Golden Axe

2008-04-26 06:44:16 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I am also thinking about doing a Golden Axe speed run i am going to try and work on that after i try X-men. Any one who knows any good stategies that would be nice.

Thread title:

Floogal

Edit history:

Floogal: 2008-04-27 12:29:44 am

2008-04-27 12:28:06 am

Consider watching the latest TAS of this game (found here).

More importantly, this submission page for a previous TAS version has some helpful info (including damage values for melee attacks).

zer07

2008-04-27 12:52:13 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Thanks ill watch it and see if i can pick up some strategies that will hopefully lower my time.

Breakdown

2008-04-27 05:35:09 am

Haters gonna hate

This game's an old favorite of mine, and I'd love to see a good run of it on the site. Haven't actually played it in forever, so can't be much help, but best of luck to you!

zer07

2008-04-27 04:53:12 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Yah i am trying to get a good run i am going to try and improve my time.

Frezy_man

2008-04-28 07:53:58 am

bläää

I would like to see a run too.
Wich console are you talking about?

Master system, Genesis or Mega Drive?

Lag.Com

2008-04-28 10:57:20 am

sda loyalist

A good time on Golden Axe is going to consist of luring as many enemies to suicide as possible, then using the chick's best magic on the boss, and hitting it as soon as it gets up.

zer07

2008-04-28 07:31:09 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I am going to do it on a Sega genesis.

Frezy_man

2008-04-28 07:38:14 pm

bläää

Awsome. Hard mode?

The two easiest settings seems pointless because you don´t play the hole game. At least the game works that way on european Mega drive.

J

2008-04-28 10:06:16 pm

right now i am working on strategy because my recorder is broke and i don't know where to get it fixed at yet so when i get it back ill do some timed runs.

zer07

2008-04-28 10:08:56 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Sorry i forgot to login first.

Floogal

2008-04-28 11:39:19 pm

Quote:

The two easiest settings seems pointless because you don´t play the hole game. At least the game works that way on european Mega drive.

The european version must be different from the North American version, as I only have 2 difficulty settings on mine: easy (ends after 3rd level) or normal (whole game). Then again, my version is part of the "6-Pack" bundle.

Frezy_man

2008-04-29 07:39:15 am

bläää

Im not sure. But I think our european have beginner mode, normal mode and hard mode.

Beginner mode is just half the game or something.

Normal mode is all the way to the first room in the castle.

But on Hard there is a basement and more bad guys and the real final boss.
The TAS played the basement I think.

zer07

2008-04-29 07:46:46 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

there is only 2 versions on the american version Begginer and Arcade which is like hard.

honorableJay

2012-07-07 10:31:43 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Diggin this topic outta the grave just to keep things simple. Since I don't have an AC in my living room which is rendering me almost completely unable to use my PC (idling at about 115, loaded at almost 160, normal is 90/120) I've been goofin off with my genesis more and churned out a rough WIP for Golden Axe. Estimated time is at 15:49 which isn't too bad considering a) I haven't played this game in ages and b) this game goes from 0 to cheap in 0.5 seconds. I'm hoping to shave off almost 2 mins from that time, but realistically I don't think it'll happen.

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2012-07-11 12:43:16 am

2012-07-11 12:21:31 am

The Dork Knight himself.

Well I'm getting better at predicting the enemy patterns and getting setup for fights, so maybe shaving 2 mins off my test time isn't such a long shot. Once I get some more footage recorded I'll see what I can put up. Here's what I know about the game so far:

Damage output
Aside from magic, the strongest moves in the game are the down-stab (dash-jump + attack) followed by the back attack (attack + jump).

Enemy Patterns
The basic behavior for every enemy is to surround your character. By default most will try to move around you before attacking. This isn't really that bad except when you're trying to chase down 1 enemy who keeps retreating. The easiest way out of this maneuver is to walk a little away and force the enemy to come into attacking position. This easily sets up a back attack. There are a few rare occasions when this will not happen. The first is on a spawn: if an enemy spawns outside of the screen and is not on the same z-axis as you, the default action is to walk/run into the screen (depending on the distance). If you're at a sufficient distance, your enemy will do a charge attack. The last is, if you're doing a jump attack, the enemy will either a) continue the surround position (if z-axis is above you) or b) immediately retreat downwards (if z-axis is below you).

Pits
Enemies are completely oblivious to any pits in the game. Knowing this, abusing the enemy patterns will cause them to either charge attack to their death or drop off a cliff trying to avoid an air attack that would've whiffed in the first place. Even funnier is enemies can simply walk to their deaths on stage 7 just trying to get a normal surround.

