"Guts is clearly in a rage because he can't save his own title with his violence."

Sword of the Berserk is a sidestory game to the famous (and violent) Berserk anime and manga.

For those of you not familiar with the world of Berserk, Guts' life just plain sucks. After a terrible childhood, he was one of those marked for sacrifice by one seeking demonic power and barely escaped the carnage that followed. He continues to be tormented by demons drawn to him, as he still bears the searing brand of the sacrifice. Guts is prepared for them, as he is armed with the seven foot Dragonslayer sword.

As the game begins, Guts continues his search for a cure for hia love Caska's mental illness. He comes to a town that is overrun by bizarre plants with humanoid faces called Mandragora, which have a habit of possessing people and causing massive deformities. The lord of the town, Balzac, approaches Guts with the following offer: Hunt down the heart of the Mandragora, and he'll be able to perfect a drug which may be able to cure Caska.

This sounds pretty straightforward at first, but the game quickly raises some questions... Why is Balzac searching for a cure for the Mandragora? And why do the Mandragora seem strangely innocent and childlike for such horrifyingly disfigured monsters? Guts will eventually turn up the answers to these questions as he slices through anything that moves.

The story is told through long cutscenes and some decent voice acting (ignoring for a moment how they use different translations for some of the names than the documentation, like using Gatsu instead of Guts). Unfortunately, Sword of the Berserk suffers from too much story and not enough gameplay. There are 30 cutscenes (as it is divided up in the gallery after completing the game), yet the game lasts for only a couple of hours, with only two or three major stretches of gameplay and five or six bosses.

The controls are rough around the edges. Guts can either go into combat with the Dragonslayer drawn, or fight with his fists and a crossbow. Both modes of combat have a guard button and a jump button as well. You can draw or put away Guts' sword with the L trigger. As you'd expect from holding such an enormous weapon, Guts sacrifices speed and maneuverability for range and power. Guts has some special attacks and combos such as a jump slash and a running tackle, but they fail to be of more use than the basic hack and slash attacks.

Guts also has other weapons at his disposal, which you can access by holding down the R trigger and pressing one of the face buttons. These include his throwing knives, hand grenades, and his arm cannon as well as health restoring Fairy Powder. All of which are expendable (with the exception of the throwing knives), but these weapons are nearly useless due to limited ammo and the difficulty in aiming them.

The character models and textures are good, if sometimes gruesome; the game uses these models in the cutscenes. But many the backgrounds are bland and lack in detail. Special effects are somewhat lacking as well. Clouds of blood spurt out, but the environment and the enemies are not affected by the gallons that fly around with each touch of the attack button. Dead enemies simply fall to the ground and disappear.

As already stated, the game is very short and very linear. The game is broken up into short action scenes, most of which involve slaughtering all the enemies to move on, get from one end of the stage to the other, or kill the boss. Almost all of these are straightforward, but some areas have alternate paths that depend on timing. For example, in one stage you cross a bridge just as bandits start to cut it down. The game prompts you to press a certain button, and if you press it in time you will make it across and take the high route where you fight bandits. But if you miss, you'll end up falling onto a lower path where you fight more Mandragora. It doesn't affect the storyline, or even the gameplay very much (as in both routes Guts has to kill all the enemies to move on to the next action scene), but it is an interesting if poorly implemented idea.

You have a limited number of lives to beat the game, varying from difficulty level to difficulty level. There are three checkpoints at various points in the game where it auto saves. After clearing certain sections and reaching the checkpoint, you can resume the game from there instead of restarting from the beginning.

Replay value is somewhat lacking. Sword of the Berserk only takes a couple hours to complete, and there is little incentive to play more than once or twice. You can unlock a couple minigames like a VMU game and a score attack mode as well as an art and movie gallery, but nothing particularly worthwhile.

In conclusion, Sword of the Berserk is a mediocre game and has little to offer unless you are already a Berserk fan, or can get it cheaply.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/05