GOLDEN EQUALS AXE
em Retro

I'm sure there are many out there who have actually completed an arcade game, in an arcade, using their actual money to pay their way through to the finish. No, come to think of it, I doubt there are that many at all. For one thing it would cost far too much, also I think the games were never designed to be completed.

During the late 80s and the early 90s I poured untold amounts of 10p's into these thieving cabinets of cathode ray entertainment and loved every minute of it, but I never actually got anywhere near completing one of the things. I never really wanted to though, I'd prefer to get a small sample of everything the arcade had to offer rather than spend all my cash on just one machine.


SEASIDE VAGRANCY
All this changed in 1991. I was a little older and started taking gaming seriously. Of course I still had fun, but now I played with more purpose and there was one game whose mythical 'end sequence' was well within the reach of the arcade gamer. That game, for me, was Golden Axe.

Yep, Golden Axe is the only arcade game I have ever completed, and it left me almost stranded in a shanty seaside town in South Wales, hungry and with only 10p to my name. But that tale will be told in another feature.

Sega were always one of the King's of the arcade. During the late 80s and early 90s they seemed to produce a slew of innovative and entertaining arcade machines, such as After Burner, Thunder Blade, Space Harrier and of course, Golden Axe. Although Golden Axe wasn't part game part ride like the others I mentioned it still seemed to stand out from other games.

I can't explain why this was, looking back there was nothing genre defying about it, but it did combine 2-player Double Dragon-esque adventure story gameplay with a Dungeons & Dragons fantasy style and booming sound effects that would draw you in from the other side of the arcade. And besides, who wouldn't jump at the chance of getting to play a dwarf?

As I mentioned, Golden Axe was a two player fantasy adventure hack n' slash 'em up. You had the choice of three characters. Gilius Thunderhead, the green-clad Dwarf sporting a nifty yellow beard and double headed axe; Tyris Flare, the skimpy swimsuit wearing, short-sword wielding Valkyrie; or Ax Battler, the buff sword holding Barbarian, who later starred in his own game on the Sega Master System and Game Gear.

Each of these characters had a purpose, they had all fallen victim to the tyrannical murderous exploits of one Death=Adder, well not so much them, but members of their immediate family. So maybe I should have said "members of their immediate families had fallen victim to … Death=Adder". As a side note this name used to confuse the hell out of me, well not so much the name but the equals sign. You would often find me in front of the machine pondering "But why is it Death equals Adder?" Until eventually I decided that that's the way things were and I should just accept it. I bet the equation had coders and mathematicians wondering about it for years though.


DANGLING THE CARROT
The thing about Golden Axe is that it just seemed like it was complete-able. The difficulty setting was just right that sure you couldn't complete the game with 10p, but you knew that with enough coins you could just about make it.

My memory is getting a little fuzzier as of late, so I can't really remember too many other games around at the time that Golden Axe came out over here, but it's possible that Golden Axe followed in the footsteps of Final Fight and other games of that ilk with it's control system.

Each character had the usual 'attack' and 'jump' buttons, which were accompanied by an extra 'magic' button. The attack button would swing the chosen characters weapon, and repeated button bashing at close quarters would result in a melee of different attacks to the enemy, usually including bashing the cranium in with the handle of your weapon, followed by lobbing them about 8 feet to the side.

Pressing both 'jump' and 'attack' buttons at the same time would cause a kind of 'special' move, but not a vicinity clearer as seen in Final Fight. This would be a nifty parry, or in the Dwarfs case, a backwards roll, to clout any enemy attempting to take you from behind.

The magic button was your screen clearer; pressing it triggered your character to hurl a bunch of vases into the air, upon which their magic would kick in. Each character had their own elemental magic style, so Ax Battlers magic would result in earthquakes, Tyris Flares would be fire and Gilius Thunderhead rained down lightning from the skies.

The amount of magic/damage caused would depend on the amount of magic vases collected by kicking small pixie like creatures up the ass when they appeared on screen. When kicked, said pixie would drop a blue vase from his little sack for your collection

Depending upon the strength of the magic cast, you were treated to a more impressive animation. For example Tyris's fire magic would start off merely setting off several conflagrations around the screen; however full magic power would summon a giant dragon to breathe fire throughout the area, burning the bastards alive.


ARCADE DEITY
So the game these days, and back then I suppose was fairly easy up until the final stage. Again, relatively easy until you got to confront Death equals Adder himself and the 10p pile starts to disappear rapidly. I played it a couple of times lately, and going on the basis that 1 credit is 10p the game cost around £1.40 to complete; but back then at the arcade, a good part of £5 disappeared before I'd slaughtered the evil axe-swinging equation himself.

With two of you smacking seven shades of shit out of Mr. Adder it isn't so bad, but in a solo attempt it's a bloody nightmare. One of the giants from the first level bosses appears and starts pummelling, along with a couple of skeletons and so on. And it wouldn't be so bad if the character response wasn't so slow.

You'd usually find yourself trapped in a slow-motion bashing of a skeletons skull, and not being able to turn round to sneak in a few quick smacks to Death=Adders lousy chops before the axe wielding chunky monkey has zapped you with his magic ground-sparkler, or given you six of the best with the legendary golden axe.

Anyway, you kill Death=Adder, he gets a belly full of his own Golden Axe and the King and Princess are saved (that was the plot of the game by the way, to save them) and you don't get anything really; they just up and walk away. Ungrateful swines!

There's a moment of worry soon after that there isn't going to be an end sequence when the word 'Fin' is written on the map you've been following and you're presented with the standard 'Congratulations'. However, an amusing end sequence does start up just after that which is worth the persistence, but is no substitute for an arcade full of adoring fans and some sort of cash reward. Oh, and being hailed as Golden Axe King for the rest of that month. None of that happens, but after all those 10p's you feel like it should.

david twomey

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