I chose LA1 because it provided a great over-all sense of adventure, great action/strategy techniques, decent graphics, beautiful music, interesting and sometimes large bosses and fun power-ups.
I too noticed the similarities between this one and Astyanax but, until now I didn't know that Astyanax came later.
Another weird thing that Jaleco did that seems to coincide with this subject was to ripoff Victory Run as well with their arcade racing game, Jaleco Rally.
Jaleco Rally is so much like Victory Run that it's just hard to believe.
LA2 was fun too but, I have to agree about the annoyance of the slower jumping starts which can really become bothersome in some areas where you have to jump up shafts and do it just right without falling all of the way back to the bottom.
I never like the way the main character walked when he carried the flail either or his graphical appearance. It was a lot like what Fragmare said.
Also the weapon choices weren't setup well and the best weapon over-all was the sword instead of the Axe which was slow and extremely short-ranged.
Furthermore, the Snake bosses animation was too choppy and the story didn't really seem to have any connection to the original game but, other than that the rest of it was okay and the over-all graphics and sound were very good but, I'd rather play the first game any day.
