Golden Axe can get to be pretty challenging by the time you hit the second or third area in the game. I must say though, after playing this for so many years, I’ve noticed the actual difficulty itself doesn’t really change through the game. Rather, the enemies are really cheap, for the most part. This goes double for those darn skeleton warriors. They’re cheaper than a pack of Kool-Aid, to be frank. It gets nearly impossible to really pull off a complete attack combo after a while, because you’re constantly getting bombarded from both directions. As a result, the game feels a bit rigged in some spots. The duration of the game is also very short, which probably accounts for the overall difficulty as well. Even so, it gets better as your skills increase and you find different tricks to defeating your foes in quicker fashion. You can also go the options menu, before starting the game, and adjust your life meter to help lighten to load a bit. Also, you have 4 credits at your disposal, so most players can make it close to the end of the game before their lives really start to spread thin.

The music is pretty much what you could expect from an old school brawler, but with a medieval twist. The first level features some of the best music on the whole game. Afterward, some of the tunes aren’t particularly memorable, but still get the job done. Some of the sound effects are a bit grainy at times. When either you or your enemies are defeated, they let out some awful, muffled screams. The same goes for when you’re riding on a dragon; they make a muddy “roar” sound that doesn’t exactly represent the better side of the Genesis’ audio hardware.

The success of Golden Axe on the Genesis helped to pave the way for more modern day-themed brawlers, like Streets of Rage. That being said, it hasn’t aged too gracefully as of late. If you can look beyond the dreary sound effects and sometimes slow controls, then there’s enough here to warrant an 800 point download. Enjoy giving an old fashioned beat down.