Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

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VideoGameCritic
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Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 8th, 2021, 7:40 am

Talk about fun! These two back-to-basics side-scrolling hack-n-slash games are a blast. I am just having the best time revisiting both of them. Great graphics, great music, and tremendous variety.

I noticed my friends had a little trouble with the jumps on the first Legendary Axe, and it occurred to me it's because the longer you hold in the button, the higher you go. So for short hops, you just tap it.

Had some difficulty in Legendary Axe 2 because the underground waterfall level is confusing. At one point you feel like you've gone in a circle, when in fact if you keep heading to the left you will reach the boss.

I plan to revisit these reviews and perhaps spruce them up a bit.

BanjoPickles
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Re: Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

Postby BanjoPickles » May 8th, 2021, 9:45 am

I’m amazed that these games weren’t included on the Turbo Grafx Mini. I’ve always wanted to play them.

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Re: Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 8th, 2021, 10:19 am

BanjoPickles wrote:I’m amazed that these games weren’t included on the Turbo Grafx Mini. I’ve always wanted to play them.


Wow I didn't notice that. What a shame.

I'd really love to know the thought processes behind selecting the games for these mini systems. Since they usually don't make any sense, I suspect there's a lot of lawyers behind this.

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ActRaiser
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Re: Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

Postby ActRaiser » May 8th, 2021, 10:43 am

Yeah, I think there was confusion on who the actual property right holders are for both games. I remember doing some wiki sleuthing last year to figure it out. It's in one of the past threads but I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment.

It would not have been so noticeable if the hacking community could finish it up. Progress has halted completely it seems. It's unfortunate as that was going to be the quick and easy way to get those added.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Legendary Axe 1 & 2 (Turbografx-16)

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » May 8th, 2021, 6:59 pm

Is it just me, or does the first game look like it was originally designed around the NES's palette?

The color choices are very limited, compared to what a PC Engine can do. Despite the extra shading, every character and their weapon could be easily reduced to 3 color sprites. And the backgrounds show NES style compromises, like reddish-brown being used as an outline for green. There's one stage that uses so many blues in the far off background that it could be confused with a distant ice stage, but those are the exact blues I've seen showing off the Famicom's best colors.

Don't get me wrong, I love this aesthetic. Everything pops off the screen. And it really shows off the hardware, whenever the PC Engine effortlessly handles a character that would, in pure 8-bit, suffer from slowdown/sprite flicker or be represented with background tiles.

It's similar to what happened with Shovel Knight, but decades earlier.


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