Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

"A mindless Hack'n'Slash game...but a great Hack'n'Slash game."

Sword of the Berserk is a game that is very under rated in my opinion. It is a fast paced action game were you cut people in half first, and think later. There aren't any puzzles to solve, no keys to find, and no real adventure elements. Then why do I love this game so much? One reason is the story. I'll explain later...

Graphics: The graphics in SotB are great. The people aren't blocky, there are nice texture, no slowdown that I noticed. And I'm suprising that there isn't dropping frame rates because ussally there are arrows flying, people slashing at you, people flying through the air after you hit them with you big, badass sword, and, of course, blood spilling all around you. >:P There is a LOT of blood in the game. Not for the weak at heart.
Graphics: 10

Sound: The sound is awesome. The voice acting is great. Sound FX are good. And the music is just fine. No problems at all.
Sound: 10

Control: The conrols are good for the most part. You've got your jump, slice, swing, and guard. And also, if you hold down the R trigger, you have access to even more weapons. The only problem that I have is that the sword is too big. Its hard to conrol in small corridors, and I found myself turning away from my enemy so that the sword would hit him in its backswing.
Control: 8

Story: Alright, I'm don't really care about the story of a game. BUT, this game has to have the best story that I have ever seen in a videogame. You are Gattsu, a guy who doesn't mind to shed blood over things. You are armed with the Dragon Slayer, a 7-foot long sword. You meet up with Rita, and save her from a group of theives. From there you go to the ruler of th Kingdom, Baron Balzac. He needs you to get rid of the Mandragorans, a plant-type creture that inhabits the human body and...well...the story is amazing.
Story: 10

Gameplay: Not anything that you haven't seen before. hack, slash, run, slice, dice, long cinama(this gamehas a lot of cimama's, most are pretty long.) And then chop, dice, slash, go berserk(which is very fun, especially agains the lighter opponants. I found it fun to see how far I could hit a evil frog ^_^),kill a boss. Repeat a few times. Also, it throws in a few places were you have to press a button in a small amount of time(called Button Timer Sequences) and if you fail, tou might have to go a different, harder path.
Gameplay: 8

Replay value: This is pretty good for an action game. For the three levels of difficulty you beat it on, you get a secret. On easy, you get ''Puck's(your sidekick, a flying elf o_O) Minigame''. On normal, you get Battle Mode. On hard, you get some nice artwork. Alos, in the game you can take multiple routes by slashing through a door, or doing a ''Button Timer Sequence'' correctly.
Replay Value: 9

Buy/Rent: I would say a great buy. If you're an action fan, GET THIS GAME. But, I could see how it might not appeal to everyone, so if your not a big action fan, you might wanna rent it first.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/00, Updated 06/16/00