In the grand pantheon of beat-em-ups, brawlers, hack-and-slashers, kiss-your-mother-with-that-mouth-ya-jerk, dick-punching games, Golden Axe is a middleweight. Hell, it started as a welterweight in 1989. The fantasy setting, magic powers, and ride-able dragons and chicken-salamanders were novel, certainly, but how could it compete with Final Fight, a game that let you be a pro-wrestling mayor who compulsively took off his clothing? How could its triumphant trio of sword-guy-in-underpants, little person, and Red Sonja-cosplayer compete with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Golden Axe was plain outclassed for its first couple of games. That is, until arcade-only sequel Death Adder’s Revenge came out, a game so gorgeous, strange, and playable that it stands as the best beat ‘em up ever made outside of Capcom and Konami (yeah, that’s right. It’s better than Streets of Rage. All of them.) Right when the series started showing its mettle, it all but disappeared. Death Adder’s Revenge’s legacy lived on in a cruddy Genesis sequel, a Saturn fighting game, and a bizarro PS2 remake of the series debut. Until now!
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