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99-452: Golden Axe is a side-scrolling arcade beat 'em up game released in 1989 by Sega . Makoto Uchida was the primary developer of the game and also was responsible for the creation of Altered Beast . The game places the player in control of one of three warriors each bent on revenge against the vile dictator Death Adder. Death Adder has taken over the once peaceful land of Yuria and murdered their friend and partner, Alex. Several ports of

198-499: A Wii U system using the "system transfer" tool. Any Wii Virtual Console titles can be transferred to the Wii U and played via its Wii Mode . Virtual Console games can be played using different controllers. The Wii Remote itself (turned on its side) can be used for NES , Master System , TurboGrafx-16 , and some Mega Drive/Genesis and Neo Geo AES games. The original and the pro versions of Classic Controller (sold separately from

297-646: A Gold Medal from Zzap!64 magazine. In 1991, PC Format named Golden Axe one of the 50 best computer games ever, describing it as "deliciously animated hacking, slashing and generally whaling". In 1993, the ZX Spectrum version of the game was voted number 60 in the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time . In 1995, Flux magazine rated the Mega Drive version 70th in their "Top 100 Video Games." In 1996, GamesMaster ranked

396-502: A Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced the addition of SNES games on Virtual Console for New Nintendo 3DS . Taking advantage of its upgraded hardware on the New 3DS, the games support "Perfect Pixel mode", which allows these games to be played at their original resolution and aspect ratio . SNES games are not supported on the original Nintendo 3DS models or Nintendo 2DS . Virtual Console games are saved on an SD card and are accessible through

495-534: A Virtual Boy store on the Nintendo 3DS, if you can." In response to an August 2011 price drop on the Nintendo 3DS hardware, Nintendo announced plans to give early adopters of the system a number of Virtual Console releases as appreciation of their support. Owners of the system who logged into the Nintendo eShop by a specified time in their home markets became "Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors". In September 2011, ten NES titles were made available through Virtual Console to

594-801: A Virtual Console release of Puyo Puyo , released in Japan in Spring 2011, is the first Virtual Console to feature Wi-Fi support for online multiplayer. The Wii Shop Channel has functionality to allow games to be updated. This has been used four times so far to update Military Madness , Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (in North America and Europe), and Mario Kart 64 (in Europe and Australia). Several NES and SNES games released before March 30, 2007, have also been given updates in Europe and Australia to fix previous problems with

693-523: A cameo appearance in the arcade version of Alien Storm . They can be found on one of the in-game television screens; a Golden Axe logo can also be seen during that cameo. Gilius Thunderhead makes another cameo appearance in the game, as part of a panel of judges rating the player's score. Gilius Thunderhead is also a playable character in Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed . The latter also features

792-480: A development point of view, it saw limited arcade exposure in the MegaPlay series of arcade machines. Released in 1991, the game featured new magic for each of the heroes with the characteristic magic pots from the first game replaced by spell books this time around. Many video game magazine editors of the time expressed that the game was very likely rushed into production to give Sega another popular title to enable

891-523: A feeling that arcade games should be competitive against the great hit console title Dragon Quest (created by Enix ) and therefore studied the world of magic and swords, combined this with the gameplay of Double Dragon , and finally came up with the concept of Golden Axe ." Uchida also cited the original Street Fighter (1987) as an influence, particularly how players could combine button moves and stick presses to perform individual attacks. The Mega Drive/Genesis version remained largely faithful to

990-516: A non-playable character at the character select screen. In this game the object is to travel along a number of truly branching paths and eventually defeat the main boss of the game, the Prince of Darkness. The player can choose different branching paths in this game toward that objective just as in Revenge of Death Adder . The paths in this game are more elaborate and do not loop back together. Many of

1089-555: A pop-up "virtual" keyboard, which can be toggled on and off by pressing the "1" button on the Wii Remote, and are only used to set up the game and are not for input during gameplay. Games downloaded from the Virtual Console library can be stored in the Wii's built-in 512 MB flash memory . Wii system software versions 2.0 and later allow Virtual Console and WiiWare games to be moved from the console's internal memory to

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1188-485: A quest to rescue Yuria and avenge their losses at the hands of Death Adder. The first is a battle axe -wielding dwarf , Gilius Thunderhead, from the mines of Wolud, whose twin brother was killed by the soldiers of Death Adder. The second is a barbarian , Ax Battler, wielding a two-handed broadsword , looking for revenge for the murder of his mother. The last is a longsword -wielding Amazon , Tyris Flare , whose parents were both killed by Death Adder. The warriors rescue

