TL;DR – Out of the blue, we got this Sega 60th Anniversary Collection of free games. Even if they were only produced as a promotional tool, they’re generally pretty enjoyable and are worth a look for Sega fans. Golden Axed is a tantalising glimpse of a series of quasi-remasters that were in the works around a decade ago, while the other three games (Endless Zone, Armor of Heroes and Streets of Kamurocho) are each enjoyable standalone projects that aren’t particularly lengthy but offer some interesting gameplay experiences. Of the batch I’d personally say that Streets of Kamurocho is the most enjoyable, but then again that’s mainly because I enjoyed the Streets of Rage series. Regardless of individual preference, these are a bundle of free and quirky games that are short but still fun!
Quick Note: As the Sega 60th Anniversary Collection bundle of games were released as part of a promotional effort to celebrate Sega’s 60th Anniversary, the store pages for them have been taken down and so they’re seemingly no longer available. Fortunately there’s a work around (Credit to //ennui_72826 on Steam for this fix) that lets you tell Steam to download them anyway and as they’re free they’ll be added to your library forever more. Just open your browser on a computer where your Steam account is signed in (or open the Windows Run tool) and enter the following command(s);
- Armor of Heroes: steam://install/1368440
- Endless Zone: steam://install/1368450
- Golden Axed: steam://install/1368460
- Streets of Kamurocho: steam://install/1368430
- Bonus related game, 8-Bit Bayonetta: steam://install/1368460
Despite being synonymous with the relatively young videogames industry, Sega much like Nintendo has been around for far longer than you might initially expect. While it’s first true home console might have only hit Western shores in the early 1980’s, Sega itself has been around since 1960 and as a way of celebrating it’s longevity the company released a handful of free promotional games back in 2020. Now these games are far too short to deserve a review each, especially as two of them can be beaten in around 15 minutes! Yet after browsing through my Steam library I remembered that I had received these games years ago and thought that I should give them a try, just to see whether they were of any interest. To my surprise they were each cool in their own way, although unfortunately the one I was most excited about (Golden Axed) is also the shortest one here. So without further ado, I’m going to take a quick look at each game and then briefly conclude with which one was The Best
Golden Axed
Starting off with the one I was most excited to try, Golden Axed is a resurrected proof of concept for a Golden Axe remake that was in development around 2010. There was going to be a couple of remakes in this vein for the 7th generation of consoles, but for better or for worse they were all scrapped and the Australian development studio working on them was closed down. As such Golden Axed is an insight into what could have been, albeit a fairly short one as there really isn’t much going on here. You get to play as the Ax Battler class, with a couple of different attacks that you can use to face off against two enemy types across a single level. The combat itself is fairly faithful to the original games, as you only have a jump, light attack and heavy attack but there is still a surprising amount of depth to the move as various combinations of movements and attacks will unleash multiple different moves. As it’s just a proof of concept demo, there are still some rough edges to this combat including how easy it is to abuse the light attack “combo” (just mash it) to prevent enemies from being able to deal any damage. In spite of the limited amount of content however, the game is still able to demonstrate that there was a concerted effort to make the concept of a remaster work. You can see this in the elements of this demo that illustrate what can be done on modern systems, including the appealing visuals and large amount of enemies to fight on-screen. Plus the game has been able to recreate some of the more amusing elements of it’s predecessors, including the ability to knock enemies off the stage or the prospect of a magic system. As a consequence it’s disappointing that this little teaser as all that was ever seen of this game, as with some time and energy it could have been a decent game. Instead the Golden Axe series has languished since this project was cancelled.
Streets of Kamurocho
The next one I dove into was Streets of Kamurocho as I’ve enjoyed the Streets of Rage games in the past and this is essentially a (sanctioned) knock-off. While that might sound like a criticism, I don’t intend to disparage the game as it’s enjoyable if brief and manages to accurately capture most of what makes the Streets of Rage series enjoyable. You’ve got a similar combat system, with light attacks, heavy attacks, weapons you can pick-up, jump attacks and a constant barrage of enemies with different attack patterns. Even the smaller details such as how health items are picked up, the UI, the number of hits that different enemy types take and so on are almost identical to the Streets of Rage games. This includes the handful of boss fights, which are dangerous but manageable and culminate in a final boss fight that can be pretty tricky as he has goons that respawn multiple times. Unfortunately much like Golden Axed the whole thing is very short indeed, and once you’ve cleared the first stage it loops (unlike Golden Axed which goes straight to the title screen). With that being said, both the soundtrack and visuals are well polished and when combined with the combat provide an enjoyable if brief experience. Once you’ve cleared the only stage on offer, you unlock Kasuga alongside Kiryu and Majima but aside from this modest goal there’s nothing to aim for outside of a higher score. There are online leaderboards available for the game, which is a nice touch but that’s about it.
