THE FIRST BERSERKER: KHAZAN

The game has fun combat, but it mainly suffers from repetitive enemies, and most of the levels are poorly designed, which makes progressing through them a chore. There were many times I felt lost on various levels, which was very frustrating and almost made me quit the game multiple times. The difficulty is on the high side, and the player can manage the same in the settings, but even in the easiest difficulty, the enemies are not that easy since they have too much health; however, the player will take much less damage as a result of lowering the difficulty. The three different weapons offer the much-needed variety in the combat, because the combat itself also gets repetitive after a while. The game lacks a shield option, but the player can use the guard move with a greatsword to avoid taking damage from incoming attacks. Besides regular attacks, the enemies, especially elite enemies and bosses, have special attacks that require the player to perform a well-timed parry to not only avoid the damage but also counter the attack. Parrying is not hard, and all three different weapons have different timings for parrying. I found the greatsword to be the most useful weapon for my play style. With the greatsword, the player can avoid most damage from any enemy or boss by utilizing the guard move. Besides parrying, the player can dodge, and dodging is doable with any of the three weapons, and it is easier compared to parrying. Managing stamina is the key, whether the player is facing one enemy or multiple enemies; stamina management makes things much more manageable. Being out of stamina during a battle with multiple enemies can make things very hard, since the player can often get stunned due to constant incoming attacks from the various enemies. Eventually, the player can unlock skills and learn moves specific to each weapon type, and these moves can be very handy when the player is stun locked while fighting multiple enemies, especially when the player is cornered and out of stamina. There are multiple healing items in the game, besides the main healing potion, and chugging a healing potion takes a tiny bit of time, and the player has to maintain some distance away from the enemy and needs positional awareness for using it, as the enemies and bosses will often attack the player and disrupt the healing. There are a few annoying enemies as well as annoying status effects like poison in the game. Some boss fights can get frustrating, but practicing helps. The normal mode can feel hard, as that is not really the usual normal mode difficulty found in most games. Side-quests in the game offer good items and provide decent content. Equipment and loot variety drops from enemies are similar to those found in games like Nioh and Diablo. You are getting the same equipment with minor differences in the stats. Due to this, there is less urgency in opening the treasure chests or reaching for hard-to-get items. Limited weapon variety, along with repetitive enemies, makes the game feel repetitive. The major fun factor of the game is the challenging boss fights. The various skills also add value to the overall fun factor of the game. Players are likely to find strategies and skills that are more suitable to their playstyles if they keep experimenting with all three different weapons and unlock the respective skill trees. That being said, the game can easily be played by focusing on your most desired weapon type. Progression and pacing are straightforward, wherein the player moves from one level to the next, the levels themselves get complicated most of the time, with little puzzle involved as well, making the progression not as fast-paced. Poor level design is seen in most levels, where it is not fun to go through unnecessarily complicated pathways. The players can craft armors and weapons, and they can provide stat bonuses, so grinding for crafting materials can be handy. There is a summon system, where the player can summon an NPC known as the spirit of advocacy, to help the player during a boss fight. However, the NPC does not last much, but can get better once levelled up. From my experience, the only reason I used the summon was to distract the boss in the fight, hoping that the boss would focus on the NPC for as long as the NPC lasted, and I could keep attacking the boss during that period.​