Golden Axe/The Duel

Added to most home versions, The Duel is a useful training ground for familiarising yourself with the various enemies and bosses in the game, as well as being a good challenge in its own right.

With two players it's a versus mode: you can use all the various attacks to fight each other. Note that Gilius Thunderhead deals double damage in versus mode.

The single player is more interesting. You start with eight life bars, and you cannot heal or use any magic. Just as in the normal game, weak attacks can damage a life bar without actually removing it. Below your life bars are the enemies' life bars, useful for telling how close they are to death. When multiple enemies are onscreen the life bars are somewhat shared. It is sometimes possible to focus on one enemy and then hit the other only a few times to take them down quickly.

If you complete all the challenges you will be told "Congratulations! You’ve won against all of your enemies. You can get more power and techniques because of your victory in this duel!! Now, let's try Arcade mode." Despite this description, no new moves or health/magic boosts seem to have been unlocked by beating The Duel.

There are twelve rounds:
 * 1) a Silver Longmoan on a Chicken Leg
 * 2) two Silver Heningers
 * 3) a Silver Heninger on a Red Dragon
 * 4) two Skeletons
 * 5) two Red Longmoans
 * 6) two Lemanayas on Red Dragons
 * 7) two Dark Heningers and a Dark Longmoan
 * 8) two Purple Skeletons (exclusive to The Duel)
 * 9) two Bad Brothers
 * 10) Lt. Bitter
 * 11) two Gen. Heartlands
 * 12) two Gen. Bitters

If you lose you see a standard Game Over screen while if you win you see the same credits roll as in the other modes. Regardless of whether you won or not, you'll get a high score screen with some changes to fit this new mode.