passed some years ago and everytime I think of this game, it reminds me of him. Rip.
Not gonna lie, this gives me Atari/SMS vibes on the gameplay visuals but def love the CD music. I feel you man goodness
With the PCE's nice color palette and the huge CD storage at hand there is simply no excuse for the game looking this bad. The Master System did it better.
Extreme lazy development
This makes the Sega Master System conversion look like an absolute masterpiece which is a shame because the other Sega ports to the PC Engine (Altered Beast, Out Run, Afterburner, etc...) are way better than the Genesis counterparts.
Makes the Mega Drive/Genesis look next gen!
I almost bought it, got Monster Lair CD instead.
Good choice.
@@SegaLordX thsnk you Sega Lord X, will you look at all the SEGA games on the P.C. Engine and CD sistem?
Damn that’s a rough ass port man.
I think the Master System outperformed this one and that’s not saying much😊
my favorite home version was the Sega CD version that came bundled with it but overall my favorite prolly has to be the Arcade 1up Golden Axe cabinet as it is the Arcade version of the game.
My man SLX keeps the vids coming!
I remember playing this version at my friend's place and this was how I reacted.
I see anime style cutscenes and the portrait of the heroes of this game
My reaction: *Yes!*
I see the cutscenes of the heroes in anime style and their Japanese voices
My reaction: *YES!!*
The gameplay and the game itself.....
My reaction: *FAR OUT!! BLOODY BONKERS MATE!!!!*
Needless to say, I will just watch the cutscenes of it from the TH-cam videos.
That honestly looks like it belongs on the Sega Master System.
A very nice video again. The first version of Golden Axe I ever played was for the AMIGA about 30 years ago. In my eyes it´s a very solid port even when, of course, it´s not as perfect as the Mega Drive version. It was also for me the first Sega game outside a Sega system. Today it´s (almost) standard but back then it was a very surprise for me.
Well the PC Engine Mini has recently been hacked and I look forward to adding the entire library of PC Engine and PC Engine CD games to it. I'll add this because well I'm curious but I know it's not gonna be all that, the soundtrack is the only redeeming factor from what I see. Top man.
Via the Arcade the megadrive was the best version and one of the main reasons I brought a megadrive back then 👍
I used to run to the corner store to play this whenever I could get my hands on some quarters it was so sick....iv never played these home versions
The Genesis version is a very close second to the arcade. It's not perfect but but you could tell Sega did a lot of magic on it.
Man I was 11 when this came out and it still amazes to this very day.
Gonna buy 20 copies of this right away. Thanks Lordy! SEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
🙀
Finally I waited for it video like this... This was my favorite game growing up...
The PC Engine can do so much better...
With all the quarters I put into this arcade I could just buy the whole unit nowadays honestly! So much damn fun though
Best hidden gem channel on the tube!
More like hidden turd. The FMVs don't make up for the flaws.
@@Invidente7 I’m talking about TH-cam as the tube. And I’m referring to Sega Lord’s channel when I call it a gem. This game is ten types of trash, all only edible for raccoons with early signs of rabies.
I remember Golden Axe, only played the Mega Drive/Genesis versions from the Mega Collection games on the PS3 and XBox 360.
Wished I could have had other versions of Golden Axe but at least we also got Dragon's Crown on the PS3/PS Vita as that game is almost like Golden Axe with a DnD style of story.
Don't forget golden axe on the Sega Master System
I didn't know this was on PC Engine CD.
They’ve lost me at single player, I’ve used to play the ms-dos version with a friend.
Someone was taking this and fixing it (color/sprite sizes) but I haven't heard about it ages, so like so many PCE projects, started and probably never finished.
Now I get why I never heard of this version
Woot!
This was a money grab. Same with Strider for pc engine and a few moee. To be honest the pc engine is a very well designed system. It can do almost anything the genesis can do and some things better. What made the pc engine dangerous was its ability to have more ram added, Ram was a huge limitation back then.. Do a review of the arcade card..
