More important than anything, you must have community.
…
Wait. That sounds like the opening to one of my preachy articles about real life crap. Let’s try that again…
Communion is what makes the world go ‘round… No… Fight for the people, and you’ll always have people that will fight… Sounds too French… It takes a village? No. No, let’s just go ahead with what’s really on my mind:
I miss towns, dammit.
Today’s game is Golden Axe Warrior. It is a fairly infamous Sega Master System title for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was released in 1991, the same year as Sonic the Hedgehog. Consoles had a longer tail back in the day (particularly in Brazil!), but this was still considered late in the Master System’s lifespan. Likely as a result, the game is depressingly rare, and has only been rereleased with wide availability on one Sega collection from the Playstation 3 era. Additionally, we are talking about a game that was “adapted” from the Golden Axe franchise, which boasted some of the most passable beat ‘em ups going back to 1989. Golden Axe was known for its big, expressive sprites and crunchy combat (or whatever is the appropriate way to describe “it feels good to run and smack a dude with your pointy helmet”), and this was never going to translate to the same system that hosted Alex Kidd: High-Tech World. Console port downgrades were common in this era (compare even the primitive Super Mario Bros. to Mario’s Gameboy debut, Mario Land), but the humble beat ‘em up never flourished on 8-bit hardware. Likely to compensate for this, Golden Axe Warrior ditched multiplayer and belt scrolling for an adventure game that ultimately works out to be similar to The Legend of Zelda. Very similar to The Legend of Zelda…
Which brings us to the other reason Golden Axe Warrior is notorious: it is publicly recognized as one of “Gaming’s Most Shameless Rip-Offs” (accolade compliments of IGN). You are a little dude with a little sword that must venture around a little overworld to find a series of little dungeons that each contain one little item, boss, and heart tank. Keys are an inventory mainstay, cash is necessary for buying additional supplies, and “puzzles” are predominantly based on pushing things in the right places. Use a special item or two to eliminate trees or rocks, and uncover all sorts of secrets across the world. Hell, we even have a monster that looks remarkably like a like-like, and it gobbles up your little dude and consumes his cash (because no one wanted to draw his sprite without a shield). Right down to strangely similar music, damn near everything about Golden Axe Warrior is copied from The Legend of Zelda like the director was an overanxious Ditto. Sega needs to be charged a fee like the weirdos living in caves blaming Link for a broken door just like in Golden Axe Warrior.
But Golden Axe Warrior does have a few distinctions to separate it from its clear inspiration. GAW identified that The Legend of Zelda had one of the worst key-y of items (well, aside from the keys): the raft. So now we have a fully usable raft to navigate waterways a year before Link scored flippers. Additionally, the raft will be upgraded to a massive ship, and that grants you control of the high seas and a cannon so you have marginally separate aquatic combat. And speaking of combat, magic is available. While many of its uses are similar to LoZ tools (lightning is arrows, earth fills the bombs role), you do eventually earn a healing spell so you can make judgments on whether you want to deplete your precious MP on filling your hearts or fireballing an opponent. And, appropriate to the title, you get an axe that works remarkably like the same weapon in Final Fantasy Adventure (released the same year). That chopper serves the dual purpose of felling trees and offering an offensive option that has a slightly different arc from the standard sword. Link could only imagine such a radical alternate blade during his first adventure!
But the number one difference between Golden Axe Warrior and The Legend of Zelda is evident from GAW’s second screen:
Welcome to flavortown. Or… uh… whatever town this is. Looks like… Miliver. Sure! And that is not the only town in Golden Axe Warrior! We also have Kari-Kari, Saylon, Riksas, and Aires. We even have ruined towns like Dwarf’s Village and Sid! Or the inexplicably flooded town of Dagoralo! And Eren, where people live in harmony with lava! And every town is exactly what it needs to be: an inn, a shop, two or three people that dispense intermittently valuable tips on where to go next, and at least one “local flavor” dude that says something like “Monsters took over our world” or “Death Adder sure has rad pecs.” That’s it! That’s all you need!
Even if Golden Axe Warrior ended with its hero (Mr. G. Axeington) battling a pig sorcerer with silver arrows, it still would always have this as a leg up on Link’s first adventure. A Hyrule that is filled with old men cowering in caves is not a Hyrule worth saving. GAW’s Firewood (really? That’s the kingdom name we are going with?) contains a population that needs a hero. You are battling for the peace of the good people of Eren and their dead princess (that is actually hiding a few screens to the left. Please respect her privacy in these trying times). You are battling for the stranded people of Dagoralo (one would assume that after Death Adder is defeated, someone is going to get over to that swamp with a bucket). You are battling for each and every old man, random woman, and small child sprite across the whole of this world. You are dispensing golden apples to dwarfs, and making the world a better place.
