"Conan the Barbarian" influence on old videogames

Hi i'm just a fucking newbie and I needed to tell you WOW. The best Conan page period in the web. That's for sure, guys. Such a great job, really. I know that you already know it, but, hey, let's play the game once more, ok? Pretend you don't know how really really great is this page and let me say again... WOW, great work, men!!! I mean it.

So i just felt the need of sending a little contribution from my humid hole
(it's in Spain, in Madrid). I saw you have a "curiosities" section, and I realized you don't mention a couple of old videogames that were obvioulsy influenced by the Millius film.

Talking about "Rastan" and "Golden Axe", both from the arcades.

"Rastan" was out in 1987, and "Golden Axe" in 1989. So, there's obvious influences from the 3 films (including "Sonja") but I will focus on the influences from the one and only Millius one.



Ok, first came "RASTAN". Aka "RASTAN SAGA". We all knew who this Rastan dude really was. The first time I saw "Conan the Barbarian" on tv (i was about 7 years old) I gave all my money to this arcade. It was obviously based on the movie, any child could see that at first look:





Familiar title desigm, familiar font for the name, familiar sword... Hmmm, ok maybe it's just a coincidence.






Here HE is who tells his own story. (And the best part... here WE can BE HIM)









The "game over" screen is obviously "inspired" by some poster from a movie about a wolf-eyed lion-fucker ass-kicking steel-balls prehistoric gaelic.






Right.






















































The game was avaiable too for pc users and sega master system. But you can get it as a rom in any emulation page, for the Mame.





A sequel was released in 1990, "RASTAN SAGA 2" aka "NASTAR". No Millius movie conection BUT the title design, with the sword a littlebit similar to the cimmerian sword -it has some kind of runes-.





On the cover the sword is even closer to the cimmerian father's sword (there's even the prehistoric elk skull in the guards):





But there is not any visual in the game itself that could have been inspired by the Millius movie. The game, in fact, has more like a greek or roman myths ambientation, just like a peplum movie, rather than hyborian or celtic or nordic.

There was a "PART III" in 1991, and there, Rastan was Conan again. But he was Conan from the comics, not the one from the Millius movie anymore.





Soooooo...



Here's "GOLDEN AXE".








First thing you realize is this is a "hyborian-samurai" land. Much like Millius' world.

But the biggest and undeniable conections with the movie are in the "sega mastersystem" version.

When you finish your mission -that is, crush all your enemies, watch them turn into stone before you, and to hear the lamentations of their own throats- you become of Aquilonia. Only it's not called Aquilonia and you are not called the way we all wanted to be but... hey, we all fucking know who this bastard really is, by Cromm-Cruach's sake!!!!!!








Here is saying gods to get away from him, before the mounds massacre starts.





And The Terminator.





The shadow of the hero is repainted. Look.

















This not-officially-cimmerian cimmerian is officially called Ax Battler. And his mother was killed by the Death Adder, a serpent related witch-warrior who likes to wear this helmet a lot.




















But only in the "sega master system" version the not-officially- was alone. In the rest of the versions, and that of course includes the arcade version, he has two brothers in arms: Gillius Thunderhead, thief and dwarf. A Tolkien inspired character, a littlebit out of place if we consider "Golden Axe" as a "videogame adaptation of the Conan films", of course out of that conception Gillius is a very nice fella with a high level of psychopathic skills. And Tyris Flare. The flamed haired extremely hottie -but still virgin (yeah!)- amazon.
























How do i know she's still virgin?


















Ok, shit i have no fucking idea, i just... She's not virgin. But she's pretty close to some hyrkanian beauty that some northern warrior allways wanted to with no success. (Oh, man... those... those are the girls that can really make you mad... )














I used to play in the arcade machine a lot. I used to play with the red hair girl. That's because she has incredible magic power, and can call a fucking mastodontic satanic dragon which burns the damned soul of every enemy in the screen. I used to play the whole game without calling the spirits, not once. Only using my steel and my hate. And then, when Thulsa Doom... er sorry i mean when DEATH ADDER awakes... TIME TO EAT FLAMES, MUTHAFUCKA YO!!!!!!!!

Yeah but i had the mega drive version too and it was nice. Longer than the arcade version but without that cool end... (Do you know what i'm talking about?)


Ok, let's work.





The girl Tyris i think is probably Sonja, and i mean the movie Sonja. She uses a lot this gesture (the "en garde" position).




The only reference i found of the "en garde" pose of Nielsen is this.




I know it's not exactly the same but if you need it you can allways look for it in the Sonja movie, i swear she makes the exact Tyris pose several times... It means that now you must watch that piece of crap just because you don't believe me... So... Do you have the balls to watch that mammoth primigenius mountain of shit or will you trust me when I say it's a pose from the bloody movie?

The choices are clear.

It's a gesture that Brigitte Nielsen uses for her character when she's prepared to attack. Here in the game, they gave Tyris this "en garde" position of Sonja as characteristic of his style of fencing. (Note that the Conan character "en garde" is identical in "Rastan" and in "Golden Axe", as Conan uses that charasteristic "en garde" pose in the Millius movie several times -as well as Subotai and even, if i'm not wrong, Valeria-).














Wikipedia quotes Tyris Flare as "inspired by" Sonja.



















In 1991 "Golden Axe II" was born. Nothing much to say about it. Same basic character designs, but loss of Millius ambient. BUT in 1993 arrived "GOLDEN AXE III"... And there it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:




The perfect Atlantean weapon.


Cast of characters:






The game was made for the "sega génesis/megadrive". The animation of the characters was improved but somehow they lost their beauty simplicity. Now they look much more like comic characters. I prefer a more "movie" looking. But the worst thing was the backgrounds... They simply didn't exist.




One year before, 1992, "Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder" was released as an arcade machine. Somehow it conserved a little touch of "Millius influence" but the "comic-book looking" was predominant in the style of designs. So, nothing left to say, i guess.








Are u still there?




Ok, so that's all, i hope you liked some of this crap in case you didn't know the movie references in these videogames. And if you knew them, hope you enjoyed reviewing an old part of your life, as i have.


I rose, I roared
I will, I am

Nice remembering! (and yes, I did read all of it!!!)

You won't be surprised to learn that we already had a similar discussion on the French-speaking section of this forum:
https://conancompletist.forumactif.com/Forum-Francophone-c2/Conan-le-Barbare-f2/Conan-dans-les-jeux-t12.htm

One thing you did not mention is:

Quote :

Many of the samples used for Golden Axe and its sequel were taken from the movies "Rambo - First Blood" and "Conan the Barbarian". More specific when you kill bad guys sometimes they scream something like 'Oooh God!' which was taken from Rambo at the scene which takes place in the forest when one of the policemen fell into a trap and gets impaled by sharp pieces of wood. The sample used for the man who gets trampled by a bad guy in Golden Axe and the scream of Death-Adder when falling from the dragon at the final scene of "Golden Axe - Revenge of Death-Adder" was taken from the policeman who also fell from the helicopter pursuiting Rambo. Finally the battle cry used for the big baddies when they die in Golden Axe and the scream for the big chained green monster on "Golden Axe - Revenge of Death-Adder" on stage 3 are the same and taken from Conan's scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger fights the two villains on a Stonehenge like background and again one of them gets impaled by a trap.

Source: http://www.arcade-history.com/history_database.php?page=detail&id=978

Oh, and just look at the girl's sword and the guy's belt on this one:



http://www.conancompletist.com/img/photos/B04/conanB04_06.jpg



(nah, she was no virgin)

Welcome Flaming Turd!
Nice post, very interesting!

Good stuff, thanks.