Golden Axe 3 is a up to 2-player beat-em-up and is another Genesis-exclusive sequel to Golden Axe. This was one developed by Sega of Japan and was released in 1993. Sadly, it stayed in Japan and Asia regions, albeit the game itself is in Engrish so I am sure they planned to release it worldwide. Hm, maybe low ratings in game magazines reviews in the West scared them off. 8 Megabit ROM.
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "GAXE3_J.68K".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "GAIII_PC_MG_EFIGS_WW_HR.pdf".
Also, make sure to check on GameFAQs site a movelist for all characters, not all of inputs are obvious. Steam manual doesn't show them all.
Has online (in Bedroom HUB only) and local multiplayer.
And once again Sega misconfigured their Simple Launcher: the second player controls aren't activated there. Use new launcher or other emulators.
The story of this game is that Golden Axe was stolen once again.
Wow.
This time is prince of Darkness – Damud Hellstrike. The name makes me think of helicopters. And he put curse on warriors. Good thing Gillius, despite being injured, managed to break your chosen character from the curse, probably by beating with cane. Other character act as some of the bosses in the game, to save some space.
Yep, it feels like developers were struggling with 8 megabits ROM. The game was dissapointing to many. You see, it came out 6 months after Streets of Rage 2 came out. Standard for graphics was set high. Sprite sizes feel even smaller than in GA1, albeit it's probably due to different art style. Animation still choppy. Background in GA1 looked like illustration downscaled to game format. Here you the walls of houses are made from same repetitive brick tile. Very gamey.
Hm, they say that magic is unimpressive. Never understood that until somebody mentioned that magic often feels like it's on-screen effect rather than actually happening on battlefield and I can see where they are coming with majority of magic.
Talking about magic, all main character now have same magic system, same damage I think. Just different effects. You can't choose how many magic bottles you want to use like in GA2 but at least game doesn't waste extra magic bottle that don't fit into current magic level.
Art style has changed from Conan. Like somebody on Internet said, if feels like “He-Man”. Just look at the first beast you get: it's a slug-dragon who strikes with tongue. Music is also gamey in how it feels. An awesome Genesis sound chip kind of gamey. Eagle stage rocks, yo!
There are four characters that you can play as. They all have big different in their moves this time around, different ranges, different combo animations. They even got some special moves. And somebody told devs that Final Fight exists so they added grabble moves, just get close and press attack. I think that spamming buttons even allow you to escape out of enemy grabs.
There is usual Ax Battler and Tyris Flare. Oh wait, it's Kain Grinder and Sahra Burn. They are your everyday cool middle choices.
Yet there is no Gillius this time around.
So it's 0/10.
But then there is a freaking anthro panther!
So it's 10/10 once again.
Too bad that Chronos “Evil” Lait, the panther, is actually the least fun character to play. Too weak but has unblockable special move that you can cheese whole game.
Another new character though is Proud Cragger, the giant. He is one of the grabbers. Slow character that takes effort to get close to enemy but delivers heavy punishement. He is my fav and gave me a taste for such chars in 2D beat-em-ups.
Sadly, with improved moveset come even more stiff control. It takes a bit before character starts to listen to controls. I am sure that it has to do with blocking which is done by back+attack. Both you and enemy can block. Not terribly useful on your side.
But it's not all about new moveset. AI was changed quite a lot as well. It's like it got tired of all the cheese tactics player pulled off in previous GA games and decided to cheese the player instead, now being able to just jump and attack you as a counter, blocking your attacks too. Now your job is to outcheese their cheese. Learn to sometimes avoid their attacks first. I did enjoy the fight with three knights in final level, that was intense and I had to hug the wall to avoid getting flanked.
Too bad that bizzarians, the rideable beasts, suck in this one. Controls are too stiff, as said before, and AI jump-counters them immeditly. Their moves are too limited not to get countered. They are only good for baiting AI, really. Still only up to 4 enemies at same time.
And yep, there are more levels than you can do in a single walkthrough. At the end of most levels you will get to choose between two paths which will lead to different levels. And good thing the game still got varied ground levels and pits to throw enemies in.
Futhermore there is a bad and good ending. In order to get to fight final-final boss you need to have a certain score by the time you beat the final boss. Aim for A or B rank! Die as little as possible! Sadly final-final boss is just pallete swap of final boss but with ability to do unavoidable magic anytime he wants, making him the cheapest boss in GA games. Ah well, at least bad ending doesn't make you feel bad.
There are options. Just usual sound test and controls changes. You can also set normal or hard difficulty. Hard just adds few enemies here and there, doesn't make a huge difference.
And there is versus mode, which can be played single or against friend. In single you just fight against 5 different characters that are used as bosses in the game. You also able to play as gryphon boss, ableit his moveset is incomplete so bleh. It's no challenge. Just a training for main game bosses.
And with friend? No idea how balanced or fun this is. I mean, it has blocking, but it's still an old beat-em-up so I doubt that it can hold up against any fighting game.
And yep, can play the main game with friend. Has friendly fire.
Golden Axe 3 went and added both team attack and even team magic! To pull any of them the two character must face each other up close. They will nod to each other and you can press attack to pull off team attack, which varies on each pair of chars. And if both of you have at least 10 magic bottles in total then character that presses magic will pull off his impressive team magic to pwn everybody.
Overall, flawed yet awesome sequel. You can tell that they were confined by given ROM. But beat-em-up fans will enjoy mastering it's own unique style.
