Hollywood Video has a massive video game sale a couple of weeks back and I came away with Lost Plant and Golden Axe for $5.  Haven’t played Lost Planet yet, but I’ve been hacking and slashing my way through Beast Rider, which, judging by reviews, I’d been prepared to loathe.

Still five bucks.

Is it worth it?

Probably, but only if you’re a sucker for all manner of beat’em-up as I am.  Heck, I found value in Beowulf the game, an effort that critics loved about as much as pancreatic cancer.   Golden Axe didn’t fare much better, harnessing a sickly Metacritic score of 45.

Yet I remained slightly intrigued.  The old-school Golden Axe games are some of my favorite hack-and-slashers of all time (FWIW, II is the best) so any modern take on the property had at least that going for it.

Five dollars later and I’m in and–it is pretty horrible.  The controls are clunky, the combat is shallow (save for one key aspect) and the overall design is amateur hour.

Yet I can’t stop playing.  Perhaps it’s my desire to see things to their end or a masochistic streak lurking just below the surface, but I’m having a molecule of fun with it.  The main reason is a tweak in the combat.  When an enemy attacks he glows blue or orange, and if you hit the corresponding shoulder button you dodge and counter-attack.  It’s basic reflexes, almost a QTE, yet I found it strangely rewarding.

The beast riding is okay, but toward the end the gimmick is used more for puzzle solutions than combat.  Boss fights are pattern-based affairs and the later levels are highly irritating, reminiscent of the cheapest designs of the ‘80s.

My biggest complaint: no balls-cleaving, axe-wielding power dwarf to play.  Seriously, did Sega forget the bread and butter of their franchise?!

Overall, worth five bucks, but only if you’re a sucker for brawlers.