Golden Axe: 1989

Story:
Golden Axe, unusually for arcade games, has an explicitly developing story which
is laid out in cutscenes. The player has a choice of three characters - Ax Batt
ler the Barbarian, Tyris Flare the Amazon, or Gilius Thunderhead the Dwarf - eac
h of whom has had a family member killed by Death Adder, the game's villain. At
the start of the game, the player is presented with a cutscene that shows a frie
nd of theirs, who has been mortally wounded by Death Adder's forces, and who tel
ls the player that Death Adder has kidnapped the prince and princess. The player
sets out on a quest to rescue them, and their journey is placed in a narrative
and geographic frame by cutscenes between levels, which show their progress on a
map while providing a small amount of story alongside. At the end of the game,
the player faces down and defeats Death Adder and releases the captives. Then, a
cutscene showing the inside of an arcade plays. The players of 'Great Axe' are
surprised when the enemies from the game break out of the arcade machine and run
amok. The three heroes of Golden Axe follow them out, and chase them into the n
ight.
Technology:
Golden Axe is based on a rather powerful combination of chips, needed to power i
ts complicated sound and graphics requirements. The main game is driven by a 10M
Hz Motorola 68000 chip. Sound is driven by a 4.096MHz Zilog Z80, with a 4.096MHz
Yamaha YM2151 to provide frequency-modulated synthesised sound and an NEC UPD77
59 Speech Processor to provide synthesised voice. The machine was a standard arc
ade standing cabinet. Each player had a joystick for movement control and three
buttons - attack, jump, and magic.
Aesthetics:
Visually, Golden Axe is rather advanced. It has a wide variety of different char
acter sprites, each with multiple frames of animation for different actions and
most with colour variants to indicate toughness. The character sprites are detai
led and appear to move fluidly. They move and fight against scrolling background
s, which are different on each level. The game also changes in tone to create di
fferent moods - growing darker or lighter as levels progress to highlight boss f
ights, for example.
With regard to sound, the most iconic noises in Golden Axe are the scream of dyi
ng enemies. This is created by the UDP7759 chip, and is used as an aural marker
to indicate when unseen enemies - such as those thrown off the edge of the scree
n - have died. Sounds are also played for weapon hits and magic. The music chang
es between levels and as they progress, and is dramatic and evokes a fantasy moo
d.
Mechanics:
The basic gameplay mechanics in Golden Axe are those of a side-scrolling beat-em
-up. The player moves from left to right, attacking enemies and knocking them do
wn. Once all the enemies from a screen are clear, the player may progress. At th
e end of each level, there is a boss fight, where stronger enemies must be defea
ted to proceed. The game may be played by one or two players, although the diffi
culty does not change with the number of players.
Movement is in pseudo-3D or 2.5D - characters are able to move vertically and ho
rizontally along the plane of the game's main surface, and are occasionally able
to jump to another, parallel, surface above or below the current one, but there
is no real 3D freedom. Combat is mostly effected through the use of the attack
button, but combinations with other keys allow for this to be more complex. Comb
ining the jump and attack buttons, for example, provides a more powerful overhea
d slash that does more damage to enemies but is harder to hit with. There are on
ly a small number of enemies in the game - two different forms of goblin, amazon
s, and skeletons make up the regular enemies, while giants, knights, and Death A
dder are the three varieties of boss monster - but most of them come in colour-c
oded variants to indicate greater difficulty. There are also three steeds - one
with a spinning attack, one which breathes fireballs, and one which breathes a s
pray of fire. These can be ridden by both player and enemies, and both can be k
nocked off, making for tactical play.
Magic is another tool in the player's arsenal. The player must collect flasks, d
ropped by tiny blue imps (both throughout the level and in post-level special st
ages) when hit, in order to amass magical power. This can then be dispensed in o
rder to kill enemies. There are various different levels of magic, with the high
est requiring the most flasks but also doing the most damage. Each character has
a different amount of potential magic, with the Amazon having the most and the
Dwarf having the least.