Golden Axe (Sega Forever): Short Review

     As a long time fan of Sega, from their great system Genesis to their amazing game series' like Streets of Rage, I was truly excited to see they were doing what I complained Nintendo should've done years ago- port their games to the mobile market via iOS and Android.  So far, Sega's ports have brought us classic games such as Altered Beast, Ristar, Kid Chameleon, and Phantasy Star 2, and now, they've brought the fantasy arcade turned Genesis beat 'em up Golden Axe to the Sega Forever lineup.
     Players can once again take on the role of a Dwarf, Barbarian, or Amazon Warrior to battle the dreaded Death Adder for the legendary Golden Axe to restore peace to the land of Yuria.  Slay enemies, ride beasts, and cast spells all along the journey to take back the ravaged kingdom!

     Starting with the good, the Sega Forever titles get some upgrades from the old version.  There's a choice in graphics, either the original or new smooth versions, there's also a slightly easier mode, leaderboards, and a new duel mode where players can face off wave after wave of enemies.  They've also stated that there is a, "Multiplayer experience coming soon."

     Now, sadly, the bad part.  As with all the other Sega Forever games (the exception being Phantasy Star 2- it doesn't require the quick responses of the other games), Golden Axe is another great old school gaming experience once again marred by awful controls.  I noticed numerous times where my character wouldn't respond to inputs, or the controls were off just enough to be frustrating- like trying to make a jump across a gap and instead falling to your death, and I'm not fully positive on this, but I believe some enemy hit boxes were altered, because there's a bunch of times where I'd swing directly through enemies and they'd remain untouched.
     It's also unbelievably irritating to get caught in stun-locked to death sandwiched between enemies because the controls lag or unresponsive d-pad inputs leave you standing still.  The game was originally designed as a quarter-muncher arcade meant to siphon peoples' pockets of coins to make money, and the irksome unfairness of the arcade difficulty is greatly exacerbated by the d-pad input problems.
      In reality, a small patch could easily fix this.  It's the biggest issue with the wonderful games they've been putting out, and if Sega wants to start making money off of these they need to specifically fix the controls.  They've begun a trend that retro gamers want, and have started down the right path, they just need to hone it in and really make these games shine.

     Despite its flaws, Golden Axe is still a good addition to the growing Sega Forever library with its extras and the promise of an online co-op on the way we can hopefully look forward to fixes yet to come.  I honestly hope they do fix the consistent control problems, because Sega has a monstrous library of tremendous games worth replaying, or bringing to a completely new audience, and this is the singular stumbling block in the way.

     Golden Axe via the App Store and Google Play.  It's free to play with adds, but has a $1.99 IAP that removes adds and allows for an