Golden Axe: Proof You Can’t Solve All Your Problems with a Bigger Sword (But You’ll Try Anyway)

Golden Axe for the Sega Genesis is less a video game and more a drunken fever dream of what happens when someone reads Conan the Barbarian after downing a gallon of Mountain Dew and then decides “yeah, let’s make that interactive.” You get three playable heroes: a Conan knockoff with all the personality of a tax form, a dwarf who looks like he was rejected from Lord of the Rings for being too stabby, and a bikini-clad warrior whose spine must be made of titanium to endure that pixelated armor design. Together, they embark on a quest to defeat Death Adder, a villain with the intimidating presence of a guy who just got kicked out of a Renaissance fair for harassing the turkey leg stand.

Combat consists of mashing two buttons until something dies, which is about as subtle as a bar fight in a biker-themed Chuck E. Cheese. Enemies range from palette-swapped goons to those majestic skeletons who hit harder than a mortgage payment. The “magic” system is essentially just hoarding blue potion bottles like an alcoholic Smurf and then blowing your entire stash in one glorious, screen-clearing fireball. It’s less strategy, more pyromania.

And let’s not ignore the real star: the rideable animals. Nothing says “epic fantasy” like mounting a chicken-legged dragon that breathes fire when you kick it in the ribs. If you’re not repeatedly shouting “yeehaw!” while flailing around on a mutant ostrich-lizard, are you even playing Golden Axe?

Replay value? Imagine repeatedly stubbing your toe on the same table leg, it hurts every time, but you can’t stop testing if it’ll hurt less the next go. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Golden Axe is stupid, clunky, and brutally unfair. And yet, like all great beat-’em-ups, it’s glorious trash. It’s the digital equivalent of shotgunning a warm beer, awful, messy, but somehow unforgettable.

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