Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder

New In The Revenge of Death Adder
The Revenge of Death Adder (hereafter RODA for simplicity) introduces many new features, most notably being that it adopts the advanced system of object interaction that has since been seen in Golden Axe III (a Genesis-only game). Now, magic pots and food are only picked up when you intend to by pressing attack when on top of them, rather than just stepping on them. GAIII owes a lot to the heritage of RODA, as that was the first game to introduce such a system to the home series, and also featured the "new" style of smoothened character art (as opposed to the "flat" art of the original and its Genesis-only sequel). And so there are barrels, flags, statues, and other things you can destroy at will.

The magic has been simplified unfortunately, and each character now has only a single mind-blowingly amazing power to use. Also, as in the later Golden Axe III, each time you die you get another dose of magic as a sort of "last chance" option to even the odds. GA III gave just a single pot, but because there is no magic levelling up RODA gives a top-up of however many pots you need. So playing as Goah you may be down to 8 pots (not enough to cast) and so when you respawn, the game gives you enough pots to make up the required 13.

Story
In short, it seems Death Adder didn't really die in the last game (or he did and was then resurrected?); regardless, he's back to wreak havoc. He's regained the Golden Axe and is out to get his titular Revenge. This is only based on outward appearances, it isn't stated explicitly anywhere within in the game or its documentation.