Midway Games was basically the king of the arcade in the nineties. If you weren't playing Mortal Kombat, you were probably getting shoved aside so someone else could play Killer Instinct. But then 1997 happened. 3D was the new frontier, and while everyone was losing their minds over Tekken and Soul Edge, Midway decided to get weirdly medieval. They dropped Mace: The Dark Age, and honestly? It was glorious, clunky, and kind of terrifying all at once.
It wasn't just another fighter. It felt heavy.
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When you picked up the controller—especially on the Nintendo 64 port—you felt the weight of the morning stars and claymores. This wasn't the fluid, dancing ballet of SoulCalibur. This was a brutal, gritty slog through a dark fantasy world that felt like someone had blended Dungeons & Dragons with a heavy metal album cover.
The Guts of the Game: What Actually Made Mace Work
The plot is some high-tier 90s edge. You have this demon named Asmodeus who owns the "Mace of Everlasting Life." He’s basically using it to keep Europe in a state of perpetual suck. Seven different leaders and warriors are summoned to fight him, but really, most of us just played it because the character designs were incredible.
Take Lord Deimos. He’s essentially a walking suit of red spiked armor with a halberd that could reach across the entire screen. Or Al’ Rashid, the desert assassin who actually used twin scimitars in a way that felt distinct from the heavy hitters like Taria. The game utilized a four-button layout, but the real star of the show was the "Evade" button.
Moving in 3D space was still a massive headache for developers back then. Mace: The Dark Age tried to solve it by giving you a dedicated button to sidestep. It worked, mostly. It gave the game a tactical layer where you could actually dodge a vertical swing and punish your friend for being a button-masher.
The stages were also way ahead of their time. You weren't just fighting on a flat plane. You had interactable environments. There were pits of lava that actually dealt damage if you got knocked in. There were water levels where the physics changed. If you fought on the bridge stage, you could genuinely feel the claustrophobia of the tight space. It made the positioning matter more than just memorizing a 10-hit combo string.
Why the N64 Version Is the One Everyone Remembers
Technically, the arcade version (running on the 3dfx Voodoo graphics hardware) was the superior experience. It was smoother. The textures were sharper. But let’s be real: most people played the home console port.
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Nintendo 64 owners were starving for a decent fighter. Killer Instinct Gold was okay, but it felt like a relic. Mace: The Dark Age arrived and looked stunning for the hardware. It used the N64’s anti-aliasing to smooth out those jagged polygons that plagued the PlayStation. It was one of the few games that actually looked "clean" on a CRT television.
The port was handled by Midway’s internal team, and they didn't cut many corners. They kept the executions. Yeah, this game had "Fatalities," though they called them Executions. They weren't quite as over-the-top as Mortal Kombat, but seeing a knight get decapitated by a mace in 64-bit glory was a core memory for a lot of kids who probably shouldn't have been playing it.
The Character Roster Was Genuinely Diverse
- Executioner: A massive dude with a hood and a greataxe. He was the "easy" character to pick up but hard to master because he was so slow.
- Xiao Lian: The requisite staff fighter. Fast, annoying, and great for poke damage.
- Namira: A scimitar-wielding warrior who relied on agility.
- Ichiro: A samurai because, well, it’s a fighting game in the 90s. You had to have one.
- Ragnar Bloodaxe: A viking. Exactly what you’d expect. Loud and hits like a truck.
There were also secret characters that were just plain bizarre. You could play as Pojo the Chicken. A literal chicken. This wasn't some skin; it was a fully functional, tiny-hitbox nightmare that could breathe fire. It’s that kind of weirdness that gave Midway games their soul. They weren't trying to be "prestige" titles. They were trying to be fun.
The Legacy of the 3dfx Era
We have to talk about the tech for a second because Mace was a showcase for what 3dfx interactive could do. In the mid-90s, if you saw that 3dfx logo, you knew the lighting effects were going to be insane. In Mace: The Dark Age, the sparks flying off the blades and the glow of the magical projectiles were groundbreaking.
