Back in 1989 it was fine to have a game that utilized only three buttons on a controller. Heck, on some systems that's all the real estate that was available. The original Golden Axe is the perfect example of hack-and-slash simplicity at its finest. You and a friend could hop onto an arcade cabinet (or Master System, Genesis, and several other platforms) and cooperatively play through the adventure of Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, and Gilius Thunderhead in an effort to bring down Death Adder.
SEGA chose Tyris Flare from the trio as the sexy starlet for Beast Rider, a game that totally departs from the co-op nature of Golden Axe and instead offers a solo experience that struck IGN at first as a spiritual successor to Viking: Battle for Asgard. At least when talking about the look of the action. Thankfully after sitting through a fairly lengthy gameplay demo they can say with confidence that Beast Rider expands quite a bit on the stale melee-driven combat of Viking.