Golden Axe (Arcade) Review
When your name is Ax Battler, but you use a sword…
~by tankMage (August 2025)
Score: 89/100 (Good)
Two Player Experience: 93/100 (Excellent)
Golden Axe came out in a transitional, yet very important era of arcade gaming. The days of the single screen classics of the 70s and early 80s were over. Arcades had grown up, along with computing, so ever more complex games were possible. Golden Axe is a great example of the tremendous strides game design had made. It has some story exposition, complex movesets, rideable monsters, visually impressive spells, and three heroes who each have their own talents. While it didn’t revolutionize the beat ’em up genre, it certainly played a role in defining what a beat ’em up would look like going forward and it’s not unreasonable to say most fantasy themed titles in this genre owe something to the success of Golden Axe.
I played this game many years ago and I have to say it’s a lot of fun. The action is basically non-stop. There are normal attacks, throws, rush attacks, and powerful magic spells. Additionally, every hero has his or her own speciality. On the same token, I always felt like there was something missing from this game. On top of that, it always felt like there was something not quite right about it. After playing it again for this review and comparing it to other beat ’em ups of the time, I feel like the action was lacking in some respects. Hitting enemies doesn’t feel like it has any power behind it. The magic system was also rather mediocre, though it was kind of novel at the time. Additionally, the enemies are really repetitive…though that’s a common beat ’em up sin.
Don’t get me wrong, Golden Axe is still really good. While the gimmicks it employed have become old hat in this day and age, the core gameplay is solid. This is another arcade game that’s certainly worthy of a lazy Saturday afternoon and it’s even more fun with a friend.
Story
No one will accuse Golden Axe of having a convoluted or overly complex story, because it’s basically about a villain named Death Adder killing a bunch of people and capturing the monarchs of a fantasy country. Backstories are shown for the heroes in attract mode with each one being some variation of the hero wanting to avenge a dead family member (or two) who was slain by Death Adder. It’s not much, but it gets the job done.
There’s a bit of exposition here and there to flesh out the plot. Once again, there’s nothing mind blowing here, but it’s fun. For example, after beating one of the early stages, you find out it’s actually on the back of a giant turtle which transports the heroes to the next point of interest. While I appreciate the uncomplicated story, it may not be enough for some players.
As an aside, I found it really weird that some of the names were stylized using an equal sign as Ax Battler’s name is written out as Ax=Battler. I’m not really sure what the idea was behind that. Maybe it’s Engrish or maybe it was supposed to be eye-catching, I don’t know. Regardless, it’s really strange and puzzling.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fun. Like I said, it’s not very visceral compared to other beat ’em ups, but I think this was due to poor sound design more than anything. Aside from that, each hero handles differently with some being more geared towards physical power and others having strong magic. Everyone can perform simple combo attacks which change depending on how close they are to the enemy. This system is inferior to one used by most brawlers where players press the punch/kick/attack buttons in conjuction with a direction to perform different moves, but it’s still fun and offers its own challenges. Cheesey grapples don’t exist, so experienced beat ’em up players can’t grab-and-throw spam their way through the game, which is something I applaud.
Every character can use magic, with the Dwarf being the worst spell caster and the Amazon being the best. However, players have to hit gnomes carrying sacks every so often to get the potions needed for spells. It takes at least five or six potions to cast the best spells, so magic is fairly limited. Ironically, it takes the better magic users more potions to use their spells, which doesn’t make a lot of sense in my opinion. Luckily, the magic spells are cool looking and do a lot of damage, so they are fun to use when the opportunity arises.
No beat ’em up is complete without hordes of enemies to battle and Golden Axe is no exception. I felt like I was fighting the same five or six guys throughout the game, which is a common problem with this genre. Oddly, Golden Axe is able to skate by with its repetitive enemies, because they were fairly well programmed, especially for the late 80s. Bad guys will do their best to knock you off mounts, get behind you, and/or attack when you’ve left yourself exposed. At the same time, the AI doesn’t know how to handle elevation differences, so there are a few places where you can cheese tough fights just by standing by a ledge.
The boss fights are so-so with the exception of the final boss. Players will basically find themselves fighting a variation of some huge guy with a sword or hammer most of the time. They’re not bad fights, but they aren’t great. The final boss is really awesome and makes up for it with cool moves and hordes of minions.
