Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage is a 3D hack and slash game that has little depth to the combat but has a great focus put into fleshing out the well portrayed story. The majority of the time I spent playing it, I wanted to get through the combat portions to see what would happen next, not to say the combat was terrible but the story was more enthralling. Oh, did I mention the main character wields a giant sword?

 You play as the titular Guts, and you are looking for a cure for your love. She has been traumatized and is not herself anymore. You find out a possible cure for her ailment and seek it out; it is essentially a plant that turns people into zombies. As the story develops, Guts will have to make tough decisions and I don’t want to detail too much about the story because it’s well worth playing this short game to experience. Guts himself is a pretty dry character however, he essentially only does things that benefit him but in the world the game portrays, that seems like a good idea. The game can be a bit dramatic and the comic relief character may put some people off, but here’s an easy test to decide if you’ll like the story; can you tolerate the stories in anime and manga? That’s essential as the game is actually based off of a manga.

 The cut scenes convey much info and are interesting to watch. The first hour of the game, I think you play about half of it. This isn’t a problem as after this the ratio evens out to something more practical, it’s just there is much setup going on in that first hour. This is Metal Gear Solid 4 before it was, in all seriousness I can’t stress how good the game was in this aspect. The game play on the other is bland and devoid of any strategy.

 You have two attack buttons, a vertical and horizontal slice, but you can translate these as light and heavy attacks. You can mash them in different combinations to get different combos but mashing the light attack worked just fine for me. You do have a few alternate weapons to use and they can be useful in a pinch, especially against bosses. Besides the normal attacks and your secondary weapons, you have a meter that will fill with every successful hit. Whenever it is full, Guts will go into “Berserk” mode, he doesn’t take any damage and his attacks are stronger.

 Since you have such a large sword, combat in narrow hallways is a pain. You’ll try and do a combo and if you can get a hit on the opponent then you probably also hit the wall which halts Guts for a second. Giant swords are really great, but if you’re making a game with a character that uses one, don’t insert a lot of narrow hallways.

 The game bills a main feature as its multiple paths however all these amount to is would you rather take this alley or the one next to it. Each path leads to the same exit and you can go back through the other path as they are basically just circles around a building. You are forced to go an alternate route if you fail at the quick time events however. Besides this facet, the levels are either a linear path or just an arena for you to let loose. Being as linear as the levels are, they look great.

 Everything in the game is rich in detail. Each character model has a unique look to them and many items on themselves. The same goes for the enemies although a little less so. The zombie type enemies bear a striking resemblance to the Flood from the Halo games. The voice acting in the game is great, although it can seem a bit cliché with typical characters being represented; gruff hero, obnoxious comic relief, etc. The soundtrack is more of a mixed bag, there are some great tracks with choruses in the background and the music gets up-tempo during intense battles such as boss fights. The music fits the mood,   for the most part few tracks are memorable, however  a track that stuck out to me was a techno track that would play in a forest area, an odd fit.

There isn’t any great use of the VMU in the game. During attack sequences it will keep a tally of all your kills… that you get in that certain room; it resets when you enter a new area. It’s kind of useless as it is and it would’ve been cool if it tallied your total kills at the end of the game. Puck, your elf sidekick, will show up when saving but other than this is usually just displays a logo. My last qualm with the game is the save system; there are only a handful of save points in the game; it’d be good to know this beforehand and turning it off before one of these.

 At the end of the day the game is only 6-8 hours long and that is just the right length. There are a decent amount of unlockables including artwork and extra story info and a minigame to persuade you to play through again, but nothing too great. The story pulls you through the game and the game play, while bland, gives you enough enjoyment to not want to quit.