And it feels good to fight for a better world!
It may already be 16 years old, but Final Fantasy 13 is an RPG that reveled in its modernity. Shops were shrunk down to lists that could be instantly accessed anywhere. Fast travel teleportation could be used to bop between savepoints. Every battle “counted”, and a loss only incurred a temporary setback to before the battle, not a loss of hours of progress. And towns? Towns were right out. The whole deal of Final Fantasy 13 was that your protagonists had unwittingly become the enemies of all humanity, so bumming around a friendly town would have made as much sense as a group of terrorists casually interacting with company men. The functions of a town, like improving equipment or learning lore, were disseminated to menus. And now that that was out of the way, we just had white-knuckle action and story progression. That’s exactly what people want from videogames! All killer, no filler!
And, as I approached the ending of Final Fantasy 13, I realized something: I didn’t care if that world lived or died. I knew my party would be fine! I knew that that must be how the story ends, as my boys ‘n gals being in the grave as the credits rolled would have made the whole 60-hour exercise pointless. But everybody else? This whole world of people that had been nebulously floating in the background of Final Fantasy 13? They didn’t need to survive, because I barely knew if they had names. How did these people live? Where did these people live? In towns? That I never saw? Whatever. It didn’t matter. Maybe the sequel to Final Fantasy 13 would take place over 500 years, so those anonymous randos would all be dead by the end no matter what…
But here we are with a mediocre adventure game from 1991 that gets it. You can have all the dungeons or clam monsters or hidden entrances you want, and it doesn’t matter if you do not have people to save. A few simple towns rendered on primitive technology go a long way to establishing a world and a reason for your hero to fight the forces of Death Adder. A few houses here, a wise old dwarf there, and suddenly our Golden Axe Warrior has something Zelda never had: a true kingdom.
So thank you, Sega, for reminding us that it takes a village.
FGC #703 Golden Axe Warrior
System: Sega Master System, and then as a hidden game on Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360/Playstation 3. Note that, despite the name of the collection, this was not a Genesis title.- Number of players: You can visit towns all you want, but this journey will always be solitary.
- Other Zelda Improvements: The Warrior has fast travel! That you can control! That beats a damn random flute any day of the week. And speaking of fast travel, a middle dungeon grants an item that doubles your walking speed. That will get you around a lot faster! Honestly, in a timeline where the Master System was more dominant (or even if this was released on NES), Golden Axe Warrior really could have outshone its obvious inspiration.
- Favorite Item: The Ice Bell affects the entire screen, reveals “bombable” rocks, does not cost any MP, freezes lava, and obliterates all fire monsters. Somehow, they married four different functions to one musical instrument.
- Is it a Beat ‘em Up: There is more of an emphasis on combat here than The Legend of Zelda, as many rooms all but require murdering every last occupant. “Floor traps” are super common, too, so watch out for retractable spikes. Additionally, the beat ‘em up staple of bosses returning as random mooks is alive and well here (complete with that one giant bald guy running around). But, since there are mechanical/”ancient” areas, yet you never fight a series of monsters on an endless elevator, this is officially not a beat ‘em up.
- An End: Death Adder is the boss of both final dungeons. The explanation is that Death Adder may only be killed by the Golden Axe, and the Golden Axe can only be found in the final dungeon, and that dungeon will only be unlocked after you clear every other dungeon. So you must fight Death Adder twice. Of course, this leading to the designers only having to create one boss sprite/pattern to spread across two different dungeons is just a happy accident.
Goggle Bob Fact: I managed to miss the lantern item/dungeon, and groped around in the dark for about 60% of the adventure. Luckily, there are not that many different room configurations, and enemies are generally identifiable while bumbling around. My warrior has natural cat-vision.- Did you know? Three out of four of the magical spells are all imparted by the main cast of Golden Axe. Gilius Thunderhead is immediately recognizable, but Ax Battler comes off as a shifty little dude in a cave. And Tyris the princess Valkyrie seems to be downgraded from “Red Sonja” to “generic woman”. But at least she still knows how to summon a fire dragon!
- Would I play again: Firm maybe! There are a lot of quality-of-life improvements in Golden Axe Warrior that make it easier to play once you realize what you have to do. Now that I know I must do dumb stuff like upgrade my earth magic to make progress, a second playthrough should go down smooth. On the other hand, there are much better games to play out there. I always have time to replay another Zelda title…
What’s next? Random ROB is taking time off because it is a special occasion. What is the special occasion? Well, check back here next week to find out. Please look forward to it!
