Duel 02: Golden Axe - Double Dragon 2

[JudasEZT]

Real duel.. and knocking duel.

Two beat'm ups in all its glory. Two conversions which made you feel proud of your Amiga. Two conversions Ocean software (In-house) were never capable to develop.

Both games are attractive, technically perfect, no disk-swapping, perfect graphics, perfect scroll, perfect sound effects, 2p cooperative mode..
Both games are a little bit easy,..

Decide for the winner, and watch out for the next duel which will be even harder to decide!

[Djay]

Golden Axe

Far more original in terms of style and nice varied characters and npcs... Even if judged against double dragon one...

[JudasEZT]

while writing the introduction to the poll and mentioning the Ocean joke I then recalled the good Shadow Warriors.. but we can agree is one or two steps behind these two.

[Djay]

Yes indeed

May I suggest something like switchblade vs strider or lotus 3 vs jaguar xj220...

[JudasEZT]

Originally Posted by Djay

Yes indeed

May I suggest something like switchblade vs strider or lotus 3 vs jaguar xj220...

I prepared another duel similar to Switchblade vs Strider, but with other two games.. Im sure it will make you think.

I take note of the Lotus VS Jaguar.. just I always preferred Lotus 2 over Lotus 3 =)

[Lonewolf10]

I have never played either game on the Amiga, but Golden Axe on the Megadrive was great so I voted for that. I have one of the Double Dragon games on the spectrum, but it's been so long since I played it that I can't remember which one it is.

[Retro-Nerd]

Amiga? Clearly Double Dragon II. I'm still amazed that somebody finds the lame Amiga port of Golden Axe playable. On the Mega Drive the opposite, the Golden Axe port beats Double Dragon II easily.

[JudasEZT]

Well, 'lame' =) I reminds you that Amiga has in its soft library games like: TeenangeMutantNinjaTurtles, Alien Storm, Battletoads or even the first Double Dragon.

If its not enough check the spanish contribution to the genre: Corsarios, and taste the quality of spanish industry.

Those then are ultralame =D

Making retrospective, Amiga has suffered of many insults in this great genre of gaming.
And the real pity is that these two greats examples which are in the poll, which are games of great quality, always were tagged by magazines and specialized press of being "just another boring horizontal beat'm up".

They didnt took in mind that those titles were great franchises and in later years for MD and SNES there were going to be dozens and dozens of new beat'em ups... curiously, specialized press didnt tagged practically none of them of "just another boring horizontal beat'm up"... because the succes of the genre were more than proved.

[Djay]

I normally play arcade games on mame... I am making a full size mame cabinet after Xmas!!!!!

[Retro-Nerd]

Golden Axe is no example of a really good arcade conversion. Sure, there are even worser arcade ports, but compared to Double Dragon II the Amiga port of GA sucks. There are already threads about Amiga arcade ports, if you want to check it.

[JudasEZT]

ok, Retronerd,.. just I consider that a game like this in 512kbs of ram is a hard work to do..

take in mind that if US Gold would been the producers then Dementia staff would had had half time to finish it =DDD and it would have been,.. well.. it would have been NinjaTurtles.. or worst, Dinasty Warriors.

[Retro-Nerd]

The really good Mega Drive version of GA is a 512 KB game too. And of course it profits from the 3-button joypad. Anyway, i'm sure there could have been a better Amiga port, made by other developers.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

There are already threads about Amiga arcade ports, if you want to check it.

I could do that..
But generally, when trying to verify what I like, I prefer to check with myself and not threads about what other people think..

Just me..

And I quite like Golden Axe for the Amiga..
Faults and all.. ;-)

desiv

[fishyfish]

Amiga Golden Axe was pretty darn close to the arcade version. Dunno what drugs the people who say otherwise are on.
Running both side by side on my amiga and megadrive and both are better in some ways. Amiga version is fullscreen, megadrive isnt. Graphics are pretty equal, amiga versions being a bit cleaner while megadrive version is a bit pale and washed out, but having a few details at times thats not in amiga version. Amiga sfx are better, but tunes are a bit muffled.
Gameplay wise both are much on par, but both slightly different to the arcade parent (mix the 2 and its pretty much right).
I cant help but feel nostalgia, and the media of the time plays a bit part in peoples perceptions.

Double Dragon2 I enjoyed as well. Fun beat 'em up, but plays a bit differently to the arcade version. It's a lot easier for starters

All up I'd say its a tough call. As conversion factor goes theyre both a good 7.5-8 out of 10. As games, maybe 7-7.5.
Im gonna go with Golden Axe, soley 'cos of how much I played it in the arcades back in the day vs. DD2. DD1 I played a lot when it was the "latest and greatest" thing, but DD2 was too similar, so didnt receive as many 20c coins as its predecessor (still enough to complete it a few times though).

[Retro-Nerd]

Sorry, what? Pretty close arcade port? Maybe the graphics, but cleary not the rest of the game. And the Amiga version isn't full screen. Not nearly.

The controls/playability is far better in the Mega Drive version. Guess we have a Amiga biased opinion here.

[JudasEZT]

I prefer Amiga Golden Axe over Megadrive.

- It sounds better much better ( 80% of megadrives games sounds like a angry cat )

- looks better ( plain bad palette, repetitive and ugly colouring on sprites, bad drawing and bad colouring in backgrounds )

- moves better ( Megadrive moves fast but doesnt move smooth, Amiga does )

- plays better, although I admit is a bit easy on Amiga, though Megadrive has the typical console game modes to choose ( modes which I usually avoid like pest ).


Respect DD2, well I simply tend to consider it the only Amiga Double Dragon. I ignore first one and third too,. third more because of the lame original coin-op,.. good conversion though.

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Sorry, what? Pretty close arcade port? Maybe the graphics, but cleary not the rest of the game. And the Amiga version isn't full screen. Not nearly.

The controls/playability is far better in the Mega Drive version. Guess we have a Amiga biased opinion here.

One button control method was the standard in that era,.. dont blame Golden Axe for that.

[Retro-Nerd]

Well, Golden Axe IS a 3-button game anyway.

[JudasEZT]

And Operation Wolf is a gun game, and what?

[Retro-Nerd]

That you mostly can't do a proper port, just like the damn awful Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat Amiga ports with one button control.

[JudasEZT]

If you have not imagination, no effectively you cannot.

Come on RetroNerd, did you ever enjoyed any game? apart of GA on Genesis..