Golden Axe II

About Golden Axe II

Golden Axe II (1991) is Sega's Genesis sequel to its fantasy beat 'em up, in which Ax Battler, Tyris Flare and Gilius Thunderhead retrieve the Golden Axe from the tyrant Dark Guld, with reworked magic and attacks.

Golden Axe II in Depth

The side-scrolling hack-and-slash play is almost identical to the first game. Players choose the barbarian Ax Battler with his two-handed sword, the amazon Tyris Flare with her longsword or the dwarf Gilius Thunderhead with his axe, each with their own elemental magic and a set of life bars. Several changes refine it. The back attack, triggered by pressing jump and attack together, now hits enemies on every side, and grabbed enemies can be thrown in either direction, including off cliffs. Rather than spending every magic pot at once, players hold the magic button and release it when the meter reaches the level they want. Ax Battler's explosive magic becomes wind, Gilius swaps lightning for rock, and Tyris keeps fire with new animations, while Ax Battler gains longer reach and stronger throws.

The main mode crosses seven stages, from a Ravaged Village and Ruins to Dragon's Throat Cave and Dark Guld's Chamber, each ending with a fight against a large group of enemies, collecting magic books along the way and riding three kinds of Bizarrian: Chicken Legs, green dragons and fire dragons. A rating follows each level. The Duel mode pits players against fifteen rounds of enemies in an arena. The story has Dark Guld, freed from ancient imprisonment a few years after Death Adder's defeat, seize the Golden Axe and lay waste to the land of Yuria.

Making Golden Axe II

Sega developed and published Golden Axe II for the Genesis in 1991 as the second game in the series, refining the original's mechanics rather than replacing them. It received generally favourable reviews, though many found it too close to its predecessor. Console XS thought it easier than the first game, Mega Action called it bigger and better but said "If you want more of the same, then this is for you", and AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott noted almost identical graphics, sound and options, concluding that "fans of the original probably won't mind that it's more of the same". In Japan readers of Mega Drive Fan gave it 20.95 out of 30. It has since been re-released in the Sega Genesis Collection, on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, on Steam and in Sega Genesis Classics, and GamesRadar ranked it 34th among Mega Drive games in 2017.