Golden Axe Tool Assisted Speedrun by Mukki
4A classic hack'n'slash arcade type game, which sports ridable creatures and magic. The author abuses the simplistic AI to make enemies commit suicide by jumping off cliffs. Pretty hilarious.
Golden Axe (ゴールデンアックス; 戦斧 Senpuu, lit. "Fighting Axe") is a side-scrolling, beat 'em up, hack and slash arcade video game released in 1989 by Sega for the System 16-B arcade hardware. It is the first game in the Golden Axe series.
Makoto Uchida was the primary developer of the game and also was responsible for the creation of Altered Beast. The game was ported to the Mega Drive/Genesis and Master System, among others.
The game takes place in the fictional land of Yuria, a Conan the Barbarian-style high fantasy medieval world. An evil entity known as Death Adder has captured the King and his daughter, and holds them captive in their castle. He also finds the Golden Axe, the magical emblem of Yuria, and threatens to destroy both the axe and the royal family unless the people of Yuria accept him as their ruler. Three warriors set out on a quest to rescue Yuria and avenge their losses at the hands of Death Adder. The first is a battle axe-wielding dwarf, Gilius Thunderhead, from the mines of Wolud, whose twin brother was killed by the soldiers of Death Adder. Another is a male barbarian, Ax Battler, wielding a two-handed broadsword, looking for revenge for the murder of his mother. The last is a longsword-wielding Tyris Flare, an amazon whose parents were both killed by Death Adder.
The warriors rescue the inhabitants of the ransacked Turtle Village, which turns out to be situated on the shell of a giant turtle. The turtle takes the characters across the sea, and they then fly to the castle itself on the back of a giant eagle. Once at the castle they defeat Death Adder, who is wielding the Golden Axe, and save the land. In the Mega Drive and PC versions, and also in other ports, the characters also battle Death Adder's mentor, Death Bringer, as the true final boss. After the final battle, the warriors receive a magical golden axe that imbues the player with immortality.
Several ports of Golden Axe exist for many platforms. The Mega Drive/Genesis version remained largely faithful to the arcade game, adding a level and the aforementioned duel mode, along with a new ending. A one-player only version was later re-released on the Mega-CD/Sega CD as part of the Sega Classics Arcade Collection, with new Redbook background music and new voice-overs carried over from the Arcade version. The Genesis/Mega Drive version was later released in other compilations – Sega Smash Pack, Sega Genesis Collection, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. The Mega Drive/Genesis port is also available on Virtual Console. The arcade version is also on the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade A port of the game was released on PlayStation Network on July 12, 2011 and has been available free for PlayStation Plus users.
The IBM PC compatibles version released in 1990 is similar to the Mega Drive/Genesis version, but features richer 256 color palette in VGA mode as well as the ability to run in 16 colors (EGA/Tandy 1000), 4 color (CGA) and 2 color (Hercules Graphics Card) modes.The Atari ST and Amiga versions of the game released in late 1990 by Virgin Software are more similar to the arcade. Unlike the PC version, the Amiga version is not a port of the Genesis/Mega Drive version – rather, it is similar to the arcade game, with some palette changes and without parallax scrolling. The ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions suffer from the limitations of the two platforms.
Variations of the original game have also been released. The Sega Master System version of the game retells the original story from the perspective of Ax Battler, who is called "Tarik" in this game. While the game is only one-player, it features all of the levels and magic powers of the arcade version. In Japan, Golden Axe was released by Telenet for the PC Engine CD-ROM in 1990 with high-quality resampled music and cut scenes. The game was also released as part of the handheld TV game Arcade Legends Sega Genesis Volume 1. An enhanced remake with 3D graphics and orchestral music was released for PlayStation 2 as part of the Sega Ages line.