Golden axe game club 2018

[lambrettadave]

My choice is an old arcade conversion that goes by the name of Golden Axe.

I have played golden axe on countless systems but out of the 8 bit versions the sms is better presented and looks much better and plays really well.
I use a sega mega drive arcade stick with this game and it helps with the arcade feel.
Sure the game has a few flaws but addiction and easy game play make the flaws seam minor.

Best of all its easy to find on cartridge. It's on the 30 sega and sms handheld.

I have even played this on my game gear which plays great as well.

Hope you enjoy my pick.

[Kaunisto]

Golden Axe was one of the first games I had. Traded it away back in the day.
If I remember right, my best score was 77 A++

[Phil]

I liked this game as a kid, but playing it recently I found the low frame rate a bit unbearable to be honest. For quite an early SMS game it showed off the graphic capabilities though.

[Transatlantic Foe]

I really like this port, which seems to be an unpopular opinion! Losing 2 player is a function of the system's limited power - I'm impressed they kept the big sprites and most of the movesets, did a great job with the music and didn't leave out anything from the arcade game. It doesn't have the dodgy collision detection SMS Streets of Rage suffers from. Also unlike Mega Drive Golden Axe, I've never lost a life to being stunlocked by two enemies repeatedly hitting me from either side.

Frame rate is pretty choppy but it's far from unplayable. There's a couple of oddities - the standard enemies will gravitate towards downed creatures, but only the amazon warriors can ride them in this version. Bit of a weird oversight.

On the whole I think this one is a better single player game than the MD version. Very much helped by the absence of the MD extra final stage and its infuratingly overpowered boss.

[omegamax]

I think Golden axe uses tiles for some of the characters,you can't display that many sprites on a line.

[lambrettadave]

My first experience with golden axe was actually rented game which I had for a week but had it cracked in a couple of days and felt it wasn't worth £30 so declined to buy it.

[ian]

This was one of the first games I ever owned. I still love it to this day.
The only criticism you could give is that the animation is a bit choppy, but once you get used to it, it's perfectly playable. I think the developers did a fantastic job porting this game to an 8-bit system.

Check out the high score thread for one of my playthroughs: shinobiman.proboards.com/thread/8083/golden-axe

[lambrettadave]

I have challenged my self to the very thread Ian but I have never beaten it yet but there's still time.....

[ShadowAngel]

Mar 4, 2018 15:42:06 GMT omegamax said:

I think Golden axe uses tiles for some of the characters,you can't display that many sprites on a line.

Yes they're Background tiles, 8 pixel, hence why the movement is so "choppy" but it basically killed any possible flickering you would get with Sprites (since it would be limited to 64 Pixels on a horizontal line, hence why so many games have the flicker issue)
It has nothing to do with the frame rate.
Golden Axe is very impressive considering the hardware it runs on.
I was still a bit disappointed when we got it, i played the arcade version on some camping ground first and in comparison the MS version falls short (Where is my Tyris?! No Multiplayer? Bah!) but i still liked to play it.
Fun story: I beat the game for the first time on Christmas Eve, we had the tradition of being shoved to our rooms (well my room at that time) with my father, while my mother and grandmother did all the gifts, they would ring a bell to signal we can come down....only at that time i was at the boss fight and i went "rubber duck this, i'm so close to beating the game for the first time!". I probably was the only child in the history of christmas that rather wanted to finish a game then run to the christmas tree for the gifts

[lorf]

It really did get a kicking at the time but even the haters had to agree it's a real technical achievement. The Master System shouldn't be doing this sort of stuff!

Has its problems but still playable.

[Centrale]

This is quite a cool port! Very impressive and clever use of the background tiles. The characters overlap with the background perfectly - no blocky edges like with Space Harrier - so were they able to use transparencies, or is there a tile for each character overlapping each type of background? In any case, it's cool that, although some concessions had to be made, it ended up looking remarkably faithful to the arcade game. Some of the same strategies are usable, such as tricking an enemy into going over the edge of a cliff.

[Chunkchenko]

I had the honours of owning this game when I was a child. Had a lot of fun but thought it was a bit difficult could never complete it! Had a quick go on it a few years ago but didn’t stick to it long enough to get far. Having never owned a mega drive I had never played that version of the game. So I suppose my opinion would probably not be that great I had had ever played the 16bit version haha it was one of those that I used to play a lot with my mum and brother. Always had a good kick of those little blue bastards to make them cough out the bottles in between the levels 😂

[rossco]

Just picked this game up for a few £ at a boot sale (boxed but no instructions). Really great port of the game I must say. I missed this one first time round on the SMS but did have it on the Mega Drive. Was never a huge fan of the game back in the day. Graphics are really cool, sorely misses the 2 player option and option of choosing to play as the other characters but hey what should we expect for such a top quality port.

[dpkt101]

Hello! I love this game! I've tried a lot of time the SMS versione thanks to my friend that he lended to me! I've only finished it once! (I'm a weak player!!)

However, recently I've had the possibility to try the Mega Drive version (thanks to a retro console) and the Arcade Version (thanks to MAME...)...

Both version are obviously better than SMS versions, and Mega Drive is like an Arcade Perfect version!

But I like a lot SMS version because, considering that is an 8 bit version, we have the complete game!

Great game, although fantasy is not my favorite genre!!!