1287-581: A racetrack inspired by Golden Axe called "Adder's Lair". Ax Battler and Tyris Flare are available as playable characters in the Easy Mode of the Sega Ages 2500 version of Dynamite Deka . Death Adder also makes an appearance as one of the game's bosses. Chickenleg, the pink cockatrice with the tail lash from the first game, first appeared as an enemy in Altered Beast . In 2014, Sega formed

1386-708: A rate of more than 1,000 titles an hour. Neo Geo AES support was added on September 18, 2007, for the Japanese Virtual Console, becoming the first addition to the list of consoles since the TurboGrafx-16 was added two days after the U.S. launch. On October 9, 2007, Nintendo announced that 7.8 million Virtual Console titles had been downloaded, and as of December 2007, this number topped ten million. Games from several new past consoles were added during 2008: Master System on February 26, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console; Commodore 64 support

1485-495: A removable SD card and then back to the same console. Wii Menu 4.0 added a new menu to run channels from an SD card provided there is enough free space to hold a copy of the channel in internal memory. If the console runs out of memory, the SD menu will offer to move other channels to the SD card. Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii on which they were purchased—they cannot be transferred to another Wii via an SD card, although it

1584-510: A series of detailed 6" collectible action figures from the franchise. Golden Axe (video game) Golden Axe is a 1989 beat 'em up game developed and published by Sega for arcades , running on the Sega System 16B arcade hardware. Makoto Uchida was the lead designer of the game, and was also responsible for the creation of the previous year's Altered Beast . The game casts players as one of three warriors who must free

1683-473: A set number to work. The Revenge of Death Adder was the only Golden Axe game in which one of the magic attacks was not offensive, as Little Trix grew apple trees with fruit that replenished health. At the game's end, Death Adder rises one more time. Gilius sacrifices his life to finally end Adder's. During the end cinematic Gilius is shown in a bar with every other character, and a banner appears saying, "See you Next Game!" Released in 1993, after Revenge of

1782-463: A single Wii can only have four Wii Remotes and four GameCube controllers connected at the same time, a combination of the two are needed for five-player games. The same issue is found in 5-8 player Commodore 64 games as well. Because the Wii U doesn't have GameCube controller ports, only up to four-player games can be played on the system. MSX games also support USB keyboards, as the original system featured their input. However, Commodore 64 titles use

1881-627: A total of 659 titles for the Wii, 244 titles for the 3DS (256 for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors) and 466 titles for the Wii U available. There were 12 total NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the North American region. Two TurboGrafx-16 titles were added two days later on November 21, 2006. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 4 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. North America saw its first release of Commodore 64 games on

1980-456: A way to restart from the previous suspend state. There are some exceptions, however. Arcade games released by Bandai Namco feature an updated menu and when reset during gameplay, the save state will be saved before the console is reset. There were 10 titles total of NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 games available at launch on the Virtual Console for South Korea. The store updates irregularly on Tuesdays. There are 40 titles available. Depending on

2079-622: Is available in these games while Monster World IV was fully translated to English. A total of 17 NES, SNES, N64, Sega Mega Drive and TurboGrafx titles were available at launch on the Virtual Console in Europe and 11 titles for the Oceanic region (TurboGrafx games were first added there from July 6, 2007 ). There were 385 titles in Europe and 384 titles in Australia and New Zealand for the Wii, 168 titles for Nintendo 3DS (178 for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors) and 258 titles for Wii U available. Though

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2178-487: Is possible to purchase games in the Wii Shop Channel and send them as gifts to people on their Wii Friends list. This procedure does not work across regions and it has been reported that purchased titles cannot be sent to users from other countries either, even if they are on the same region. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo will provide support (if

2277-572: Is saved properly (since it was saved to the cartridge itself) but one of the features in Mario Kart 64 (saving ghosts for racing at a later date) will not work, since that particular feature utilized the Controller Pak, and the option to copy data to the Controller Pak won't function in those games. Like other emulation software, the Wii Virtual Console enables the user to suspend play of a game at any time. To do this, users simply return to

2376-527: The Conan films, and wanted to create a game influenced by them. He said that the development team for the game was small and development of the game took about a year. Uchida's "idea was to come up with a Double Dragon that was not a Double Dragon … Technos was an experienced rival who had been working on the Kunio-Kun series, so there was no way we could compete if we did the same thing as them. I had

2475-563: The Sega Classics Arcade Collection , with CD audio background music and voice-overs from the arcade version. The arcade version is also on the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade . A port of the game was released on PlayStation Network on 12 July 2011 and has been available free for PlayStation Plus users. The game was released as part of the handheld TV game Arcade Legends Sega Genesis Volume 1 . An enhanced remake with 3D graphics and orchestral music

