I’m exhausted after playing The First Berserker: Khazan over the past week and a half. My hands ache, my brain is fried, and I’ve often had to step away in frustration. It’s a brutally difficult game, one often expecting near-perfection in its toughest encounters. I’m slowly working my way through this Soulslike extension of developer Neople’s Dungeon & Fighter universe, and it’s an understatement to say it’s given me trouble – which is part of why I still have a bit more to go before I’m able to call this review finished. But like a new military recruit, it’s broken me down and, over time, built me into a lethal weapon that’s prepared to take on whatever hellish nightmares wait ahead. Even though I’ve hit seemingly insurmountable roadblocks for hours at a time, I’ve somehow found myself enjoying and reveling in the battles that take me to the brink of my abilities.The First Berserker: Khazan is a classic revenge tale. Khazan, a celebrated general, is betrayed by his empire and labeled a traitor. After being gravely injured while apprehended, he is revived and possessed by a melded legion of vicious warrior spirits who antagonize him into doing their bidding. The Blade Phantom, as the ethereal symbiote is known, is more concerned with advancing the objectives of the underworld from which it hails, while Khazan is out for the blood of those who wronged him. The setup provides plenty to build on, tying grounded medieval politics to the occult forces leeching their way into the world, but the story after has mostly been thin and underwhelming beyond that.Khazan meets various characters as he ventures forth into the world, but besides adding some minor connective tissue to the ongoing plot, they don’t contribute to the story in a way that makes me care about really anything that’s happening. Distressed villagers, otherworldly advisors, former military cohorts, and more start to fill out a sparse hub area known as The Crevice. Outside of being visually interesting as a floating stone sanctuary with mysterious broken staircases and far-off platforms that I’d like to get to and explore, there’s not a lot to do in The Crevice apart from managing my inventory from time to time or pressing onto the next mission area. There’s shockingly little to glean from the greater world despite being the perfect place to slow things down and foster an environment for further flavor. Instead, it’s more a mechanical necessity to pick up optional quests or craft, upgrade, and augment gear for Khazan than an area to explore and enhance the overall story.Being a well-honed instrument of war, Khazan has a handful of tools at his disposal to slaughter his enemies – although it took a long time before I felt like I was on his perceived level of capability. An early mission introduced me to The First Berserker’s three types of weaponry: You can choose to use the powerful but slow and defensive greatsword, a nimble stamina-draining spear, or the whirling assault of the dual blades. I enjoy how unique each weapon type is from the others, offering transformative move sets ranging from defensive and methodical to all-out aggressive. Khazan feels way different than he did at the start roughly 40 hours ago. Each weapon is further expanded with a full skill tree that enhances Khazan’s effectiveness in battle. Nodes on these trees modify your basic attacks, like altering how your charged Potent Blow (or heavy attack) works, changing the stamina depletion for actions like dodging and blocking, or providing new moves entirely by spending a resource called Spirit Points in combat. My Khazan currently feels way different to play than he did at the start roughly 40 hours ago. There are a lot of options to kit out Khazan with as you level him up, and it’s been rather fun to figure out which moves and perks contour best to my playstyle to help me slice my way out of its hardening conflicts.The First Berserker lets you swap between your three weapons freely, but with little overlap between their various abilities, what’s normally a quick switch is actually a dramatic change and a hassle. For instance, in Dark Souls, most weapons boil down to having light and heavy attacks, with maybe a special ability available when switching to a two-handed grip. Weapons in The First Berserker, on the other hand, allow for up to six of the previously mentioned Spirit attacks and further optimization of the skill tree. It’s a lot to deal with when equipping what is essentially a bespoke class. That’s why I’ve dedicated myself to the dual blades during my playthrough, which I’m still tweaking and learning about with every big fight I pick. Thankfully, If I ever wanted to make the big jump to the greatsword or spear, you can reallocate skill points freely. However, the process is just obtuse and annoying enough to do on the fly that I’ve stuck with one kind of weapon throughout.Upon embarking on The First Berserker’s mainline missions, the structure is extremely similar to what’s expected in a soulslike. Each level involves slaying dangerous enemies patrolling the area, figuring out how to survive with limited healing items, collecting spoils of the dead, and using them to level up at this game’s version of a bonfire, called a Blade Nexus. It’s an overly familiar formula that’s certainly inoffensive in its design, with levels smartly built to weave back to prior respites via shortcuts. The First Berserker unfortunately doesn’t add anything that you