00:00Rated M for Mature
00:05Sega
00:16The original Golden Axe, it was just kind of like, you know, it was 1989 I guess.
00:21You know, I was just finishing high school and this game just kind of really fit the time for me.
00:25I used to get on my little bicycle and I used to ride six miles down to the seaside in
00:28the north of England just to play arcade games.
00:30Golden Axe was number one on the list.
00:32I pumped quarter after quarter, dollar after dollar, my entire month's allowance on trying to beat this game.
00:39It hinted at this really amazing world and fully fleshed out worlds that at the time not many games were
00:45able to create.
00:46It stood the test of time in terms of its theme and its unique look.
00:51People like myself remember so fondly from the arcade, it's literally hack and slash, hack and slash, hack and slash.
01:05In an ancient world, a barbarian hero, a Viking dwarf, and an Amazonian warrior set out on a mission to
01:13save their king and queen from the evil Death Adder.
01:17This is the story of the classic side-scrolling adventure of Golden Axe, which first appeared in arcades back in
01:241989.
01:26Created by Makoto Uchida, the game would become one of Sega's most popular and beloved franchises.
01:32The team was really small, almost two programmers and two artists and one planner and one sound, just only five
01:40or six around that.
01:41We had a small, small team and we made that by 12 months.
01:46I really love the movie, any kind of movie, but the most favorite is the action movie.
01:52And I really loved Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan.
01:55When I saw that, I really want to make the same as that kind of movie thing in the video
02:01game, especially the arcade video game, because I was really fond of the arcade.
02:05The first time I went to college, I dropped out because there was a really good arcade at the mall
02:10just past my campus.
02:12And too many mornings, I would just drive right past the campus and go to the arcade and play Golden
02:16Axe.
02:16And it's one of those games where you just sit there and keep feeding the quarters until you beat it.
02:20I spent way too many quarters on that game, but Golden Axe always just seemed something special because I really,
02:25I liked the medieval world more than anything else.
02:27The arcade game is a three-minute game. Within three minutes, we have to give players as much as possible
02:35fun things.
02:36Without that, they just start to play after three minutes and never play it again.
02:40The pacing of it, I think, works so well. It goes from like one encounter to the next, one battle
02:45to the next, and the game's music is really good, really catchy.
02:48I think anyone who's played it can still do the tune for you.
02:50The basic concept design for one of my artists, he draw the great background and also character, and at that
02:58time, he is right on one of the beasts in the auto-beast.
03:03So when I saw that, that was a great idea, so I just put them into the video game.
03:08I think that part of what it did right was the beasts. I really liked being able to jump on
03:13top of something and just feeling like, okay, that's it, I own you, that's it.
03:16Like, I'm on a purple chicken, you cannot touch me.
03:18I know people keep saying, beasts, beasts, beasts, but it is actually very cool.
03:22Hands down, it's the beasts. I think it's what keeps this game separate from a lot of other games, you
03:28know.
03:28I couldn't get enough of writing those beasts and was always a little bit upset when I got thrown off.
03:33Fighting to keep my purple chicken through as much of the level as I possibly could, that was really important
03:38to the way that I played Golden Axe anyway.
03:40The magic was like a perk on top of that.
03:42The biggest challenge was how to make the great visual magic effects things.
03:48When you played the video game, you see almost 15 or more magic graphics.
03:52The whole system of leveling up your magic is cool because you want to save your magic and see the
03:57really cool effects,
03:59which, you know, back at the time, those things were mind-blowing, you know, the screen would shake.
04:03You're just like, yeah, that kicks so much ass.
04:05When I go to the arcade, I see my game in the arcade, kids playing the game.
04:11Just totally fun face. That was awesome, great experience for me.
04:16And I thought, oh, I never stopped to make the video game.
04:23The introduction of the Sega Genesis in 1988 ushered in a new era for Sega, establishing the game maker in
04:30the Japanese home console arena.
04:33But with the system set to launch a year later in North America, Sega needed a killer application to cement
04:39their presence across the Pacific.
04:41To this end, Sega turned to their arcade success and the easy-to-play, yet difficult-to-master experience of
04:48Makoto Uchida's Golden Axe.
