Golden Axe Returns: Proud Cragger Playthrough (Easy)

Channel:

Psykai

Subscribers:

384

Published on March 25, 2023 4:12:13 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdhJmL-2EB8

Game:

Golden Axe (1989)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 57:07

119 views

7

Spent yesterday in the hospital with the possible fear of death, but hey, now that that's over with, we're back with more Golden Axe Returns; and the penultimate video in the series!

This time we're playing with Proud Cragger, who... really shouldn't be so proud of himself... He is by far one of the worst characters in the game, not just because he feels weak (not in terms of damage, but variety and abilities), but because he's kind of boring too.
I tried to have some fun with this run, with some 'roleplay' moments, haha. You might have noticed I like to have the character react to things or do silly stuff in relation to things happening in the game. There's quite a few in this video, particularly with animal companions.

Cragger has the unique ability to carry a huge amount of weapons at a time (triple that of a regular character), however, he cannot use them. His special action will either throw the last weapon he picked up, or throw a hunk of sand if he isn't carrying anything. Now, I actually don't have a problem with this. I think him not using weapons is pretty neat and fitting for him, and the co-op potential of using him as a portable inventory for the other players, carrying and dropping weapons for them, is actually very cool. BUT, all of this hinges on the REST of his moves feeling good. If you're taking away an entire chunk of mechanics/options from a character, they need substitutes. Think of Shiva from Streets of Rage 4, with his iconic quote: "I don't need weapons, I AM the weapon". Shiva is a powerhouse with low-costing special moves and the ability to just dominate physically, but Cragger is not Shiva... Whilst he IS a heavy hitter unarmed, he doesn't have any more moves than other characters whilst unarmed and lacks flashiness which makes his gameplay feel repetitive and dull after a while of seeing the same combo over and over. I would also expect him to be a grappling powerhouse, but sadly, due to the way throws work in this game (having to be close to enemies mid-combo and hitting a direction+attack) it can feel difficult to pull them off, and attempting to do so usually results in being surrounded and wrecked. Sometimes (with all characters, not just Cragger) they start to perform the 'up close' combo and I input a throw and it just.. doesn't come out. The fact they're performing the close combo means I'm in throw range so I don't know what's happening there. Cragger especially should be able to grapple with ease, especially since he has several different throws.

Cragger's second ability is actually very cool: instead of riding animals, he tames them and turns them into an NPC helper, which is honestly a GENIUS idea from ZVitor. I do wish the animals could follow him between stages like they do if you ride them, especially in situations like Guld's castle where there's a blue dragon at the very end but he's useless because the stage ends right after him, lol. But I could also see that becoming broken fast if numerous animals survived a long time xD From a story perspective it just feels odd that he'd tame an animal and then just... abandon it, lol.

I feel like Cragger could use a little bit of an overhaul. Personally, I think a command grab, where you can input any direction afterwards to perform any of his regular grapple moves could be excellent for him, though this does raise the issue of "how does he throw weapons then if his special becomes a command grab?" The only thought I had was that perhaps his inventory could always be visible somewhere near his HUD, and the command that usually shows his inventory switches weapons like any other character and then the special move throws them, but he can also choose to be unarmed at any time (perhaps by inputting the swap weapon command whilst already holding the last weapon in his bag or something), which is when he can use the command grab instead. My other thought is maybe he could be the only character in the game to actually use the "walk into an enemy to grab them" mechanic, instantly solidifying him as a grappler. Or if the focus was just on being a pure powerhouse, perhaps make his combo (or just the combo ender) 'customizable' with different directional inputs to vary it up a bit since hand-to-hand is all he has. There's probably a lot of ways to tweak him but these are just my suggestions off the top of my head. He's not super weak, but he needs to be a bit more interesting and dominating unarmed, since that's his main form of attack.

This is normally where I would ask who you would like to see hunt down the legendary titular Golden Axe next, but, there's only one character remaining! Next week, we'll finish off our Golden Axe marathon with the lovely dancer Sara!
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This is a fangame developed with the OpenBOR engine. If you would like to download it for yourself, the link to the game's gamejolt page is here: https://gamejolt.com/games/GoldenAxeReturns/779852

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