Overall 9 Graphics 8.2 Sound 7.8 Addictive 7.8 Story 7.6 Depth 7 Difficulty 8.4
8.7
Golden Axe Review Zircron Swift
Among the games of the Sega Mega Drive.....Genesis X32.....Mega Drive, a classic was released around the time that the Genesis.....Drive.....X32....ok this is getting annoying. They made the Genesis games compatible with the Mega Drive and all resources tell me they were for both. Does this mean the X32 does the same, with remakes and ports for that? No wonder there were so many variations of Street Fighter II! I'm surprised they didn't make ports and remakes and different editions on all future Sega consoles for the first Street Fighter game. Keeping track of these console games is confusing for a Nintendo nut like me! *breathes deeply* Anyway, a legend came out on that day. I wouldn't call it a legend, nor much of a classic, but I will say it was a classic among the Sega consoles. It was a hack and slash game that loosely copied the main character from "He-Man" and made several enemies and simple took half of them and took half their clothes off....well it seems that way, stop giving me that look. Well, get your sword and stock up on blue pots and we'll see what this game is.
The story is that Death Adder is taking over the world. His power is not to be trifled with. All that stand before him will die. That kind of thing. And now he has the Golden Axe, which.....makes him God? They don't explain what the Golden Axe is, they just mention it, as if it were no big deal, even though it's the title of the game. So now only the most bold, most fearsome, most skilled and viscous warriors can defeat him. What are these warriors that might bring the world at peace? A man in speedos, a woman following suit in the man and a dwarf. They all have something in common....no, not that, despite my jokes earlier on, I'm talking about their close and loved ones being killed my Death Adder himself. They all want revenge. They must fight through eight side-scrolling areas to get to the castle and vanquish Death Adder. Before you start, you have an option to change how much life you have. That's nice. Good to add that if you want some challenge or something a little easier. Not like there are difficulty settings in other games, but it's a nice touch.
The first thing I think about when I first played this was Streets of Rage. From the first second I instantly remember the repetitiveness and poor weapons system of Streets of Rage. However, after I kill a few enemies, it is far from the same game. For starters, each character has their own unique special attacks. The more blue pots you have, the stronger the special attack is. These blue pots can be obtained from little guys known as elves....of course they had to be elves. Another thing that sets this aside from Streets of Rage is the fact that you don't drop your weapon when you get hit. If that happened in this game, it would be far worse than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES *audience booing* ok ok, I clearly went to far. Worse than Friday the 13th for NES then. Just comparing the niece of that game to this one. Dropping weapons when hit = bad. But there are far better features here than on Streets of Rage. You can charge, and then attack to have a charged attack, or you could jump instead, to jump twice as high. You can also attack when coming down as another attack.
You can grab, but I can't quite figure out how. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You can either continue attacking them, or just throw them. One thing I like about the attacks is that if you get a combo high enough (easily gotten if you just mash the attack button in front of an enemy), your character hits them on top of the head with the hilt of the sword as part of the combo. How great is that? I just love that attention to detail. Some enemies ride dragon-like things that can be a pain if you don't deal with them fast, but after defeating them you can mount the dragon and go on a rampage =D If you get hit, you fall off, but that's ok, because you might normally fall off if you got hit on top of a great big beast. It's just I don't think a highly skilled police offer-sir would drop a badly needed weapon when he gets hit. Some dragons swing their tail, some breathe fire, and some breathe fire balls. Great for range.
The levels are fairly short, but normally gets balanced out by the boss battle. Seems really easy at first, but at stage three, you will be struggling to keep alive. At the end of stage three, you meet Death Adder Jr. This guy is quite unfair to fight with. His sword is bigger and longer, so when I try to get close, he would slash me. If I dash, he'll somehow slash at me and I'll be hit. If I jump, he'll somehow slash at me and I'll be hit. There's almost no way to get to this guy, which reminds me. The difficulty is high. It's one of those "swarm by enemies" kind of difficulty, but at the same time, you need a good strategy in order to progress to the last stage. It's got a good combination of button mashing and quick thinking that makes this game what it is. I can't get passes stage four, but that really shows it's worth.
