The First Berserker: Khazan Review (PS5) – Rock The Khaz(an) Bar

The First Berserker: Khazan plays like an amalgamation of all the spin offs of the Souls genre. The level structure and loot of Nioh, the dark fantasy roots of Berserk and Bloodborne, anime visuals akin to Code Vein. If you can name a motif that’s been inspired from Miyazaki’s seminal series, chances are you’ll find it here too. However, to call The First Berserker: Khazan a mere imitation of other titles would be to do it a massive disservice, a mistake I’d implore people not to make.

Not only is this game set in the Dungeons & Fighters universe, which is brimming with interesting lore, it’s a brutal and rewarding action RPG in its own right. It feels right at home within the “sum of its parts” school of thinking, where it draws inspiration from many sources, before crystalising into its own Netherworld of moody atmosphere, tense battles, and slam your head against a wall difficulty.

I entered into Khazan’s world unaware of much of its history, I’m leaving it feeling a sense of disappointment at my own ignorance. What makes The First Berserker: Khazan a Souls-like worth embarking on a journey of revenge for? Prepare to take on the souls of the damned with me, Khazan’s got that murderous glint in his eye.

Guts, Is That You?

You are Khazan, a great general of the empire, who only just recently slayed a mythically powerful creature threatening the land. Instead of being rightly heralded as a hero, we take control of our long-haired protagonist in quite an alarming state. Exiled, branded a traitor, ordered for execution. Khazan is saved only thanks to some other-worldly influences, whereby he clambers across the Phantom Blade, a force of the Netherworld that enjoys cooperation in the same body about as much as a tiger loves sharing its food.

The journey you embark on is therefore one of revenge. Righting the wrongs of those who have betrayed you, and bringing justice to the perpetrators, one sword strike at a time. As you might expect, The First Berserker: Khazan’s story is a moody, brooding one. There are a handful of interesting moments, like the revelations of a character’s motivations, or a betrayal that later turns out to be anything but, for the most part, Khazan’s tale is a relatively straightforward dark fantasy odyssey.

Khazan himself, though well-voiced by the excellent Ben Starr, doesn’t develop a whole lot within his arc, despite the events taking place being relatively seismic. The wider cast of characters, of whom you’ll acquire on missions and find dotted about The Crevice (your hub world), are fairly engaging personalities, but their role in-game is underdeveloped. They each get a cutscene or two and then one instance of novel dialogue after each mission, but beyond that, they’re effectively quest providers or merchants, with threadbare emotional stakes.

There’s likely a lot more here for fans of the Dungeons & Fighters universe, with plenty of background flavour text and exploration detail to uncover for fans. Equally, for newcomers, The First Berserker: Khazan is quite welcoming (despite his rather angry demeanour), as it’s a self-contained story that doesn’t rely too heavily on prior knowledge of the series. It strikes a nice balance in this regard, and there is still a decent enough effort given to contextualising the narrative that it doesn’t feel wasted. I would have liked a bit more time making these characters feel a more integral part of the story, but I love dark fantasy, so I didn’t begrudge it too much.

A Level A Day Keeps The Berserker At Bay

As Khazan embarks on his mission to tear those who’ve wronged him limb from bloody anime limb, so too will you be taking part in said slaughter. The First Berserker: Khazan follows a mission based structure, comprised of primary or main levels, with a multitude of smaller side missions which re-use those locations, enemies and bosses. All of this is accessed from The Crevice, which serves as Khazan’s central base, including merchants who can craft new gear, augment his equipment and provide stores to purchase or sell consumables and loot.

It’s a Nioh structure, rather than a Dark Souls 1 or 3, for comparison. Levels themselves are intricately crafted, with shortcuts, bonfires blades to bind with, items to uncover and foes to cross swords with. Each mission concludes with a boss battle, which most likely, will take you three times as long as the entire mission did before it. As such, you’ll know what to expect from Khazan’s design within the first few missions. While that should be a negative, it really isn’t. The developers demonstrate an adept level of knowledge about enemy placement, environmental design and most importantly, creative boss strategy, to ensure it’s always fresh.

