Golden Axe Returns: Sara Playthrough (Easy)

Channel:

Psykai

Subscribers:

384

Published on April 2, 2023 3:33:52 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ_RfYYBZYk

Game:

Golden Axe (1989)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 1:04:26

178 views

8

Welcome back to Golden Axe Returns! I lost track of the days so I'm a day late, sorry about that! xD

For our final playthrough we're playing as Sara Burn, who is my favourite character in the series and for those who know my style by now, it's probably obvious why: FAST ACROBAT. Sadly, however, this isn't quite the case with Golden Axe Returns. Sara is a tough character to really explain, as she is not necessarily 'bad' but she's definitely not 'good' either. She has the potential to be good, but it feels like you have to put a LOT more effort into playing her than you do with Tyris, Ax, Kain, etc, which can make playing her feel like a chore as she doesn't quite have that ease of flow that the aforementioned characters do.

Sara retains her boomerang dagger throw from Golden Axe 3, and ZVitor made an interesting move to make weapon throws her 'unique trait'. Instead of throwing weapons off-screen, she throws them at differing arcs, allowing her to retrieve them again most of the time (with the exception of some weapons that she throws automatically). This is an interesting trait, but I do think that it would've been far more interesting if she threw them in more creative ways, such as a boomerang throw with the regular sword that affects the Z plain (rather than the X plain like her dagger) and so on, instead of simply having different distances. Throwing weapons is also quite a 'slow' move, which leaves her wide open. So her only 'gimmick' can often feel more like a detriment than a positive.

Other than that, Sara is pretty average at best. I think it would have been great to utilize her dancer background more, giving her much faster attacks/combos (but keeping the damage low, of course) and some more flashy, acrobatic moves (her unarmed special is a perfect example of this done right! It's a very fun flip kick!). Her runattacks for example are simple slashes and a small jump attack with the dagger, but she could have performed some flips and spins instead. She has a nice twirl animation that could've also made an amazing weapon special that hits enemies all around her, boosting her defensive capabilities, or even a fancy run attack where she spins with the weapon or does a twirl before executing a horizontal slash. Sara is one of the only characters who can't use the mace (that has a parry special), so giving her more 'safe' moves and moves that can potentially hit things all around her would definitely help give her that little bit more protection, as she feels very vulnerable in some situations. Perhaps even some sort of back attack would have been interesting for her, to showcase her reflexes.

She's certainly not the worse character on the roster by any means, but definitely one of those characters that had a lot more potential that was missed, and currently takes too much work to get much mileage out of.

I also finally got that darned black horse, by pure accident xD I can't say he was worth the trouble though, but he has his moment to shine against the minotaur boss!

And with that, we're finally done with Golden Axe Returns. As always, if there's a significant update in the future (which ZVitor often does!) with new characters, or changes to existing ones, etc. I will likely do some more runs, and I may at some point try tackling Normal difficulty with the roster.

Unless I figure out something I really want to play for the channel, I might not be back next week, but I'll think on it a while and see what takes my fancy. Until next time though, take care! ^_^ x
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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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