Overall, I give this game a 8.7/10 This game is better than Streets of Rage in my opinion. It had better game play, better controls, better graphics (at least the enemies in this game make sense), a more appealing story, but I am a fantasy sort of guy. Not to say that Streets of Rage was bad, but they could learn a lot from this game. Why some of the main characters hardly have clothes on is beyond me. I think it's to show how bold they really are. Think about it, you have hardly any clothes on.....ok, lets not think about it! Lets just....think hypothetically. You have hardly any clothing on, your fighting many foes, you have nothing protecting you from attacks, so the only way to survive if to not only kill all your foes, but make yourself untouchable. The fact that these guys can kill many fearsome foes with as little as a scratch in their underwear should make any evil mastermind quiver in their boots, even with a Golden Axe. I though gold was a bad choice of metal to make a weapon out of, as it's generally softer than most metals. But I digress, this game is a classic among the Sega Mega Drive.....er Genesis 64.....You know what I mean!
Graphics 7 Sound 8 Addictive 7 Story 7 Depth 8 Difficulty 10
Review Rating: 4.8/5
Submitted: 09-23-11
Review Replies: 0
9.1
You have my sword, and my axe endings
Glorious Golden Axe. This game is a classic beat-em up that sticks out in many memories for its good use of fantasy elements, great villain design, and those little thieves with their quirky music. ?This is a good game which rises above its flaws. The Story is simple, you play as one (or two if using another player) warriors who lost family to a evil bad guy called Death Adder, who wields a big axe. Death Adder has recently kidnapped a royal family and has taken over their castle, so it is to there the heroes seek him, and battle all the friends of Death Adder who are terrorizing the countryside.
The Characters
You can choose between a sword carrying barbarian guy called Ax Battler, an amazonian swordswoman with great fire magic, ?and a dwarf with a really big axe. All of them play the same except for their competence in magic, which deal damage to the whole screen when used. All feature a running attack, a jumping downward thrust, and a throw attack.
Enemies to use these talents on include skeletons, armored knights, medieval brigands and outlaws with spiked clubs. ?They often try to gang up on you, and can sometimes charge or jump attack just like your characters. There are also a few neutral characters- strange creatures to ride on if you can take them from the enemies, including dragons, an odd chicken creature with a long tail. There are also small people who are dressed like gnomes, they carry big treasure sacks. You will kick them if they go by and get magic potions or meat, they do not attack you back, other than sometimes stealing your magic between levels.
The bad guy Death Adder, is an imposing figure, and is as dangerous as the poisonous snakes his name brings to mind.
The Setting
I think the fantasy element is well used in Golden Axe. You use an old map as you travel between stages, you will see castles, and unique things like travelling aboard a giant bird! The odd mounts mentioned earlier seem to indicate this world has semi-domesticated dragons, and each hero commands a type of magic. ?Strangely, the game is called Golden Axe, and while the dwarf and Death Adder use giant battle axes, none of them are golden. So the title is a bit of a misnomer as there is no gold axe. ?The story could have benefited from a bit more, but its pretty standard for these types of games. Bad guy did bad, go get revenge on him and make him stop. I did like the small touch of narrative that came on the main map after completing each stage, and gave a point extra for that small detail.
The Sound
The music at first I couldn't really remember, but playing the game again, I did recognize some tunes that do well to set the stage. The old harpsichord sounding, tingling music of the map screen, the low drums of the battle music, the whimsical tune of the thieves stealing your stuff in the bonus levels, and the foreboding music of Death Adder. Its pretty good. The groans and death screams seem fairly overused. At least the skeleton didn't have one.
The Difficulty
Golden Axe isn't really that hard, but it can be a bit frustrating. ?The enemies, while never more than a handful at once, can gang up on you. The mounted enemies using the dragons or the chickentail can be rough in crowds too, as they add a reach advantage. There is a lot of instant death ledges you can walk off, and some enemies will hit you and you'll fall off from knock back. Fortunately, the AI is pretty dumb, and sometimes will walk off the ledge themselves. You can also use the rushing attack to ram them off ledges behind them. In fact just to get a decent ending you have to play this on harder difficulties, as easy only takes you through part of the game. Death Adder has special moves, so he is a good, intimidating last boss. The genesis went one step further and added a secret stage if you play it on a higher difficult, complete with a harder boss that uses magic fairly frequently.?
Overall
While there is no Golden Axe in a game called Golden Axe, and the enemy AI is either cheap or dumb, this is a blast to play. Golden Axe gets the feel of their setting and offers characters that look like they belong in that world. If you like beat em ups and fantasy, this is the game that gets most of it right.
