Prepare to read about the worst ever “Golden Axe” game titled “Golden Axe: The Duel”. It was released in 1994 in the arcades and later ported to the Sega Saturn. As a generic fighting game “Duel” suffers from many problems Even though this is a launch title for the STV arcade system it is inexcusable to have such a bad piece of software for it especially coming from the company that developed that hardware. What's worse is that it totally butchers what had up until this point been a completely unmarred series. Sega more than likely rushed this title in order to compete with game such as "Mortal Combat" and "Street Fighter II".
The story is set several of years after “Golden Axe 2: Revenge of the Death Adder”. Golden Axe is found somewhere and everyone wants to fight over it because it can grant it's user any wish and immense power. Of course one has to wonder where on earth they would put the ax after they got it as it looks like it weighs about one million pounds.
Kain Blade
Your standard barbarian. He was apparently
raised and taught by a legendary hero, but they
don't say who (Take a wild guess).
Milan Flare
The descendant of Tyran Flare from the first Golden Axe. She is the princess of Winwood.
Gillius Rockhead
The descendant of Gillius Thunderhead from
the first Golden Axe. He has trouble living in the
shadow of his legendary ancestor.
Green
The last of a race that is part plant and animal. Death Adder's troops killed the rest of his race leaving only him. He plays like your typical heavyweight.
Jamm
She was apparently raised in the wilderness by a beast spirit. She is an extremely annoying character.
Keel
Keel is a wizard thief who kills passerby when they come near the land where he lives. He is the most annoying character of the whole lot.
Panchos
A Inventor who is looking for the Golden Axe for unexplained reasons. He is a typical heavyweight and really not that interesting of a character.
Zoma
A wizard that once served under a king until Zoma became power hungry whereupon he was
banished. It's pretty
interesting to have a wizard
in a one on one fighting game.
Doc
Every fighting game needs a ninja and Doc
fits right into that job description. His long katana
gives him a long range.
Death Adder
He's bad and he's back as one of the
better characters due to the
long range of his ax. He plays like your
typical heavy weight. Otherwise not
much else can be said about him.
Golden Axe
Here's last boss and he's extremely cheap. Golden Axe is of course the physical representation of the ax who fights with the one who wants to claim its power.
The gameplay suffers from unresponsive controls, poor hit detection, uninteresting characters, and because of these problems it is almost impossible to play let alone finish the game. During a fight you can cast magic to make yourself stronger and you can only use magic when you collect 4 magic pots. You also have special moves, but it's impossible to use them due to the crappy controls. One interesting thing though about a fight is that thieves appear and drop both food and magic for you to use.
Kain Blade's Theme has yelling and Milian Flares Stages hurts when you
listen to it. At least the ending theme is good. The sound effects
are pretty generic as well and for the first time we have Japanese voices.
The Graphics were pretty standard for a 2D game for 1994. The ingame art is so bad that it goes beyond the realm of cheesiness and into the land of awfulness. The art looks like a cross between Conan art and anime. There are some interesting ideas that they put into some of the stages though. Gillius' stage has singing dwarfs and Poncho's stage has a robot that is ironing some clothes.
Music
