10 Most Popular Sega Games - Ranked From Worst To Best

5. Golden Axe

This is where things start getting really good, because picking flaws in the original Golden Axe is an arduous task. It's mind-blowing to think this game was released in 1989, just over a year after the Mega Drive console had launched in Japan.

A side-scrolling slasher, Golden Axe allowed gamers to pick from 3 distinctly different characters, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. That choice fed replayability, which was generous from Sega considering Axe had 8 fleshed-out levels to explore (and that doesn't take into account the bonus stages, where kicking minuscule thieves makes for much merriment).

Sega couldn't top what they achieved with the first Golden Axe, so that should go some way to explaining just how important this game was. It's every bit as good as you remember from childhood, and it's a testament to the developers that they could've doubled the game's length and still succeeded.