Golden Axe Warrior

The Good
"Golden Axe Warrior" ditches the hack and slash format, for an action-adventure RPG game similar to the original Zelda game. This was a very wise decision.

Don't get me wrong. The hack and slash format can be fun, and I enjoyed playing both the original arcade "Golden Axe", as well as its Sega Genesis port.

Yet, had Sega gone for a straight port of the arcade game, the results would have been bad, as they were when "Altered Beast" was ported over to the Master System.

The Sega Master System was an undervalued home console system in the United States, but its best games (at least when Sega still released games for the system in America) were role playing games.

"Golden Axe Warrior" offers superior 8-bit graphics, an interesting fantasy-based story line and smooth game play mechanics that are similar to the original, 8-bit Legend of Zelda game.

It is a shame that this game was not as successful as Zelda, because it is just as good, if not better, then the original, 8-bit fantasy adventure with young Link.

The Bad
The design of the Sega Master system controllers did not always make it easier to quickly move left, right, up or down. Again, if you played games on the system as much as I did (back in the day) it was possible to adapt, somewhat.

However, the 8-bit Nintendo controller was generally better designed in comparison to the 8-bit Master System (although I did prefer the design of the 16-bit, Genesis controllers to the design of the 16-bit, Super Nintendo controllers).

Beyond that, the only really "bad" thing about this game, is that it was never as popular as The Legend Of Zelda. Thankfully, the game can be played on the Xbox 360 (one of the Easter Eggs on the cool collection of classic Sega games).

I suspect that one of the reasons that Zelda (and thus the 8-bit Nintendo) became more popular, was better marketing. That and the fact that Nintendo "strongly encouraged" game developers not to make games for Sega systems.

The Bottom Line
"Golden Axe Warrior" illustrates all that was good about the ill-fated Sega Master System. If you like the original Zelda game, then you will not only love this game, but you may even come to prefer it -- in some ways -- to Zelda.