2574-525: The Mega Drive/Genesis to compete with its new rival, the Super NES . In most respects this sequel was essentially the same as the original, though it had new sprites for enemy characters and new levels. Many fans were disappointed with this title as they were expecting more than a rehash of the first title. However, the title had the virtue of not straying too far from a successful formula and

2673-597: The Nintendo 3DS family of systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on past home and handheld consoles and were run in their original forms through software emulation (excluding Game Boy Advance titles on the 3DS and Wii titles on Wii U), therefore remaining mostly unaltered, and could be purchased from the Wii Shop Channel or Nintendo eShop for between 500 and 1200 Wii Points , or using real currency, with prices depending on

2772-541: The Nintendo 64 controller 's Rumble Pak peripheral, however, are not supported by the built-in "Rumble" feature of the Wii Remote (with a Classic Controller attached) and the GameCube controller, which also happened to make a certain optional item in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time useless. With the release of Bomberman '93 , it was revealed that TurboGrafx-16 games can support full five-player games. Since

2871-611: The TurboGrafx-CD format would also join the Virtual Console beginning in October 2007, with five titles to be released for the remainder of 2007 and ten titles for 2008, each priced at 800 points. On June 1, 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title, which was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link . Within this press release, Nintendo stated that more than 4.7 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded, at

2970-473: The Wii Shop Channel on November 19, 2006, alongside the launch of the Wii. While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo has stated that some games may be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. In reality, however, many games suffer from drops in frame rate or have graphical glitches not present in the original, and many PAL SNES games run with significantly reduced borders compared to

3069-522: The "AGB_FIRM" kernel running on the other CPUs is responsible for emulating the Game Pak, applying a video filter, and allowing the brightness to be adjusted or the game quit without manually rebooting the 3DS. Many save types supported by AGB_FIRM (many of them having been discovered in September 2017, after injection became convenient and accessible to most users of custom firmware) were not employed in

Golden Axe - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-603: The 2014 anime Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls , alongside other SEGA characters. Of the cameo characters, Gilius notably appears and is referenced more often than some of the others. Golden Axe was featured in the British comic " Sonic the Comic ", which was published by Fleetway . The series was titled " The Legend of the Golden Axe " and had two six-issue runs, written by Mark Eyles and illustrated by Mike White. Issues 1–6 feature

3267-727: The Ambassadors at no cost before their general release; the games included marquee titles such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda . They were released to the general public for purchase at a later date, with additional features such as simultaneous multiplayer across multiple systems; Ambassadors received the new features as free software updates. On December 16, 2011, Ambassadors received access to ten Game Boy Advance titles, also at no charge, that were never released to those who are not Ambassadors. Unlike other Virtual Console-branded releases, GBA games are not emulated, but rather they run directly on an ARM7TDMI processor core;

3366-769: The Death Adder , the third Golden Axe game on the Mega Drive was released only in Japan. However, the game was available for a while in North America on the Sega Channel , Sega's modem -based game downloading system. It was brought to Europe and North America on the Nintendo Wii 's Virtual Console . The game's lineup of playable characters includes swordsman Kain Grinder (カイン・グリンダー), swordswoman Sarah Barn (サラ・バーン), giant Braoude Cragger (プラウド・クラッガー) and beastman Chronos "Evil" Lait (クロノス・”イビル”・レート). Gilius also appear as

3465-718: The Japanese Virtual Console is also available for customers in Taiwan and Hong Kong and like other regions are able to buy Japanese Nintendo Points cards at certain retailers. On June 6, 2011, Nintendo launched the Virtual Console service for the Nintendo 3DS on the Nintendo eShop . Games released for the service include titles for the Game Boy , Game Boy Color , NES , Super NES ( New Nintendo 3DS only), Game Gear and TurboGrafx-16 games (available in Japan only). There are also special features available while playing Virtual Console games, such as viewing classic Game Boy titles with

3564-713: The Japanese Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade in that region while the 3D Classics versions ported by M2 are still available on the Nintendo 3DS for download via the 3DS eShop. However, both North America and Europe still have both games available to download on the Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade. While these and other removed titles can no longer be found or purchased from the Shop Channel, they remain available to those who have purchased them prior to their removal. Such users may still re-download them on their Wii consoles and even transfer them to

3663-607: The Mega Drive version 100th on their "Top 100 Games of All Time." Reviewing the game's appearance in Sega Arcade Classics for the Sega CD in 1993, Glenn Rubenstein commented that the game had become outdated in the years since its original release. Retrospectively, GameRankings gave the Sega Genesis version an aggregate rating of 69% based on six reviews published online in the 2000s. Metacritic gave

