Golden Axe GENESIS

Golden Axe is a 1989 side-scrolling hack-and-slash beat-’em-up originally released by Sega in arcades and ported to the Mega Drive shortly after. It was designed by Makoto Uchida, the same Sega designer behind Altered Beast, and it borrows the same pulpy sword-and-sorcery tone Uchida favored, filtered through a Conan the Barbarian aesthetic rather than Greek myth.

The land of Yuria has been overrun by the tyrant Death Adder, who’s stolen the kingdom’s namesake enchanted weapon and taken the royal family hostage. Three playable warriors set out for revenge and rescue, each with a personal grudge against Death Adder’s army: Ax Battler, a wandering barbarian; Tyris Flare, an Amazon swordswoman; and Gilius Thunderhead, an axe-wielding dwarf. All three play similarly — hack through waves of enemies, steal their mounts (giant lizards and ostrich-like birds you can ride and use to trample foes), and stockpile magic potions for screen-clearing spells.

Golden Axe’s mix of melee combos, mountable enemy creatures, and a shared magic-potion economy between players made its two-player co-op mode one of the more memorable pack-in experiences on the console, and it helped define Sega’s arcade-to-Genesis pipeline in the system’s early years.

Controls:

↑ = up
→ = right
↓ = down
← = left

A = attack
B = jump
C = magic

Enter = Start