There’s something about an old-school arcade game that makes me forget how stubborn I can be sometimes. Give me a handful of lives, no continues and a screen full of enemies trying to send me back to the beginning, and instead of walking away like a sensible person, I start telling myself, “Okay… THIS is the run. THIS time, I'm going all the way.”
Battle Axe understands that feeling exceptionally well.
Originally released in 2021, Battle Axe is a top-down hack-and-slash adventure developed by Bitmap Bureau and published by Numskull Games. While it may be a modern release, practically everything about it feels like it was pulled from an arcade cabinet from another time. And I mean that as a compliment.
Battle Axe is colorful, fast, challenging and absolutely gorgeous to look at. But underneath that beautiful pixel art is a deliberately old-school experience that isn't afraid to make you work for your victories.
Answering the Call to Battle
The land of Mercia has a problem. Every seven years, the evil sorceress Etheldred sends her armies south to capture innocent people, taking them away to a life of slavery from which nobody ever returns. Eventually the people decide enough is enough and call upon anyone brave enough (or perhaps foolish enough) to stand against her.
Three heroes answer the call: Rooney the Marauder, Fae the Dark Elf and Iolo the Druid.
...And that’s really all the story Battle Axe needs. This isn't an adventure interested in stopping you every few minutes for lengthy cutscenes or complicated lore. Pick your warrior, point yourself forward, and start smashing your way through Etheldred's army.
It's simple, but that simplicity fits perfectly with what Battle Axe is trying to accomplish. This is an arcade game at heart, after all.
Forged One Pixel at a Time
If there’s one thing about Battle Axe that immediately grabbed my attention, it was the presentation. This game is beautiful. Veteran pixel artist Henk Nieborg did an incredible job bringing this world to life. The three heroes are wonderfully animated, enemies like skeletons and orcs are packed with visual personality, and the bosses are large, detailed and intimidating.
The environments might be even better. One moment you're battling high above the ground with the world stretching out beneath you, and the next you're wandering through dark, dangerous mines illuminated beautifully against the surrounding darkness. The bright colors, tiny environmental details and smooth animation constantly gave me something new to admire. Battle Axe is easily one of the most visually impressive pixel-art games I've played up to this point.
And the audio holds up its end of the bargain too. The soundtrack was composed by Manami Matsumae, whose credits include games like Mega Man and Final Fight, and her music feels perfectly at home here. It's energetic, catchy and gives every battle that extra little push it needs.
But my favorite touch might be the announcer. Every time that booming voice kicks in, Battle Axe gets just a little closer to convincing me that I'm standing in front of an arcade cabinet instead of sitting on the couch in my living room. Presentation is where Battle Axe swings hardest, and it rarely misses.
Choose Your Weapon
Of course, beautiful graphics won't mean much if hacking through enemies isn't fun. Thankfully, it is very fun. Each of the three playable heroes brings slightly different strengths to battle. Rooney is your more traditional bruiser, Iolo relies heavily on his powerful ranged attacks, and Fae trades some strength for speed.
I have to say, though. Fae quickly became my personal favorite. Her twin daggers just felt right while tearing through groups of enemies, and her faster movement suited the way I wanted to play.
Regardless of your character, you'll have access to close-range attacks, projectiles and a powerful dash attack that can tear straight through a group of enemies. That dash has a cooldown, so using it at the right moment can make the difference between clearing a mob and becoming part of the scenery.
The ranged combat didn't feel quite as smooth to me. Projectiles can only be fired in eight directions, and making tiny adjustments to line up an enemy can occasionally feel cumbersome.
Fortunately for me, I was usually perfectly happy getting up close and personal.
Gold, Glory and One More Run
Battle Axe only contains four main stages, and they're fairly linear. If you really wanted to, you could run past a surprising number of enemies and make a dash toward the boss. But where's the fun in that?
Defeating enemies earns points and gold, treasure chests are scattered throughout the stages, and captured townsfolk can be rescued for additional points. There's also a combo system encouraging you to keep attacking enemies before the meter disappears. For score chasers, there's plenty here to obsess over.
