As a fan of Golden Axe, I am utterly disheartened as to what this game has done with the series. For shame...
Yea, that sort of happens here.
The game starts with the usual developer/publisher screens then goes into a little speech that is something like this "In the land of Yuria ... blah blah blah ... you must reassemble the Golden Axe to defeat Death Adder to res-" and it pops to an instant loading screen. It's like they forgot to finish the opening scene in the middle of the dialogue. Yea, this doesn't bode well.
Then the game allows you to start up, with plenty of text boxes explaining things in the first person as if Tyris is talking to you as her internal monologue. "If I can dodge an enemy I can counter with a BRUTAL ATTACK! My enemies will fall!" Ok that's swell.
So some enemies pop up out of the ground or materialize for some reason or another and attack you. The game shows you that A attacks and X attacks with a stronger slower attack. Joy. But then only seconds into the game does it start its horrendous pigeonholing of counter attacks. Think of the counter system in Heavenly Sword (actually a blatant ripoff), but make it not work so well and have the counter buttons which are such a vital part of the game's mechanics be the awkward shoulder buttons.
So essentially you have to counter to survive and do massive counter attack damage. Fair enough, but the way in which Tyris blocks and the timing is very poor, especially for ranged attacks.
Even worse is that you fight anywhere from 1 to 5 enemies at once, and they do not all stand back, EVERYONE attacks, meaning you have to make your move, and some how mash on the right counter attacks constantly while being bombarded with a blue light attack and then a red light attack and so on and so forth. It's like trying to fend off a baseball bat with your right arm and a sword with your left and only those two arms will block those two attacks, but 3 other people are trying to kick you and punch you at the same time. You just can't do it.
Basically, that is the gist of the combat, ad nauseum. Sure there are some beasts you get to ride, but their combat is clunky at best and generally only appear when you have to bash down a door. While you get knocked off at the slightest breeze, your opponents stay on beasts as if their asses were glued to the saddle.
Also, translating a classic 2D gameplay into 3D is hard, and hitting gnomes for food and magic in this is an exercise in frustration, especially with the camera angles constantly changing. Good luck going for the achievement of kicking 150 gnomes. Maybe you'll have hair left at the end of it.
In terms of the animations, Tyris runs like she has a stick up her butt and her sword is sort of being held in the air with a magnet above her head. Enemies when struck literally stand there as if you didn't contact them, but only once sufficient damage is done or you actually decapitate them or something does any new animation come into play, and even then the blood and guts dismemberment is on the level of PS2.
Overall the characters are not very detailed (in fact I think there are approximately 4 enemy types that I've seen and all 4 have no variation in their classes), including Tyris herself. She actually looks like an Amazon from the Amazon river tribes, not like the hot scantily clad Amazon with long hair and voluptuous breasts. I suppose that's fine but the point is that even this incarnation is not detailed. You know running around in nameless and utterly devoid of detail environments, you got plenty of that. Oh, haven't seen generic paths along mountainsides or destroyed villages? You'll see plenty and they all look the same. The only destructible objects here are boxes and pots that have health power ups, nothing else is interactive except for totems and triggers that throwing the Golden Axe at opens doors (yea, you get the Golden Axe, albeit in a weaker state like 5 minutes into the game). And yes, flashing puzzles of lighting torches with magic or smashing totems with the axe is the extend of puzzles, and more like nuisances since the game has an obnoxious pulsating noise telling you which ability to use.
The sound is terrible. The voice acting which is few and far between is just bad dialogue done by generic actors, and most enemies repeat the same guttural growls over and over and the music is devoid of any life or vibrancy.
I don't know what else to say. Maybe that I spent 15$ on this game and that was too much? Maybe that I spent about an hour of my life playing it and got sick of its incessant need to make a brawler a super counter fest trying to separate itself from the rest of the pack when there aren't many brawlers/beatemups out there anyways? Stick to Ninja Gaiden if you want brutal counters. The game forces you to use counters but never lets you get a word in edgewise and is just an exercise in futility. It has none of the good old fashioned mix up the order you buttons with the occaisonal special move and jump kick style of past Golden Axe games or Streets of Rage or Final Fight. Those days are gone sad to say, and Golden Axe Beast Rider was my last bastion of hope for the beatemup genre. It didn't come through.
Lemme just put it this way.
This game sucks.
Lameplay (no that's not a mistake) : 5 out of 10
Graphics : 4 out of 10
Sound : 3 out of 10
Value : 1 out of 10 (If it were free I'd give it a 2)
Tilt : 0 out of 10 (this is the Unlimited Saga of the Beatemup World)
Overall : 3.0 out of 10
Good :
+ You don't have to buy it, no one is holding a gun to your head.
+ You can kick gnomes... if you can reach them.
Bad:
- Just about everything.
- So bad that I quit after an hour of playing it.
- Did I say this game sucks?