Review: Golden Axe: Beast Rider (360)

That is until Sega resurrected the series for Beast Rider, a fully original re-imagining of the classic game. Fans of the series will be pleased to hear that the core gameplay is still very similar, and it’s clear some effort has been taken to ensure the game has a right to bear the name, despite a gap of nearly a decade since the last proper game was released for the Saturn. There’s the obligatory and thoroughly unsurprising move to 3D, but even if you’ve ever played a Golden Axe game before, you’ll see some instant similarities. If not, you’ll probably be able to liken Beast Rider to any recent action game like Devil May Cry or God of War, as it borrows heavily from both.

You play Tyris Flare, a big breasted and entirely two dimensional woman that formed a third of the original's line-up. If you’re looking for plot or depth here, you’ll be disappointed as the game is about as plot heavy as the original arcade effort. The closest the game comes to any real interaction with the plot is in text boxes that will pop-up when and if you run over scrolls that are littered around the levels, giving you vague hints at the history of the world and why exactly is it is you are hacking through hordes of enemies over and over. If you thought Too Human and other action RPG games like the XBOX Baldur’s Gate series seemed watered down and undeserving, Beast Rider makes those games look like a hardcore role-play session.

This may make it more true to its original licence, but things have moved in twenty years. Take away any hope of new weapons, character levelling or real changes in equipment and you need to have something pretty special to fill that gap, and Beast Rider has very little at all. As far as the main portion of the game is concerned, melee combat in Beast Rider is functional at best. While the camera does a good job of working with you, the parrying and defensive attacks are based on different coloured attacks, and ends up feeling a little like a series of quick time events. The biggest problem is just how dull the game gets incredibly quickly. Despite some difficultly spikes, Beast Rider simply muddles along until it finishes. Boss fights aren’t dramatic, magic is powerful but doesn’t have the ‘epic’ feel of the original series, and there’s really no imagination in the character design or the weak plot.

A system of points rewarding combos and combat style racks up each level and gives some limited level of replayability, but it doesn’t do much to make the game feel like less of a slog. The arena mode feels like a totally pointless addition as well and it’s hard to see anyone finding much entertainment in such a limited combat system.  Within an hour you will have seen everything Beast Rider has to offer and an arcade style points system isn’t going to be enough to inspire you to play on. Graphically everything is quite pleasing but the game does stutter in places, and while magic looks particularly nice, the environments themselves let the game down. The level design is incredibly linear and just as visually boring as the cardboard cut out main character. Even on a straight path it’s easy to get confused simply because everything just looks so damn similar. Nothing about the world seems alive or vibrant or interesting. The game suffers throughout from a major lack of imagination.

As you would expect from the title, various beasts populate the world. These were one of the most fun parts of the original game, providing you with a large advantage over your enemies in terms of speed and firepower. In Beast Rider, they are nearly unusable. The controls for the beasts make even the more nimble creatures seem sluggish and unresponsive. Even if you can get them to turn quick enough to fight an enemy or keep them in a straight line long enough to avoid a trap, you’ll find them dead in seconds due to their incredibly low health. We found ourselves only using the beasts when the game placed obstacles in our way that forced us to do so, and then immediately abandoning them in favour of the much better controlled melee combat.

Wreaking havoc on the beasts was the main point of the entire game, and it could have saved it from oblivion as just another boring hack and slash starring a big breasted female lead with a ridiculous sword. Even more criminal is the lack of any co-op or multiplayer play, the whole reason Golden Axe was created for in the first place. If you need a Golden Axe fix you can get the original game with co-op on XBLA for 400 points, and we guarantee it’ll be a more enjoyable experience than Beast Rider, which has only served to put another nail in the coffin of one of Sega’s biggest hits.

Rating: 3 / 10

Words by Francis Clarke