The First Berserker: Khazan Review - Brutal and Rewarding
How does a berserker combat style, where it is all about giving in to rage and constantly attacking your enemy, work in respect to the Soulslike genre, where blocking, dodging and having the patience to learn attack patterns are the key to success? These were the questions I pondered as The First Berserker: Khazan was installing onto my Playstation 5. It turns out that would be the least of my worries, as a distinct lack of skill found me facing defeat time and time again, threatening to break my resolve and render me a broken man, sobbing as I lay on the floor in the fetal position. But deep down in my heart, I knew I had to complete the game for this review. There were plenty of times I felt that berserker rage building, but it was only with a cool head and steady hands that I could vanquish my foes.
The first thing you need to know is that the ‘The First Berserker’ part of the name is only there to signify its connection to the Dungeon and Fighter (DNF) series of games, where one of the subclasses available is a berserker. Because Khazan is set way before the timeline in which the DNF games occur and chronicles how Khazan came to be ‘The First Berserker’, you don’t need to be knowledgeable about the series, and Khazan can be played and enjoyed as a standalone game, albeit one that is a truly brutal take on the soulslike genre.
The narrative is a tale as old as time. ‘Man is a mighty General and hero, betrayed by his emperor, tortured and sentenced to exile before becoming the host of a phantom on a mission of its own. A partnership is born, the Blade Phantom prevents the man from dying, and the man uses his proficiency in killing various humans, humanoids and monsters to work together to accomplish their individual goals.’ Despite the various tropes present, the story in Khazan is engaging, mostly presented to the player through cutscenes and graphic novel-style presentations. As with some others in the genre, Khazan is presented as a series of linear missions for the player to work through, or to revisit in the event you need to grind for some extra levels or farm for gear.
Nearly all of these missions will have a boss fight that will put your skills to the test. Even on what the developers called ‘easy mode’, it took me a lot of tries before I was able to barely survive the fight with Viper, one of the first major bosses that will push your skills. Imagine my heartache when it turned out he had a second phase. Yes, I did eventually get through it, and that victory felt so, so sweet indeed, but the small bonus was that each time I died, the game rewarded me with Lacrima, the experience source used to level up Khazan. While only a consolation prize, it did allow me to get closer to levelling up instead of the standard death and lose everything. While most of the mechanics in Khazan follow the standard soulslike formula, this difference was a nice touch that helped me overcome some of the earlier boss fights where I needed to power myself up to survive.
After the first few missions, you will have access to The Crevice, a hub where you will be able to access support characters and travel between the different regions to access their missions. From any Blade Nexus, Khazan’s equivalent of bonfires, grace, meditation circle, insert preferred term here, you can transfer back to the crevice to purchase supplies, or craft better equipment before returning and continuing your path of destruction. Alternatively, you can also return to previously completed missions to earn more Lacrima before returning more powerful and better equipped to face the enemies in front of you and kick some ass.
The greatest misstep in Khazan is the way a number of the mechanics are handled. They are either not explained, poorly explained, or the results are different to the expectations given. I had been playing for about 15 hours when I realised that Khazan’s Memories was not just a tracker of exposition found throughout missions, but a whole different upgrade system that provides skill points to spend if you find all the information collectibles in a mission. The game also implies that other ghosts can be brought into the whole that is the Blade Phantom, and the first side mission you can do is to take on one of these wayward spirits. With your success, you can choose that spirit to ‘accompany you’, essentially providing a bonus that grows better the more combat you experience with that ghost. However, this one fight is the only time you have the opportunity to do this; instead, throughout the game, as you access the next story mission, a new ghost will appear on your list. However, instead of fighting these spirits, they are locked away until you find the specific item they desire and only then will that unlock them and allow you to access their bonuses.
I also want to comment on the design of The Crevice. For potential minor spoilers, I will not go too deep into it, but there are two versions of The Crevice that you can visit. One inhabited by the Blade Phantom and characters from the Netherworld, and one inhabited by allies from the land of the living. Thematically, I can understand the need for two different versions of The Crevice, but in practicality, it gets annoying having to run from the point you arrive, run to the portal between the two halves, make your way to the blacksmith and do what you need to do, before turning around and running back to the portal and back to the tablet that represents your current mission area. Surely it would have made more sense to be able to transition between the two at will. It is only a small niggle in the grand scheme of things, but when you combine it with the above you get the feeling like the developers maybe were too focussed on adding in more mechanics and systems rather than focussing on what they already had and refining them.
The only other issue I took with the game was its treatment of some side missions. Like other soulslike games that have a mission-based structure, side missions will see you retreading the old ground of the main mission content. Sometimes these have new pathways that were not available before; other times, they will make you play through the map in a different direction, with changes made to the time of day, weather, enemies, etc. I have no problem with that at all. What does annoy me is when the game uses a previous map in a different sequence and tries to play it off as a new location with a different name. It only happens a handful of times, but it just feels cheap to me personally.
These are only very small gripes in what is truly a wonderful gaming experience for fans of the genre. Not only does the cel-shaded artwork give off the vibes of an anime-style world, which is appropriate given its DNF connection. The English cast voice work is also great, especially Ben Starr as Khazan. It would have been very easy to just play Khazan as a crazed man concerned only with vengeance, but the nuance he brings to the role helps to keep the player invested in the narrative.
Of course, in a Soulslike game, the narrative is not the only thing that needs to be able to keep the players engaged. Satisfying combat and epic boss fights are a must if the game is to be successful, and on this count, Khazan excels. Khazan can be kitted out with a greatsword, a spear, or dual-wielding an axe and sword, and each of these plays differently. I migrated to the spear very early on and found that it worked best with my playstyle, but one of the beautiful things about Khazan is that all the weapon skill points are shared and can be earned with any weapon. You may get to a point and decide you want to change from the heavy-hitting greatsword and try out the more nimble spear. With a click of a button, you can reset all the skill points you put into the greatsword and apply them as you see fit. The only downside is that you have to allocate each of the points manually whenever you change between the weapons.
As they should be, the boss fights are immense challenges that will push you to your limits more often than not. While there may be the odd one you manage to overcome quickly, for the vast majority, it will be ground gained through knowledge and death. Elemental consumables can help in these boss fights, but finding out which one is most effective is very much a matter of trial and error. Even with the game set to what the developers called ‘easy mode’, there were many times spent dying constantly to these bosses. On one particular boss, I was ecstatic when I defeated him and got ‘Mission Complete’ on my first attempt. “Maybe I am finally getting good at this game”, I thought to myself, only for the bastard to get back up and wipe the floor with me. It took me so long to even get him to that phase two for a second time, and I know the final battle count was at least over thirty attempts.
Yet, I kept coming back. Khazan had its hooks in me so deep that I kept throwing myself at the game, pushing myself to get better. When playing most of the games in this genre, I would just grind until I was powerful enough to overcome the boss fights. Not this time. I had to get better. I had to win. And there is no better feeling than conquering that mountain. So, do you have what it takes to step into the shoes of Khazan and carve your way through the lands of Pell Los Empire on your quest for vengeance?
The First Berserker: Khazan was reviewed on the PS5 with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
