Battle of the Ports

[S3M]

I've now sorted it out too in this latest video the Amiga stuff is no longer in 16.9 format. Saying that it doesn't look like pure 4.3 either. It's still a lot better than it was though.

That's cause you have to set the resolution for each game differently on the Amiga. All games ran in 4:3 but they ran in many different 4:3 resolutions it's a pain to work out what one each game used unless you own a original copy of that title.

[sj33]

Just to add too, many games were not full screen. So if a game still has borders in 4:3, the borders are probably correct and should be displayed.

A lot of Amiga games were also designed for PAL due to the North American market being nonexistent.

[S3M]

Just to add too, many games were not full screen. So if a game still has borders in 4:3, the borders are probably correct and should be displayed.

A lot of Amiga games were also designed for PAL due to the North American market being nonexistent.

Hence the mention of different 4:3 resolution, but indeed some games had more borders than play area Uridium 2 was one really bad example.

Great game mind.

[Yakumo]

New Battle of the Ports is out now. Golden Axe.

[Baseley09]

Nice, I had the Master System version athe time and played it to death, was really good despite obvious misgivings.

[vanpeebles]

I played Golden Axe to death on the Master and the Mega Drive. Superb music, I loved the tap-tap noise when the dwarf bashed them on the head with the hilt of his axe.

[QualityChimp]

Oh man, I played Golden Axe over and over on the MD!

Shame the GBA port sucked, it looks decent.

How many versions have the extended ending?

[Nu-Eclipse]

It's gotta be said: The MD ports of Sega coin-ops were seriously underwhelming - all of them.

Super Hang-On, Alien Storm, Golden Axe, OutRun, Altered Beast...it always bugged me immensely that the MD ports of these games weren't as close to their arcade parents as they could've been.

[CMcK]

To be fair they are all early MD games and could have done with larger ROM sizes.

[PaTaito]

Yeah especially ghouls and ghosts, it was decent, but should have had all the missing stuff really...like the supergrafx version.

ROM size is right on the money.

['Press Start']

I played the Amiga version with my brother over and over again. Great memories.

[sj33]

I actually have a slight soft spot for the PS2 version, not because it's good (it's awful!), but because I put a lot of time into it with my brother! Still, none of the Simple 2500 Sega remakes were very good, it was a good day when they ditched that team and switched to doing faithful arcade ports.

One thing that has to be said about all versions of Golden Axe is how it has actually seems quite dated when compared with Streets of Rage. Golden Axe will always be a great game (the arcade and MegaDrive versions, that is), but it is actually quite hard to go back to the relatively imprecise controls, poor collision detection and overall basic combat once you play the much more refined Streets of Rage 2. I'm sure what I say is blasphemy to some people, though! I do still love Golden Axe, don't get me wrong.

By the way, your footage of the WonderSwan Colour version appears to cut off some of the image at the bottom (and maybe top). Maybe something to fix for later videos! Perhaps it might be better to have the handheld versions (GameBoy Advance, WonderSwan, Game Gear etc.) games running in a smaller window? Because of their resolution (and the fact that they were not intended to be viewed in such a large size), they look quite poor when blown up into full screen on a PC monitor or TV!

[Yakumo]

Yeah, the bottom half of the image is missing on the Wonder Swan footage. The top half is all there though. I think in future shows I will leave hand held stuff in a smaller box on the screen just so that they look a little better.

[S3M]

It's gotta be said: The MD ports of Sega coin-ops were seriously underwhelming - all of them.

Super Hang-On, Alien Storm, Golden Axe, OutRun, Altered Beast...it always bugged me immensely that the MD ports of these games weren't as close to their arcade parents as they could've been.

Yeah I agree, I think the Golden Axe port of the Mega Drive version is a bit of a let down. No Alex getting killed at the start for example in the MD release.

I think there is a tad Sega fan biased in this video as the Amiga version is better than the MD version, magic is a keyboard button as I recalled Yakumo also check your emulator for the Amiga as there was corruption present in the text that isn't in the original version.

Should have mentioned the recent M2 arcade port on Xbox live, now that was perfect. There was also a sweet bug that let you play the Golden Axe arcade release on that port for free.

[monel]

Golden Axe hasn't aged that well gameplay wise, the art design and music still holds up. Especially for the arcade version. Sega's early arcade conversions for the Megadrive were confusing. To this day I can't believe they released the arcade version of Shadow Dancer on the Master System and a different one for the MD. They could've released both versions. In some ways Sega was always an odd company. They still have so many properties they don't exploit.