Golden Axe: Revisiting a Classic Sega Beat’em Up

Golden Axe is one of Sega’s classic arcade games. It started in the arcades, like many other games from the 1980s. Sega eventually turned it into a series of beat’em ups and then made several spin-offs.

They took this series into different genres, which is pretty cool. I’ve only played the beat’em ups, and I’m not interested in finding some of the more expensive games. Golden Axe was eventually forgotten by Sega, just like other series they made in the 1980s and 1990s.

I’ll just be looking at the first game in the series for this post. It isn’t a game I played until I was in high school. Like many games on the Genesis, I picked this one up when I started collecting retro games. My friend Alex was the one who told me about it. Several of us had bought a used Genesis, and we were discovering the library together.

TLDR: A classic beat’em up from Sega. It has great graphics and gameplay.

Narrative

The story is way more involved than it has to be. It reads like the plot for a Sword & Sorcery movie, because it kind of is. The manual has the story in it, and here is a link to it (Link).

Death Adder has been terrorizing the land of Yuria. Eventually, he kidnaps the King and his daughter. On top of that, he has also taken the Golden Axe. I honestly didn’t know there was a Golden Axe in the game.

Three warriors are dispatched to defeat Death Adder. Clearly, that is the only way to win. Especially since no one else has been able to stop him. The three warriors have all suffered under Death Adder, and they want to kick his ass.

The story is perfectly fine. It sets up who the three warriors are and what the end goal is. This story could easily be made into one of the Sword & Sorcery movies from the 1980s.

Gameplay

Golden Axe stood out from the other beat’em ups. You’re special attack can be charged by collecting magic potions, and you can ride monsters. These were a rarity for beat’em ups at the time.

Most of the gameplay is fairly standard. You have an attack, jump, and special attack button. This three-button combination is used for several beat’em ups and not just Sega’s.

There are three characters to choose from. They have different stats, which is pretty cool.

• Gilius – An axe-wielding dwarf. Death Adder killed his brother.
• Ax Battler – A barbarian with a terrible name. Death Adder killed his mother.
• Tyris Flare – An Amazon. Both of her parents were killed by Death Adder.

The special attacks usually clear the screen of the regular enemies. They can be charged up by collecting magic potions. To get these, you have to beat up a little gnome character. He will either drop magic or bonus points. Sometimes he will drop food, which will replenish your health.

Each character’s special attack looks different. It is really cool to see this amount of detail in a game. While they all achieve the same thing, they look different.

What is really cool is that you can find mounts in the game. You can get one by knocking its ride off or by finding one left unattended. The dragon is the strongest, and the cockatrice is the weakest.

This isn’t a difficult game. The controls are solid, and the gameplay is easy and fun. I really like the inclusion of the mounts, and the special attacks look cool. Overall, this is a good beat’em up, and it was excellent for the time it was released.

Visuals

Golden Axe is a good looking game. It is close to the arcade version. It does share some graphics with Altered Beast and other games that use the same arcade board.

The sprites look very good. Like other beat’em ups, there are some palette swaps in the enemies. There are also some cool graphics, like the skeletons. They look excellent.

The boss characters are larger and have a lot of detail. Some look like the developers made minor graphical changes to one of the enemy sprites, but I don’t mind that. The mounts all look great. I liked how the cockatrice looked in Altered Beast, and I like them here. It is the same sprite, which is a little funny.

The level design is fine for what it is. They aren’t very long, and the locations don’t change much, but they still look good. Golden Axe wasn’t a complex game in the arcades, and that didn’t change much on the Genesis.

Overall, this is a good looking game. I like how the graphics look on the home console. I do have the Arcade 1up cabinet, so I got to compare the two. The arcade game looks a little better, but the Genesis version looks close to it.

Reviews at the Time

The review scores were fairly consistent. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the game received mostly 8s and a few 9s. I’m sure this changed a bit in the 2000s, and with other retrospective reviews. I looked at three reviews for this.

Computer and Video Games gave the game a 95/100. They called it “incredible” and said that it was the “equivalent of a Golden Axe arcade machine in a cartridge.” This publication also gave the game a high score for Value. The reviewer pointed to the difficulty options and practice levels to justify this.

Mean Machines gave this version of the game a 91/100. The weakest part of the game was the sound, but the reviewer didn’t give a reason for it. They called it a “flawless conversion” and said that it “improves on the arcade game.” This was mentioned in the previous publication as well.

Sega Power gave the game an 82/100. Some artwork in this review has to be seen to be believed. It’s amazingly odd. The reviewer called it an “excellent game,” and a “superb conversion of the coin-op.” They faulted the game for being too easy.

This wasn’t all that surprising. Sega brought an arcade game to the home console and added to make it better. There were similar complaints to the Alien Storm game. I have a feeling that this will be said in most of the Sega arcade games brought to the Genesis.

7.5/10. While I like the game, it isn’t as good other Genesis beat’em ups. For a brief time, it was one of the best. The game still has solid controls and good graphics.

Pros

• Easy to play
• Good Controls
• Great Graphics

Cons

• Short Game
• Repetitive
• Better with two players.

Conclusion

Going back to play this game was a lot of fun. I remember playing it with my friend Alex, and trying to use the six-button controller. If you didn’t map the controller correctly, then everything would get messed up. Of course, Alex didn’t warn me about this before we started playing.

This is one of the games that I wish I had been able to play in the arcade. There wasn’t one near my house growing up. It was one of the downsides to growing up in a small town. We had a few arcades that were attached to other things, like roller rinks and Chuck E. Cheese. None of them had arcade games from the late 1980s by the time I got to visit them.

The Genesis version was going to be the only way I got to play this game. None of my friends rented it when I was a kid. Collecting games was the best way for me to learn about this game. Later, I got to play it when it was part of the Sega arcade collections.

If you liked this post, please check out my other beat’em up posts. Some examples are King of Dragons or Alien Storm.