Golden Axe: Beast Rider Review
Pony.
Version tested: Xbox 360
Over the last year or so, it seems as if many publishers have finally got a handle on the retro revival. Namco gave us Pac-Man Championship Edition and Galaga Legions, both classic in style yet undeniably modern in construction. Capcom brought back a slew of their 1980s classics, with Commando, 1942, Bionic Commando and Mega Man all receiving good to great retro-styled modern sequels. And here comes SEGA - having got it so right with After Burner on the PSP - once again flailing around and looking hopelessly out of touch.
Golden Axe: Beast Rider is the sort of lazy, depressing remake that used to be the norm. It takes its name from a classic arcade game but everything else is generic and bland, a bargain basement facsimile of, for some reason, Heavenly Sword.
As in Sony's decent but forgettable romp, our heroine is a buxom flame-haired warrior, set loose in a button-mashing hackandslash environment to carve her way through hordes of enemies with a fabled magical weapon. You can summon up magical attacks, which are a pain to aim. You can throw the Golden Axe to hit switches and other items, but it's slow to aim. You can ride on a variety of beasts, but they're sluggish to control. In fact, it's hard to find a single aspect of the gameplay that hasn't been grossly mishandled in some vital way. Nothing here feels intuitive, inviting or even fun.
The beasts, for example, are not only a nightmare to control but they're apparently made from tissue paper and plasticine. Their health is pathetically low, and they're even more vulnerable to damage than the lithe and nearly naked young woman riding on their backs. They also have special attacks that reduce their health whenever you use them. Ride them into battle and you'll likely be knocked off instantly, only for an enemy to jump on board, when suddenly the beast becomes almost impervious to injury. Rather than being majestic mounts that allow you to crush everything in your path, these poor dumb animals prove to be a hindrance to progress whenever you're required to use them. It's actually best to jump on, use them to smash whatever predictable barrier has appeared in your way, and then jump off again.

Ooh, a blue attack! You can parry those, but not evade them. That makes sense.
The core combat isn't much better. As well as the expected fast/strong attack choices, you also have a horribly compromised combo and defence system with which to contend. Different enemy attacks require different responses - parry or evade - and you have to press the correct shoulder button when the attack starts, helpfully flashing either blue or orange as it begins. Trouble is, the button response is fussy and it's entirely possible to be blocking one attack and have no chance to respond to another coming from a different direction. It doesn't even make sense - why would you be unable to evade only one kind of attack, or block another?
The game claims to have a fluid combo system, so that attack patterns can be broken at any time and chained into something else should the situation demand it, but it never really works that way. More often than not you're simply pummelled from all sides and resort to button-mashing to clear your way out. There's absolutely no style, grace or depth to the fighting - just a bunch of concepts half-borrowed from far better games. Judged purely as a melee fighter, this new Golden Axe is demonstrably worse than pretty much all its rivals.

Your dinosaur pal is even more stupid than he looks.
Enemies are dim-witted, and inhabit some of the most drearily designed levels it's been my misfortune to explore. They're linear to a fault, and so repetitive that it's easy to get turned around in combat and find yourself backtracking to the start while thinking you're pressing ahead. The animation on Tyris is hilariously bad, her movements stiff and laughably doll-like as she stumbles around. Remember in The Muppet Movie, when they'd cut away to Kermit's legs being moved around on sticks to show him moving? That's how Tyris runs.
For these reasons alone, Beast Rider is an execrable experience, and without the title to tip you off you wouldn't even identify Beast Rider as part of the Golden Axe lineage. It's single-player only, with no online or offline co-op, which flies in the face of what Golden Axe was all about. You also have no choice of character. The big-boobed warrior chick looks best on the box, so she's the star of the show.
It would have been far better to follow Namco and Capcom and resurrect the series as a modernised sequel in a downloadable retro style. Castle Crashers has already shown that there's a market for well-produced 2D hackandslash, but instead we get this utterly charmless and shamelessly derivative 3D shrug of a game. SEGA might as well have released this as The Adventures of Fiery Boob Lady, and left their mothballed franchise with at least modicum of dignity.
3 / 10
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Comments (87) Latest comment 3 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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oh hello Heavenly Sword!
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\sarcasm mode off
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{laughed out loud at desk at work}
Probably got more enjoyment out of the EG titling than I would from the game it seems.
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Shame.
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Thanks for the review ;p I might grab this but when the price drops even on used copies xD
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I had a feeling it might not be good with the absence of reviews or even previews from all the major players prior to its release today. Shame really as I was interested in it after watching the two promising Making Of features on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Still at this time of year don't want too many good games, do we?
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Instant, inevitable failure right there.
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Fucked my favorite childhood game right up the ass hay.
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Oh and it’s got boobs in it.
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If you enjoyed that is there a chance that you will enjoy this as much? Looking at meta critic this game has such a huge range of review scores (just like viking) so does it suffer from the same thing - like a marmite game (ie some will love and others will hate)?
The scores on metacritic range from 30% -70% , which is such a huge range. To put things in perspective, a 7/10 on here would be respectable enough to buy and play.
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Nay nay and thrice nay, but if we were all expecting it to be terrible, WTF were Sega doing putting monies towards this coffin-raping dog turd? Money that could have gone towards another JSRF or even S-----e III?
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It's considerably worse than Viking. It's not only derivative, but basic gameplay elements feel borderline broken.
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That’s all i needed to know, I was hoping that it was maybe misunderstood in the way Viking was, but at least the controls in that were intuitive and seamless, and it never felt like you weren't in control of what was happening around you.
Thanks for the information
/crosses off list
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/Chris Griffin
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And he reviews almost as many shit games as Ellie. We salute you, Mr Whitehead.