If you told me the Master System got a slight memory upgrade and a CD add-on and this is the version for it, I'd believe you!
A fair assessment. Always quality content on this channel. Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it.
@@SegaLordX Hey man, you jumped from the atari 2600 to the nes with some odyssey 2 in between. I think you mentioned this anyway. I had a friend with an atari, he got the odyssey 2 later then I had another buddy with a colecovision before the nes and master system were around. You never .mention the colecovision ever. Wondering your impressions of it and any experience playing it youmay have. Thanks for everything btw
I'd love to know what happened. This could have been so close to arcade perfect, and this is just dire.
Honestly this needs a wha happun?!
Honestly I just think it was inexperienced hands dealing with the game. Telenet are a fine company but they never really made anything amazingly groundbreaking and most of their games (original or ports) were at best just average. They were also working on presumably several games at once at the time and this one probably fell in the hands of the B Team
@@officialFredDurstfanclub Yeah that's what I'm thinking. Developers weren't the hugely-staffed corporations they are today, and even the best ones like Konami would sometimes have a B Team execute a game with poor results (the Mega Drive version of Sunset Riders comes to mind). Telenet being nowhere near the level of Konami only meant their B Team was probably that much worse.
HOLY SHIT !!
That small windowed display makes it look like it's an Amiga or Atari ST port. I like the new anime cut scenes but the game itself looks well below what you'd expect from the PC-Engine. Honestly, would have expected a great port.
looks like a abit improved Master System port if i were to describe the PC E CD version, lol
This game was way ahead of its time. Story & cinematics above gameplay didn't truly become a thing until the Xbox 360 era.
Man I really wish this was good because there’s such a lack of beat ‘em ups on the PC Engine
Wow! That is not what I was expecting?! I wonder if it had been a cartridge release, could it have been better (in the same way the Genesis CD version is only 1 player)? At least the frame rate is fairly decent, compared to other 8-bit ports.
Golden Axe on the Sega Genesis was amazing! I figured it being on a CD would have been better but after learning about the Ram limitations I was saddened by what the PCE put together. The PCE had some great games they just really missed the mark. The huge intro and arcade select screen hyped you up but that game play and controls were a let down.
Kinda sounds like Samurai Cop music
Sure its not the greatest version, but when you didn't have a Sega Genesis/Megadrive or Master System at that time, you were just happy to see it ported over to your particular system regardless of what you had. Fortunately emulation now exists and we have a smorgasbord of roms to play and visit these titles we couldn't before, regardless of your ethics on the emulation scene right or wrong. Good video and thanks! 👍
See, this is the type of music i was expecting on the Sega Cd version. Though I do recall that version at least used CD recordings of the arcade music.
The Master System version is much more impressive than this, given the hardware on offer. On an unrelated note, I'm also still wondering why the Mega CD version wasn't closer to the arcade, given it had the ability to provide scaling - all we got was a single player experience with better sound, and some rather... iffy... samples.
I keep forgetting about this awesome game.
for sure. For me, it's one of those rare games where I want to master it. It's great when you can finally 1cc this game.
I had Golden Axe for Master System and would still take it over this
Oh wow. I thought the PS2 Sega Ages revamp looked fine but this Golden Axe makes my EYES BLEED.
It looks like the Master System but with a few more FPS
Thought same, like maybe they just ported the wrong port lol.
SMS Golden Axe looks much better, at least in still images
@@gc3k true! I was tricked by those still images more times than I want to admit!
Back in the day Sega put a lot of Arcade games on floppy disk for the IBM PC( 5 1/4 floppy) and honestly I was shocked at how good a floppy disk could run a game like Golden Axe and if I remember right I think it might of had joystick support as well . These games are hard to find now , but you can easily emulate them and I would encourage you to check them out , because you will be surprised at how good these old floppy games was and considering that's all we had unless you had an Arcade down the street it was awesome. So fire up your Dos box and have a go at it , lol
Imagine if someone made a patch for the Sega CD version to add the soundtrack and cutscenes from this version.
