Golden Axe Warrior
System: SMS
Release Date: April 1991
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Adventure
Clone one of the best games on Nintendo in Golden Axe Warrior! Which game was cloned? The Legend of Zelda, of course. And if you like Zelda, you’ll enjoy Golden Axe Warrior. The evil giant Death Adder has stolen the nine crystals and plans to use them to destroy and take over the continents. It’s up to you to traverse the land, find the labyrinths, and put an end to Death Adder’s plans once and for all.
You get an overhead view of the world and can run from one screen to the next. Button 1 pulls up the menu, where you can change what you have equipped. Button 2 uses the currently equipped weapon. Your two main weapons are a sword and an axe. The sword attacks forward, while the axe swings an arc. Each dungeon has an item for you to find and they are necessary to move ahead. In order to find the dungeons, you may get some help from people in towns. There are many towns dotted across the land, some with shops, others without.
Most screens have hidden stairs. These may be unveiled by chopping down a tree with the axe, defeating all enemies on screen, or blowing up a rock with the earth magic. Some of these stairs hold someone who has information to help you. Others will grant you horns or steal them from you. There are hidden shops, shortcuts, and even gambling huts. Once you uncover a stairway, they stay there for you.
Enemies hold horns, which act as currency across the land. They also may have bread or meat to replenish life or magic pots to replenish magic. Horns are a necessary pick up, as you need to buy a Knight Shield, and magics from heroes. Speaking of magic, there are four spells you can find throughout the land. Thunder Magic is found from Gillius Thunderhead. Earth Magic is found from Ax Battler. Fire Magic is found from Tyris Flare. The Golden Axe theme plays when you enter their screens, which is cool. There’s also hidden Water Magic for you to find. You can cast spells as long as you have enough magic pots to do so, which kept me from using them as much as I probably should have.
The labyrinths are exactly what you’d expect. There are enemies in most of the rooms and sometimes you need to kill them to open doors. Other times you need keys to open the doors. Still other times, you have to push on a torch to open the path for you. That one took me a bit to figure out in the first dungeon. There are warp squares that may need to be uncovered. Bridges that need to be made or blocks that need to be removed. At the end of the dungeon is a boss battle. These all have patterns to learn, but can be easily defeated. Once you get the Golden Axe, you can finally take down Death Adder, and put an end to his evil machinations.
Graphics: 2.5
Sprites are small, but everything is quite colorful and looks pleasing.
Sound: 2.5
Music and sounds are merely above average. I think the Master System is doing a lot, but it’s not up to snuff.
Gameplay: 3.5
Pretty much everything works well, except sometimes the character is a bit too fast and that leads to getting hit hard.
Difficulty: 3.0
You can continue as many times as you want, with your horn total decreasing every time you do.
Fun Factor: 3.5
I had a really good time traversing the overworld and finding my way from one dungeon to the next.
Overall Rating: 3.0
Golden Axe Warrior earns a B. This is a great game as we end the lifespan of the Master System. If you haven’t played it, you totally should.