Let me begin by saying that “souls-likes” are my thing. My journey began on Dark Souls 1 release day back on Xbox 360 and since then I’ve been craving more and more Miyazaki abuse.
This being said, for the longest time, I was convinced that nobody could come close in quality to that of FromSoftware, but everything changed when Lies of P proved otherwise. But this, as the title suggests, isn’t a review of Lies of P.
I’ll just get it out there: after spending 2 hours with The Last Berserker Khazan demo, the game isn’t quite there yet. It shows promise in its ideas, and I see that most people are enjoying it, as seen by Very Positive Steam reviews, but I didn’t quite click with me.
The story is intriguing
I love me a good story, and the first two missions of this game set a good tone to it. Khazan is a legendary army general, has been severely punished and cast out of fictional Empire state for reasons unknown but described as treason, is being transported in chains when an evil spirit possesses him, deciding to claim his body for itself. Following a spirit ritual to get rid himself if the spirit, Khazan decides that a mutually beneficial cooperation between them is an agreeable arrangement on his road for revenge against those who wronged him.
This gives me Bound by Flame vibes in the best way possible, even though that game wasn’t received very well by the public, I actually liked it a lot and if anything, I’m looking to play The First Berserker Khazan for the story at least.
The voice acting for the main characters is superb
Ben Starr and Anthony Howell are doing an incredible job from what I’ve seen so far. Especially Anthony, who voices Blade Phantom, the evil spirit possessing the main character, his voice straight up sends chills down your spine with every sentence, and makes me instantly feel like my ambitions, whatever they might be, and quite foolish and I should leave them to rest. Okay I’ll see myself out.
Let's talk gameplay
It’s fun. I wish I could say more, but so far my experience is nothing extraordinary. I played with a parry focused build, and out of the 3 available weapon types in the demo, I liked the greatsword the most, which is pretty uncharacteristic for me, as I usually dislike slow weapons is souls games. Parrying feels alright, not as satisfying as Sekiro or Lies of P, but no real complains there. Perfect dodging has a nice and satisfying slow-mo effect which is a nice addition to the experience, and weapons have a nice feel to them with good sound design for impacts that feel powerful and rewarding.
The skill system is simple and straightforward, and I liked the ability to refund skill points at any time to switch up my build or just try a skill out on some enemies which is always a fun time.
I’m not sure that Diablo style gear system benefits a souls-like to be fair. I personally didn’t see a benefit of sorting through the same leggings type because on of them has 2 more armor points in a game like this, but I did like the idea of combining items of the same set for increased benefits. This however, is not available for all armor sets so your favorite fashion might be much worse than something else in the long run.
Just because controls are not a wheel doesn't mean you should be reinventing them
Please stop. It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable. The souls-like control scheme has been solved for over a decade. Why is your dodge not on B? Why is a critical attack an interaction button??? You know what, sure. But at least let me change it. Both of the provided control schemes are unintuitive and take getting used to. It’s 2025, let your players remap the buttons.
Level design is not great
Not much to say about it to be honest. It’s pretty generic and unmemorable, and if you’re like me and enjoy exploring every nuke and cranny, it will be generic to the point that you’ll be unsure if you’ve been somewhere before already or not, as the enemy corpses disappear.
Also, stop with the platforming. Stop it. I know that Miyazaki is doing it. Be the bigger man and stop it. If you’re not giving your players Sekiro levels of mobility, or even a jump button, leave the platforming segments out.
I'm not a fan of the art style
I know it’s a matter of personal preference, and plenty of people are gonna disagree with me here. I don’t like the anime character design. I’m not an anime guy. It makes Khazan, the scarred and bloodied berserker general look like a teenage girl. It’s weird. If you’re a weeb you will probably not even understand what I’m talking about.
My thoughts so far
It’s not a bad game. Maybe it even gets better, but after playing the first 2 hours of the game, I’m mostly intrigued by the story and not as much by everything else. I’ll probably pick it up later when I’ll crave some souls-likes in a period where there aren’t many games releasing and I have nothing to play.
The First Berserker Khazan Demo
An intriguing story, great acting and fun gameplay, unfortunately, are being balanced out by weak level design and other minor annoyances, making me want to potentially postpone playing this game for the time being.
