Heya,

I've been looking with great interest at your pages on the Golden Axe
series. You asked for people to drop you a line with more information on
Golden Axe III, some of which I can provide since you have such wonderful
manual scans up on the site.

I can read and *transliterate* japanese.. which, unfortunately, is not the
same thing as *translate*. But I can tell you what's written in a lot of
places.

Starting with the characters page:

The Barbarian isn't Ax Battler.. Just like in many of the other games,
it's yet another blue-clad barbarian. His name is ?J?C??=?O?????_�[, which
is kain gurindaa. Romanized, that makes him Kain Grinder (the i in Grinder
is short, as in "grin" not as in "grind".)

Likewise, the Amazon is not Tyris. Her name is given as ?T??=?o�[??, sara
baan, which romanizes as Sara Burn. The a's are both short, so it's not
the regular pronounciation of Sara (which whould normaly be spelled ?Z??
sera in katakana), so it may be better to spell it Sahra, if you like.

The Ogre is ?v???E?h=?N???b?K�[, puraudo kuraggaa, which would be Proud
Cragger (assuming it's evoking an earth-like or cave-like thing, as in
craggs), or possibly Proud Krugger. I'd go with the first if his element
is earth, or people of his race are seen in an underground setting in the
game, but the second if it's something else.

The panther guy is ?N?�?m?X=�h?C?r??�h=??�[?g, kuronosu "ibiru" reeto. The
first name is definately Cronos or Chronos. His "nickname" seems to be
"Evil", but obvously he's one of the heroes, and on the spells page, they
call him Cronos, not Evil, so it must not be a too readily used nickname.
His last name is Rate or Rait, or.. any spelling that's pronounced the
same as Rate.. So, I'd have to say the best romanization is probably
Cronos "Evil" Rait, just because Rait looks a little more exotic, as well
as partialy evoking the gaelic word "cait" for cat.

The "bad girl" enemy is a ?o?j?e?B�[, banitii, which is mostly likely Vanity.

The Prologue pages (the ones posted as 3&3, say Golden Axe
(?S�[???f???A?b?N?X, goorudenakkusu) repeatedly through the first two
thirds, mention the word Dwarf (?h?��[?t, dowaafu) once, speak of Gilius
(?M???E?X, girius) and his companions (though not the other two by name),
and then Gilius is mentioned a few more times on the next page..

It speaks of the Kingdom of Eastland (?C�[?X?g?????h, iisutorando), and
the King of Splash Hill (?X?v???b?V??=?q???�, supurasshu hiru ou, with ou
being the kanji for "King"). The King is mentioned a few times, and
someone else named Damned Hellstrike (?_???h=?w???X?g???C?N, damudo
herusutoraiku), then Gilius is mentioned again, and the paragraph ends
with something dramatic about the Golden Axe (it's in parenthesis and has
an ! after it).

The last paragraph has something about the Golden Axe again, and Gilius
setting off on a new mission.

The new Bizarian mount on page 10 is called the Jouyou Monster
(��?p?????X?^�[, jouyou monsutaa, with jouyou meaning "riding"), so.. I'd
imagine Riding Monter would just be what all such critters are called in
japan, but there isn't any other name that thing is called in the
instructions for its use. Just "Monster" each time. So.. perhapse two of
the three Bizarians from Golden Axe I would be "Riding Dragon"..

On the spells page, we see that Kain has the water element, Sahra has
fire, Proud has earth (I'm guessing Cragger after all, then), and Cronos
has lightning.

On the Enemy Characters page, we see the picture of Vanity again. The
reptilian skeleton is named Dead Flame (?f?b?h=?t??�[??, deddo fureemu).
The big green guy with the hammer is Mustang (???X?^???O, musutangu). The
armored knight is Kolbet (?R???x?b?g, korubetto). The four-armed sheep-man
is ..hmm.. not sure how to romanize.. The kana reads ?G?S=?C??=?V�[?v, ego
iru shiipu. Ego Il Sheep? The bird guy is Eve (?C�[??, iivu). And the big
shadowed ? guy is Damned Hellstrike.

I could probably do most of the special attacks on the interim pages if
you really want, but it would take some serious work for the ones
containing kanji.