This Axe is Still Golden

Golden-Axe-1Almost 15 years before games like Baldur’s Gate and Champions of Norrath revolutionized the hack and slash genre, Sega’s Golden Axe was at the forefront of that revolution and was the best beat-em up available on any system, promoting cooperative play, deep gameplay and a bevy of modes to keep gamers up all night long. Re-released on the Nintendo Virtual Console, Golden Axe is back and it’s still just as fun and challenging as it was back in the day.

While the single-player mode has always been great, Golden Axe truly shines in a multiplayer setting. Using one of three characters, a barbarian, a dwarf or a female warrior, who all have different abilities and strengths, in order to defeat the Death-Adder and his myriad of evil cohorts, Golden Axe featured the type of gameplay that made it a smash hit in the arcades way before it was released on the Sega Genesis. Luckily however, very little has been lost in the Genesis version that has been ported to the Wii VC.

If solid gameplay wasn’t enough, the game has some of the best graphics during the early Genesis years and is home to some of the best animations and backgrounds of any game during the era as well. Taking a step away from the cute and pixilated sprites featured in games like Mario, Gyromite, Kid Icarus and Mega Man during that time, Golden Axe was one of the first games to ever make the player feel they were actually in a fantasy land, killing giants and skeletons. This in effect turned Golden Axe into a cult classic, keeping gamers infatuated with it, despite its short length.

Despite there not being too much available in Golden Axe to overwhelm you, as there are only a handful of levels, the fact that all three characters play differently gives the game solid replay value, while the other modes available, such as the duel mode, which is almost like a gauntlet version of the game, where the player only has one life and is trying to defeat as many foes as possible, give the game enough substance and polish to warrant multiple plays.

In addition, the game is still great at doing exactly what it was originally intended to, being a solid arcade game that can take up anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours of free time off your hands. Simply put, the same way that games like Donkey Kong and the original Super Mario Bros. have kept their luster after so many years, Golden Axe does as well.

In the end, players who missed the game when it was originally released in 1989 will finally realize what all the hoopla is about and will see the similarities between it and the classics that soon followed it like Final Fight, Streets of Rage and countless others, showing just how influential the game was and still is to this day.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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