Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

"I never wanted any of this"

Gatsu is a warrior who travels with his wife Kaska and an elf named Puck. A terrible event had occured which sent Kaska into a permament state of shock, leaving her more or less brain dead. Now Gattsu (Guts to his friends) travels the land looking for a cure to heal his wife. One day they come across a wagon being attacked by vicious bandits. Gattsu intervenes, slaughtering the bandits. Here he meets a travelling circus and follows them to a nearby town with a problem - some of them have been infected with the Mandragora - a mandrake plant which causes freakish mutations to its victims and makes them incredibly volatile. When one attacks Gatsu kills it and then meets the leader of the town who, Baron Balzak, who makes him an offer he can't refuse...

Based on an anime, Sword of the Beserk combines much storytelling with some slash 'em up uber violence. Basically the game follows the structure of long cut scene followed by an action sequence - with each occupying just about the same amount of time. In the action segments, it's kind of like an ultra-violent Golden Axe. Gatsu is armed with a sword as long as he is and also has arrows, grenades and a cannon at his disposal. Though slightly repetitive, the combat is thrilling and very gory. The enemies are really well designed and individual looking and are downright disturbing. Graphically its brilliant. The characters are fantastic, the stages are brilliant and the overall product smacks of quality. The game engine seems to be similar to Code Veronica, which should give you an impression of the high quality of the visuals.

Sound wise, things are equally impressive. The soundtrack is of movie quality and the voice acting which features the same actors as the Soul Reaver series is exemplary. Although many may find the fact that roughly half the game is made up of cut scenes off putting, the story is so good and engrossing that I really enjoyed them. Also thrown into the mix are some quick time events where you must quickly press a button to trigger an event - in fact the use of this managed to predate the identical ones found in Shenmue. Whilst the gameplay itself is very simplistic, its great fun and the fact that you can cut monsters clean in two means that the sick and twisted will feel right at home here.

It must be said that this is one of the most genuinely disturbing games I've played - some of the imagery is downright horrifying. For instance, on one occassion Kaska finds the a foetus which has been infected with the mandragora and starts singing to it. The sight of the traumatised woman cradling this horribly mutated baby is really effectively nasty without seeming unneccesary and gratuitous.

Sadly this is one of the shortest games I've ever played. I finished it in a few hours and as I've said about half of that was cut scenes. However playing it on the different difficulty settings unlocks different things - it's kind of like the Pandora's Box system in Panzer Dragoon Zwei. So that means you'll have to play through it at least 3 times to see everything. There's also a mini game to unlock which is mildly diverting. Even so it's still really short.

Despite the length issues though, I must admit that I adore this game. The plot is fantastic and really deserves a movie to be made of it - it's that good. And whilst the gameplay is simplistic and often takes a back seat to the storytelling, the visceral nature of it will keep you hooked to the end. All in all despite its inadequacies, this is one of the best games on Dreamcast.

GRAPHICS - 9/10 - Some of the best enemies ever seen! Great environments, great lighting, perfect frame rate... fantastic!

SOUND - 10/10 - An awesome soundtrack and some of the best voice acting ever. Fantastic.

GAMEPLAY - 9/10 - Although admittedly not enough of it, it's great fun and the fantastic story makes its simplicity all worth while.

LIFESPAN - 5/10 - Plenty of bonus stuff to unlock, but is still really really really short.

OVERALL - 8/10 - In spite of being more of an interactive movie than a game, this still manages to be one of the best action adventures on Dreamcast. With a sumptious plot, great acting, extreme violence and an epic soundtrack, Sword of the Beserk is a real winner.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/16/02, Updated 12/16/02