Enemy Range
In order, from most range to least, the enemies are ranked as:
Knights
Giants
Adders (Death Adder, Death Bringer)
Amazons
Skeletons
Bat-boys (enemies that use the spiked club)
Mace-men (enemies that use the spiked mace)

However, in terms of annoyance, they're ranked as:
Skeletons
Knights
Amazons
Giants
Bat-boys
Mace-men
Adders

The reason I ranked them in annoyance is due to their attack delays, with Skeletons having the least. Along with having a good attack range, Skeletons are the quickest enemies in the game to deal with. If 2 Skeletons get a surround, your chances of surviving are very slim. Even if you get caught by the outside edge of the first swing, your own (incredibly slow) recovery time will give a Skeleton a big enough window to whiff on the next 4 hits, then move into position and nail you with the next 5 hit combo. Since the default health bar is set to 3, that means death at full health.

Even though Knights have a slower attack delay than the Amazons, the sheer range of their attacks warrants a higher rank since your positioning has to be spot on just to hit one of them without the other (they always come in pairs) getting a cheap shot in from behind. Even better is their attacks almost always take away an entire life bar.

Even though the Giants are the Boss characters for Level 1 and frequent the game in certain spots, and their normal (not charging) attacks always take away 1 life bar, overall they're not too hard to deal with. Keeping good positioning and avoiding a surround is usually enough to handle their long attack delays.

Funny enough, all of the Adder characters are on the bottom of the list simply because they're so easy to take down. In every Adder fight, the only enemies I have to worry about are the supporting characters (always Skeletons). After a quick knockdown, every Adder can be down-stab spammed with ease. If the Skeletons get a cheap shot in though things can go south really quickly in the Death Bringer fight, and that's only because he can spam one of 3 spells when you get knocked down (and usually will). The worst is if he calls in the Dragon, which is immediate death (takes away 3 life bars). The other 2 that he uses (Lightning sweep and Minefield) usually only take 1 life bar. If he can use any other spell, I haven't seen it yet. Btw, did I mention that the 2 Skeletons that support Death Bringer can't be killed? Yeah, they're that cheap.

Well I'm getting better at predicting the enemy patterns and getting setup for fights, so maybe shaving 2 mins off my test time isn't such a long shot. Once I get some more footage recorded I'll see what I can put up. Here's what I know about the game so far:

Damage output
Aside from magic, the strongest moves in the game are the down-stab (dash-jump + attack) followed by the back attack (attack + jump).

Enemy Patterns
The basic behavior for every enemy is to surround your character. By default most will try to move around you before attacking. This isn't really that bad except when you're trying to chase down 1 enemy who keeps retreating. The easiest way out of this maneuver is to walk a little away and force the enemy to come into attacking position. This easily sets up a back attack. There are a few rare occasions when this will not happen. The first is on a spawn: if an enemy spawns outside of the screen and is not on the same z-axis as you, the default action is to walk/run into the screen (depending on the distance). If you're at a sufficient distance, your enemy will do a charge attack. The last is, if you're doing a jump attack, the enemy will either a) continue the surround position (if z-axis is above you) or b) immediately retreat downwards (if z-axis is below you).

Pits
Enemies are completely oblivious to any pits in the game. Knowing this, abusing the enemy patterns will cause them to either charge attack to their death or drop off a cliff trying to avoid an air attack that would've whiffed in the first place. Even funnier is enemies can simply walk to their deaths on stage 7 just trying to get a normal surround.

Enemy Range
In order, from most range to least, the enemies are ranked as:
Knights
Giants
Adders (Death Adder, Death Bringer)
Amazons
Skeletons
Bat-boys (enemies that use the spiked club)
Mace-men (enemies that use the spiked mace)

However, in terms of annoyance, they're ranked as:
Skeletons
Knights
Amazons
Giants
Bat-boys
Mace-men
Adders

The reason I ranked them in annoyance is due to their attack delays, with Skeletons having the least. Along with having a good attack range, Skeletons are the quickest enemies in the game to deal with. If 2 Skeletons get a surround, your chances of surviving are very slim. Even if you get caught by the outside edge of the first swing, your own (incredibly slow) recovery time will give a Skeleton a big enough window to whiff on the next 4 hits, then move into position and nail you with the next 5 hit combo. Since the default health bar is set to 3, that means death at full health.

Even though Knights have a slower attack delay than the Amazons, the sheer range of their attacks warrants a higher rank since your positioning has to be spot on just to hit one of them without the other (they always come in pairs) getting a cheap shot in from behind. Even better is their attacks almost always take away an entire life bar.

Even though the Giants are the Boss characters for Level 1 and frequent the game in certain spots, and their normal (not charging) attacks always take away 1 life bar, overall they're not too hard to deal with. Keeping good positioning and avoiding a surround is usually enough to handle their long attack delays.