Just because you know there’s a boss at the end of a mission, doesn’t mean you have any idea what you’re in for. Maybe it’s a manic mercenary with a sledgehammer that converts into a flamethrower, perhaps it’s a giant spider that’ll poison and plague you to the point you’re the abomination. I had the perfect love-hate relationship with The First Berserker: Khazan’s boss gauntlet. I love how intense and brutal the battles of attrition are, mastering timings and pulling off no-hit combos that make me feel like I’m amazing at video games.

Then said boss would switch into its second phase, pulverise me in the time it takes to breathe, and leave me retching back at the checkpoint. On normal difficulty, Khazan is straight up brutal in most instances. A majority of bosses took a minimum of five efforts (with the first two often being throwaway “attempts”). Some took over 20-30. I’ve met politicians less stubborn and rigid than these colossal demons (I haven’t). However, the combat mechanics are that satisfying and well implemented, I was never deterred from dusting myself off and rolling up again. That’s where the magic sauce resides for The First Berserker: Khazan.

Nioh Not Again

The great general Khazan isn’t just a moniker our avatar is given by chance, as his combat attuned nature could match any of the genre’s best. There are three weapon types to select from at any time – Dual Wield (speed), Greatsword (Bonk build) and the best one, Spear. Immediately, there are going to be some turned off by the limited weapon pool, however, don’t be deterred, as each has its own separate skill tree. Investing into these unlocks a variety of powerful skills and fundamentally shifts how you engage your opponents.

Khazan has a variety of abilities at his disposal, not least including dodges, parries, reflections, counterattacks, a throwable javelin, Phantom mode (this iteration’s stand in for a rage mode) and brutal attacks, ripped wholesale from the Bloodborne book of “most satisfying” smacks in video games. Good thing too, because you’ll need almost all of his kit if you want to even have a chance of making it through. The timing on dodges, parries and counteracts feels absolutely perfect. Mistime it, and you’ll be chewed up, spat out and probably spat on again. Hit your timing, and you’ll be launching into a flurry of assaults like the possessed madman you are.

Unlike other entries in the genre, The First Berserker: Khazan encourages both slower, more methodical play, as well as the bloodthirsty aggression playstyle. Cannon fodder enemies can be swiftly dealt with if you’re on the front foot, preventing grouping or ganks, but on some levels, rushing in will have you on the end of a barrage of arrows in no time. The same applies to bosses, whereby learning the enemies patterns will allow you to see moments where aggression will reap rewards, or learn when to back off to land a perfect string of parries to break their posture.

Outside of the mainline Souls games, this is probably my favourite combat system in the genre. Before long, I was ripping through mobs with my spear, tearing flesh from limb on bosses and reaping Khazan’s revenge with a merciless vigour. Everything feels so finely tuned it’s almost impossible not to be sucked into the vicious enjoyment of it all. Again, I can see some lamenting the limited pool of weapon variety and intensity of the playstyles it demands, but The First Berserker: Khazan makes up for that and then some with stellar mechanical precision.

Lost In The Crevice

I mentioned the hub world earlier, and I want to circle back to The Crevice now, as it’s pertinent to some of my less favourable moments with The First Berserker: Khazan. Firstly, this is where you’ll spend a ridiculous amount of time sifting through and dealing with all of your acquired loot. Khazan’s pockets must be from the school of Mary Poppins because my lord, this dude can accumulate more junk than a recycling center. While I appreciate the levels, variety and attribute incentives of gear and armour, it becomes tedious to constantly sort out after every mission.

It wouldn’t be as problematic if the game’s difficulty didn’t demand you to keep up, but it absolutely does. I tried to maximise the potential of my character more in this one than I would typically in a Souls-like experience, but even then I found it overbearing at times. For a game that’s all about intensity, ferocious speed and spine-tingling violence, having to grind all of that momentum to a halt every level to get myself on an even keel again felt disarming. This won’t be everyone’s feel towards it, and I do very much like the bonuses attached to armour sets, so it’s not all bad.

