Legendary Axe II is a horizontal platform

Platform game

A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

 video game created in 1990 by Victor Interactive Software

Victor Interactive Software

Victor Interactive Software, Inc. was a Japanese video game software publisher and developer, established in 1970-08-03 as a division of Victor Entertainment.In 1996-10-01, Victor Entertainment Inc. merged with Pack-In-Video Co., Ltd...

. The Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 name is loosely translated to "Dark Legend". It is a sequel to Legendary Axe

Legendary Axe

The Legendary Axe is a horizontal platform video game for the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16. It was developed by Victor Interactive Software and was published by Victor in Japan and by NEC in North America. It was released in Japan for the PC Engine on and in North America alongside the...

.

Story

The king and queen of a royal kingdom die and their two sons have to fight for the throne. Prince Sirius loses to the evil Prince Zach. The tone is set for the good son, Prince Sirius, to reclaim the throne. The story is not a direct continuation of the previous game.

Gameplay

There are 4 weapons to choose from: sword, axe, sickle chain and smart bomb. There are 7 levels in the game, at the end of each level is a boss. The levels are action oriented based and straight forward. The game is essentially an expansion of the same game engine as the first title.

Reaction

Released just a year after the original game, the title was set out to capitalize on the popularity of the first game.

Despite being named "Legendary Axe II", the main weapon is actually the sword. The confusing title comes from the false US translation of "Makyo Densetsu", which should have been a direct Japanese translation to "Demon Legend". Instead it was named "Legendary Axe" and when the sequel debuted a sword as a main weapon, it left an awkward impression. Plot wise, it did not have anything to do with a spiritual axe. The title was also NOT "Makyo Densetsu II". The most probable reason for the title change was to line up the marketing of the title with another popular game that ended with an axe, namely Sega Genesis's Golden Axe

Golden Axe

Golden Axe is a side-scrolling beat 'em up and hack & slash arcade video game released in 1989 by Sega for the System 16-B arcade hardware. It is the first game in the Golden Axe series....

. The front cover of the US cartridge featured a picture of an axe, while the cover of the Japanese version has a sword.