3762-580: The Nintendo 3DS home menu. The save feature for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual console service is similar to the Wii's. However, unlike the Wii's, the games can save a single "restore point" that can be used as much as the player wants to but is replaced and overwritten if the player makes another one. Before the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console officially fully launched in South Korea , the New Nintendo 3DS Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary bundle came with

3861-552: The Nintendo 3DS. TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine games were added to the service in Japan starting with Gradius and China Warrior on December 25, 2013, in Japan. R-Type and Alien Crush were later added a few months later in February, the following year. No new TG-16 games were added to the Virtual Console service again afterward. On November 12, 2015, it was announced that during a Nintendo Direct that Pokémon Red , Pokémon Blue , and Pokémon Yellow would be released on

3960-511: The UK sales charts, behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . The Xbox Live Arcade digital version of Golden Axe sold 167,935 units on the Xbox 360 console, as of 2011 . Upon release of the home conversions, the game received the " C+VG Hit!" award from Computer and Video Games , the "Star Buy" award from The One for Amiga Games , the " Zero Console Classic" award from Zero magazine, and

4059-637: The Virtual Console prior to this, the first being Battle Lode Runner from the TurboGrafx-16 , added on April 23, 2007, this and all others were originally written in English and required no localization. Despite the fact others fit the category, there are currently 25 titles listed under the "Import" genre with 1 removed: Sin and Punishment , Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (previously available in North America as part of Super Mario All-Stars ), Ninja JaJaMaru-kun , Alien Soldier (although

Golden Axe - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-467: The Virtual Console service on February 27, 2016, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. The games featured Local Play for trading Pokémon and battling, replacing the game link cable due to the Nintendo 3DS having wireless connections, but Game Boy Printer features in Pokémon Yellow , like other titles on the Virtual Console, was not be usable on the Nintendo 3DS. On March 4, 2016, during

4257-543: The Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Purchased titles remain playable. There were 38 Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, Sega Mega Drive, and PC Engine games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the Japanese region. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 7 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. New Virtual Console software is added on Tuesdays (Wii) and Wednesdays (Nintendo 3DS, Wii U) at 2:00 pm JST and there were

4356-904: The Virtual Console titles primarily cover only the games that have been released in Europe, Nintendo UK has commented that there is a possibility that in the future, Nintendo will localize Japanese and North American games that have never been released in Europe such as Super Mario RPG , which was released on the European Virtual Console on August 22, 2008, after being unreleased in that region for 12 years. In March 2007, Hudson released three TurboGrafx games which were not originally released in Europe: Double Dungeons , Dragon's Curse , and Battle Lode Runner . Five Hanabi Festivals have been held since, releasing former Japanese and/or North American exclusive titles. The first few Virtual Console games were released to

4455-559: The Virtual Console version of Super Mario Bros. pre-installed. The full launch includes six games with three being for the NES and three of them being for Game Boy. Nintendo of Hong Kong launched the Virtual Console in Taiwan and Hong Kong for the first time in Nintendo 3DS/Nintendo 3DS XL systems in Chinese, their first releases are the Japanese versions of Pokémon Red , Pokémon Blue , Pokémon Green and Pokémon Yellow for Game Boy on

4554-554: The Virtual Console. A select few first-party and nearly all other N64 game cartridges utilized the extra memory capability of the N64 Controller Pak . Saving of data to the Controller Pak is not supported by the Virtual Console, so for those games which used this feature, the save feature will not work properly in the Virtual Console. An extreme example is that of Mario Kart 64 which uses internal cartridge memory for progress and save game data. Consequently, all progress

4653-490: The Wii Internal Memory and function exactly as the original cartridge did. A game that in its original cartridge form did not have any form of save feature will not have any save game feature on the Virtual Console (though depending on its original system it may have the suspend feature as described below). Most first-party N64 games used internal cartridge memory for game save data and thus will save properly on

4752-499: The Wii also included games for platforms that were known only in select regions, such as the Commodore 64 (Europe and North America) and Microsoft 's and ASCII 's MSX (Japan), as well as Virtual Console Arcade , which allowed players to download video arcade games . On the other hand, the Virtual Console on Nintendo 3DS had a smaller library consisting of NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Gear titles. Launching with

4851-402: The Wii at the end of 2006, Virtual Console titles had been downloaded over ten million times as of early 2008. The distribution of past games through the Virtual Console is one of Nintendo's reasons for opposing software piracy of old console games. On January 30, 2019, the Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii, following the shutdown of the Wii Shop Channel . On March 27, 2023,