Funny enough, all of the Adder characters are on the bottom of the list simply because they're so easy to take down. In every Adder fight, the only enemies I have to worry about are the supporting characters (always Skeletons). After a quick knockdown, every Adder can be down-stab spammed with ease. If the Skeletons get a cheap shot in though things can go south really quickly in the Death Bringer fight, and that's only because he can spam one of 3 spells when you get knocked down (and usually will). The worst is if he calls in the Dragon, which is immediate death (takes away 3 life bars). The other 2 that he uses (Lightning sweep and Minefield) usually only take 1 life bar. If he can use any other spell, I haven't seen it yet. Btw, did I mention that the 2 Skeletons that support Death Bringer can't be killed? Yeah, they're that cheap.

honorableJay

2012-07-15 10:00:14 am

The Dork Knight himself.

Well, I did what I didn't think I would do an shaved off just over 2 mins from my test run and got a 13:12 last night. Not sure if I'll upload the footage though, wastes a disc since I don't have any RW. I also have a few interesting blooper moments I'll have to put together later. I think I'm gonna shoot for as close to 11 minutes as possible.

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2012-07-23 07:09:46 pm

2012-07-23 06:54:59 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Wound up getting a 12:57 while going for a baseline time in WSplit, too bad I wasn't recording rofl. Gonna keep at it an see how long I can bring my time.

http://www.twitch.tv/honorablejay/b/325915757 <-- only watch the very first run through, the rest of my attempts after that were complete fail.

Heidrage

2012-07-24 12:18:53 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

Current goal time?

honorableJay

2012-07-24 06:55:41 am

The Dork Knight himself.

As close to 11 mins as possible for right now. If I wind up surpassing the 11 min mark I'll drop it to 10m30s.

Heidrage

2012-07-24 08:10:42 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

Cool, I will keep poking in.

honorableJay

2012-07-25 07:08:17 am

The Dork Knight himself.

So, after an interesting stream session (i.e. I cursed repeatedly at the game) I dropped another 30 seconds from my personal best, BUT forgot that WSplit doesn't auto-save when you exit. So my current best is 12:20, and hopefully after tonight I'll be under the 12 min mark.

honorableJay

2012-07-26 10:14:29 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Well so much for getting under the 12 min mark, that's gonna take some time to complete. But I did manage to get a 12:28 tonight. Aside from getting trolled by the enemy AI at times, here is what I know I need to work on:

1) Getting the back attack can sometimes be like the super knee in DD2. Even a tiny timing mistake will either make me jump or just do a useless swing, so I definitely have to work on my execution there.
2) I need to get setup better for spawning enemies. Since they can't dodge immediately I should be able to setup a lot more downstabs.
3) Controlling the skeletons and the Knights are major timesavers.
4) Mastering the reverse jump attack is really helpful. Basically if you turn around on the same frame (or a small window, not sure how big it is) you hit someone with a normal jump attack your enemy will get pulled towards you instead of away. If I can get decent consistency with this the later levels will be much easier to control.
5) Lastly I need to figure out how to reliably make certain enemies (Adders, skeletons, etc) go into optimal patterns. The biggest problem with the Death Bringer fight is dealing with the skeletons. I need them to split, with 1 on the far left and the other on the right side which will let me downstab-spam to victory without taking a hit. The second problem is getting Bringer to move into range quickly (same problem I have with Death Adder).

Well so much for getting under the 12 min mark, that's gonna take some time to complete. But I did manage to get a [url=http://ge.tt/19pOW6L/v/0?c]12:28[/url] tonight. Aside from getting trolled by the enemy AI at times, here is what I know I need to work on:

1) Getting the back attack can sometimes be like the super knee in DD2. Even a tiny timing mistake will either make me jump or just do a useless swing, so I definitely have to work on my execution there.
2) I need to get setup better for spawning enemies. Since they can't dodge immediately I should be able to setup a lot more downstabs.
3) Controlling the skeletons and the Knights are major timesavers.
4) Mastering the reverse jump attack is really helpful. Basically if you turn around on the same frame (or a small window, not sure how big it is) you hit someone with a normal jump attack your enemy will get pulled towards you instead of away. If I can get decent consistency with this the later levels will be much easier to control.
5) Lastly I need to figure out how to reliably make certain enemies (Adders, skeletons, etc) go into optimal patterns. The biggest problem with the Death Bringer fight is dealing with the skeletons. I need them to split, with 1 on the far left and the other on the right side which will let me downstab-spam to victory without taking a hit. The second problem is getting Bringer to move into range quickly (same problem I have with Death Adder).

honorableJay

2012-07-28 09:39:12 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Definitely far from perfect, but my new time is now 11:33!!!! My timing on the reverse jump attack is definitely getting better.

Heidrage

2012-07-28 10:06:42 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Things are looking better. Could you do a run where you only use the down stab when you are guaranteed to land it (standing mobs and baiting them off an edge). I would like to see a very clean run with fewer misses and no deaths preferably. I just want to know how the times would be with much less down time when their should not be any.