its not golden axe its BRONZE AXE !!!!!
The graphics are a bit last gen, the voice acting a second or two too late, and the battles only worth it at boss encounters. The thing I do give it, is that it has arena and match battles -something Heavenly Sword and Conan definitely lacked and lost major points for. It is difficult and tests your patience/timing, but rarely do you really get to unleash the combo meters since there are rarely enough foes to unleash on, and when you do have one going, the color attacks, well, you can't defend both at the same time, so you're screwed a good number of times no matter what.
I am playing it, and so far wanting to go back to it, but only because I want more Conan, but having none, then I'll settle for this -which is not saying much for a game. The control scheme can be changed for user style and even the camera can be changed, which is good since while you're fighting one foe, another off camera is attacking and you can't see the color to parry/block to. The music is ok, and the sound effects are somewhat hollow, but the dialogue has way too much to be desired -it looks/sounds like it is all one second out of synch which really makes one scoff at the whole thing...
Anyway, for 2nd gen consoles, and having games like Conan, Viking, and even Beowulf, it is inexcusable how Golden Axe looks and sounds.
There are some points to it, Tyris seems to look good on close ups and the cinematics are tolerable, combos (when done) are gruesomely fun, but yeah, 5-6 is definitely being good to it. dang, seriously, I'm too bummed to even want to talk about this game -hadn't they seen Conan, Viking et al?!! come on! I'm tired of developers talking big and then putting out mediocrity! This game could have been so much more...