Berserk

"A Decent Comic Book Based Hack N' Slasher"

Berserk is an amazing Japanese comic book (or manga) authored by Kentarou Miura (currently at 29 or 30 volumes). It's a deep and complex story of war, religion, loyalty and betrayal. It spawned a decent 25-episode animated series, a mediocre Dreamcast game and more recently this game. While the game captures the essence of the comic books well, it's not without any flaws.

I don't understand Japanese. But since I read all of the fan-translated manga I could find, the story in this game wasn't very cryptic for me. This game closely follows an existing plot from the comic most of the time. A portion of the plot is novel to the game, an original villain and a side story.

The game focuses on the travels and ordeals of Guts, a tough-as-nails swordsman who can probably turn anything that stands in his way into a puddle with his gigantic Dragon Slayer sword. He is travelling with a quirky elf name Puck and his mentally damaged ex-lover Caska (that probably sounded funny, but it's unintentional).

During his travels he slays many a demon and monster and meets new comrades on the way such as the strong-willed female knight Farneze, Serpico; a talented tactician and Farneze's servant and a young aspiring warrior named Ishidro who's skilled at...throwing stuff.

Guts' goal is to kill Griffith, his former commander and best friend who was once the leader of a powerful mercenary troop called the Band of the Hawks. Griffith was responsible for the death of the Hawks and Guts still takes that to heart since Griffith was using the Hawks the entire time to become a god. Weird, ain't it? If I actually fleshed out the entire story here, it would take a very long time as Berserk has one of the most complex stories ever told. So I'm just gonna cut it here.

Character movement is somewhat realistic in this. As you run or attack, you really feel the weight of the hefty Dragon Slayer sword. Guts staggers after a flurry of slashes and cuts, which slows you down so you have to plan your cuts well or the enemy gets you real good in your moments of staggering. You tap the Square button to slash quickly, Triangle to slash powerfully, Circle to dash forward quickly and X to confirm actions. Triangle is also to counter an enemy attack if the Sign of The Godhand flashes on your health orb. R1 is also to lock on the enemy.

If you hold L2 and press either of the shape buttons, depending on what you press you can get a side character to assist you in combat (Puck heals you, Serpico freezes all enemies around you, etc.). And if you hold L1 and press either of the shape buttons, depending on what you press you use one of Gut's many attachment weapons (automatic crossbow, hand cannon, etc.). After the usage of these skills, it takes time to recharge them so use them wisely.

Each enemy you kill gives you experience points, you can cash them in to upgrade your magic or stats. You can improve your sword proficiency (you get more cuts in and stagger less), increase maximum health, shorten the recharge time and increase the effectiveness of your attachments or support characters, etc.

But overall this game is very repetitive in it's nature. A good 90% of the game is pure hack n' slash, you fight fight hundreds and hundreds of monster hordes. The other ten percent is filled up by the bosses. The boss battles really save this game from being completely mundane for they are very fun and the attacks of the bosses are very cool to watch (especially Zodd's and Gurenbeld's)

The opening FMV is in a word, stunning. The designers almost seamlessly converted Miura's art style into the game. But the actual in-game graphics are a mixed bag. In-game FMV's are also well done but not as well as the opening. A lot of the environments are repetitive and boring. Character and monster models look great and are incredibly detailed.

Gut's sword even gets stained with blood, as he hacks more and more monsters more blood on the sword--nice little detail there. All models are well animated, they have a decent frame rate, especially Guts and the bosses. The animations for counter attacks are the visual treats in this game. They look absolutely badass and make you go all "Ooh!! I bet he really felt that!".

Whatever character appeared in the animated TV show and appears in this game, their respective voice actors reprise. So that's a plus. Music during the game is dark and grudging, perfectly fit for the atmosphere but just plain dull when it comes down to it. Susumu Hirasawa, the composer for the anime, composed the song for the opening movie, titled "Sign". It perfectly captures the nature of the game and comic, hands down the best track in the game. Sound effects of the Dragon Slayer swinging even adds more to the effect of it being super heavy as it's pretty loud. The sound department, while it has it's gems, is mediocre at best in this title.

The game is short, players can expect to finish in 14 hours or less. After you beat the game, you get two new modes of play. One of them is "100 Animal Murder", in which you have to kill a certain number of monsters in a given time limit and if you succeed you unlock a weapon (such as Zodd's sword, Gurenbeld's war hammer, etc.). There are higher levels of difficultly in which if you succeed you get different and better weapon you can use in your next game. You also get to use these weapons in a mode called "Boss Rush", you can fight any boss from the game with any weapon you choose. A nice touch since the boss fights were the best parts of the game.

PROS:

+Stunning opening video
+A great story
+Nicely animated cutscenes
+Detailed character models
+Kick-ass counter attack animation
+Boss battles
+A few great music tracks

CONS:

-Muddy, dark backgrounds
-Can and will get very repetitive
-Most of the music tracks
-This game probably won't ever be released on the stateside

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/05, Updated 09/07/05