04:50Expanding on the beat-em-up genre with the introduction of hack-and-slash gameplay, Golden Axe quickly became the
04:57game for owners of the Sega Genesis
04:59and firmly established Sega as a major player in the video game realm.
05:04It was really the first time on a console you were able to play what you were also able to
05:09play in the arcades.
05:11And if you think about it, I mean, now people play the consoles, there's no question that it's the top
05:15-notch graphical quality.
05:16But for a long time, there was this huge gap between what you'd go to the arcade to play.
05:20And to be able to come home and play on your Genesis this game that was so similar to what
05:25you were playing in the arcade was really amazing.
05:26When Golden Axe came out for Genesis, I was like, I can save all my quarters.
05:30And then I didn't. I wound up playing it in both places anyway.
05:33I showed that to my parents. My parents were really surprised.
05:36They didn't know the game itself, and also they didn't know what kind of game I made.
05:41Inevitably, the success of Golden Axe led to the creation of several sequels and spin-offs.
05:46However, none of the games were able to capture the glory of their predecessor.
05:50The other ones, no, I didn't really play. I remember Golden Axe 2.
05:53I'd always heard that, you know, Golden Axe, the first one, was the best.
05:56My experience of the sequel is only Golden Axe, the revenge of the server.
06:02The other Golden Axes are actually not mine.
06:07After a lengthy absence, Golden Axe re-emerged on the scene in 2006,
06:13alongside Golden Axe 2 and 3 as part of the featured compilation with the Sega Genesis Collection.
06:19But more importantly, during the E3 of that year, Sega announced the development of a brand new
06:25Golden Axe game for the next generation of gaming systems.
06:29Back in, I guess it was probably 2005 at this point, we were talking with Sega and knew that we
06:36wanted to do a project together as companies.
06:38And we knew that they were interested in going back and looking at their old licenses and old IP
06:42and figuring out how to reinvent some of them.
06:45And so we started looking at all of them and said, you know, which of these really inspires us?
06:49And Golden Axe instantly jumped out.
06:50I mean, it's a classic for a lot of people.
06:52What was really cool was sitting down with Sega, having a conversation with Noah and the guys over at Sega,
06:57and looking at the back catalog and being able to go, oh, that would be so cool.
07:00Oh, no, wait, that would be cool.
07:01Oh, dude, Golden Axe, that would just be awesome.
07:04So being able to have that dialogue and look through and think about things that we thought we could bring
07:09our spin to
07:10and that we could make fresh and revisit, Golden Axe was just the top of the list for us.
07:14Our approach is to reopen and re-explore the world of Golden Axe.
07:17We can't make a copy.
07:18The game's 20 years old, it's a side-scroller.
07:20Sure, there's a jump to 3D, but really more so than that, it's a re-imagination, if you will,
07:24where we kind of dissect the old Golden Axe game and then really pull out the legacy content that's really
07:28special.
07:29Then we build and explore that in more detail in our game.
07:32The first time I heard of Secret Level was at the California Extreme Arcade Show.
07:36It's a big collector's arcade show, nothing but classic coin-op set to free play.
07:39These guys know old school stuff.
07:41They know the retro stuff.
07:42They know where our whole industry has come from.
07:44So to find out that they're rebuilding a classic franchise, I'm thinking, well,
07:48at least I know they've got the cred for it.
07:50I know that they're out here as gamers enjoying the old stuff, but they're also studying the old stuff as
07:55students.
07:55I'm very impressed with them.
07:57They have a lot of passion and enthusiasm.
08:00I think it's pretty clear that everyone here is taking the game seriously.
08:03It's good to know.
08:04Just from talking to some of the folks that did it that also grew up on Golden Axe,
08:07it seems that they know what things about that series that made it such a legend in the arcade.
08:11So it seems like, you know, they have the right approach.
08:13They're really dedicated to making sure that the final product is really something special.
08:19Rather than just Sega partnering with a company that would put out a really basic 3D-ified version of Golden
08:26Axe,
08:26they're actually willing to go out on a limb and say,
08:29okay, we're going to go with this very bold, big adventure game now.
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