4950-400: The Wii component cables. These updates are free of charge to those who have downloaded a previous version of the game. In later years, some games have been removed from the service due to their licenses expiring, namely R-Type and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , among others. The three Donkey Kong Country SNES games produced by Rare were unknowingly withdrawn. Since Nintendo retains

5049-512: The Wii main menu from the game. Two exceptions to this are the N64 and Neo Geo AES, titles which do not support this feature. The N64 will allow play to be halted by returning to the Wii Menu but will require the person to start from the title screen to continue playing. Note that suspending play enables the player to pause the game indefinitely but does not function as a "save state" in that, once

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5148-491: The WiiWare part of the Wii Shop Channel, as opposed to through the Virtual Console. Satoru Iwata stated in a speech on March 23, 2006, that Nintendo, Sega , and Hudson Soft were working in collaboration to bring a "best of" series of games to the Wii. At E3 2006 , Hudson also declared it would bring upwards of 100 titles to the Wii's Virtual Console. Additionally, Hudson mentioned that its lawyers were working on acquiring

5247-559: The Xbox 360 version an aggregate rating of 68 out of 100. TouchArcade rated the iOS version 3.5 out of 5 stars. The Mega Drive/Genesis version was later released in other compilations– Sega Smash Pack , Sega Genesis Collection ( Sega Mega Drive Collection ), Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection ( Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection )–and on the Virtual Console . A one-player only Sega CD version released as part of

5346-609: The arcade game, adding a level and a duel mode, along with a new ending. The IBM PC compatible port released in 1990 is similar to the Mega Drive/Genesis version, but includes a 256-colour VGA mode as well as support for EGA , CGA , and Hercules modes. Atari ST and Amiga ports released in late 1990 by Virgin Software are similar to the arcade. The Amiga port is similar to the arcade game, with some palette changes and without parallax scrolling. Variations of

5445-415: The cast is all new and includes Stern Blade the barbarian, Dora the female centaur , and Little Trix, a young lad who carries a pitch fork. The main enemy is once again Death Adder. As well as introducing multiple paths to the franchise, the magic aspect was adjusted. Though still found in the classic Golden Axe pots, the magic spells did not increase in power with the number of pots collected but required

5544-464: The characters are good characters that were possessed, and once beaten they are freed. A king turned into an anthropomorphic eagle is a recurring boss who may possibly be Prince Hellbringer's right-hand man, and is playable in VS mode. As opposed to Golden Axe II , where the characters, moves, and controls remained largely the same, Golden Axe III brought many changes to the gameplay. The background scenery

5643-519: The console) can be used for all Virtual Console games. The controllers from the GameCube can also be used for all games on the Virtual Console, except for some multiplayer TurboGrafx-16 games that use the GameCube controller for the fifth player. As a result of this, the wireless GameCube controller (the WaveBird ) has seen increased popularity. All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to

5742-468: The enemy rider is knocked off, or if one is found dormant. The least powerful steed is known as the Cockatrice (which also appeared in Altered Beast ), which can be used to knock down enemies with a swipe of its tail. The more powerful dragon, which can either shoot fireballs or breathe fire depending on its colour scheme, is found later in the game. In certain areas, skeleton swordsmen emerge from

5841-423: The fantastical land of Yuria from the tyrannical rule of Death Adder, who wields the titular Golden Axe. The game was well received at the time of release, Golden Axe was later converted for play on many different home systems, including Sega's own Mega Drive/Genesis and Master System . The game's success spawned an entire franchise consisting of several sequels and various spin-offs. The game takes place in

5940-518: The fictional land of Yuria, a Conan the Barbarian -style high fantasy medieval world . An evil entity known as Death Adder has captured the King and his daughter, and holds them captive in their castle. He also finds the Golden Axe, the magical emblem of Yuria, and threatens to destroy both the axe and the royal family unless the people of Yuria accept him as their ruler. Three warriors set out on

6039-402: The game is resumed, the user will be able to pause play again (overwriting the suspend point) but will not be able to return to the previously suspended state. The suspend feature will not be available if the user resets the Wii with the reset button on the front of the console during gameplay. Further, if the Wii loses power during gameplay, there is no further suspend state, nor will there be

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6138-769: The game was previously available in North America through the Sega Channel ), DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure , Puyo Puyo 2 , Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa , Dig Dug , Gley Lancer , Super Fantasy Zone , Break In , Star Parodier (Removed), Cho Aniki , Final Soldier , Digital Champ: Battle Boxing , Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou , Bomberman '94 , Detana!! TwinBee , Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair , Pulseman , Secret Command , Street Fighter II: Champion Edition , Castlevania: Rondo of Blood , Ironclad , Ufouria: The Saga and Monster World IV . Furthermore, at least two import titles ( DoReMi Fantasy and Puyo Puyo 2 ) were released without any English translation, and thus only Japanese text