And add the 2 player co-op from the cart version.
Not a fan of the music, it's not Golden Axe at all
It's funny how as many times as I get mad about a game and not making it over from Japan there's a game like this that I'm like, thank you for not bringing it over.
This game is truly a travesty, what a shame.
Wow this is hard to believe that Castlevania Rondo Of Blood was released on the same console....
Ah, this makes me appreciative of the Amiga's lovingly crafted port. It was on par with the Genesis give or take a few points. This looks like a master system game
It's high time Golden Axe got some love, like Streets Of Rage 4 level love!
I will break something if Dotemu makes Golden Axe look like Streets of Rage 4. Especially considering how amazing Dragon's Crown looks
@@gc3k SOR4 looks great.
@@kalofkrypton SoR4 looks like Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
This game did not do the arcade justice! I'll stick to my Genesis game any day! Awesome video and great episode SLX!
Gosh, I LOVED Golden Axe back in the arcade days. First played in the arcade at a Fun Fair. After that, I purchased the game for the Commodore 64. After that, I went further insane for the game after playing the demo version on my Atari ST 520fm which eventually led me to obtain the full game which I loved like no tomorrow. After that, I played the Megadrive version a year after purchasing my Japanese console with Ghouls & Ghost. I really enjoyed the Megadrive version but I didn't go so insane for as I felt Sega didn't have a reason to not produce an arcade perfect version of the game after playing the Commodore 64 and Atari ST version. Now looking back at everything, I appreciate the Megadrive version a great deal but still, my feelings haven't changed from the game not to be perfect on the megadrive despite how close it looks. Still, happy golden days.
I enjoyed this would like to see more PCE ports of Sega titles.
The music for this port is great but everything else falls flat, A shame because they made a great port of Space Harrier for the basic Hu Cards that was very impressive
Ouch to those SFX 😬🤷
Golden Axe was my first Genesis game.
I still get the feeling now as I did when I first fired it up. Not some watered down in name only experience. No , this game running on my tiny crtv is as good as the Arcade.
Wow! I was not expecting this port to look so bad 😮 I have never seen a game with such a disparity between the graphics and soundtrack!
That's bad! And I loved the pc engine!
its like they accidentally made an nes port, and said F it, copy/paste
Master System version has better visuals.
For 16-bit, the Sega CD version has the best visuals, soundtrack, plus the arcade board sound effects. (*however single-player only, ugh).
Golden axe 1 and 2 were very good on the genesis 👍
I probably sound like, a broken record at this point but games like Golden Axe, needs a proper sequel like Streets of Rage had, with Streets of Rage 4.
They nerfed this on purpose. Looks like master system
The Genny port was fantastic in its time. Considering the PCE hardware, this could have been great too. This still looks far better than what the NES would have done.
from what I'd seen this one was a disaster, for sure. I mean the new anime-styled cinematics were cool, but it was all downhill from there! too bad the MEGA-CD version of the game (from that compilation if I'm remembering right) didn't get cutscenes like that I think that would've been awesome! at least they would've been attached to a competent port.
The PC Engine runs off the same CPU as the NES. While I'm consistently amazed at what they accomplished with the PC Engine's extra chips and etc. (as seen in SF2 on the system), it couldn't handle what the Genesis could. (Note that SF2 on the PC Engine doesn't have any parallax, for example--concessions had to be made to get it done.)
I wonder if the relatively small system ram contributed to this compared to what it could've been with the arcade card.
You could blame a number of things on the small RAM of the original CD card, but that in no way forgives the gameplay. This should not have run or played this poorly.
@@SegaLordX No doubt. Reminds me of the WonderSwan version that looks ok, but feels really bad to play.