- Knights of the Round
- King of Dragons
- Streets of Rage II
All three of them have a fantastic soundtrack and a very enjoyable setting. Excellent sprite art and interesting enemies. They are rock solid brawlers and among my absolute favorites.
Golden Axe
IMO, Golden Axe has atrocious animations (= almost none), infuriatingly simple artwork and a very average soundtrack. I find it especially disappointing, that even Golden Axe III couldn't really make a big step forward and push the Genesis' hardware to its limits. It looks almost identically to Golden Axe II with almost no visible enhancements. I was trying to give the Golden Axe franchise a chance but after being spoiled by masterpieces such as Knights of the Round, King of Dragons and the likes I just couldn't bear the horrible presentation. Feels like the developers were always 3 years behind with every single release of the series.
I can definitely see where your view of the GA series comes from. It came out the same year as TMNT, which had better animation, more colorful graphics, and better music. Its sequels haven’t been much to write home about; GA2 is OK, but not necessarily an improvement on the original. IMO, GA3 is crap.
But, it’s the setting and grittiness of the first game that I enjoy. It’s like playing through a Conan movie, and the fighting action is much more brutal than most other beat ‘em ups. The death screams of the enemies were blood-curdling back in the day. The arcade version music wasn’t that great, but I thought the Genesis port had much better music. Plus, I enjoy the moveset, which I find more satisfying than the movesets in King of Dragons or Knights of the Round (I’m definitely not disparaging either game, I enjoy them both, especially KOD. I just personally prefer a wider variety of moves.)
