The First Berserker: Khazan

[mfnick]

So, I’m enjoying this. It’s basically a Sekiro leaning Souls game. It has the levelling system of Souls, with an emphasis on perfect blocks and posture breaking found in Sekiro. You have 3 weapons you can use - Dual Sword & Axe for speed, Spear for long range and groups or Greatsword for slow but powerful. Only issue is you can’t switch these mid battle so you basically have to commit which can be a frustrating issue when a group of enemies appears while you’re using the Dual weapon. 
 

It feels great as you’d hope. The perfect block has great feedback and the dodge feels good to use. Think Lies of P but the perfect block is so much more satisfying. 
 

Done a handful of bosses. I’ve loved them all so far. They’ve been really fun to fight and the attack patterns have been the right amount of challenging to learn with very readable animations. 
 

Unlike most of these Souls style games this is strictly level based so far which I’ve appreciated. You have a hub area and then select linear levels or environments form a menu. I know most people wont like that but it’s really refreshing and I’m a huge fan of it being like this. 
 

I have got one huge problem with it so far though. One that may make me end up sacking it off I hate it that much. As well as the block you have a Counter and a unblockable attack reversal.
 

These are cumbersome to use as you have to press a combination of L1+Triangle or L1+Circle respectively. Not the most intuitive while in tense battles for a start but even worse when you take into account the timing. The Counter one in particular has a couple of seconds of wind up. Meaning you have to press it seconds before the attack lands. It just feels bad. There’s some boss animations which give you time to do this but it never feels reliable or good to use. I spent about 30 minutes last night trying to get the timing down against a particular attack & it always felt random when it worked. The unblockable version is slightly better as it doesn’t require the same wind up but still feels off. Another issue is the symbol which shows an unblockable attack obscures the actual animation. 
 

As I’m getting further into the game these are feeling more and more essential. & the fact they’re so bad to use means I might just give it up. 
 

Another issue I’ve just thought of is if you do get these to land, you can break posture much faster on bosses which sounds good. However unlike most games like this where they get another phase at 1/2 health. Here they go into their second phase after you break their posture once. This means you could only have knocked their health down a 1/4 but theyll go into their much harder 2nd phase still. So it’s actually beneficial to play worse so their posture doesn’t break until their health is much lower. Just feels like you’re being punished for playing well so discourages it. Again, that just doesnt feel good at all. 
 

TLDR - It feels great, I love how it looks, bosses are cool to fight. However the posture and counter systems are shit so I might sack it off.

[mfnick]

AAAARRGGHHH!!! Ive been stuck on a motherfucking boss cunt Maluca for over 5 hours now! Never gotten him lower than a 1/4 health. Shit me. 
 

I’ve basically reached this games Genichiro moment. Since my last post I’ve become a lot more enamoured by this game. I’ve gotten used to the L1-Triangle parry/reversal stuff to a point. It’s still not reliable due to the weird timing - making this boss feel even harder than Sekiro’s in a way - but it’s clicking a lot more now. 

[Maf]

Glad it’s picked up. I still want to play it and from the streams I’ve seen it looks fun. Although I can see what some people have said about the level design. Looks quite basic in that way 

 

Also I recently heard this game is set in the DNF Duel universe so that’s really weird 

[mfnick]

YEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!! Take that you bastard! 
 

 

The fucker’s dead! 
 

Holy shit. That was intense. 7.5 hours it took me to beat him. You know it’s a good boss (& game) when you still feel huge satisfaction rather than relief when you finally do it. 
 

When it’s hitting, this game is incredible. When you’re nailing the parries, perfect blocks, counters & brutal attacks it’s up there with some of the best games I’ve ever played. The audio and visual feedback is spot on when you get them.
 

The parry timing thing is still a problem, but I’m starting to appreciate it on its level now. You almost just have to go off feel and a rhythm rather than a reaction.  You kind of just know when to press it sometimes. It takes some getting used to but when you do pull them off it’s genuinely thrilling. In a way it’s feels like a rhythm action game.