After playing Kazan, the first Berserker, I’m exhausted. My hands hurt, my brain is fried, and I often had to leave with frustration. It’s a long, cruelly difficult game, and you often expect it to be perfected near its toughest encounter. Like a new army recruit, this soul-like expansion of developer Neopur’s Dungeon & Fighter Universe broke me and over time I returned to a deadly weapon that was ready to take what it was in the store. Even when I ran into a seemingly obstacle that I couldn’t overcome for hours at a time, I somehow found myself enjoying the battle that happily took me to the brink of my abilities.
The First Berserker: Kazan is a classic revenge story. A famous general, Kazan was betrayed by his empire and named a traitor. After being seriously injured while arrested, he is resurrected and owned by a fused legion of the spirits of opposing, malicious warriors to make bids. As etheric symbionts are known, the blade phantom is interested in advancing the underworld purposes that it is called, while Kazan is coming out for the blood of those who misled him. This setup provides a way to guide grounded medieval politics into the world and link medieval politics bound to the story that follows, but the story that follows is almost thin and overwhelming.
Rather than offering open or branching areas for free exploration, tours of Khazan regularly return to sparse hub areas known as gaps between them. Apart from being visually interesting as a floating stone sanctuary with mystical broken stairs and a distant platform, there’s not much to do other than keeping stock from time to time before pushing it into the next mission. Add minor connective tissue to the ongoing plot, including struggling villagers, otherworldly advisors, and former military cohorts, but overall there is little to learn here. Instead, expanding optional quests, crafts, upgrades and Kazan gear even further is a more mechanical need than promoting more flavor.
Kazan is a fragrant war tool, and has several tools at your disposal to slaughter your enemies. Early missions will introduce three different weapons from the first Berserker. You can choose to use a powerful but slow defensive Great Sword, a light stamina drain spear, or a dual blade swirl attack. I enjoy whether each weapon type is the other weapon type and offer a transformative move set that leads to defensive, orderly and offensive.
Each weapon is further expanded with a complete skill tree that increases the effectiveness of Kazan in combat. Nodes in these trees change basic attacks, such as changing how a charged powerful strike (or heavy attack) works, changing the stamina depletion of actions such as evasion and blocking, and providing new moves that use resources called spirit points in combat. My Kazan felt that it was different from the first one to play by the end of the campaign, which was about 85 hours, but it took me a few dozen hours to get to that point and many experiments. There are many ways to kit Kazan when you level up him, and it’s pretty fun to figure out which moves and perks that are best for my playstyle to help you get out of the best competition for my playstyle.
In the first Berserker, you can freely exchange three weapons, but there is little overlap between the various abilities, so the quick switch is usually actually a dramatic change and hassle. For example, in Dark Souls, most weapons are summed up as light and violent attacks. Meanwhile, the first Berserker weapon allows for further optimization of the above mentioned up to six spirit attacks and skill tree. Essentially there is too much to deal with when equipping a made-to-order class. That’s why I focused on dual blades during my playthrough. It was tweaked and continued to learn in every big fight I chose. Thankfully, if I want to make a big jump to a Great Sword or Spear, you can freely reassign skill points, but the process is just The dull and annoying thing is enough to make it attractive on the spot.
Once you embark on any of the first Berserker mainline missions, the structure becomes very close to what you would expect from something like Souls. Whether it’s a ruined village, a crumbling castle, or a swamp of mandatory poison, each level plays the same way. You will use them to kill dangerous enemies that patrol the area, survive with limited healing items, collect looting of the dead, and level up in a version of this game called Blade Nex. It’s a very familiar formula, and its design certainly isn’t offensive, but it’s well-recreates its loop and is smartly built so that the levels return to their previous rest via shortcuts. The exploration is sadly barely present, making each level more about reaching points from point to point. You’ll either lack or stumble on a cool option area that will get you lost and get lost as you go on an adventure that could give you much needed spice to the main level.
