Of course, I'm not here to wax nostalgia about that ancient game. Today's look is at the slightly-less ancient and more-than-slightly derivative Golden Axe Warrior. Released in 1991 - well after the debut of the Genesis - this Sega Master System Zelda-clone didn't make much of a splash. Also yes, I am outright calling this Action RPG a Zelda-clone. The developers were looking over shoulders and taking notes. Usually, I try to refrain from such talk, since every released video game is a miracle in itself, and miracles should never be downplayed. That said, I think that this might be a special case worth digging into, hence the use of the term.
Bad news! I lied. There's no escape from nostalgic meanderings about The Legend of Zelda. I love that game, so much. It's the perfect pick-up & play adventure. Everything clicks together so wonderfully. The controls are so superbly crafted that every movement, every action, every series of actions & movements, are just sopping with the stench of excellence. There is no greater thrill that walking into a room packed with monsters and slaying everyone with just skillful maneuvering (and a sword). It is those pristine moments that elevate the game to stratospheric levels. Now, there's a little more to Nintendo's most venerable classic than killing baddies, but the execution of it is arcade-quality. The tightness and mechanical excellence. It's enough to make me wonder what an arcade giant like Sega could do with their own Zelda game.
Almost immediately, I've put Golden Axe Warrior in a bad spot with my dizzying expectations, so let's try and dial it back a bit. The story goes is that Death Adder has a problem. He can't stop killing families. That's kind of his thing. Needless to say, his thing makes a lot of people unhappy, including you. The intro makes it very clear that Mr. Adder killed your parents, so you have to go kill him. Considering the genre, you can't just walk up to his face and start hacking. Ten dungeons teeming with evil stand in your way. To reach these devilish dens, you'll have to explore a large overworld, using clues given by surviving villagers to find your way around. Let me just say upfront that Sega delivered on all of the bullet-points. You want fun adventure; this is fun adventure.
Traversing the world is handled in the traditional screen-by-screen manner. Typically, every screen you walk into is going to have some ratio of monsters to secrets. Slaughter the monsters, find the secrets. If you've played a similar game, then all this is second nature. Inevitably, you'll stumble into your first dungeon. Each of them is clearly marked with a roman numeral at the front entrance, so you'll know whether or not you should be there. Dungeons contain everything that you'd expect. Locked doors, puzzles, more monsters, blah blah blah. Your goal is to find the treasure and take a crystal from the boss's bloodied corpse. The treasure is commonly an item that assists with exploration. Again, this is all standard stuff. If anything about it appeals to you, then stop reading and give the game a play-through.
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| You'll find a ship like a decade before Wind Waker. |
Yes, I am in fact pushing you towards playing Golden Axe Warrior. It's a damn fine game, and a lot of what makes it work can be attributed to its snip-snap pacing. You move quickly in a world that is neither excessively large nor overly complex. With some effort and a little free time, you can make a lot of progress, clearing multiple dungeons in a single session. This sense of speed extends to combat as well. You'll move and fight through scores of foes like a little blue blur. Fair warning though. There is danger in rushing around. You can die awfully quickly if you aren't careful.
The beautiful simplicity of slaying rooms full of enemies is on display here. While there are a few offensive spells, you will be relying on a sword (or axe) for almost everything, and it works exactly as it should. Adversity takes many forms and punishes anyone that tries to approach them directly. Use the environment and your fast walking speed, because most of the time that's all that's available to you. While it is tempting to use magic to deal with beasties from afar, it's better saved for the bosses at the end. Seriously, the last thing you want to do is redo a sizable chunk of a dungeon because you died at the boss. These archfiends have patterns that are easy to recognize, but they also hit hard, so you'll want to use any advantage possible.
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| "Hey! This isn't fair!" -Death Adder, murderer of countless innocent families. |
Well... I mean, you might want to show a little restraint... if you want. I say this because Golden Axe Warrior has a significant number of bosses that are easily exploitable. You can demolish dragons by standing in a safe spot and chucking lightning. That "big guy with an axe" looks tough, but what if you just stayed at the entrance to his room and just stabbed him until he died? Oh, and what if that "big guy with an axe" was Death Adder, himself? Yeah, you can bully him the same way, if you want of course. This is a judgment-free zone. Whatever gets the win is valid. Considering how cheap the bastard is to fight in the side-scrolling games, I feel that this is the best possible revenge.
Once again, I find myself recommending a game that I probably should've played a lot more than once in the past 30+ years. Once you look past the "looks like Zelda" look, you'll soon discover that Golden Axe Warrior does quite a lot good and very little bad. Although, if I have to nitpick, I think they went a bit overboard with the teleporting enemies. A lot of them show up in the late game. Maybe I just harbor a secret hatred for everyone that teleports. Blame Ys 2 and Neutopia 2 for that.
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