Golden Axe: Beast Rider

Beast Rider displays a mystifying amount of ignorance on the part of the game's creators. Not only does it retain zero of the enjoyable traits of the original Golden Axe - it's also oblivious to any concept of fun. The game is really only about running through its stages, solving insipid "puzzles" and mashing down hordes of stupid enemies. This isn't an interesting game idea that's broken by a shoddy execution or a few design mis-steps; this is, from scratch, a bad game. Did they really never notice this?

Often, an enemy is riding a beast and you have to take it from him. How? By attacking it, repeatedly. This will eventually get the enemy to dismount; it also damages the beast. So you can only inherit it with about half of its health. Also, the beasts use their health bar for special abilities. The net effect is that beasts usually die almost as soon as you get on them.

Here's a weird one: there are checkpoints and continues. You start with three continues, and find a few more (very few) as you proceed through the game. If you die, you use a continue and instantly resume the game. If you run out of continues, you restart from the last checkpoint.

You don't get more continues by starting a new level or anything - once you use one, it's gone forever. So effectively, as the game becomes harder by virtue of more and more challenging enemies, it becomes doubly harder because your extra lives disappear. What?

Progress: Titans Wastelands