The Crevice is also where you can visit vendors for items, which you’ll never really need, owing to the abundance of loot you’ll always be hoovering up. Additionally, you can boost Khazan’s abilities for returning to past missions or levels, as well as buff the Spirits of Advocacy – summonable NPCs that will fight alongside you against bosses. In this aspect, The First Berserker: Khazan gives the player a wealth of options to make their journey more or less arduous.

Having summonable NPCs be a core mechanic, whereby you acquire tokens by defeating their counterparts, Spirits of Challenge, is a fantastic way of normalising their use. Even when they’re upgraded, they’re not powerful enough to even solo a boss for longer than a minute, meaning they’re a helpful benefactor, not a crutch. Secondly, dying repeatedly to a boss will continuously acquire you Lacrima (levelling up currency), meaning you can continue levelling even if you’re being swatted dozens of times. It’s such a simple addition, but it rewards persistence and discourages you from giving up to go and grind before returning. The First Berserker: Khazan is undoubtably a significant challenge that’s unwavering in its brutal nature, but it simultaneously gives you tools and keeps you motivated to keep going.

The Nether-again-Realm

I mentioned it earlier but I want to labour the point around The First Berseker: Khazan’s visual appeal. As a huge fan of Berserk, this game feels like an inspired love letter to Kentaro Miura’s magnum opus. When I walked out into a frozen boss arena suspended in the air, towered over by an eclipsed jet-black sun, I was awe-struck. Striking a foe with a brutal attack hits the fury of bone and sinew being obliterated with the ferocity of Khazan’s strength. Even a battle in a garden, surrounded by waves and flowing water transcends with a beauty and elegance a game like this has no business displaying so well.

There are a handful of less exciting environments, the kind we’re used to as staples in fantasy titles – mines, tunnel labyrinths, sewers etc, but even these are relatively elevated by the depraved creativity of the creature and enemy designs, which are superb across the board. It’s the kind of game where you can spot an Elite enemy type from one look, no matter how far away you are. To have that kind of visual artistry requires an immense amount of talent, and The First Berserker: Khazan is overflowing at every turn with it.

Unfortunately, the technical performance can’t always match that incredibly high bar. I had four instances of crashing happen within my playtime, and I was never able to discern the reason for them. Crashing is bad in most games, but for a Souls-like where you can lose significant chunks of progress since your last checkpoint, that you may have fought tooth-and-nail to get to? That’s real bad. A couple happened in the hub world, which were no bother, but the other two happened after 10-20 minutes of hard fought progress.

It reached a point where my nervousness and anxiety about progressing was less about the raft of vicious foes in front of me, and more about whether I’d overcome them, only to have the game kick me to the menu and make me want to launch my TV out of my front door. I’m sure this will be fixed relatively quickly, but it is a significant problem in a game that requires chunks of time without progress being saved. Other than that, the game runs flawlessly on performance mode on a base PS5, which is wonderful.

Khazan You Handle The Heat?

We all have our favourite blend of the Souls-like coffee. For me, it’s always been Bloodborne and games with the pace of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. The First Berserker: Khazan has now usurped almost all the other non-FromSoft titles to take its place at the head of them all. When it comes down to what we play games for – to feel entertained, to feel thrilled, to have that sense of exhilaration, I can think of few that had me so entranced as this one within the genre. After being thoroughly beaten down and battered so many times, I simply could not stop coming back to try again, and again, and again.

That’s a testament to how Neople have absolutely nailed the combat fundamentals. The level design is superb, the progression and sense of personal achievement is fantastic. Where it stumbles is in the areas of story development, loot micro-management and technical performance, which hamper Khazan and the player’s ability to blaze forward and carve through this exquisitely crafted, violent parable. Even so, it’s still a superb entry into the genre, one that deserves your persistence and commitment. And boy, will you need those qualities in abundance to overcome its obstacles.

Take up Khazan’s blade in his quest for vengeance however, and you’ll find it to be a cathartic and empowering journey to decimate all that fell on the wrong side of this general’s ire.

The First Berserker: Khazan will be available March 27th on PlayStation 5 (review platform), PC and Xbox Series S/X.

Developer: Neople
Publisher: Nexon

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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