As a gaming journalist, I’ll eye numerous forums and message boards to see under the radar titles that are gaining traction, in order to evaluate how we’ll they’ll do on the site, if I should cover them, and so forth. 2017 seemed like another average year for this phenomenon, until I heard about Berserk.
Comments were everywhere about not only this game coming over to the U.S, but the high possibilities of it’s quality. An insanely violent Dynasty Warriors like hack n slash, Berserk is another step in Koei Tecmo’s crazy lineup this year, due to its cult following and ambition. These levels of hype made me nevertheless excited to try it out, so does it ultimately deliver in bloody stride?
Gameplay:
Berserk may have some similar systems when compared to Dynasty Warriors, but sometimes, it lacks what make those games great, making the title fall into an awkward, uninhabited space. Berserk makes these same mistakes when looking at what should be its titular sell, the unparalleled stages of violence.
This isn’t just because the game only settles on one play-style, but also because there’s a lot of repetition present. Because of this, players are never compelled to cross the game’s over-the-top-ness, which is the main contributor to making so many games entertaining, even ones outside of the hack n slash genre. It also doesn’t help when these same patterns are repeated in one of the game’s modes, killing some of the value.
Story & Design:
What players will appreciate far more than the gameplay is the narrative, which sticks to the franchise’s strengths. This gives an incentive to all the carnage that’s happening on screen, and sometimes the game feels more accomplished because of it. This declines as the game goes on, but I was nevertheless happy to see the trend.
There are some missteps made in the fan service area, particularly including how the series best action scenes are reenacted in gameplay, which I’ve expressed isn’t as striking as the source material. I still give Koei Tecmo props for including large sections of story and background, but other aspects definitely need to be cleaned up.
Presentation/ Visuals & Audio:
If you’re looking for some meaty post-game content after you manage to finish Berserk, set your expectations a bit lower. The game’s modes don’t take too much variety, and some are short and clearly lacking. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the game contained multiplayer, but even that isn’t the case.
One thing I can commend Berserk for is how it portrays the franchise’s most taboo scenes in ways that don’t seem cheap or forced. This is especially impressive because of the long history surrounding how the anime’s typically rated, which falls in the line of an AO.
Conclusion:
I can recommend Berserk and the Band of the Hawk to two very specific types of people (hardcore series fans and hardcore hack n slash fans) but that’s about it. This is because how the game fails to improve itself as it continues, letting the tedium sink in. For a game that promises so much action, it’s sad Berserk can sometimes fall short of it.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk gets a 5/10 (Flawed)
We’d like to thank Koei Tecmo for giving us a code!
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