Sega released some truly amazing games for the arcade and their consoles, including the legendary title Golden Axe. It was a classic beat em up series, had some amazing gameplay and was beloved by fans. Sadly, the series fell off after Golden Axe III and never again reached the heights it once had. There were hopes that the arcade game The Revenge of Death Adder would come to the Sega Saturn, but that did not happen. In fact, the system did not receive a beat em up installment. But rather the spinoff, Golden Axe: The Duel, saw its way to the system.
Golden Axe: The Duel was a 1v1 fighting game rather than a beat em up, and is often considered the black sheep of the series. The interesting thing though, is that the game is rather well made even for the time. The fighting mechanics are well polished, and the visuals are top notch, but the game did not catch on. This is mainly due to the game being so different from the rest of the series and not what fans wanted, with many wanting a port of Revenge of Death Adder. Well that and the issue of timing. The simple fact was that there was an oversaturation of 1v1 arcade fighters at the time and this hurt exposure for many games. With all the fighting games out there that became legendary, some were simply overlooked including this one. Playing the game again now, I am shocked how good it actually is. While its not the best fighting game on the Saturn, it holds up rather well and most importantly, is fun.
The game made full use of the special abilities of the beat em ups, including magic and incorporated them into the attacks. There were familiar characters and new characters and yet it all felt natural. The game easily stands with some of the best classic fighters, even if there were some issues. With some polish here and there, the game would still be amazing today.. I would love to see Sega try to revive this subseries one day as there is a lot of potential here. We all want a proper Golden Axe IV first and that is a possibility if Streets of Rage IV does well. However, I feel that Sega should consider re-releasing The Duel with online play so more people can get a chance to see why it really was great.