Golden Axe
System: Genesis
Release Date: December 22, 1989
Developer: Sega R&D2
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Beat ‘em Up
The final game of 1989 is here and it’s a treat with Golden Axe. Death Adder and his soldiers have taken over the land of Yuria, kidnapped the King and Princess, and seized the Golden Axe. It’s up to one (or two) of the three noble warriors to travel to the castle and put an end to the tyranny of the Death Clan and bring peace to the realm. Choose among the barbarian Ax Battler, the amazon Tyris Flare, and the dwarf Gilius Thunderhead, each with their strengths and weaknesses.
In Arcade Mode, you have to move your way through 8 levels of sword swinging, axe chopping, magic slinging action. Enemies come on screen, generally in groupings of two or three and you need to kill them before they can kill you. Swinging your weapon is accomplished with Button B. If you get close enough to your opponent, you can begin swinging away into a combo attack to do more damage. Depending on how far away you are, you might kick them or heave them with a body slam. Button C is your jump and it is an invaluable tool for attack and evasion. A smart, but slow strategy is to attack most normal enemies with a jump slash. It’s weak, but it keeps you relatively safe.
Levels exist on scrolling screens that pause movement until you kill all of the baddies in the area. Enemies do their best to sandwich you whenever possible. They will walk around you, leaving the horizontal plane of attack. Using this knowledge to your advantage and trapping them at the bottom of the screen can help you land your strikes. If enemies are far enough away from you, they will do a running attack to knock you off your feet. You can counter this by staying off the same horizontal plane as them, or by running with a double tap of left or right and hitting them first. I find it satisfying to wait for them to run at me and then Samoa Joe them so they jump off a cliff and die. An extremely important attack is the backward attack by pressing Buttons B and C simultaneously. Gilius has the best range on the backward attack making him pretty strong. Another fun attack is what I refer to as the Death Drop. You do a running start, jump into the air and then press attack to put the point of your weapon down doing damage to anyone you come in contact with.
Button A unleashes the accumulated magic power you gathered up until that point. On top of the screen is your magic meter that fills when you collect blue pots. Little blue thieves carry them and can be found throught the levels and after each stage when they try to steal from you. The higher levels give you stronger attacks. This is another area where characters differ. Gilius only has a maximum of 4 pots he can hold, meaning you’re more likely to use his Thunder magic throughout each level. Ax Battler can hold six pots to use his Volcano magic. Tyris is the strong spellcaster, holding up to 10 pots and having the devastating Dragon Flame if you manage to fill the meter all the way up. I tend to save my magic for the larger boss characters who really don’t like it when you get in close to them.
The Genesis version of the game has three extra levels than the arcade, but they’re the easiest, as pits to knock your enemies into are prevalent. Besting them puts you up against the true boss, Death Bringer. Accompanying him are two immortal skeletons, which already have the strongest AI. If you’re looking for an extra short game, you can play the beginner mode, which pits you against Death Adder Jr. at the end of Stage 3. Also included is the Duel mode, which has you fighting a gauntlet of 12 battles with one life.
Graphics: 3.0
The graphics look good, but the colors are muted, I think a better choice of palette would have been really beneficial.
Sound: 3.5
I like the music, though the fidelity is lower than my childhood memory of it. Sounds are satisfying and death screams never get old.
Gameplay: 3.5
Everything works really well. You’re given plenty of attacks and ways to defeat your enemies. I would have liked for the magic system to not be all or nothing, but I guess that’s a minor gripe.
Difficulty: 3.0
You’ll definitely have a tough time your first time playing, but the learning curve is actually very well done.
Fun Factor: 4.0
The game length is of the proper amount for an arcade style beat ‘em up. You can even bring a friend for even more of a good thing.
Overall Grade: 3.4
Golden Axe earns a B+. It’s always good to end a year on a high note and Golden Axe did exactly that. If you’ve never tried it, you can get hold of it incredibly easily through about every Sega collection ever released.