6237-399: The game were created, most notably for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Master System . Several sequels followed. The game focuses on three heroes. One of them is a battle-axe-wielding dwarf , Gilius Thunderhead, from the mines of Wolud, whose twin brother was killed by the soldiers of Death Adder. Another is a male barbarian, Ax Battler, wielding a two-handed broadsword, looking for revenge for

6336-440: The game's description to remove the offending text, saying that it was a comment on that version of the game rather than the quality of the work itself. Sega announced a new Golden Axe game at The Game Awards 2023 as part of an initiative to revive many of its dormant franchises. The characters from the original Golden Axe have made cameo appearances in other Sega games. Ax Battler, Gilius Thunderhead and Tyris Flare all make

6435-553: The game, they are playable in either Japanese or English. Super Mario World is the only game that can be bought in either language. Companies currently supporting by publishing games are Bandai Namco Entertainment , Hudson Soft , Irem , Konami , Nintendo , Taito and Windysoft . Since Nintendo of Taiwan and Nintendo of Hong Kong never offered a Chinese version of the Wii console in Hong Kong or Taiwan, they have released Japanese Wii's in that region and by hardware extensions,

6534-472: The game. The male warrior Ax, limited to 4 bars, is able to cast Earth spells. The dwarf Gilius, limited to 3 bars, casts lightning spells. The female warrior Tyris can cast devastating fire magic, but her most powerful spell costs 6 bars. Each of the heroes from the first game return to battle the forces of evil villain Dark Guld in this sequel. While Golden Axe II was a Mega Drive/Genesis exclusive from

6633-456: The ground, like in the film Jason and the Argonauts . In addition to the main quest, some home versions of the game included "duel mode", a survival mode type game that pitted players against increasingly powerful foes in consecutive rounds of play. This mode also featured a two-player one-on-one option. Lead designer and producer Makoto Uchida was fond of action movies , particularly

6732-487: The hero returns to the overworld. Unlike previous Golden Axe games, the player can learn new attacks and moves at the training dojos in each town. The currency in this game is pots, the traditional Golden Axe magic-usage item. Pots double as both currency and as an offensive attack. Released in 1994 in the arcades and in 1995 for the Sega Saturn , Golden Axe: The Duel is a one-on-one fighting game set years after

6831-458: The inhabitants of the ransacked Turtle Village, which turns out to be situated on the shell of a giant turtle. The turtle takes the characters across the sea, and they then fly to the castle itself on the back of a giant eagle. Once at the castle they defeat Death Adder, who is wielding the Golden Axe, and save the land. In the Mega Drive/Genesis and PC versions, and also in other ports, the characters also battle Death Adder's mentor, Death Bringer, as

6930-471: The lack of any credits on the cancelled game. He also took issue with the fact that the game was described as "buggy" and "janky" when it was actually created under crunch conditions, and that, as a fan of the series, he had worked "long 7 day work weeks" on developing it before it was arbitrarily cancelled for lacking a "wow factor" and being too different from God of War , making him feel "dead inside". This led to Sega Europe issuing an apology and modifying

7029-465: The legend of the character Ax Battler. Unlike its console counterpart, it is based more on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link than the original game. The player moves around a top-view overworld and enemies randomly attack. However the player can not see them like in Zelda II . When a battle begins, the transitions to a platform-style fighting environment. After killing the foe (or the foe wounding them)

7128-618: The licenses to games from now defunct companies. Nintendo announced MSX compatibility on September 19, 2006, announcing on February 23, 2007, that the MSX titles Eggy and Aleste would be released in Japan. In February 2007, a heading for Neo Geo AES games was added to the Japanese Virtual Console page, and in September of that same year, games for that system appeared on the list of future releases, priced at 900 points each. Also in September Hudson announced that games made for

7227-490: The murder of his mother. The last is a longsword-wielding amazon , Tyris Flare , whose parents were killed by Death Adder. Progress is made through the game by hacking and slashing your way through Adder's forces. Aiding the characters in this quest is their ability to cast spells that hurt all enemies on the screen. The force of this magic depends on the number of "bars" of magic power currently available. The bars are filled by collecting blue 'magic potions' found throughout

7326-441: The original cartridge releases. As with disc-based games, the Virtual Console service is region-locked—that is, different versions of games are provided to different regions, and game availability may vary from region to region. Nintendo stated that the Wii Shop Channel would not be used exclusively for retro games, and WiiWare games have appeared in North America as of May 12, 2008. These original games are made available through

