Golden Axe was originally developed by Makoto Uchida and has now been republished by SEGA.

The Game

This menu is a stain on the fabric of human achievement.

Golden Axe is an early side-scrolling hack and slash set in a medieval fantasy world. It’s so early, in fact, that I was barely even born when it was released on its original arcade platform, the System 16-B and if you can remember that platform, you are probably getting a bit old to be playing games now, but bare with me. The game was later released for the Mega Drive/Genesis which I believe it is better known for. If you have played this game you’re in for a nostalgia trip. It’s basically a direct port of the original, with a horrible out of place menu added to it. If you haven’t played Golden Axe, read on, I’ll try and explain the basic premise, followed by how it translates onto the iPhone.

When you start the game you are presented with a choice of characters, each slightly different in attributes… By which I mean they either have more powerful magic, or a longer range melee attack. Each character has a name, but I have no idea what they are, and its fairly irrelevant anyway, so they will be referred to as follows. Blue Thong-Clad Male is basically a well balanced character, with a good mix of magic, and melee range. The second choice is Red Bikini Steroid Lady who has much more powerful magic, but lacks in range. The third choice is the Body Conscious Green Dwarf, who- as you guessed- has the longest range melee, with the weakest magic. Now it all sounds like a great balance, but seeing as you can only recharge your magic by kicking imps in the shin and stealing it- and they only come around occasionally during a level, and once in between levels- it means that using magic is often unreliable. I would recommend using the Body Conscious Green Dwarf, as it makes kicking imps in the shin easier anyway.

Oh, ok.

Once you have chosen a character you are greeted with a monologue explaining that Death Adder has captured the King and Princess and is keeping them inside their castle. Also the characters mutual friend Alex was killed in the battle… I don’t know if i haven’t got far enough into the game to understand the relevance of that statement or if it is to be taken at face value. You soon meet your first foes, a man with a mace and a man with a handful of blueberries. This is usually the point where I accidentally press the ‘A’ button and set off my magic lighting, killing them and wasting the attack…

Unleash the METAL!

Combat equates to button mashing until your enemy is vanquished. Your enemies counter your attacks by charging at you or using jumping attacks, both of which are available to you albeit awkward to use. There are also ridable beasts in the game that you can hijack if you knock an enemy off. It almost seems pointless using these beasts though, as you can also be knocked off with great ease and the beasts will run away once it’s been ridden 4-5 times. Magic attacks attacks are a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.  Each character has a different attack, with the Blue Thong-Clad Male using earth spells, Red Bikini Steroid Lady using fire, and Body Conscious Green Dwarf using lightning. These magic attacks freeze gameplay and damage all enemies on screen. Unfortunately using a magic spell uses all of your potions up. Spells become more powerful with more potions and as stated earlier you get these potions by kicking imps and stealing them. This means there no way of spreading the attack out, which makes the female character (who can carry the most potions) almost useless.

How do you get your kicks?

There is a fair amount of different enemies, bosses and beasts to go up against, but after a few levels the enemies are just different in color, and slightly harder, rather than varied. Golden Axe gets quite stale after the first few levels, and with no real dynamics in combat its going to get repetitive. When you run out of health you lose a life, when you run out of lives, you have a choice of whether or not to continue. You can then continue with no penalty. This basically means you are going to be frustratingly mashing and grinding your way through the game. It’s not that there isn’t fun to be had, there are few more satisfying things than flaming an imp with a fire breathing velociraptor and collecting its potions, or throwing an enemy boss twice your height (or three times, depending on which character you choose) across a level.

Graphics

It would be unfair for me to slate this game on its graphics, even if they were unattractive. But lets face it, apart from the low resolution the graphics hold up well. I’ve always found that games made slightly before the transition from 2D to 3D hold up quite well versus early 3D games (See Diablo, Diablo II). The problem with the visuals comes into play when you take into account the menu. Now I wasn’t expecting anything terribly complex, but it just looks plain awful. It’s a strange orange color with no theme. It could only possibly look more out of place if it was made with images of rabbits holding  staplers. Hopefully this will be updated soon.

Sound

All the sounds are from the original game. They will definitely bring you back if you’ve played Golden Axe before, and it helps to seal the retro in. They only used around 3 different sound clips in Golden Axe, and just varied the speed to make them sound slightly different, for example the female scream is just the same as the males, but played quicker to change its pitch. It gives an insight to how developers dealt with their limitations 20 years ago. There is music throughout the game, and it will probably drive you to the point of insanity after a while, but you can listen to your own music if you like. I recommend a Hardcore-Norwegian-Techno-Death-Metal playlist.

Additional Comments

You have a choice of control methods in Golden Axe. You can use accelerometer based controls (but don’t… Really.) or an onscreen control pad. The buttons for the controls are laid out similar to a Mega Drive/Genesis controller, with the D-Pad on the left and buttons A, B and C on the right. The A, B and C buttons are unfortunately crushed into the corner due to the space limitations of the iPhone screen. This can often mean that your fingers take up a lot of screen space, so SEGA have given you the choice to play in full screen mode, or a windowed mode, which takes the buttons off of the playable screen.

Conclusion

Golden Axe is a nostalgia trip for anyone who played the original, and really shows how timeless a simple game can be. 20 years on, it does seem very tired and dated in terms of gameplay, but it’s a respectable game and a true arcade classic. Less than perfect controls and a gaudy menu shouldn’t detract an old fan, but if you were looking for a fresh new game for your iPhone, save your money- there’s plenty-more modern games out there.

Score

MustTap Score: Iron Tap

It's technically solid, but what comes out is pretty plain.

Bottom Line
A true arcade classic returns onto the iPhone.... With some issues. Gaudy menu's and unfortunate controls will hinder your enjoyment, but it's a faithful port of the original.

Screenshots