Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage for Dreamcast Review

The Story

Gattsu (a.k.a Guts) and Casca survived a brutal supernatural attack against their band of mercenaries called The Hawks. Casca has turned silent since she was emotionally scarred by the carnage. Guts’ love for her can do nothing so they are forced to roam the land in search of his destiny, a cure for Casca, and to seek vengeance against the clan that struck down The Hawks.

They enter one land that is being overrun by wars and famine and a horrible plague. Unfortunately, the plague is embodied through parasitic plants that attach themselves to humans and turn them into monsters, the Mandragorans, and control all the actions. Guts is asked to help the country live through the plague by destroying the plants, monsters, and eventually the man who created it all.

The Gameplay

Sword of the Berserk is pure hack-n-slash action. You control Guts and his 7-foot sword, the Dragonslayer. You travel different landscapes wielding your sword and crossbow killing everything in your path. And by path I mean everywhere. Pretty much, you’ll want to use your sword since that has the most power, but if you hunger for projectile killing, then whip out your crossbow and fire machine gun-like arrows at your foes. Or, if you’ve picked up cannon fodder, then use your small hand cannon (isn’t medieval times fun?) and blast away.

With the Dragonslayer, you have your basic Slice and Swing hits, but you also have a power slice and a power swing combo. In addition, you can combine the hit buttons for other combos.

Now, the fun comes when it’s time to activate Berserk Mode. If it sounds as much fun as it reads, then you’d be right. As you kill opponents and successfully hit those bad guys, your Berserk meter fills up. When it’s full, Guts’ eyes go red and he becomes slightly angry. He becomes faster and stronger and more immune to attacks. Trust me, it’s fun.

The Control

The ironic part to the control is that while not in Berserk mode, Guts is a little sluggish and hard to turn on a dime. He does have a huge sword after all, but if there were enemies in front AND behind me, I couldn’t turn as quick as I wanted and would take damage from one of them. But when he entered Berserk Mode, Guts goes all crazy and is easier to control. Since he’s faster, I could turn on that dime and swing that sword without trouble.

One thing that got annoying even though it adds to the realism: I hit a wall with my sword. It stunned me for a second while I recoiled. I could hear the ringing in my ears.

Otherwise, unsheathing/sheathing the sword, actual attacking, and shooting the crossbow or throwing the knives was responsive and switching between doing all three were smooth.

The Graphics

Eidos has always done well with graphics and they continue their tradition. For the Dreamcast, they went Hi-Resolution, which didn’t effect the gameplay at all. The movie sequences were seamless from gameplay to the cut-scene and the combat animations didn’t flinch at all. I did find some of the characters a little weird looking, but got over that quick when I saw the rest of the graphics.

Thompson’s Two Cents

I recommend Sword of the Berserk. It is short (less than 5 hours), but at certain points in the game you can choose multiple paths, so there is replayability. Especially if you want to unlock everything. The story is engaging and the characters sympathetic. And did I mention that entering Berserk Mode will make you go crazy, just like Guts? Well, it will.