7425-463: The original game have also been released. The Master System version of the game retells the original story from the perspective of Tarik, a barbarian with resemblances to Ax Battler (much like all the other barbarian in the entire series: Kain Grinder, Stern Blade and Kain Blade). While the game is only one-player, it features all of the levels and magic powers of the arcade version. In Japan, Golden Axe

7524-476: The original trilogy and featuring a new cast of characters, including descendants of the initial cast. Though the potion-dropping imp mechanic was praised, most dismissed the game as a decent but undistinguished one-on-one fighter. The Sega Reborn project was originally planned for development by Sega Studios Australia in the early 2010s, which would have included 3D reboots of the original game, along with those of Streets of Rage and Altered Beast . However,

7623-426: The player to only use as many spellbooks as they wanted. Critics applauded Sega's decision not to release Golden Axe III in North America, speculating that the game's drab graphics and generally mediocre quality would have damaged the Sega Genesis's reputation. Golden Axe: Beast Rider features the return of Tyris Flare, the female amazon warrior from the first installments of the series. Golden Axe: Beast Rider

7722-412: The potions. These sprites appear during regular levels and during bonus stages in between levels. The male warrior Ax is able to cast earth spells. The dwarf Gilius casts lightning spells and the female warrior Tyris casts fire magic. Each character has a different maximum number of magic bars and varying ranges of attack. Various steeds known as bizarrians are found in the game. These can be ridden when

7821-717: The production company Stories International and teamed up with Evan Cholfin for film and TV projects based on their games with Golden Axe as an animated project with Universal Studios which planned to develop as a movie or TV series. The project never got off the ground. On April 17, 2024, it was announced that a comedic animated series based on the games will air on Comedy Central ; the series will feature Liam McIntyre as Ax Battler, Lisa Gilroy as Tyris Flare, Matthew Rhys as Gillius Thunderhead, Carl Tart as Chronos "Evil" Lait, and Danny Pudi as new character Hampton Squib. The series will be produced by CBS Studios and Sony Pictures Television . Gilius makes frequent appearances in

7920-466: The project cancelled after Sega Studios Australia closed down in 2013. As part of Sega's 60th anniversary celebration, a working proof-of-concept prototype of the planned Golden Axe reboot, posthumously titled Golden Axed: A Cancelled Prototype , received a limited one-day release on Steam on October 18, 2020. The release of the prototype received controversy from fans and critics when one of its original developers, Tim Dawson, spoke up in opposition to

8019-519: The respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances, users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES). In certain titles, such as Nintendo 64 games, there may be specific controls tailored to the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller. Nintendo 64 titles that originally provided force feedback via

8118-475: The rights to these games, the reason for their removal remained unknown, however, they have since been released on the Wii U eShop and were also added back to the Wii Shop Channel around the same time as well. Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were both removed in Japan in 2012. While the games returned to the Wii Shop Channel in 2013, they were removed yet again on October 30, 2015, on

8217-416: The serial number or console e-mail name can be provided). Also, if a Wii owner transfers all data on their console to a Wii U , the ability to download those titles from the Wii Shop Channel, along with all save data currently on the Wii, is transferred. Game saving is functional and intact on the Virtual Console for all games which originally had a save feature on their cartridge. Saved games are saved to

8316-446: The service on February 23, 2009, and its first Virtual Console Arcade games on March 25, 2009. There were 398 titles for the Wii, 172 title for the 3DS (184 including those available for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors and Donkey Kong: Original Edition) and 267 titles for the Wii U available. Though the Virtual Console lineup initially only covered games that had been released in North America, George Harrison indicated in an interview that there

8415-592: The story "Citadel of Dead Souls", wherein a necromancer attempts to resurrect Dark Guld. Issues 13–18 have the story "Plague of Serpents", which involves a snake-charmer named Cobraxis kidnapping the Queen of Gilius' dwarf race. The story takes place in the aftermath of Golden Axe II . Characters from Golden Axe would later appear in the Worlds Unite crossover from Archie Comics alongside several other Sega and Capcom franchises. Storm Collectibles has created

8514-537: The system, rarity, and/or demand. On Wii and Wii U, the Virtual Console's library of past games consisted of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Game Boy , Game Boy Color , Nintendo 64 , Game Boy Advance , and Nintendo DS , as well as Sega 's Master System , Genesis/Mega Drive and Game Gear , NEC 's TurboGrafx-16 , and SNK 's Neo Geo AES . The service for

