Golden Axe II [SMD/1991]

System Played: Sega Mega Drive

Year Released: 1991

Year Reviewed: 2013

Golden Axe II was a Mega Drive exclusive sequel to Sega’s 1989 arcade Conan‘em Up, released just a year after the first game received a port to the system.  

The game sticks to the letter of the formula established in the first game resulting what feels like a ‘phoned in’ effort. 

We get a choice of the same characters from last time, each with pretty much the same moves and very minor alterations to their appearance and animation. 

On the plus side, the controls do feel slightly more fluid this time out, something which did damper the first game. And you can now decide how much of your magic stash to use by holding A to charge a meter, rather than just blowing it all.

Mage guys replace the night prowling gnomes to provide you with a steady stream of magic and now drop spell books rather than potion pots. You can’t really call this an improvement, it’s just different for the sake of it, and overall there are very  few new enemies in this game.

In fact the variety of enemy types seems even lower than before, and the AI certainly isn’t any smarter. Skeletons are still annoying (you can always depend on that) but you fight the same two bosses over and over again, in Old Goat Face and Headless Armor Guy.

Whereas the first game had environments on the backs of giant birds and turtles to offset how bland the colour pallet was, this one has a bit more colour but none of the creativity.

It also sounds worse. The BGM has a bit more bite but everyone makes the same daft “BLAAaahhh” sound effect when they die ...the end credit song isn’t bad (sounding more like Streets of Rage than Golden Axe)

Golden Axe II is a bit easier than the first game, with few noticeable improvements and no inspiration. If not for the slightly improved controls, it would be worse.

5/10