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:/ Breast Rider.
also I was about to leave and buy this. Think Ill leave it now. Saints Row 2 it is :s
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Probably has correct spelling and grammar in all the cut scenes too.
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I actually am Ellie. It's a Dr Jekyll/Sister Hyde sort of deal.
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My ass. MY ASS!
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Is it sad to admit I was playing golden axe on a megadrive just last week ? (gears has nothing on is 2 player awsomeness, the woman can unleash a nuclear explosion for gods sake, makes the hammer of dawn look pretty feeble)
Now where are my rose sunglasses, i feel a Double Dragon session comming on....
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My kingdom for an ass
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why oh why did they botched my favourite arcade game of all time...
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If you thought the videos looked good. You'll probably like it. The game isn't high concept, it's not going to replace Ninja Gaiden or anything. But it's no worse than Conan. How Conan can walk away with a solid score whilst Golden Axe gets savaged is beyond my brain.
Even Hellboy scored higher! This is better than Hellboy.
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...
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I imagine Sonic Unleashed will also be a turd.
Oh Sega why have you forsaken us?
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/sorry
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yup, that sounds like Golden Axe...
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Looks like I better pick up Saints Row 2 as well - even though that wasn't really on my list either.
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SOLD! Nice review.
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/turns out lights, shines torch under chin
Be careful not to say ASS 3 times in front of a mirror, or hedbog will spookily appear and creepily kill you with a ghoulish PS3 made of bees!.
WoooOOOOooooOOOoooo!
/gets in mood for Halloween "
lol
Don't give me more Hedbog nightmares, I still haven't recovered from last time
/hides under blanket - gets weird looks from others in office
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Sega really messed up with this one. We shouldn't be suprised though as, since they went into software only they have done little but, mess up all of their franchises one by one.
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However, for those who think Sega are going down the pan, please remember some of the more interesting and innovative games on the horizon as well; Valkyria Chronicles, Mad World, Bayonetta etc.
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See Bloodkult beat me to it.
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Sega should probably just let all their old 2D franchises die because they're no good at bringing them up-to-date.
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Indeed! - I suppose it took the best bit of the original (well what I considered to be the best bit anyway) and decided to make a whole game based on that one idea...best intentions and all that jazz...
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Huh? Oh 3/10?
Well, someone drive a stake through this one's heart, bury it under a crossroads and we'll call it a day.
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Shame, cos I'd quite like some of "The Adventure of Fiery Boob Lady".
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Still, even though I've not followed this game I just new it would be rubbish. I may at least try a demo though if they are brave enough to release one, out of respect for the originals.
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The graphics are nowhere near as bad as I assumed they would be after reading this and the IGN review - certainly not on par with Heavenly Sword, but easily as good as or better than Conan (which admittedly wasn't exactly a work of art). Can't say I've particularly noticed any animation "stiffness" or whatever other specifics were also brought up in that area - but perhaps that's just because I've got my hands full with the combat and don't have time to look at the way the heroine bends her knees when she runs or swings her sword when she's severing limbs
As for the combat system, personally I don't mind the lack of a ton of different combos, these types of games pretty much always degrade to button mashing for me anyway - but I can certainly see why some people would rightfully criticize this aspect.
And I rather like the evade/parry system. While the latter can be a bit tricky to pull off in melee combat when you're surrounded (deflecting lightning spells back on the caster with parry is cool though, when you're not busy in melee at the same time), evade has a certain grace to it.
So far the only issue I do have with the combat is, as has been pointed out, some battles tends to have a few too many casters bombarding you from all sides - and I assume this will only get worse as I go along. When you've got rocks raining down from the sky (evade), lighting coming from the sides (parry) and axes swinging at you in melee, it does seem the odds are stacked a bit unfairly against you. And I'm playing on casual. But then again, I stink at fast paces action games, so normal difficulty for me would probably equal ass kicking nightmare level for many of you
Oh, and creature combat. Well, that does indeed seems like it could have been done much better. The two I've used so far are really a bit too fragile, and on several occasions they actually ended up as a risk as they would be "hi-jacked" and used against me when I was all too easily knocked off.
Anyway, so far I would probably give this a 5 or 6 - probably the latter. I don't know if it gets worse, but then again, I've only played a handful of games to completion in the last decade, so I base my opinion of most games on just a few hours of gameplay.
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Another childhood memory shattered.
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Played GA on mega drive for so many hours.. I used to love it.
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"Sega should probably just let all their old 2D franchises die because they're no good at bringing them up-to-date. "
Nah, they should be given to developers that not shit, Secret Level's games have been crap for a long while. After seeing the EG review I went to remove it from my rental list but they had already sent it. I think this review is spot on, the gameplay is so unbalanced as the AI cheats. If the enemy gets a beast to ride then its a bitch to knock them off but for you it takes only 1 or 2 hits. The evade/parry system is useless with 3 or more enemies, also the range magic attacks are fucking cheap.
Conan game developers + Golden axe = FTW
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For what it's worth, I'd say a 6/10 would be more accurate. Enjoyable with a few neat little nods to the original like the green Elves carrying health power-ups. I never really liked Heavenly Sword, which was wildly overrated by many, but this is easily on a par with it.
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lol
priceless
anyone else waiting forthe inevitable Zero Punctutation 'review' of this game?
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Anyway, very harsh review for what is by any standards a pretty decent game. Nothing special, nothing to set your world alight, but its entertaining for a few hours. If you enjoyed Conan or Heavenly Sword, Beast Rider is every bit as fun. 7 from me. I think games have forgotten what it means to be fun and not a walkover.
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http://ww w.playmagazine.com/index.php?fu...
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