Efforts much appreciated, Golden Axe III ends up being a watered-down, disappointing shell of its source material.
The story is the same as previous games--evil seizes the Golden Axe; this time, in the form of a omniscient sentient being known only as 'the Prince of Darkness'. (No, not Ozzy Ozbourne.) Ax Battler and Tyris Flare are back in the fold, joined by two unnamed new characters: a cool-looking panther warrior and a heavy-set guy who literally pulls his punches and his weight. Disappointingly, Gilius Thunderhead's out, acting as an "advisor" to the heroes and telling them to "go forth and defeat the Prince of Darkness". Way to go out, Gilius.
The game is set up as you'd expect -- traditional hack-and-slash, enemies to fight, beasts to ride and gnomes to kick around. The inclusion of new special attacks, including those that require two characters, are much appreciated, but the combat seems watered down to the point of mediocrity and generic sword-swinging. Hit detection is a lot worse than it was in past games, and some enemies, like the lizard skeletons, are stupidly cheap. As far as enemies go, they're not nearly as interesting as those found in Golden Axe and Golden Axe 2--for the most part, you'll fight the same spear-wielders, chubby fat guys and generic knights over and over again. And the last boss, this so-called Prince of Darkness, is nothing more than a graphically modified Death Adder. Go figure. He goes through as many identities as Madonna goes through husbands.
The game environments are perhaps the worst offenders. It was as if development was rushed in pre-production, and it clearly shows--the stages are horrifically bland without so much as a thought to intricacy and lush detail that was evident in past games. One nice feature of the game is the fact that there are branching paths, so it's never really the same game twice unless you don't mind traveling the same path over and over. But it isn't enough to save itself from its mediocrity despite having more than one ending.
Overall, Golden Axe III is a letdown. To release it stateside now after 15 years is perplexing. It isn't a bad game--it's just not as good as it should have been, and fails to be a worthy successor of the franchise. Now that I think about it, maybe it was good of Gilius to bow out.