Critics at the time were a bit split. Next Generation magazine gave it a decent review, praising the visuals but noting that the gameplay didn't quite have the depth of Virtua Fighter. And they were right, sort of. If you wanted a deep, frame-perfect competitive experience, you went to Sega. If you wanted to have a blast with your friends on a Friday night while drinking Surge soda, you played Mace.
It’s easy to look back and call it a "clone" of other weapon-based fighters. But that feels reductive. Mace had a specific atmosphere. It was bleak. The music was choral and gothic. It felt like playing through a nightmare version of the Renaissance Fair.
What People Get Wrong About the Difficulty
A common complaint you'll see in old forums is that the AI was "cheating."
It wasn't necessarily cheating, but it was designed for the arcade. Arcade games are built to eat quarters. The AI in Mace: The Dark Age had "input reading" tendencies, meaning it would react to your button presses instantly. When you ported that to the N64, the developers didn't always tune that down properly. This resulted in a single-player campaign that felt incredibly punishing if you didn't learn how to cheese the system.
But once you learned the distancing? The game opened up. You realized it was less about combos and more about "footsies"—the art of baiting your opponent into a big swing, stepping back, and then crushing them during their recovery frames.
Why Haven’t We Seen a Reboot?
It’s a licensing and branding mess. Midway filed for bankruptcy years ago, and their assets were scattered. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment ended up with most of the big hitters like Mortal Kombat. Mace just sort of fell through the cracks. It doesn't have the massive brand recognition of Street Fighter, so from a business perspective, a big-budget remake is a risky bet.
However, the DNA of Mace lives on in games like For Honor or even the SoulCalibur sequels. That focus on heavy, meaningful weapon strikes is a sub-genre that still has a dedicated fanbase.
There's also the "Midway jank" factor. There was a specific feel to Midway's 3D games—War Gods, Mortal Kombat 4, and Mace—that is hard to replicate today. It’s a mix of motion-captured animation and slightly exaggerated physics. It’s charming in its own way, but it's very much a product of its time.
How to Play It Today
If you want to revisit the Dark Age, you have a few options, though none are perfect:
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- Original Hardware: The N64 cartridge is relatively cheap on the second-hand market. It’s the most stable way to play.
- Emulation: Projects like MAME have made great strides in emulating the arcade original, though the 3dfx hardware emulation can still be finicky with certain textures.
- Arcade Cabinets: If you're lucky enough to live near a "barcade" that keeps 90s deep cuts, finding a dedicated Mace cabinet is a rare treat. The joystick feel is vastly superior to the N64 D-pad.
The game isn't perfect. The balance is wonky, the "Executions" are a bit clunky by modern standards, and the final boss, Asmodeus, is a cheap jerk who takes up half the screen. But there is an undeniable vibe to it. It represents a moment in time when developers were taking huge risks with 3D technology, trying to figure out what worked and what didn't.
Moving Forward with Retro Fighting Games
If you are looking to dive back into the world of 90s weapon-based fighters, don't just stop at Mace. You should really look into the 3dfx era of gaming as a whole to understand why this game looked the way it did.
Start by checking out the arcade versions of Killer Instinct to see the contrast in how Midway handled 2D sprites in a 3D world versus the full polygonal shift of Mace. If you're a collector, look for the N64 version specifically; it’s one of the better examples of a home port done right despite hardware limitations.
Most importantly, don't go in expecting Tekken 8 levels of complexity. Treat it like a piece of history. A loud, violent, heavy metal piece of history that still manages to be a lot of fun if you have a second player and a bit of patience.
Actionable Steps for Enthusiasts
- Track down the N64 manual: The lore in the original manual is actually pretty dense and adds a lot to the experience of the single-player tower.
- Master the Evade: Stop trying to block everything. In Mace, the sidestep is your best friend. Practice the timing against the CPU on lower difficulties.
- Explore the Secret Menu: There are old-school cheat codes to unlock the boss characters and the chicken. Use them. The game is much more entertaining when you're fighting a giant demon with a poultry projectile.
- Check the 3dfx Patch history: If you are emulating on PC, look for specific glide wrappers that simulate the original Voodoo cards to get the lighting effects exactly how they were meant to look in 1997.