The Lord of King / The Astyanax (Arcade) Completed 1 Credit, 1CC

Here's a short Rastan-inspired game that I recently learned - The Lord of King. It's the Japan region version of "The Astyanax", with a few minor gameplay differences.
This version might be slightly easier than The Astyanax due to some enemies not taking as many hits to kill; for example, the frog warriors in level 3 take 2 hits in The Astyanax, only 1 in The Lord of King.
I think the game is fun on some levels but suffers from some unfortunate gameplay shortcomings. For one, the game awards entirely too many extra lives on default settings; even dying a couple times in the last level I had 5 spare lives left after killing the last boss. Almost all bosses are dealt with in the same manner, as well - Find the safe spot and keep mashing attack until they die.
A few things about the game I really like is how you could let your axe charge and then it delivers a strike 3X more powerful with a fire effect when you swing. The small touch of visually showing your shield as damaged before it breaks when you block too many attack was appreciated. I also thought the soundtrack was pretty good (level 3 and 5 are my favorite tracks), but the sound effects seem to distort the music at times. The "plot twist" of the final level was very weird but awesome at the same time.
This gameplay was recorded with WolfMAME v.249 using default settings and no autofire. As with all my runs - no TAS (tool assistance), cheats, hacks, or save states are used. INP file hosted on MARP: replay.marpirc....
As always, thank you for watching!
#longplay #1cc #retrogaming