Graphics 9 Sound 7 Addictive 8 Story 5 Depth 6 Difficulty 7
Review Rating: 4.6/5
Submitted: 07-10-14
Updated: 09-19-14
Review Replies: 2
7
Golden Axe (GEN) Review play4fun
As I was looking through games that I know, I noticed, to my surprise, that the Golden Axe franchise has a lack of reviews and plays. It is one of the classic franchises that SEGA has produced and these games should be mentioned among similar levels with other SEGA games like Sonic and Streets of Rage. With that, I've decided to replay through the main Golden Axe games (Golden Axe 1, 2, 3, and Revenge of Death Adder) and give a review for all of them.Originally made for arcades, Golden Axe is a Hack and Slash game that iss set in a medieval fantasy world. The main storyline is about an evil person by the name of Death Adder. He captures the castle of the land, the King and his daughter, and their magical relic (The Golden Axe). Death Adder threatens to destroy the royal family and the Golden Axe if the people did not accept him as their ruler. Three heroes were up to the task of travelling to the castle and defeat Death Adder. They are Gilius, the axe-wielding dwarf, Ax, the man with the two handed sword, and Tyris, the sword fighting amazon woman. All three of them lost someone close to them due to Death Adder so they traveled across the land and slash through multiple enemies to reach Death Adder and defeat Him. This game was faithfully ported to the SEGA Genesis for the ability to play at home. Has the Looks, but Looks Don't Add to the Game The game does a good job creating a fantasy world. A whole backstory creates a world of Good and Evil. As the player goes on to each level, a part of the map would reveal the pathway of the heroes as well as a description of the progression in the story. Each level is uniquely designed with where they are in the story, from a town on a turtle, to a death valley, to landing at the castle through riding an eagle. The sound of the game reflects on what the characters are doing and makes the immersion of this quest more believable. The soundtrack portrays the medieval feel that the game is trying to show. There are certain sound effects that I am not really a fan of as well as the cutting of the soundtrack whenever someone dies takes you out of the game at times. All of these exterior looks don't stand out but they are well enough to give life to the feel of the game. However, these things do not change the simpleness of the game. One might even be bold to say that the story has very little influence in the gameplay. If a person skips all the cutscenes and not any part of the story, one can still play through the game, hacking through baddies and moving from level to level. In fact, the game also included a "duel mode" where players can just play last man standing against waves after waves of enemies with only one life. The only huge influence the story has is the continual progression towards facing the big bad Death Adder himself with how the difficulty of the game increasing as you move from level to level.Slight Unique Features, but Simple and Straightfoward This game is more than just moving around and swing your weapon. There are additional features that allow you to pass the level. Each level (and bonus level) consists of dwarfs that roam around the area and drop bottles of potions or food when attacked by the character (if you can chase them down). The food is used to heal up your character, while the potions allow the character to use special magic attacks. The more you collect the bottles, the stronger your special attack can be. What's unique about this game is that each character has a different limit as well as different attack levels to use. This makes character selection to be important in the approach of playing the game. If you are a type of person that would use your special attack a lot, you would choose Gilius for his low potion limit. If you are a type of person who likes to save their special to make it a stronger for the boss, you would use Tyris for her high potion limit and high attack level.
Another small feature is the ability to ride dragon/dinosaur type creatures and use them to attack your enemies. Different creatures have different attacks, like fireballs, fire breath, or tail swinging. These can only be obtained from enemies and neglect riding them can cause them to run away. Even with these features, the problem with Hack and Slash games still remains. Most of these types of games already describe what you do: Hack and slash. You have a jump button and an attack button.The only ways that your character can attack is through the following: Continually clicking the attack button to make combo slashes; get close to throw enemies; jump and attack at the same time; run up to an enemy and knock them down. With such limited moves, this game doesn't have anything more that can be offered. Imperfect AI and Gameplay but Difficult Game From what I described, the controls are very simple and anyone should be able to play this without any effort. However, with such simple controls, players can find flaws in the gameplay in order to beat the game. The AI in the game is rather predictable, whether if it is charging towards you or doing a certain attack when they are close. A player can take advantage of this predictability to find choke points on the level to easily kill the enemy. I have tried finding a high ground on the map and since I know that the enemy is going to jump without attacking, all I have to do is to attack the enemy while he is in the air, and he'll fall to the ground, get up and do the exact same thing again until he dies. Some of the worst AI moves are like when they try to follow where you are on the level, but as they move down, their side of the screen has a hole that leads them to their death. Not all flaws are for the player's advantage. With how simple the attacks are, the moves that you have can only attack forward and unless your reflexes are fast enough, someone from the back can attack you. To add insult to injury, every time an enemy attacks would cause your character to be stunned under their mercy. So when you have to enemies on both sides and you try to attack one with another close by, you will be trapped in a near endless onslaught of slashes, receiving double the damage. To add to that, this game is not exactly the easiest to beat. Even with these strategies, the player must be able to pull them off in order to be successful. This is easier said than done. There are also some bosses that can takeout one life point of your meter when you are attacked. This means that if you make one too many mistakes in one level, using a continue (3 lives) would actually be quicker than what you would imagine. People who are not players of side-scrolling, Hack and Slash games may find this game frustrating because of its difficulty.For a game that was made in 1989, this game is the grandfather for future hack and slash games. It is considered quite innovating for it's time. It is a good game that defined this genre as well as making some extra features in an attempt to make it more than just a "walk around and attack people" game. It is well designed in the way it looks and unique level designs make it far from the definition of "generic." However, the limitations of intelligent AI and the story's lack of importance to gameplay makes the game far from being perfect. Still, it is a fun game, it is a challenging game, and it is a classic.My overall rating of this game is an 7.
