I prefer Legendary Axe 2

Debates like this are timeless. Which game is your favorite in a series? There are your Super Mario Bros. 3 folks, the Super Mario World fans, and then those oddballs who love Super Mario Bros. 2. What defines a specific game as "better"? Is it play control, story, graphics, music, or something else? Does nostalgia play a role in defining a game as better? I think it's a little bit of all of the above. There can be a difference between which game is simply "better" versus which game is your personal favorite.

For today's series in question, there are only two games. Even stranger (not quite as strange as the Wonder Boy/Adventure Island series strange) is that these games are only related as a "1" and "2" series on US shores. Legendary Axe was released as Makyō Densetsu on the PCE in Japan in 1988. Legendary Axe II was released as Ankoku Densetsu in 1990. They were developed by Victor Musical Industries, Inc. as games with similar styles: hulking, scantily dressed men wandering about, slashing and hacking baddies to pieces. The original had a unique attack method of charging your attacks the further you leveled up.

LA2 did away with the charge-your-attack method and built its game world around darker stages with added gore and a slightly horror theme—a style not too different from many early 16-bit adopters like Namco's Splatterhouse. Not to mention, the focus of LA1 was the warrior wielding an axe to destroy monsters. In LA2, the axe is mostly a mid-range weapon and rarely seems preferred to the swords and whips found within.

The first time I booted up Legendary Axe, I noticed similarities to another game: the arcade and NES release of Astyanax. The charging attack, accessing items through statues within stages—even some of the monsters you fight look similar. Looking further into it, Astyanax and Legendary Axe were developed by many of the same programmers! So, in essence, LA could be considered part of the Astyanax series!

Then we got Legendary Axe 2. It feels like a breath of fresh air. Some of the flaws of LA1 have been corrected. A darker palette, more original monsters, better level design. The character just feels more capable, and as a result, the game is easier too, which could be considered a drawback, I suppose, but to me, it was a welcome change. "But you hardly even use an axe!?"  Sure, "Golden Axe" by Sega only had one character using an axe too.  It's ok. 

Legendary Axe 2 just feels more 16-bit to me. Like NEC/Victor figured out how to make a game that could hold its own against big arcade games on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. LA2 is a step up in soundtrack, in boss design, and includes much larger levels with better balance. LA2, to me, feels more on par with Ninja Spirit in the sense that it looks like a "next gen" game. No way could it have been accomplished on an NES. I'm not too sure the LA1 couldn't have been an NES game with it's presentation...

I love both games. It's a shame we never got an LA3, as that would have blown all of our minds, especially if it would have gotten a Super CD release! I guess to some extent, we could appreciate Shape Shifter as a somewhat similar action game with open-concept/"Metroid"-style worlds, but that would be a massive stretch.

Which do you prefer? What other polarizing opinions are there in the PC Engine universe? Lords of Thunder vs. Gate? Neutopia I vs. II? Favorite Ys game?