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The Lowdown
Pros: Value priced, fun for the first time around, fitting music
Cons: Awful versus mode, repetitive gameplay, nothing new
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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Sega's Ages series is
dedicated to reviving old games by giving them a facelift. While
cosmetically, the games look new, the majority of the games don't
undergo gameplay altercations. Golden Axe suffers from this fate. While
the graphics look great, it's still Golden Axe.
Yes, the graphics look great compared to the sprites seen on the Sega
Genesis version. The three main characters actually have defined limbs
and facial expressions. The best effects can be seen when you use your
magic ability. You can clearly see what your character looks like,
his/her expressions and be privy to some excellent animation. In one
magic spell a giant dragon is summoned to breathe fire on the on screen
enemies. The backgrounds have been changed too, they're all in 3D.
Essentially, the game is played in 2D, but with some good use of a
rotating camera the game almost feels like it's in 3D. All of these
graphical tricks makes a ten year old game feel like in belongs in 2003.
On top of graphical upgrades the game also features cut scenes. The
cut scenes give the game a superficial story, which is nothing to write
home about. The greatest problem with the cut scenes is that you can't
skip over them. Golden Axe was designed to be a game to be played over
and over again, but when you have to sit through a five minute cut scene
that you just saw yesterday to make it to level two, you'll think twice
before starting to play this game.
While there is a decent amount of eye candy, a lot of work is needed
on the gameplay. While there are beat-em up games now, they're much
deeper. Games like Dynasty Warriors and Drag-on Dragoon are essentially
button mashing beat-em ups, but they have more features beyond the
16-bit era. In Golden Axe you have a limited amount of moves. Each
character has one combo attack, that cannot be improved. You also have a
jumping attack, a single throw and a dash attack at your disposal. These
are all standard from the original Golden Axe and are pretty much similar
to any beat-em up game. The only new attack that was added was a
"backwards slash". With a press of the square button you turn around and
attack whatever is behind you. This attack is useful to counter many
enemies that attack you with their dash attack. The lack of variety in
the attacks makes the game stale very quickly. You can only watch the
same combo over and over again until you get sick of it. Hitting enemies
fills your magic gauge, which allows you to unleash an attack that hits
all the enemies on screen. As stated above the magic attacks are great
eye-candy, which is a great break from the boredom of doing the same
attack over and over again. One of the coolest features from the
original
Golden Axe was riding dragons dropped by the enemies. While you can
still do this in this game, the dragons don't stick around that long.
After you're hit once by another enemy the dragon runs off screen and
you won't be able to use it anymore. This means you're spending much
more time on foot unleashing the same combo over and over again.
Besides the boredom, there isn't much of a challenge. Golden Axe never
featured much of a challenge and can be beaten in your first or second
sitting. Enemies come in constant swarms and you're forced to defeat
them to move to the next screen. The enemies are relatively easy to
defeat, they don't have any real AI. The only thing that the enemies do
that is slightly difficult is they use the dash attack a lot. The dash
attack is hard to counter, you have to master using the back slash
attack to avoid being hit. Besides the arcade mode, there is a two
player versus mode. This mode allows you to choose one of the three
characters and battle to the death. When you're in the tiny arena there
isn't much you can do. You can unleash your one combo, jump and attack
or run. What makes it worse is that if your character gets knocked down
there is a decent amount of lag time before he/she can get up. By the
time your character gets back up the enemy can unleash another combo and
knock your character back down. The only break from the repetitive
gameplay, is a poor attempt as a mini game.
Golden Axe has always had simplistic gameplay, which was a double
edged sword. Anyone could learn how to play Golden Axe in a few minutes,
there was no need for a "tutorial level" or even to read the instruction
booklet. Golden Axe was designed as an arcade game. However, this
generation of gamers expect deeper gameplay, which makes this game look
like a dinosaur. Luckily, Golden Axe is value priced, around $20 US, so
it may be worth a purchase since it isn't too much money.
Import Friendly?
You don't need instructions to play this game and all of the menus are
in English. The dialogue is in Japanese, but you're not missing out on
much.
US Bound?
As of now, none of the Sega Ages series is scheduled and it is
unlikely that any of them will be.
Overall
If you're a Golden Axe fan you may enjoy this game, but you could dust
off your old Genesis to play this classic. If you're not a fan of Golden
Axe this game's flaws outweigh its redeeming qualities.
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