Personally, though, I wanted the money. Between stages, you'll encounter a traveling merchant who sells health, useful items and permanent upgrades. Suddenly those little coins scattered around the battlefield become incredibly important. Do I spend my money healing? Do I save it? Or do I buy an upgrade and hope the extra strength carries me through the next stage?
I loved this little gameplay loop. Cutting through enemies, gathering everything I could find and slowly making my character stronger gave me another reason to explore instead of simply racing toward the finish line.
The game could explain some of these items better, though. Battle Axe doesn't really tell you what many of them do until you experiment with them, including the upgrades you purchase from the merchant. That's certainly old-school. Though maybe a little too old-school for my tastes.
Live, Die, Swing Again
Battle Axe isn't particularly interested in holding your hand. You get three lives. That's it. Lose them all and you're heading straight back to the beginning.
There is an Easy Mode that reduces some enemy aggression, provides healing between stages and makes certain boss encounters more manageable, but don't mistake "Easy" for "effortless." Battle Axe can still put up a fight.
My first several attempts ended exactly how you'd expect. Death. Restart. Death. Restart. But something funny happened along the way. I started learning. Enemy encounters became more manageable. Boss attack patterns started making sense. I figured out when to spend my gold and when to save it. Slowly, a game that initially felt intimidating became something I knew I could beat.
When I finally completed Arcade Mode, the entire run took me about 27 minutes. Getting good enough to make that 27-minute run happen? That took me around four hours. And believe me, that victory felt earned.
Once you've completed the four-stage campaign, New Game Plus mixes up enemy and treasure placement while increasing the challenge. There's also an Infinite Mode where you rescue captured townsfolk, open portals to new areas and survive increasingly difficult waves for as long as possible.
Both offer reasons to keep playing, especially if chasing high scores is your thing, but this is also where repetition eventually started creeping in for me. Battle Axe was fantastic for one or two runs at a time. Beyond that, I usually wanted to put it down and play something else.
But thinking back, that's okay. Battle Axe is better treated like an arcade cabinet than a sprawling adventure. Walk up, drop in a metaphorical quarter, see how far you can get and come back another day.
If you're looking for dozens of hours of progression, you won't find it here. But if the idea of mastering a short, challenging adventure until that seemingly impossible run suddenly becomes possible sounds appealing? Battle Axe understands that feeling very well.
Worthy of the Armory?
Battle Axe knows exactly what it wants to be. It's an unapologetic love letter to old-school arcade games, wrapped in some of the most beautiful pixel art I've seen and backed by a fantastic soundtrack. The combat is satisfying. Collecting gold and upgrading your character gives each run some additional purpose. The bosses are fun to learn, the difficulty makes victory feel rewarding, and everything gets even better if you have a friend sitting beside you for some couch co-op.
But there's no getting around how short the experience is. With only four main stages, Arcade Mode can be completed in roughly half an hour once you know what you're doing, and the additional modes don't fundamentally change the experience enough to prevent repetition from setting in.
And yet…I really liked Battle Axe. Because sometimes I don't need a game to give me 50 hours of content. Sometimes I just want to grab a weapon, mow down an army of skeletons and orcs, scoop up every gold coin I can find, and convince myself that this is finally going to be the run where everything comes together.
Battle Axe gives me exactly that. It may not be the weapon you'll carry on every adventure through the gaming wildlands, but when the mood for some old-fashioned arcade action strikes? This Battle Axe is absolutely worth taking off the wall.
Continue the Expedition!
If you'd like to see Battle Axe in action and hear more of my thoughts, be sure to check out my full video review on YouTube. I dive deeper into the game's mechanics, showcase plenty of gameplay, and share even more from my journey through the depths.
Battle Axe - Old School Hack & Slash Retro Goodness!
Join me in the gaming wildlands as share my thoughts and experiences with Battle Axe! Battle Axe is a top down hack and slash adventure that really leans into the retro athletics. It has an old school arcade feel that brings with it challenging gameplay and a fun experience as you try to save the wo...
"Stage 3 - Dragon's Keep" from Battle Axe (2021, Numskull Games) Downloaded via KHInsider. All rights belong to Numskull Games.