Golden Axe

Golden Axe Arcade Game

Golden Axe was a horizontal scrolling game released by Sega in 1989.  Two players could play at once, controlling one of three characters:  The Axe Battler, Tyris Flare the Amazon wizard, and Gilius Thunderhead, the Viking dwarf.  The premise of the game was to destroy Death Adder, who kidnapped the King and the Princess in the fictional land of Yuria.  On top of this atrocity, each character has a personal tie to Death Adder due to the fact that he has killed some member of each character’s family.  With two reasons to fight, the trio goes about the business of fighting their way to the end.

Death Adder’s minions included men armed with clubs, skeleton warriors, fierce knights, and soldiers riding strange chicken like birds that could be mounted and whose tails could be used as weapons (there were also dragons that could be mounted).  Spells could be gathered by blue vials dropped by little elf people.

Golden Axe Game Cabinet

Golden Axe was created by the same designer of Altered Beast, and there were a number of similarities.  The game was one of the more popular games released for the Sega Genesis, and some later versions were created for the PlayStation.