Golden Axe

So, what's everyone's thoughts on Golden Axe?

I think the game's solid, but I can name a few things I don't like about it--

I found it to be monotonous--there may be different kinds of enemies, but you handle them all the same way. It's not like a TMNT game, where you may have to dodge a projectile from one enemy and a melee attack from another enemy.

In addition, I found the animals to be more annoying to use than helpful. I really only found the fireball-spitting dragon useful, and even then he only served to make fights monotonous, since I could stick enemies up against a wall until they finally died.

There wasn't any move variety, either. You can never hit enemies with the dash-jump-attack, so you're left just to your weapon swing and your jumping weapon swing (barring the magic attacks). Also, there's no strategy behind the throw; it just does damage to that one enemy, you can't use it to take care of other enemies. You can't initiate a throw before you've hit an enemy a few times, either, so it's not like you can use the throw when you want to.

So, hum, anyone want to defend Golden Axe?