Golden Axe lets you take control of one of three available warriors each with their own special moves and lethal tools of destruction. The story is simple; Death Adder has taken over the once peaceful land of Yuria with each selectable character, be it the barbarian, the dwarf or the fiery amazon woman, have all been touched by Adders demise.
After selecting your chosen character you will play through a series of horizontal scrolling levels, mixed up with a variety of enemies ranging from big hammer wielding brutes to fast and nimble skeletons. To help defeat your foes along your path each character has their own weapon type; battle-axe for the dwarf, two-handed sword for the barbarian and long-sword for the lady–I mean amazon. Special moves are created by collecting magic potions located throughout the game. Triggering these magic spells lets loose deadly magic damaging or killing near by enemies in its wake.
Golden Axe for LIVE Arcade is true to the arcade original in both its sound and graphics. Any fan will feel at home and will enjoy the variety of achievements this version of the game has to offer. The developers of this port have even gone so far to add a feature that gives a “cel-shaded” look to the sprites, thus giving it a more acceptable appearance on large scale TVs.
Skilled gamers will complete this game in less than an hour without any problems. Being able to continue leaves little to no challenge in the game, but on the other scale this reduces frustration found in other games with this feature, such as Prince of Persia Classic. If you have distance memories of wasting a heavy sum of your pocket money in this arcade machine back in the 80s this it would be wrong not to pick this title up for the tiny MS points it costs. It’s just a shame the game isn’t as long as you thought it was back then.