Rideable mounts are the coolest aspect of Golden Axe and probably the primary reason it succeeds as a beat ’em up. Players will often meet enemies mounted on the back of various reptilian creatures. These beasts can tail whip or breathe fire depending on their species. Hitting an enemy will knock it from its mount, making the creature available for the player to ride. Taking out mobs with fireballs from a wingless dragon is a ton of fun, especially with a friend. Don’t get too comfortable on your mount, though, a single hit will throw your hero from it and mounts run away permanently after a few hits.
Challenge
Experienced beat ’em up players will not find Golden Axe very challenging aside from a few tricky spots. It’s also a lot easier to get a win with a second player if memory serves me. I’ve seen people comment that Golden Axe is difficult on various videos, but I have to disagree. Sure, it’s entirely possible to drop a roll of quarters on this game if you’re new to the genre, pick a bad hero (Sorry Tyris, but you hit like a wet noodle), and are not accustomed to playing on an arcade cabinet, but that’s an extreme case. Most modern players are probably playing on a virtual console, emulator, or a cabinet that had been set to free play, which totally removes the pay wall and makes the game even easier as a consequence.
It’s also not difficult to get good at Golden Axe. I found myself dying less and less as I played through with all the heroes for this review. A friend of mine speedruns this game and got good enough to post times after just a few days of practice. Compared to some other games, which took him weeks to learn, Golden Axe is a breeze.
That’s not to say Golden Axe’s low difficulty is a bad thing. Many arcade games are deviously fashioned to hog quarters, so one that’s relatively easy to is very welcome in my opinion. It’s also good to have a game that you can just hop into and enjoy without tearing your hair out over repeated deaths. In the end, its low challenge level is a strength and likely one of the reasons it was so popular.
Graphics
Golden Axe was born in that awkward era between the simplistic, yet iconic graphical style of the early arcades and the more refined visuals of the 1990s, so it has the drab look it shares with many of its peers. Some of the characters and animations are kind of badly done, while other things look awesome. Spells are especially nice looking. The devs even took the time to design different effects for each spell level which was great since they could have just made everyone use the same spell and called it a day.
The enemies get really repetitive from a visual standpoint as well as in terms of gameplay. Despite this issue, I still like the way the bad guys are designed, though some of the color choices were…odd. Really, I thought I saw everything one can see in games, then I encountered a pair of giant knights in pink armor. The final boss has really cool entrance and death animations that make this game memorable, though his design is a little cliché. The mounts are also great looking with their own sets of animations.
As for the heroes, I’m not exactly a fan of their designs with the exception of Tyris, who I like for very obvious reasons. Ax Battler and Gilius Thunderhead the Dwarf are kind of meh. Thunderhead seems a bit too tall and lanky to be a proper dwarf as Tolkien imagined them (yeah I know this isn’t LotR) but he is the guy who has the golden ax even though Ax Battler is the one you would expect to wield an ax. Speaking of Ax Battler, he’s a fairly obvious Connan ripoff and not a very good one at that. At the same time, you don’t see that kind of fantasy stuff much these days, so I’m kind of nostalgic for the bikini armor even though I prefer historically accurate armor myself.
Sound
Much of the music composition is great with many of the tracks sounding like they belong in a fantasy film from the 80s. In fact, the sound work is great in general. It’s only true failing is the attack sound effects, which are rather weak. Hitting enemies with a sword sounds like a garden hose spraying water, which isn’t very exciting and it really hurts the feel of the game.
User Interface
I haven’t found an arcade game that doesn’t have good controls yet; Golden Axe is no exception. All of the buttons are nice and reliable. While I would have preferred a different system for grabs and combo attacks, the one that is used is fine. Plus, it makes this title feel a little different from other beat ’em ups.
Twice as fun with a friend!
Like many brawlers, Golden Axe is a lot more fun with a buddy. Mashing buttons, teaming up on bosses, fighting over potions, etc make the experience way better. It’s also even easier if you work together well, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it.
Final Thoughts
While the single player experience isn’t great (it’s still very good though) and the action doesn’t quite hit hard enough, Golden Axe is a ton of fun. Play with a friend and it’s even better.