Armor of Heroes
Perhaps the most unusual game of the bunch is Armor of Heroes, an ostensibly Company of Heroes themed game that has absolutely nothing to do with the series or indeed the RTS genre. Instead it’s a top-down arcade-y multiplayer game where you control a tank across a variety of game modes and it’s playable with up to 3 other players, 3 AI bots or a mixture of the two. Despite being arcade-y, there are still some sops to realism as the tanks don’t handle particularly well and so you need to slowly rotate your vehicle instead of just being able to turn on a dime. Similarly, the stages are cluttered with debris some of which can be shot through (or driven through) and some of which is more resistant to your efforts. Shots also have a degree of bullet-drop, although you don’t have to worry about shot angle and armour penetration so there are limits to the realism. The game is therefore in a slightly odd position, as it is far too fast paced and liberal with the simulation elements to be considered anything but an arcade experience. Yet it also has some elements that get in the way, for want of a better way of phrasing it. To make matters even more complex, there are a handful of game modes such as Survival, King of the Hill, Deathmatch and so on but there are three variants for each mode which are essentially Arcade, Hardcore and a somewhat balanced middle. The tweaks are mainly related to fog of war and how shots act, alongside tanks being easier to destroy on the non-Arcade difficulties. This is solely a party game however, as there are no progression systems and no single player content (aside from matches against the AI) to speak of. The game does at least have a handful of maps, so there’s enough new content to support around an hour of playtime before it starts to get stale. With that being said, much like the other games this is more of a novelty due to the relatively lack of content even though it supports local multiplayer.
Endless Zone
Last but certainly not least in this collection is Endless Zone, an attempt to emulate the Fantasy Zone series made by the team behind the Endless Space 4X games. Much like Armor of Heroes, this is a pretty abrupt change of pace on the part of the developers but unlike Armor of Heroes, Endless Zone is close to being an entire game! Of course that is a backhanded compliment at it’s core, but I was still surprised by how much depth was packed into what is a throwaway promotional piece of software. Not only are there multiple stages, each with their bosses, but the game also has a full shop interface just like the Fantasy Zone games which provide access to a multitude of different weapons. The caveat is that these weapons have very limited amounts of ammo, so you’ll need to choose wisely and be prepared to return to slumming it with your default blaster before long. Fortunately the upgrades to your bombs and thrusters are permanent, plus you’re able to buy additional lives which always helps! To access the shop, you’ll need to fly into a beacon which appears roughly once per level after you destroy a certain amount of targets and then you’ll be able to buy what you desire. Be careful though, as weapons and lives get progressively more expensive as you buy them and so extra lives will quickly eat up vast amounts of currency. Now this wouldn’t be an issue, but you die in one hit so this is a surprisingly challenging little experience. To win all you need to do is shoot down 10 floating orbs that are spread out across each of the 4 stages, while dodging or shooting down all of the infinitely respawning enemies and then dealing with the boss. That’s easier said than done however, especially as the enemies spawn more and more frequently as the time you’ve spent on a stage increases. Don’t let the difficulty curve get you down though, as each stage has it’s own unique ambiance, visuals, soundtrack and most importantly enemies to deal with! As such this is a great looking shoot em’ up with plenty of depth and a decent amount of challenge, although once you get used to it (and learn to save your money for the missiles upgrade and the thrusters upgrade) it shouldn’t take you too long. Just don’t be surprised if you see the game over screen a few times more than you’d like!
And the Winner is…
So after playing through all of those games, I had to confess that I had inadvertently left the best for last. While Golden Axed was a cool insight into what could have been and Streets of Kamuchoro was probably the most fun I had, the clear winner here is Endless Zone. Not only was it the longest game of the bunch, but it was also the one with the largest amount of challenge and perhaps most important the most strategy involved. It’s hard to lose Golden Axed or Streets of Kamuchoro before they’re over, and honestly I found that Armor of Heroes was entirely random as despite having the same AI the bots were incredibly unpredictable when it came to the final scores. Endless Zone on the other hand is a concise but challenging game that requires you to learn it’s systems to succeed, as it’ll let you keep blasting away at the infinitely respawning enemies or waste money on the wrong upgrades. But once you have an understanding of how everything works, the game itself isn’t too hard and I was able to clear the last few bosses without any real trouble. Then add a great OST and visual presentation, alongside plenty of enemy patterns to learn and the end result is a great little game. That’s not to say that the others aren’t worth a look as I enjoyed them all to varying degrees, with Armor of Heroes being my least favourite but it was still pleasant enough to mess around with. But with that being said Endless Zone is an actually enjoyable free game that you can still add to your Steam library today, and I would highly recommend you give it a try. Then again, you may as well give the others a try at that point as the whole batch will only take you maybe an hour to see everything once you’ve been able to beat Endless Zone.