While this game's screenshots and box art would be right at home on the album cover of an early 80s hair metal band, it still holds up today as a brilliant and classic arcade beat-em-up from the days when BEING a brilliant and classic arcade beat-em-up was still worth a damn.
All of the characters in this game were a lot of fun to use. The dwarf was a hilarious little rascal who turned the game into a comedy even when he was standing still. The barbarian looked enough like Conan that I could pretend I was playing as Ah-nold himself. And the sexy lady was very nice to look at. Toss in all the fun combat mechanics, and this game rocks the casbah.
FUN FACT: I'm an actor, and I played a background role once on a Canadian sitcom called "Little Mosque on the Prairie". In the actors' lounge off-set, they had an arcade simulator set up, and Golden Axe was one of the games on it. One of the main actors on the show & myself spent a few minutes hacking and slashing through Level 1, making Golden Axe the first video game I've ever played with a famous person.