In 1990, Golden Axe was ported to various platforms. I decided to take the challenge and try them all. So what did I learn? Which one is the best?

Please note! In this list I left out the original and concentrated on home ports!

IBM-PC

PC version is not the worst you can choose!

Graphics are quite okay for the time (VGA), audio quality on the other hand is horrible. Game itself plays relatively well (except when you are getting repeatedly kicked into unconsciousness less than a second after getting up and there is nothing you can do about it), is quite responsive and runs smoothly.

Problems start when you need to jump over the wider pits, it could be a nightmare. Button mapping could be a lot better, somehow I always keep pressing shift accidentally to waste my special attack. It doesn’t help when you change it to Keyboard (attack button in the middle of direction keys doesn’t make sense) or Joystick (Character suddenly forgets how to walk and is only running).

In addition, levels are a bit too short – There are entire sections of land missing. Power-ups get stuck in the wall and the game doesn’t let you further until they are gone. It also lacks many animations and small details compared to the original (Arcade).

Amiga

Animations and sounds are awesome on Amiga.

Amiga version is missing 2 extra stages beyond the destruction of Death=Adder (as seen in the Mega Drive, PC and arcade versions). Unfortunately it has too many slowdowns in the game that ruin the game flow – it has loading screens and slowdowns start when multiple enemies get on the screen. Also, the Amiga version pauses sometimes to load sections of the level.

But one thing I hate most about this game is the control system – It’s even worse than the PC version were the mapping is bad. Here you need to use only one action button in combination with directions. This makes you make many mistakes and wrong moves during the game. That is irritating.

Graphically it is different from the PC version. Characters are smoother but smaller (and a bit cartoonish), at some points the game looks weird and some point (character select screen) it looks even bad – Maybe it is the color palette used there?

Overall experience – Didn’t like it because of the controls and slowdowns.

Master System

As you can imagine – from the audio department and especially graphically of course, it doesn’t give any competition to the computer counterparts. However, the game is lightning fast compared to the previous ports! And damn, it is so much fun!

Animations are poor, and it looks a bit clunky but the controls are responsive. Buttons are exactly where they need to be. Only the collision detection is poor with the sword not connecting with the other sprites a lot of the time. But it doesn’t bother that much because in real life – would you hit every time?

It is also missing 2 extra stages beyond the destruction of Death=Adder.

Overall experience – You can call me crazy but I liked it way more than PC and Amiga versions. Why? Because it is fast-paced and easy to control. Also, this 8-bit audio sounds damn good to me! Good entertainment!

Genesis

Forget everything I told about 3 other ports! This version destroys them all in all possible ways – Graphics, Animations, Hit detection, Game Speed.

Also, Genesis version is not missing the extra stages beyond the destruction of Death=Adder – which is a good thing.

Audio quality is alright, but Amiga’s audio quality was better.