8613-673: The ten official GBA releases, but can be used by games unofficially "injected" into a GBA VC title. On February 1, 2012, Punch-Out!! the first non-ambassador NES game was released on the Virtual Console service. Since then, other NES games that were not part of the ambassador program were released including third party games by Capcom, Konami, and Tecmo such as; Mega Man , Castlevania , and Ninja Gaiden . Furthermore, two NES import titles were added in North American and Europe; Summer Carnival '92 Recca and The Mysterious Murasame Castle in both 2013 and 2014, respectively. Game Boy Advance games were never released to non-Ambassadors on

8712-470: The title that had been cut in previous sequels. Golden Axe III brought back the thieves from the original game, rather than the mages from Golden Axe II . Also, extra lives could be gained by freeing prisoners scattered throughout the levels. The magic system was returned to the original version where all pots are used at the same time, as opposed to the improved system in Golden Axe II that allowed

8811-442: The traditional green screen or viewing them in an emulated border. A separate, but related set of games are 3D Classics , which are remakes of classic titles that make use of the Nintendo 3DS's stereoscopic 3D capabilities. When asked if Virtual Boy games were going to be available for download on the Virtual Console for the Nintendo 3DS , Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé told Kotaku that he couldn't answer, as he

8910-412: The true final boss. After the final battle, the warriors receive a magical golden axe that imbues the player with immortality. The arcade release of the game concludes with a fourth wall -breaking end sequence with some children playing Golden Axe at an arcade. The arcade game breaks, and the characters from within the game flood into the "real world", with the children being chased by the enemies, with

9009-491: The warriors in hot pursuit. Progress is made through the game by fighting through Death Adder's henchmen, including men armed with clubs and maces , skeleton warriors, and knights. Players are able to attack using their weapon, jump and cast spells that hurt all enemies on the screen. The force of this magic depends on the number of "bars" of magic power currently available. The bars are filled by collecting blue "magic potions" attained by kicking little sprites who then drop

9108-496: Was a possibility that Nintendo or other Virtual Console providers would localize Japanese games that have never been released in English. This later came to reality, and former Japan-only games have appeared on the North American Virtual Console. The first game to be added with such localization was Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64. While other previous Japan-only titles had been released through

9207-693: Was added on March 28, 2008, for Europe's Virtual Console. and MSX support was added on May 27, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console. On February 23, 2009, the first three Commodore 64 titles ( International Karate , The Last Ninja and Pitstop II ) were added to the North America Virtual Console for the first time. On March 25, 2009, simultaneously with Nintendo's Keynote Speech at Game Developers Conference, Nintendo launched 'Virtual Console Arcade', launching with four titles, Mappy , The Tower of Druaga , Star Force and Gaplus . On February 4, 2011, Sega announced that

9306-515: Was less lush and colorful than in previous games, as were the sprites themselves. There was a greater variety of moves. Furthermore, there were several abilities unique to certain characters: for example, the Braoude could throw, while the Chronos and Sarah could double jump and wall jump. Finally, each character had a super-move with its own unique button combination. Some features were returned to

9405-592: Was released by Telenet for the PC Engine CD-ROM in 1990 with high-quality resampled music and cut scenes . In Japan, Game Machine listed Golden Axe on their 1 July 1989 issue as being the second most successful table arcade cabinet of the month. It went on to be the 18th highest-grossing arcade game of 1989 in Japan. In the United States, it was the highest-grossing arcade game of January 1990 . The ZX Spectrum version went to number 2 in

9504-622: Was released for PlayStation 2 as part of the Sega Ages line. In August 2017, the Mega Drive/Genesis version was released for iOS and Android . It is now part of the Sega Forever service. On 25 October 2021, The Mega Drive/Genesis version was released on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack . Virtual Console The Virtual Console is a defunct line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo 's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and

9603-484: Was released in October 2008. This Master System title tells another epic tale about the Golden Axe. It is an action-adventure game similar to The Legend of Zelda . The storyline continues the theme of the original Golden Axe games. The game's unit of currency is horns, and it is to be imagined that the hero cut these off of the enemies he killed. Released for the Game Gear , this action-adventure title follows

9702-479: Was still quite popular upon its release. In 1992, Sega released Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder in arcades. Despite its popularity, the game remained an arcade exclusive up until its appearance in 2020 on the Astro City Mini and Arcade1Up's smaller scale recreation of the original arcade cabinet . Only Gilius Thunderhead makes a return, riding the back of new character Goah the giant. The rest of

9801-598: Was unfamiliar with the platform. "As a consumer, I have experience with every Nintendo platform and, I think every accessory, including the Superscope, with the exception of the Virtual Boy... so it's difficult for me to articulate a point of view back to our parent company [in Japan] why we absolutely have to have a Virtual Boy store" The author of the piece, Kotaku 's Stephen Totilo, called upon readers to "argue for

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