Graphics 7 Sound 6 Addictive 7 Story 7 Depth 5 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 4.2/5
Submitted: 05-24-13
Updated: 06-04-13
Review Replies: 2
7.8
Insert Scratchy “AAAAGH” becerra95
Story time. This game came from the another plug n play game console I owned which included Sonic the hedgehog, Kid Chameleon, Flicky, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Dr Robotnik. This review will be a rather short one since the game itself was short to begin with. It has been released multiple times on many platforms, including the collection for Xbox one which I owned. It was a fun game to say, but does it still hold up after decades since its release? This is Golden axe for the Sega Genesis (played on Xbox one on “Sega Genesis Collection”)Story: 9
From the manual, a malicious entity named Death Adder has come to ravage the land of Yuria, massacring thousands of innocent people to capture and kidnap the king and his daughter. Obtaining the legendary Golden axe, three warriors have come to save the royalties from the clutches of the Death Adder.
The story itself sounds more of a medieval tale of warriors fighting to save the kingdom, or rather land, from the Evil Death Adder. It’s easy to understand and the warriors, from reading the manual, seem to be bent on revenge defeating the villain for killing their loved ones from their respective lands. Back in the day this will be a great attraction for people to play. Wait a little longer and you get the bio of each character and their one sentence story behind fighting death adder.
A 9 out of 10
Graphics: 8
The graphics themselves are good but nothing spectacular. The opening scene to start the game with the letters flying in a circular motion is pretty cool. Choosing a character with a skeleton background is rather impressive to keep the medieval feel. Character models look good and nothing to complain about, especially with the enemies and stages. The stages stand out with its layout where you can walk up and down on the platform and jumping on ledges and such. The animals look pretty neat too, nothing too shabby. I think out of the game’s graphics, I think the magic is the best part of the pixels with explosives, earthquakes, thunder or even a dragon. I say the flickering when using the magic is the only flaw I see but it’s still impressive.
An 8 out of 10
Depth: 7
Depth of the game isn’t much in terms of content. Each character has their own set of weapons and how much potion they’re able to hold. I seen not much difference of playing each character but maybe I haven’t appreciate the game enough. The magic is basically the biggest difference between each character with the Amazonian being able to hold the most magic, Barbarian being the balanced type and Dwarf holding the least amount. The levels are pretty straightforward and doesn’t give much variety at all. It does show a story after each level completion to keep you invested on how the story progresses but other than that theres not much replay value after beating the game with the three characters. The ending is pretty neat though, showing information of each enemy from height and weight and their names. It’s a cool edition.
7 out of 10
Sound : 5
The sound is quite scratchy not going to lie. Even as an early release game the animals roaring, the enemies screaming, to even dying the audio is quite Sega if you know what I mean. Scratchy and just high pitched that if you wear headphones… poor soul. The music itself is quite ambient to a degree. You can hear the music and it’s nice but it gets cut out with the sound effects and it kinda affects it a bit. Clearly they could’ve done better but it’s an early title so wouldn’t hold too much against them.
