Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

"Ick. Another great anime ruined."

You know, I could smell this game a mile away, but I rented it anyway. The Berserk anime was just so cool that I had to play the game that was based on it. The best thing I can say about it is that perhaps it isn't QUITE as bad as I had heard. Oh it's bad alright, but at least there's about 10 minutes of fun to be had. Then you realize how little of a game this actually is. Let's get on into the categories, shall we?

Graphics: 8

Technically, I've seen better. But the art and style are second to none. Fans of the anime will not be dissapointed here, as Gatts looks as intimidating as ever, and the appearance of the game is disturbingly evil and cool. Unfortunately, the character models for the enemies look pretty poor. Overall, nice sense of style, and some jaw-droppingly beautiful scenes. Nice bloodshed too.

Sound: 7.5

For the cutscenes (which are about 75% of the game, more on that later), the sound is superb. The music is rather moody, but it fits well. The voice acting is far better than this game deserves, and I hope that if the Berserk anime is brought to America, they use this cast for the dub. But during the gameplay sequences, the sound needs some work. The sound effects are pretty muted and boring, not to mention repetetive. When Gatts goes into bloodrage, there are some satisfying spraying and gushing noises, but apart from that, the sounds lacked punch.

Story: 8

You know, this game had better have a great story, since it's more of a movie than a game (more on that later). Thankfully, it does not disappoint. The plot is a little hard to follow, but like the rest of the game, it's gothic and evil enough to stay interesting. A complaint could be made that they don't go into the past of the characters enough. I know this was made for an audience that had seen the anime and read the manga, but perhaps a brief exchange summarizing what exactly is wrong with Caska, or who exactly Gatts is would have been nice. Still, that doesn't really matter, since a familiarity with the characters isn't needed to understand the plot. I do take issue with the addition of Puck, the stupid comic relief fairy who is more out of place than any anime mascot I've ever seen.

Gameplay: 2

Okay, here's where we run into problems. This game is terrible. The only good thing about it is that you are spared the horror of actually playing it for the most part. That's because the vast majority of your time is spent watching cutscenes. The game takes about 2 1/2 hours to play through, only about 1/2 hour of which is actual gameplay. It pretty much breaks down into watching a ten minute cutscene, hacking some enemies up for about a minute, then watching another cutscene. Unfortunately, during some of the cutscenes you will be forced to press a button Dragon's Lair style to proceed, and the detection is extremely iffy. The game will randomly decide that you didn't really mean to push the button, and kill you anyway. Not that it matters, since you essentially have infinite continues (You have seven, but every stage, you can save your game and start over with seven more).

As for the ''gameplay'' sequences, Gatts is tasked with killing everything that moves to proceed. You have a few weapons, most of which are useless. The useless weapons include an extremely weak auto-crossbow, an equally weak knife, and sticky bombs that launch in a random direction. You do have a gun-arm that can fire and splatter whatever is in front of you against a wall, but only once per stage. Gatts mostly will rely on the Dragonslayer, a sword that is bigger than he is. His attack consists of flailing it around wildly, killing everyone in the room. But Gatts' biggest threat comes not from the enemies, but from walls. You see, Gatts is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so instead of, say, running down the hall with his sword out to impale his enemies like shishkabob, he insists on doing an overhead slash or sweep, which at least 2/3 of the time will hit a wall and clang, causing Gatts to stumble around like an idiot for a few seconds while some enemy lays into him. This gets more annoying when the enemies start hiding behind pillars. Of course, he can sheath his sword (don't ask me how) and use his fists to attack, but this is just not satisfying. The punches sound like someone slapping a piece of meat with their car keys, so I guarantee you'll go back to using the Dragonslayer because it's just more ''fun''. Every once in a while, Gatts will go into ''Blood Rage'', his eyes will glow, and his sword will magically become immune to walls and start gibbing everyone. This is pretty fun. Sadly, it's over far too quickly, often turning on at the end of a level, and resetting before the next one starts.

I must give the level designers credit, as the levels are rather interesting. It's easy to see how in a good game they would be very fun to play. But Berserk ruins these levels with a plethora of problems. Most notably, the camera angles are frustratingly useless, usually giving us a scenic view of Gatts' backside as he rounds a corner. Sometimes Gatts will be running into the heat of battle as the camera looks up into the sky, making the enemies nearly invisible. The boss encounters are also rather pathetic. Most of them look amazing, but beating them amounts to the same strategy: hack, hack, hack, hack, get smacked down like a little schoolgirl, wobble around for a few seconds, use a potion, get smacked down again, repeat. There is a block button, but using this has pretty much zero effect on the battle, since if the boss misses you with that hit, he'll hit you with the next one, which you are powerless to block. Basically, what would have been a fun, brainless exercise in hack-n-slash becomes frustrating tedium due to poor execution.

Replay value: 0

I tried to play this game through again, but couldn't summon the energy, or boredom, necessary to complete it a second time. There are some extras that you can unlock, but the only one I managed to get was Puck's minigame, which is cute, sickening, and pretty much kills the atmosphere of the rest of the game. Do yourself a favor and don't play it. Regardless of unlockables (which tick me off in any game) I can assure you that you will have no desire to ever play this ''game'' again after you finish it (which won't take long at all).

Overall: 3

The only good thing to say about this game are that it's based off of a great anime, and incorporates the series' style and atmosphere to a great degree. Fans of Berserk will want to rent it. Maybe. The plot is interesting to sit through once. Basically, this feels like they tried to create a script for a Berserk OVA, but it wasn't good enough, so they decided to waste our time by making this game. Stay away. Far far away. This game is awful.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/01, Updated 06/06/01