Golden Axe Beast Rider

Having spent endless hours down at the local Arcade trying to master the original Golden Axe back in the 1980’s, I was looking forward to the prospect of a reprisal for this venerable and cheesy fantasy adventure. For a reasonable sixty some-odd bucks (the number of quarters eaten by the previous generation of this game makes a mere 240 quarters for this one seem like quite a steal) you too can try to get in touch with your inner 80’s child (whether you originally were one or not) and hop onto the Golden Axe bandwagon. Bikini-clad ladies, B-movie plot that takes itself far too seriously, a random dragon and an uninspired dwarf to spice things up, endless stages of baddies to chop apart and, of course, a few oddly-conceived animals to ride… what could be better on a lazy Sunday summer afternoon? If only the game could have been marketed with Nathan’s hotdogs and a ticket to Coney Island included inside.

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Golden Axe: Beastrider
Platform: Xbox 360
Played For: 16 hours

Making this new version of Golden Axe must have proved challenging, as we are clearly dealing with Sacred Video Game Legend here. Throughout the Golden Axe: Beastrider experience it is clear that the makers grappled with the prospect of updating the original side-scrolling technical triumph (for its day) quarter hound to modern sensibilities while still remaining somehow true to the original experience. These efforts met with a good deal of success... aspects both good and bad from the predecessor are quite apparent, from the weird little gnomes that give you stuff when you smack them with your sword, to the vaguely episodic feel garnered by levels where you have to stop and beat several waves of monsters before you are allowed to proceed further.

As one might expect, sticking to the symbols and concepts of an 80’s arcade game makes for a fairly nonsensical, undeveloped world. We learn in the first few minutes of the game that a demon called Death Adder (sounds like a good name for a calculator if you ask me) is taking over the world or something, and only a member of the creatively named “Axerian Sisterhood” has a chance of defeating him.

Unfortunately, all but one of the Axerian sisterhood have been slacking off on their sword-training (for instance, none of them seem to have swords... or axes... or clothes, for that matter) and so they are all quickly dispatched by Death-Adder’s two top lieutenants, a pair of oversized gentlemen who you will later get to fight not once, but twice... each. Fortunately, there is one remaining Axerian sister, an iconoclast named Tyris something-or-other, who really doesn’t fit in with all the other gals... she’s got face paint and a sword, knows how to ride mutant gorillas and invisible goats, sports a belligerent and self-righteous attitude, and she even owns pants... of a sort. Why the other Axerians didn’t toss her out of their club years ago is hard to say, but the dragon god seems to take a liking to her (well, he breathed fire on her and that seemed to be bonding after a fashion) and she has that ever-enviable quality of still being alive after the opening scene.

And so, Tyris sets off to gather the many lost fragments of the Golden Axe, which aren’t really all that lost as she seems to know where they all are. On the way she occasionally gets into fights. Okay, actually, fighting is about all you do, one horde of monsters after another. The battle system was simple but satisfying, with two buttons for attack, and two buttons for defend... the catch being that you have to push the right defend button when a blue attack comes at you, and the left defend button when a red attack comes at you. This struck me as a really simplified version of Heavenly Sword, which, it should be mentioned, was a better game all around.

Tyris also gets to ride various beasties, each of which have the same controls but different specific abilities. My favorite critter was the mutant gorilla, who can drum up a sandstorm at will and can also be put into “spaz out” mode, where anything and everything that gets in its way is utterly torn apart… the critter gets so angry that it eats away at its very health… and it will perish in a paroxysm of uncontrollable bloodlust if you use this ability too often. Luckily, beast-summoning platforms are frequent, ready to give you another full-health creature of burden at a moment’s notice. A lot of beasts met their ends on my play through… I hope the mutant gorilla population can recover.
Being on a beast gives you a huge advantage, so it is always annoying when a bad guy knocks you off of one and steals it from you... take my advice and master the jump-kick move to knock enemies off of your mount (plus, there is one very frustrating occasion in the game where a jump-kick is required to successfully jump across a gorge that is just an inch or two too wide. I only figured this one out after having to repeat the level four or five times, which is never a good thing in a game.) The beasts are fun, but the camera can also get a bit strange when you are riding them (or, worse, when you are being attacked by them) and this bit of the game could have been improved.

But overall I found myself having a good time tromping around this silly B-grade game. Sure, it is a little rough around the edges at times, and not the most tasteful fare as you might expect, but on the whole it plays pretty well and is very true to its genre. I liked the little touches like being able to knock bad guys up onto impaling spikes, or getting a particularly satisfying finishing move to connect. While dusty and bleak, some of the game’s panorama backgrounds were effective, and the boss battles were satisfying in their level of difficulty. The game’s frustrations were infrequent, and the action was as quick-moving as one can expect from a game that doesn’t let things like plot or character get in the way.

Plu

Will I play it more: I’m out of quarters.