Of course, we can't leave out the title's namesake when talking about the gameplay, so how does Golden Axe fare when you saddle up an oversized lizard? While riding a giant monster sounds like a good time, even if it's not into battle, the beast-riding doesn't exactly make for loads of excitement over the course of the campaign. The occasional boss fight is a nice change, and the ones faced are of an imposing scale, but their patterns of attack get to be repetitive, just like the rest of the combat. The countering system seems to falter a bit when larger amounts of baddies are present, as Tyris must be directly facing an opponent to pull off a counter or dodge, so when surrounded, attacks coming from any other direction cannot be blocked. Things get to be incredibly monotonous when the game begins sticking the player in small areas and forcing them to fight wave after wave of enemies, all which require the same tactics. During the first few levels, I was actually having a good deal of fun with the combat, as it was easy to pick up and start pulling off sick counters, but as time went on, the system's flaws became apparent.Ī variety of enemies gets tossed into the mix during Beast Rider, eventually becoming heavily armored, but aside from shamans who summon magic and boulders, the strategies remain largely the same. Timed exactly right, a successful counter will allow Tyris to let loose a cinematic Brutal counter, tearing an opponent apart in one swift animation. When an enemy gets ready to take a swing and his weapon glows orange, the attack can be dodged (left bumper), and when it glows blue, the attack can be countered (right bumper). The Golden Axe, once acquired, can be thrown also with the B button, but more on that later.īeast Rider attempts to toss a bit more complexity into its hack-and-slash mechanic and still manages to keep things accessible with a color-coded counter system. Tyris can break out a couple of magical attacks with the B button, such as Dragon's Fire (a concentrated fireball) and Dragon's Blast (a shockwave of fire). The A button will unleash a light attack, X a heavy attack, and pressing both simultaneously will enable a deadly knockback attack to clear away enemies who are getting a little too close for comfort. Getting right into the action, I found Tyris quite easy to control. In order to do that, she'll have to reassemble the Golden Axe along the way. During a sacred ceremony, the series' classic villain, the Death Adder, steals the Last Titan dragon from the warriors, and it's up to Tyris to get it back. The game puts the player in the shoes of one of the original Golden Axe's main protagonists, Tyris the voluptuous Amazon warrior. The campaign is a lengthily one, but it also feels painfully dated compared to what else is being done with the genre it does little to bring the franchise into the present or steer it in a new direction. But even when providing the game with a fresh perspective, it's still quite difficult to find very many positive things. Now that we've acknowledged the lack of co-op, I'd like to bury the issue and move on because Beast Rider shouldn't be dismissed outright for not supplying the function, as it's clear the designers had a different kind of game in mind. Upon the revealing of Golden Axe: Beast Rider, many gamers were quick to begin the assault of criticism because of the fact that this new hack-and-slash lacked the cooperative play that made the original 1989 title so famous.

Golden axe beast rider nicosblog