Remember Golden Axe? The 1989 arcade game was a mash-up of Double Dragon-style side-scrolling combat with a barbarian fantasy world. A hit in the coin-op realm, it also featured heavily in launch ads for Sega Genesis. The 16-bit home system promised then-arcade quality graphics, and that “you can’t do this on Nintendo.” In keeping with the Conan/He-Man style, the male and female player characters wore almost nothing, while the dwarf kept it basic. Characters needed to “read” easily to potential players.
Storm Collectibles is on a roll lately with video game licenses. Holders of the toy rights to Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, they’ve also added Tekken and Injustice. Fans probably expected them to stick to fighting games, so Golden Axe comes out of left field. With parts re-use and a basic muscular buck, the main character seems simple enough. But they went ahead and gave him a dragon to ride as well.
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Ax Battler, so named despite the fact that his preferred weapon is a sword, comes with multiple hands, sword, dragon, and dragon fireball. For Storm Collectibles, he’s a real bargain — most figures from the company run $80-$90. For $120 here, collectors get both a full-sized figure and an even larger creature to ride.
It’s unlikely that Storm will ever do Mario or Link, for example, in this hyper-buff style. But we can certainly see them taking on something like Commando or Contra in the future. Vintage arcade fighting games like Pit Fighter might be too obvious. But how about the O.G. Double Dragon?
In the meantime, we’ll take this. And only have to wait till next quarter to do so.