Finishing each mission is a tooth-nail battle with the local boss, each representing a potentially substantial obstacle before enjoying the first Berzerker. The first big encounter I struggled with was the end boss of Mission 2, a manifestation of a soul that seems to live in our newly owned hero. That aggressive melee quickly killed me, and after some unsuccessful attempts and unexpected weapon exchanges from the enemy, I had to try another strategy to finally break through. Another early boss, the bipedal goat demon equipped with fiery spikes and hammers, also causes a lot of sadness by hitting hard, often burning flames on the battlefield. At first I tried to crush weak enemies around the level, collecting the version of Kazan souls called Rakurima, boosting my statistics and making myself a better life. That helped, but in the end I didn’t do enough to tilt the scale. After that, I looked closely at the gear and chose to build a tanker. There are no dice yet.
Kazan bosses are painfully tough, and early bosses are like brick walls, burning only over 5 hours. The little enemies that lead you to your boss will teach you a bit how to deal with certain aspects of them, but they rarely bang you at the constantly being asked to move forward. Nor is there an easy way to get through these early walls of the first Berserker, like finding overwhelming items or overjuicing statistics. Even brutal games like Eldenling are notorious early bosses Margaret It can be overcome more easily if you spend time getting a little stronger in his previous area, but while shattering the lacrima and levels early, it is not a cure for any situation. Secondly, this immediate difficulty made me want to stop playing after the first few levels, but these encounters started beating me.
What once peaked my frustration has become my favorite part of the first Berserker. The boss is something that is worth playing in the end. They become extremely difficult, but everyone can ultimately read like a book, telegraphing the movements and predictable strategies they are trying to use throughout the fight. The process of learning each oppressive boss move was extremely important in the first Berserker, considering that it would be ideal to avoid or block, and ultimately came up with a way to enjoy the experience in the face of overwhelming odds. All the deaths that once were confused and inspired have become learning experiences that I have been looking forward to absorbing. All reboots were my chances to land my attacks and survive with new knowledge. Yes, there are lots of cheap attacks, one hit killing, moaning mistakes, but I enjoyed studying each major boss I met as much as I met as the catharsis of defeating them in the end.
Conquering many of the early, overcoming feats was partly grateful for the two excellent quality of life decisions Neople had performed on his first Berserker. First, there is nothing to die repeatedly in the boss, but rather grant valuable lacrimas based on whether you took their lives. Each upgrade you can afford to buy takes you a little more further next time and gaining a level by crushing bosses you need to beat is far more valuable than breaking into the farm elsewhere. Second, skill points are awarded separately from the levels you get from cashing in Laklima, and instead are acquired through a more traditional experience bar filled with merely being in combat. It’s not necessarily an increase in statistics, but unlocking new moves to use or enhance your favorites is just something you need to beat a stubborn encounter.
My previous struggles were overcome by learning to avoid, block and attack properly, but it became extremely important to equip Kazan with powerful gear later in the campaign. Weapons, armor, and accessories have attributes that, among many other types of buffs, increase stats such as fire resistance and stamina regeneration, or reduce incoming damage when blocking them. The most powerful items are sets. Each set gives Kazan a great new look, but more importantly, when equipped, tweaks you towards a specific way of playing, and offers a set bonus. For example, the Beath Slayer set amplifies whirlwind spirit attacks, increasing damage while spitting enemies straight up. Others, on the other hand, may be a better defensive option that offers reductions in certain elemental damage. They haven’t gone far enough to roughly change the way I played, but they’re still a great option to consider.
Another useful way to get stronger later is to take on enough side quests that are available after completing the main mission. These extra challenges remix previously fought sections, sometimes adding new enemy types, and ending with alternative versions of bosses, adding new challenges. They provide textures and context for gear blueprints, craft materials, healing items upgrades, and how the people you meet relate to Kazan’s past, helping you add characters to the world in ways that are so lacking in the central story.
After finally rolling credits, I launched a new Game+Save file and was greeted with an entirely new class of weapons that are not available in the first playthrough. These options grant elemental stats to attacks. This was an explosion to stack up to this point. In the postgame, we see that new spins of gearing are needed to make it more fun or challenging, but we would like to see more items on the first run to provide such a unique effect, bringing a dramatic change in your approach to combat.