haven’t already seen in FromSoftware’s games, but it recreates that loop well enough.Capping off each mission is a tooth-and-nail fight with that area’s boss, each of which represents a potentially substantial roadblock before you can continue to enjoy The First Berserker, but these encounters have begun to win me over. The first big encounter I struggled with was the end boss of Mission 2, a manifestation of souls like the ones inhabiting our newly possessed hero. Its aggressive melee attacks would quickly kill me, and after several unsuccessful attempts and unforeseen weapon swaps from my adversary, I needed to try another strategy to finally break through. Another early boss, a bipedal goat demon wielding a flaming spike and hammer, caused plenty of grief by hitting hard and often, occasionally lighting the battlefield ablaze with a carpet of flames. At first, I tried to grind weaker enemies around the level to collect Khazan’s version of souls, called Lacrima, to boost my stats and give myself a better chance of living. It helped, but ultimately didn’t do enough to tip the scales. I then took a close look at my gear and opted for a tankier build. Still no dice. What was once a peak point of frustration has become my favorite part of The First Berserker.Khazan’s bosses are just painfully tough, and the early ones are like a brick wall. Some of the smaller enemies leading up to a boss will somewhat teach you how to deal with certain aspects of them, but there’s little to ramp you into what is continually asked of you moving forward. There’s no easy way to smash your way through these walls in The First Berserker, like finding an overpowered item or excessively juicing your stats. Even in a brutal game like Elden Ring, a notorious early boss like Margit can be overcome more easily if you spend some time getting stronger in the areas before him, but that’s not really an option here. In turn, this immediate difficulty spike genuinely made me want to stop playing after the first few levels – but I’m glad I stuck with it.The process of learning each oppressive bosses’ moves and tells, figuring out when it’s ideal to dodge or block, is extra important in The First Berserker. It’s how I ultimately figured out how to enjoy the experience in the face of overwhelming odds. Honing these abilities was mind-numbing and shredded my will to play early on. There’s no way around the need to execute well-timed damage blocks or rolls and then strike back at opportune moments. Some bosses in the first half of the campaign burned upwards of five hours of my time alone, often leaving me wondering if maybe I should just consider dropping down from the default Normal difficulty to Easy to save myself the stress. These enemies tested my patience, but after overcoming that initial barrier, building the foundation of my reaction options, and adapting my plan of attack, I became much more successful at figuring out the ones that followed.What was once a peak point of frustration has become my favorite part of The First Berserker; the bosses are ultimately what make it worth playing. While they are incredibly hard to take down, every one can eventually be read like a book, telegraphing the moves they’re about to make and predictable strategies they’ll use throughout the fight. Every death that was once met with confusion and irritation has become a learning experience I look forward to absorbing. Every restart is a renewed chance to land my attacks and survive with newfound knowledge. Yes, there are plenty of cheap attacks, one-hit kills, and groan-inducing mistakes, but I’ve been enjoying studying each big boss I come across as much as the catharsis of finally taking them down.The First Berserker: Khazan ScreenshotsI’ve also been able to achieve these insurmountable feats thanks to two great quality-of-life decisions Neople has implemented into The First Berserker. First, dying repeatedly at a boss isn’t for nothing, but rather grants precious Lacrima based on how far you took their life down. Each upgrade that helps you afford gets you a little bit further the next time, and gaining levels by grinding the boss you need to beat is far more valuable than breaking away to farm elsewhere. Second, skill points are awarded separately from the levels you get from cashing in Lacrima, and are instead earned through a more traditional experience bar that is filled simply by being in battle. While not necessarily an increase in stats, unlocking new moves to use or enhancing your favorites can be just the thing needed to beat a stubborn encounter.After finally finding my footing with what’s being asked of me at the conclusion of each mission and gaining abilities that make me feel like I can stand a chance against anything, I’ve come to enjoy Khazan’s devastating bosses. They’re what’s keeping me trudging through largely uninteresting levels and hordes of enemies. It’s been a steep and sometimes demoralizing climb to feel effective with my skills and stats – but there’s also the exhilaration of executing split-second guards and dodges to escape relentless attacks and hit my foes with my own flurry of steel. If I weren’t reviewing it, there’s a very good chance I would have taken a long break early on, and who knows if I would ever go back. But now that I know I’m capable of taking on the worst Khazan has thrown at me (so far), I’m looking forward to seeing it to the end.
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