Golden Axe (arcade)
Few arcades of the late eighties smelled of adventure quite like Sega's Golden Axe from 1989. This fantasy brawler pitted a trio of heroes against the evil Death Adder — the muscular barbarian Axe Battler, the axe-wielding dwarf Gilius Thunderhead, and the sword-armed amazon Tyris Flare. Each of them had different strength, reach, and magic, so choosing a character wasn't just cosmetic but a fundamental choice of playstyle.
The game's secret weapon was magic. Little gnomes with sacks scurried across the play areas, and when you kicked them, they dropped blue vials. Collected potions filled a magic meter and, at the right moment, unleashed a screen-filling spell — the more vials, the more devastating the effect. Unforgettable, too, were the rides on saddled monsters, whether a fire-spewing lizard or a pair of clawing creatures you could steal from an opponent.
Retro players adore Golden Axe above all for its two-player co-op and for the unmistakable sword-and-sorcery atmosphere the beat 'em up genre hardly knew back then. It received a host of ports — the most famous on the Sega Mega Drive — and became one of the pillars on which Sega built its reputation as the king of arcades.
Game 83 of 258 for Arcade
The same title elsewhere (6)
The 1989 Sega arcade original ran smoothly in bright, saturated colors and offered its full soundtrack alongside true simultaneous two-player action. The Mega Drive version came closest, keeping most of the atmosphere, music, and enemies, though some backgrounds and details had to be simplified. On the Master System, levels were shorter and the graphics plainer due to weaker hardware. Ports for eight- and sixteen-bit computers (Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST) suffered from slower, choppier scrolling, a reduced color palette, and often lost simultaneous two-player co-op entirely. For the experience closest to the arcade cabinet, the Mega Drive version is the one to pick.
