Sega's 1989 arcade beat 'em up Golden Axe looks to be getting an unofficial port to the Neo Geo, according to a recent social media post from the fan developer h0ffman.
h0ffman recently ported Sega's 1987 arcade sidescroller Shinobi to the Neo Geo (MVS/AES/CD), by disassembling the arcade version of the game back into source code, and seems to be in the process of giving the same treatment for Golden Axe, sharing some footage of his progress so far.
This footage shows the game's game's title screen, character bios, and high scores — albeit with the video game backgrounds seemingly missing as of now. According to h0ffman, though, the port is progressing "a lot quicker" than he had initially anticipated, suggesting that it might not be long before they are implemented and we get to see some video of the individual stages.
Speaking about why he started making these Neo Geo ports, h0ffman explained on social media, "I ordered a MisterPi from @TakiUdon_. While waiting for it to arrive I wondered how hard it would be to disassemble an arcade game back to source. Half randomly picked Shinobi, classic game and runs on a 68000. DIsassembled most of it in about a week and wondered what to do with it."
"I also love learning how retro systems ticked so thought maybe the Neo Geo might be a good fit for it as it didn't already exist on the platform. Turns out they are very evenly matched. The Mister arrived which then also gave me another system to test my code on."
At the moment, no release date has been given for the Golden Axe port, but we'll keep an eye out for new updates as they emerge.