[Playing…] Golden Ax Warrior

After the success of The Legend of Zelda for NES in 1986, SEGA must have thought that they also needed something similar, so in 1991 they released it for Master System Golden Ax Warrior, an adventure game set in the world of his very famous beat 'em up.

Golden Ax Warrior is, from the first minute, a shameless clone of Zelda. They did not want to be original, they just tried to make a Zelda for Master System and that the game itself was worth it And in that regard I have no complaints. Furthermore, due to the time elapsed between the NES Zelda and this game we can see some concrete improvements, such as certain mechanics of the NES game being present, but somewhat improved.

It is also obvious from the first minute that the graphic section, despite being tremendously similar to Zelda All in all, it is much more elaborate, moving away from the “borderless pixelated designs” graphic style of the first Zelda and getting quite a bit of benefit from the Master System color palette.

The story of this game tells us that the evil Death Adder (the main antagonist of golden ax) has devastated everything and has proclaimed himself lord of that land. Our character is a young warrior who will decide to confront him and bring peace to the world again. Unfortunately for him, Death Adder is tremendously powerful, so he will have to first search for the 9 magic crystals (each hidden in a dungeon) and get the Golden Ax weapon, which they say is the only one that can kill Death Adder, in order to have a chance to face him.

Thus, the objective of this game is to overcome the first nine dungeons to be able to access the tenth, where Death Adder is located and obtain the golden ax to be able to kill him. Each dungeon will be full of enemies and will have some puzzles (quite simple, to be honest) to try to prevent us from reaching the huge bosses of the dungeon, which as soon as they are defeated will allow us to access the crystal (and in the process we will increase our life by 1 heart).

The structure of the game is partially free, we can move wherever we want, we can even find some dungeons without having completed the previous one, but in the vast majority of cases we will not be able to access it (or complete it) without having obtained the necessary objects.

These items are usually found in the dungeons themselves, but There are some that we can get by searching the main map, so we will have to cut trees and use magic to break stones in the hope of finding a ladder that will take us to the house of an old man who will give us something (a heart, better armor...). Some of these stairs appear automatically if we complete certain requirements, such as killing all the enemies on the screen.

As you can see, the way to advance in the game and increase our items also remains intact with respect to The Legend of Zelda. This display of mimicry reaches the point that they have even decided to include the elderly who took money from us. So it's annoying to think that they're going to give you something and take your money!

The protagonists of golden ax original (Gilius the dwarf, Ax Battler the barbarian and Tyris Flare the amazon) are also hidden throughout the game and We will have to find them so that they can teach us the magic of thunder, earth and fire. There is also a fourth magic (that of water) that is hidden more cryptically on a small island and that will be given to us by a person who seems to know the story of our protagonist better than ourselves.

Thunder magic will allow us to launch energy rays, earth magic will allow us to break some rocks and stun enemies, fire magic will hit all the enemies on the screen and water magic will allow us to recover life. At the beginning of the game the use of magic is very limited because we have few magic jars available, but as we progress in the game the number will increase (especially if we explore the mapping since there are also old men who give us magic jars).

When we start the game we only have basic armor, a small shield and a short sword, that should be enough to get through the first dungeon, where we will get the axe, which will allow us to cut trees and give us a certain advantage when hitting enemies.

Considering that swords and axes are the two main weapons in the game, each has its advantages and disadvantages. When we attack with any of the swords we will see that the attack is forward and off-center, thus leaving us quite unprotected, in the event that On many occasions we receive damage at the same time as the rival. For its part, the ax strikes in a semicircular movement, from one side to the front, thus allowing us to attack an enemy who is next to us and preventing us from receiving more damage than necessary. The problem with this is that we improve the sword during the game, so the ax will become obsolete (in terms of strength) very soon, so you have to choose between hitting with a strong but unreliable weapon or with a weak but very reliable one.

Although the truth is that the problem when attacking not only depends on the weapon, but also on the movement of our character, which is tremendously abrupt and in most cases it will lead us to collide directly with enemies. At the beginning of the game (when we have little life and little defense) any failure of these can take us to the Game Over screen, so we will have to be patient. Because enemies can take a lot of life from us, we will see that sometimes it is better to flee than attack (something that, in addition to being painful, will prevent us from getting enough money to buy things). But you have to keep in mind that every time they kill us, we respawn with only 3 hearts and they take some of our money.

The difficulty of moving and attacking without taking damage collides with another problem I discovered while playing: Inside the dungeons, If we stay at the door of the rooms, most enemy attacks cannot reach us. Esto que podría ser una ventaja táctica para sobrevivir, se convierte en un tremendo fallo cuando descubrimos que algunos de los jefes de las mazmorras pueden matarse sin movernos de la puerta, ya que sus ataques no nos harán daño aunque estén pegados a nosotros. Lamentablemente, entre los jefes que podemos matar sin movernos del sitio está el enemigo final, convirtiéndolo en uno de los jefes finales más fáciles de la historia.

Mientras nos movemos por el mapeado iremos descubriendo poblados, donde las buenas gentes del lugar nos contarán más o menos, como está la situación del mundo y, en algunos casos, nos darán pistas muy útiles sobre cómo encontrar algunos secretos del juego. En esos poblados también podremos comprar, descansar y grabar partida, aunque poco a poco veremos que las mejores tiendas (con mejores precios) están ocultas por el juego.

Conforme vayamos avanzando el juego encontraremos mejores escudos (rebotarán los disparos enemigos); mejores armaduras (reducirán el daño); y mejores armas. Pero también encontraremos objetos que nos permitirán explorar con más libertad, como la cuerda (para trepar montañas), la canoa (para pasar zonas estrechas de agua), e incluso el barco (para navegar libremente por el mar). Esto hará que el mapeado disponible sea el doble de grande de lo que parece de primeras.

Golden Ax Warrior es un juego que se puede considerar (al menos en lo jugable) un Zelda al 100% y de hecho creo que mucha gente verá en él un Zelda II más que en el auténtico juego de NES. Es cierto que tiene algunos problemas que pueden afectar a la jugabilidad, pero todo lo que tiene de bueno lo compensa sobradamente.

Quizás a los fans de la saga golden ax les llame la atención por el mundo en el cual se ubica, pero los fans de la saga Zelda lo disfrutarán muchísimo, ya que prácticamente es como jugar a un Zelda completamente nuevo, pero con las mecánicas del primero de todos.