Golden Axe Warrior

The Good
Golden Axe Warrior, is an Action/RPG for the Sega Master System. And a spin off to the famous Arcade/Genesis hack n slash. It plays like Zelda, but excels where Zelda fails.

In Golden Axe Warrior the evil Death Adder is back. And it is up to you to stop him and bring peace to the land. In the game you explore the world, villages, and dark dungeons. You purchase supplies, find better weapons and armors, meet other Golden Axe warriors, and gain the use of magic.

Gameplay is very similar to that of Zelda. GAW, is more believable in the end. There are actually villages in the world! There are more than three characters! Plus the use of Golden Axe lore helps here. It is also more clear were you need to go next.

This is simply a fun game. And along with Phantasy Star, and Y’s, this is one of the best 8-bit RPGS.

The Graphics are sharp and colorful. Just nice 2D visuals. For those who don’t mind such things.

The Music is epic and catchy. The sound effects are here but not as good as the music.

The Bad
This is a tough game! About ten times harder than Zelda.

The Save system is weak. Progress can not be saved in dungeons. So you end up finding the boss, getting killed and having to start all over! This will led you to scream explicative things. Don’t play at night!

The Bottom Line
It is a shame that such a great game never got out of Zelda’s shadow. If Zelda fans would play this game, I think they would dig it. As will RPG and oldskool game fans! It would be nice to get a GBA re-release of this game.

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.