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Golden Axe

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Golden Axe is a side-scrolling arcade hack 'n' slash game released in 1989 by Sega. It is the first game in the series. Makoto Uchida was the primary developer of the game and also was responsible for the creation of Altered Beast. The game places the player in control of one of three warriors each bent on revenge against the vile dictator Death Adder. Death Adder has taken over the once peaceful land of Yuria and murdered their friend and partner, Alex. According to the Killer List of Videogames, Golden Axe is the most important arcade game of the year 1989. Several ports of the game were created, most notably for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Master System.

The game focuses on three heroes. One of them is a battle axe-wielding viking, Gilius Thunderhead, from the mines of Wolud whose twin brother was killed by the soldiers of Death Adder. Another is a male barbarian, Ax Battler, wielding a two handed broadsword looking for revenge for the murder of his mother. The last is a long-sword wielding Tyris Flare, a female amazon, whose parents were killed by Death Adder.

Contents

[edit] Story

The very existence of Yuria is now threatened – Death Adder has kidnapped the king and his daughter, the beautiful Princess, and he is holding them captive in his castle. Death Adder has also found the Golden Axe, the magical emblem of the land of Yuria and plans to destroy it and kill the royal family unless all the people of Yuria bow to his will, swearing an oath of allegiance to his evil regime and accepting him as ruler.

[edit] Gameplay

Progress is made through the game by hacking and slashing through Adder's henchmen, including men armed with clubs and maces, skeleton warriors, and knights. Aiding the characters in this quest is their ability to cast spells that hurt all enemies on the screen. The force of this magic depends on the number of "bars" of magic power currently available. The bars are filled by collecting blue 'magic potions' found throughout the game. The male warrior Ax, limited to 4 bars, is able to cast Earth spells. The dwarf Gilius, limited to 3 bars, casts lightning spells and the female warrior Tyris can cast devastating fire magic, but her most powerful spell costs 6 bars.

Various steeds found in the game (bizarrians) can be ridden when the enemy rider is knocked off or if one is found dormant. These mounts add further attack prowess to the player by allowing them to attack groups of enemies at a time by swiping the bizarrian's tail and, in the case of the larger dragons, can deal heavy damage by breathing fire.

[edit] The Duel mode

The Duel was a gameplay mode added to most ports. The main part of this mode was single-player only, although there was a slightly altered two-player option.

In this mode, the player battles enemies in waves. A handful of enemies attack, then when they are defeated the player moves on to the next group of enemies. Sometimes even bosses appeared to challenge the player.

The player had to make do with the health they started with for the duration of this mode, there were no thieves or other sources of health, and the player could not use magic at all.

If played in two-player mode, The Duel became a one-on-one battle against the other player with no enemies or stages.

[edit] Ports and Remakes

THQ's Sega Smash Pack for the Game Boy Advance included a port of the Genesis/Mega Drive version of Golden Axe. The game did not feature multiplayer simultaneous play in arcade mode (though it did support multiplayer for The Duel). The small screen size made gameplay harder than in other ports and there were some notable flaws in presentation. For these and other shortcomings, some fans criticize it as being far worse than the Genesis version, despite being on a technologically superior platform.

The Mega Drive/Genesis version of the game has been made available through Nintendo's Virtual Console service for the Wii console and can purchased in the Wii Shop for 800 (900 in North America) points. It is also compatible with the Wii Remote, the Wii Classic Controller and the GameCube controller.

[edit] Other appearances

  • Ax Battler, Gilius Thunderhead and Tyris Flare all make a cameo appearance in the arcade version of Alien Storm, they can be found on one of the ingame television screens in that game, a Golden Axe logo can also be seen during that cameo.
  • Also in the arcade version of Alien Storm, Gilius Thunderhead makes another cameo appearance, this time as part of a panel of judges to rate the players score.
  • In Shining in the Darkness, Gilius Thunderhead takes the role as a blacksmith, he has his axe next to him. Also next to him is a head shot of a blue thief.

[edit] Comic Miniseries

Golden Axe was featured in the British comic "Sonic the Comic", which was published by Fleetway. The series was titled "The Legend of the Golden Axe" and had two six-issue runs, written by Mark Eyles and illustrated by Mike White. Issues 1-6 featured the story "Citadel of Dead Souls", wherein a necromancer attempted to resurrect Dark Guld. Issues 13-18 had the story "Plague of Serpents", which involved a snake-charmer named Cobraxis kidnapping the Queen of Gilius' dwarf race. Although it wasn't based on the original Golden Axe, instead the story takes place in the aftermath of Golden Axe II but it did feature a few notable things from the original such as the thieves that carry the magic potions although they were not the blue thieves, another notable difference is that Tyris Flare has blond hair.

[edit] Trivia

  • In the Arcade Version of Golden Axe, Death Adder forms from several snakes who slither into a suit of armor, unlike the Genesis version.
  • The death screams of the bad guys are digitized from screams used in the films "First Blood" (several) and one from "Conan The Barbarian". For example: The screams of Sgt. Arthur Galt when he falls from the helicopter (in First Blood) can be heard in this game at the first stage, when a bad guy steps mercilessly on a little man, and some of the screams of Deputy Mitch (also in First Blood), heard when Rambo tears his leg with a knife (in the jungle), can be heard when one of the common enemies dies (he screams like aaah, yaaaargh!). Fans of the game who watch the movies will be able to pick these out easily.
  • The Chicken Stinger is a creature you fight in the second stage of Altered Beast. This creature later showed up in Golden Axe as one of the Bizarrians that you can steal from the enemies in the game (it's now called a Chicken-Leg). The Chicken-Leg also showed up later in the arcade game Golden Axe: The Revenge Of Death Adder. Golden axe II included a related beast which has a forked tail, a horn on its head but the same body-shape, and acted very much like the original. Shenmue also included Chicken-Leg as a collectable toy.
  • A gashapon figure of Tyris Flare was produced by Yujin as part of the "Sega Gals" collection.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Golden_Axe"