5 out of 10
Difficulty: 8
The difficulty of the game isn’t that bad until you face the bosses. The bosses will munch up your quarters if this was the actual arcade but losing lives is okay too. I mean yeah you can cheat the game a bit by mounting onto animals (fire breathing velociraptor I call it for one of them) and just spam it’s attack to kill multiple enemies or the boss easily. Each level usually ends with you in a campfire with a little elf running around with a pouch. Hitting it gives you potions that’ll make it easier for you to go through each stage. Sometimes they even appear during the stage and hitting them either gives you potions or health. The difficulty really lies on the bosses or accidental falls. The final boss is the usual quarter muncher itself no matter how you look at it. Reason why the game is a bit more difficult in rating. I mean… Sure being crowded by enemies suck too but it’s more manageable, for me at least.
An 8 out of 10.
Addictive: 7
There’s not much content this game offers. After beating the game, what else do they have? I mean granted I played as the dwarf and exit the game after beating it since I felt like there’s nothing more it contains. The story itself is neat but being an early Sega release I wish it had more so it can at least have some replay ability.
7 out of 10
The game itself was pretty good, probably amazing back in the days when it was first released. People probably blown away by how close it was to the arcade version and such. It’s a shame you can exploit the game with cheap tactics and all to progress the levels more easily. This is a quicker review than usual since this game really had not much to offer. I mean it sold well and reason why it’s considered a classic but this game is probably meant to be played once in a blue moon at most these days.
My rating : 7/10
Review rating : 7.8/10
Graphics 8 Sound 8 Addictive 7 Story 9 Depth 7 Difficulty 8
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 07-05-23
Review Replies: 1
9.5
Barbarians, and Amazons, and Dwarfs, OH MY! classgame
Now I know what you are thinking, didn't I review this already? yes I did BUT that was for the Coin-op version that won't load on RetroArch here. I wish the sequel for coin-op would work here too. I had to rely on a different site to play that one.
Gameplay and Story: Death Adder has taken over the palace and has taken the King and the Princess prisoner, and no matter who you choose to play as you will get the same story about "My good friend Alex was killed in Battle" and for a very long time I thought it was a subtle nudge about how Sonic killed off Alex Kidd, but it wasn't until last year that it was the case because in the arcade game we see Alex die, and it's not our favourite hero from the planet Aries. As if our heroes didn't already have a reason to rid the kingdom of this loser the Barbarian lost his mother, the Amazon lost her parents, and the Dwarf lost his brother.....by the same guy. You have to dodge so many people here, and chop at thieves that have magic vases (and oh btw some thing to note here is if you're magic is full when you get to the vase collection bonus level, the thieves will take the vases from you) and there are also food carrying thieves that will be useful shame they only show up on the bonus rounds.
Graphics: Well the graphics are what they are considering that it's from the Genesis console but it's a little bit smoother than the Coin-op version, clearer than the Master System version.
Soundtrack: The bonus rounds have the same soundtrack every time you get to it however every round has a different one but they are the same in stages six and seven. Also in each stage the music changes once you've reached the boss of each region.
Addictive: Well I would say it is, if it wasn't I never would have finished the game.
Depth: So there is an added ending in the console version, even after you defeat Death Adder and rescue the royals they tell you he's been following orders from an even more powerful dude and he uses magic too, like the same floor fire power that death adder uses and the same maximum magical abilities that the heroes would use (boulders, thunder and fire) how does the coin-op version have 9 stages but not the additional boss level, and yet this has 8 stages with the additional boss level....this is really confusing. Anyway the real big bad is called Death Bringer (as we find out in the end credits...yeah this game has an end credits for some reason we don't have that weird ending from the coin-op version where everyone breaks out of the machine).
Difficulty: I've finished the game as all three heroes so it's not that difficult but I didn't finish the game in one try either it took me weeks, maybe even a year (hey I did say it took me two years to finish Sonic 3). I wish I could say I'm having better luck with the console sequel.
Post review Follow-up: I've owned this game as part of the 6- pak cartridge I owned way back when and this game is currently on the Genesis Mini. Also after I just sampled the Master System version of the game you only play as the barbarian but you get to choose the magic. I think maybe this summer to increase my posting abilities, along with the daily reviews, I might just to an SMS/Gen comparison series with the games that got a Genesis and SMS release, which means I have to make a valiant attempt at the games whether I'm good at them or not. I may release a list.
Well this concludes my review, but sadly I have to go back to work tomorrow so I can't write any more reviews until sometime on Thursday and it Will be where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego....Deluxe (I have several tasks to do, a commercial render here, a shopping trip there, a Jack check then, and yeah that's kind of it).
Graphics 10 Sound 10 Addictive 10 Story 10 Depth 9 Difficulty 8
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 01-09-22
Review Replies: 0
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