BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! – BERSERK And The Band Of The Hawk Game Review

So if you’ve been following this blog for a bit you probably know one of my favorite anime out there is Berserk. I have consumed just about all things Berserk, including reading the manga and I’m 308 chapters in out of the 351 most recently put out there (pretty much the end of the Arc the game ends at the beginning of), watching all of the repetitive yet still entertaining movies, and the great older anime and newer CG anime. This article however, is about the Koei Tecmo (Read: Dynasty Warriors) game where you get to experience a hack and slash game experience that scratches an itch I had no clue I had until I played this game.

The game starts off with an amazing premise and start, which is a dream in the interstice A.K.A. the Warp/Immaterium/Hell and Guts roaming through it post-Eclipse, where all of his friends and loved ones die/get brutally daemon raped. In a fashion similar to other hack and slash games, such as playing Darth Vader in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, you enjoy the existence of unlimited power destroying things that are little more than insects or vermin. Upon completion of this tutorial we wake up to the cutscene of Guts in the Golden Age Arc as he storms a castle and kills the mighty warrior Bazuso as the final boss. The action is effectively slashing through the entire game with hundreds of foot soldiers charging you and Guts slashing through them like a hot, rage fueled and over-sized knife through butter. The beautiful thing about this game that some people dislike is that the story mode is just that, story mode. You effectively play the show/movies including the lines from the show and cut scenes actually being the anime movies themselves.

So the game play and premise aside, lets get to the technical components. First, this game is buggy as hell on my computer. There are issues posted online and I easily fix them, but it is the biggest and most blaring complaint I have of the game. After fixing these fatal error giving issues, the game runs very smoothly. My gameplay looks great and honestly I contemplated recording BAYOG Plays footage of these games but opted against it so I could just enjoy this game. The audio is then clearly awesome as its the only incontestable feature of the show (which again is reused to beautiful effect in the game). The voice acting being point for point the VA work from the show translates to amazing lines being delivered, even though it’s in Japanese and I don’t understand them. Action sound effects are always just flat out great as slashing through hundreds of people using very entertaining and brutal action combos are simply the most satisfying things and never get boring. We come to the animation and art next, and I’m left wondering why in the fething God-Emperor of Mankind they do not just use this game engine to animate the show opposed to this CG garbage they make us suffer through. Please see the image below to see what I mean.

Beyond the crashing issues and my unbridled rage about the new anime’s issues with CG, I’m left with a chunk of happiness and a great stress reliever as you mindlessly play a game that’s effectively people in blender simulator. I highly recommend getting this game under certain circumstances:

1. You are a huge Berserk fan.
2. You think that Dynasty Warriors doesn’t have enough death
3. The game is on sale ($60 is a bit rough but hey it’s a worthwhile ROI if the above criteria exist)

In addition to the above, a controller is almost completely necessary to play this game. I happen to fulfill all of the above criteria when I got the game and that’s why I find it a super worthwhile thing. Not all components of this game are positive however and the main reason it has a mixed review/any negative reviews is the DLC and bolt-ons. The DLC is almost all reskins and special costumes for about $3.49 with a few missions/warhorses thrown in the mix. Here’s the legitimate text for the Casca reskin “New costume for Casca will be added. She wore this costume when Guts cared for her injury when they fell down a cliff.” And the skin is just this:

All of these are things that could and SHOULD have been in game buy-able unlocks. A nice add-on they tried to package however, was the sale of the 3 Golden Age Movies that came out that summed up beautifully the 26 episodes of the original anime in a wondrous art style that is used for the cut scenes and should have been utilized in the damn new 2016 continuation. But like I said, I just didn’t buy the DLC and I love the game and recommend this for any people who met any of the above criteria. Have you tried this or other anime video game renditions? What did you think? Leave a like and/or a comment and let me know and come back tomorrow for my take on Attack on Titan/A.O.T. Wings of Freedom.