Wow “Golden Axe” on the Game Gear pretty sweet deal right? Not necessarily. “Golden Axe” left it's arcade brethren to become “Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe” in 1991 and is a RPG like “Golden Axe: Warrior”. This time instead of being a clone like Zelda it is a a clone of “Dragon Quest” when you first look at it, but it turns out to be more than that.
The story of “Axe Battler” is as follows: A king once owned the legendary Golden Axe, but it got stolen in an siege by Death Adder and it's up to you Ax Battler to reclaim the Golden Axe. By the way the story is cliché and the writing is so bad you have to wonder whether the writers were even trying.
The gameplay is very interesting and is a cross between “Dragon Quest” and “Link's Adventure”. As Ax Battler you traverse through the world and towns in an overhead perspective. You have a basic “Dragon Quest” menu with Talk, Item, and Search. When you reach a random battle the action takes place in a side-scrolling battle field reminiscence of “Link's Adventure”. It is extremely easy to win battles as all of them are one on one and the enemies are stupid enough to walk into your sword. One frustrating aspect about the battles is that if you get hit you get kick out of the battle to the world map. The dungeon stages are the same as the battle stages and the enemies are just as stupid. This game is pretty easy to play and it's actually and the controls are responsive unlike the majority of “Golden Axe” titles. You also start back where you last saved if you die.
The music in “Axe Battler” is pretty bland and generic. None of the tracks stand out as particularly interesting. The composer is unknown, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. At least its not as annoying as “Warrior”.
The graphics are really good for a Game Gear title. This is really noticeable on the worldmap. The font on the looks really great to.
Music
