Game:

Golden Axe III (1993)

Duration: 1:00:43

111 views

5

I've been really enjoying this guy's romhacks once I've discovered them. This is the redux of the Japanese only release of Golden Axe III romhack, which you can find here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6417/

While the game wasn't as well received as the arcade exclusive title, Revenge of Death Adder, I kind of prefer this of the three Genesis titles, and prefer how the first game plays on the Arcade itself. I can't say I'm a huge Golden Axe fan but I won't deny the series has some appeal and is fun to play, and this romhack does make this third installment pretty enjoyable but still tough. More so when fighting against multiples of boss class enemies, even if they can't block anymore.

I really like how Sarah Burn controls here, and I aimed for getting the good ending, and shockingly I made it through without burning a continue as I managed to get and keep two extra lives until the very late game so this is my best run of the game since I had played it a fair bit for overall fun, and sprite ripping.

Anyway, rough story summery, many years after the first two games, the evil lord Hellstrike has appeared and stole the Golden Axe for his own, and made the smart move of putting four new heroes under a curse to keep them as his allies. Gillius, the dwarf from the first two games, too old to fight is able to liberate one or two of the heroes from their curse to take up the task of defeating this new foe and reclaim the Golden Axe.

I took the route where you liberate the heroes, which gives you a better chance of getting the good ending since if you use any continues before or during the first final boss fight, you'll lose your chance at fighting the second form and get the good ending. Freeing each hero gives you a wider range for success, but as mentioned, I managed to not use a single continue this time around, not even during the second phase since once you get to it, you can use as many continues as you wish. It's getting to that second phase is what's so tricky before then, even with this hack making it a bit easier.

You always start in The Vast Field, but from there after beating the knight, I enter the Tender Hamlet where we fight the first of our comrades, and fighting them is the same as fighting them on vs mode without a second player, but get gradually stronger. After that we enter the Dim Jungle and face off against one of the tougher boss type enemies, whom while easy to deal with one on one, having two of em is HARD. As otherwise the giants are no jokes.

Going to the Bloody Street from there is where we tackle another of our comrades, and from there we enter Death Mountain. And this is where we can first fight "Eve". A character you can only play as in vs mode. He's sorta a tough enemy but at this point the game is getting a bit harder with the enemy types. The Cursed City is where things can get tough as in this route is where we first fight the four armed minotaurs and they are no joke. Especially in pairs. But here is also where we free our final comrade, at least in single player and from there we finally The Gate of Fate, the final level. First before we enter we face off against Eve again, whom turns out to be the king who was cursed, and he asks us to save the princess right before getting killed.

Once inside the final area it's a real tough gauntlet as you square off against the toughest variants of each enemy type and it's brutal. But we finally reach Hellstrike in front of a statue of I assume Death Adder, and the first form is somewhat easy, at least once you get rid of the knights that join the fight. What's dangerous about him is his throw, range with the Golden Axe, his fire strike, and jump attack. But if you can get him into a pattern he's rather cake and we save the princess, but we aren't allowed to leave as he comes back in a slightly new form and now he can use magic like we can.

And yeah, I've been saving the magic for him to do as much damage as possible and he otherwise fights the same, but you really gotta try and keep him from spamming his magic or else he will make short work of you, but I pull the win without a continue and get the best score I ever got as a result. So I hope you guys enjoyed this run as it was my best of this game.

Other Statistics