Golden Axe

The Good
Yet another review-wannabe thing of this!? Of course, because it is GOLDEN FRIGGIN' AXE!

The MS-DOS PC version might be a little bit thin compared to the arcade game, but I didn't know that when I was a kid. It was one of the first games I got more into and eventually have beaten it. It is regarded by most DOS-age gamers as one of the best hack 'n slash action games. I don't want to describe the playing mechanics here, I'm too lazy. But who doesn't know it anyway? Oh yeah, and it has the advantage over the arcade original that it has plus two more levels from the Genesis/Megadrive port.

Beside the "story" there is a Duel mode, where you have to face a small group of enemies in each turn in an arena. It gets harder and harder, but after the last turn nothing particular happens, just a usual rating and then back to the main menu. First I had a buggy version which after a certain duel turn wanted me to insert disk 2 (even when the whole game was on hard drive), and it kept me excited what happens after that. There is even a little practice mode, which is like the main "story" mode but easier and only lasts up to the 3rd level.

There is three characters to choose from when starting a new game. I always pick the dwarf, "Gilius Thunderhead", he was simply the strongest with his axe, even when his thunder magic was the weakest of the three. There was a glitch that changed the colors on him on each level (but I only noticed that when I connected a color monitor to the computer, because originally it had a tiny monochrome SVGA display) Once I even manged to get the maximal A+++ rating at the end. The amazon, Tyris Flare looks soo sexy and she can summon a giant fire breathing dragon! (haha, her bikini and pantie wear isn't a little bit too leisure for a medieval setting?). And there was that barbarian guy... I don't think I have gotten past even the second level with him. The magic system in the DOS version was simplified as I see now.

On the keyboard, Keypad 5 was the weapon attack, Right Shift was the magic charge, at least for player one. There was even a mouse control feature... it was VERY awkward XD

The graphics looks good by 16-bit standards (I am talking about VGA mode of course). It does not use 256 colors, more like 16, or maybe 64 because the gfx was directly converted from the Genesis/Megadrive version.

To me, the most memorable feature of the game is the PC speaker music and sound effects. I had no sound card back then in my 386 PC and the game still delivered polyphonic music via fast arpeggio beeping, and violent death screams via PCM digitized sounds, all that during gameplay. The mild music with the Adlib is nothing compared to that. The beeper was raw, wild, and LOUD, ear raping awesomeness. The buzzing metallic case created a harmonic bass together with the music. I liked the game called "The Cycles" from Accolade too because of this. PC beeper music lacked percussion, but I didn't realized it until quite recently. The crunchy digi sound effects interrupted the music, but it was not all that disturbing. All these sounded on each computer a little bit differently. The tiny internal piezzo speakers and emulators nowadays can't do justice to that. Yeah, this is the feature of the game that definitely aged much,

On some places where are pits the enemies can be pushed into then, making that part easier.

There is two player mode in both story and duel modes. Me and my friend always argued over the dwarf because we both wanted to play as him, but it was not possible. Also, we could hit each other in story mode too, so the cooperation easily turned into a deathmatch. We never got to the giant eagle in 2 player mode.

I once discovered that each sprites are stored in different files, so with renaming those files you can play as the enemies, haha! It was really buggy although. I scammed my friend with this: on the start of a 2 player game he picked the dwarf and I picked the barbarian. That moment when he realized that the barbarian is Death Adder himself...

My friend liked to make fun of the sound effect when the skeletons rise from the floor, because it sounded like farting.

When running the game with memory hog resident programs, the lesser the memory was, the more features were stripped away. First, no two player mode, then the enemies were all the same. I managed to run it with so little memory that even the magic attacks didn't work.

The Bad
Even with the plus levels, it was too short :)

Jumping over the wider pits... first it was a nightmare before I discovered the headbutting jump attack.

I think they should have implemented a save-able highscore feature in the PC version, because the rating screen was directly lifted from the console versions.

Occasionally, the midgets that held the power-ups, got stuck in the wall, and the game didn't let you further until they were gone, so it had to be restarted. Earlier I didn't even notice that with pressing Esc you can return to the main menu, so I restarted the computer.

It also lack many animations and small details compared to the Genesis/Megadrive and arcade versions. Like the little arrow on the speech bubbles that shows which character is talking, the floating feathers on the giant eagle level, the pen on the map screens, etc. Death Adder also lacks the underground fireball attacks so he is much easier to defeat.

The Bottom Line
Simple. Easy to get into. Addicting. Even if it didn't age well as a hack n' slash, it is still a very fun arcade action game. If you are new to it, I recommend you to look at the Arcade or Sega Genesis/Megadrive versions, or a remake, there must be one out somewhere.