Golden Axe: Beast Rider

How beastly...

With numerous classic games now available on the Xbox Arcade, PlayStation Network and the Wii Virtual Console, nostalgia is as popular as ever. So the classic Golden Axe series has got a makeover and can be played as a fully-fledged release, but with a disc that you can spin around your finger and everything. So, let's see if it's worth the extra money compared to the other remakes available...

The main character Tyris is hanging out on her island with her sisterhood of warrior priestesses when a bunch of monsters appear and kill all her mates and their dragons. Tyris considers this to be simply unacceptable and sets off to find the parts of a golden axe, which will allow her to kill the guy behind all this nastiness.

It's a good enough story, and gives our heroine reason enough to get from A to B through plenty of baddies. This can be done on foot or on the beasts mentioned in the title. There are also some very basic puzzles, by which I mean finding all the switches that need to be pulled to open the next gate.

In short, this is nothing more than a brawler, so how does the combat system stack up? Tyris has her fast attack and her strong attack with her sword, and these can be strung together into combos, or used together to push enemies away. She also has various magical abilities that are unlocked as the game progresses, such as fireballs.

There is no lock-on system as such in this game, with Tyris swinging her blade in whichever direction you point her. However, ranged attacks always aim for an enemy in front of you and the sweeping slashes with the sword do a good job of connecting.

When your opponents are about to attack you, you can see what sort of counter you can use by the 'glow' that appears around them. Orange means evade, Blue means parry, and Green can be countered by either. Red attacks must be jumped away from. You only have a small moment of opportunity to identify and counter with the correct button, but after a bit of practice I soon got the hang of it and was dodging and parrying to my heart's content.

The enemies range from the standard cannon-fodder, easily dispatched, to big guys with huge weapons to be dodged. The bigger ones can be frustrating to fight as there is so much patience required, but the hordes of little chaps are great fun to carve a path through.

You may notice that there has not yet been any mention of the eponymous Beasts that are, in theory, to be rode. Various beasts appear throughout the game - some are fast while others are good in a fight. The game always provides you with the most suitable one for the situation, and they are often required for specific tasks such as breaking through gates.

Unfortunately, I left it a long time before mentioning them because they are fairly irrelevant. They die very easily, throwing Tyris back onto her own two feet, and when you do find something you need one for you must to go all the way back to where you first got the creature, and find it again. This is quite a large annoyance, particularly on the more epic levels. The beasts are quite unwieldy in combat as well - the controls seemingly modelled on a tanks, and they get quickly hacked to pieces by a large gang of enemies. Not only that, if you get knocked off your enemies can jump on the beast and take control themselves, and suddenly the beasts are as tough as nails. This, as you can imagine, can be frustrating.

Gripes aside, the overall package isn't bad, and the combat system is decent enough without any major issues. The graphics are possibly a bit under-par for the current generation, and aren't anything special, on the other hand. Unfortunately the main gimmick of the game is pointless at best and frustrating at worst. There are challenge modes available after the game is completed and extra costumes to unlock, but nothing to offer real replay value. In conclusion, if you like a fantasy brawler there are much better games out there to have a look at.

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By Richard Bright