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Sword of the Beserk: Guts' Rage Review
Gavin Frankle
00/12/0000
"Is that a sword in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
"Is that a sword in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?". It's hard not to be noticed when you're carrying a huge sword around, but the good thing is that nobody would dare mess with you. Well, that's what you'd think anyway. It seems that everybody wants a piece of our hero Gattsu and it's your job to slice them into as many pieces as possible.
Unlike most hack 'n' slash games, SotB has a long and complex storyline that serves to provide some background as to the goings on around the land as you try to unravel the mystery surrounding the Mandragora. Based on the 70's comic, SotB follows the adventures(or is that misadventures) of Gattsu, Casca - his simple-minded companion and Puck, a small fairy.
The control scheme is elegantly simple. The L trigger draws or holsters your sword, while the A and B buttons swing your sword horizontally and vertically. When your sword is holstered, you're able to use a number of weapons including grenades and hand cannons. A cool feature in battle is the 'Berserker' rage Gattsu goes into when his 'Berserk' meter is full. When this happens, the screen goes red and Gattsu not only becomes invincible, but incredibly powerful as well, slicing enemies in half seemingly at will and neatly dispatching any enemy unfortunate enough to get caught in the way. The environments vary from open forests to the narrow alley-ways of a city, and the action the game provides is usually fast and intense. However, a problem arises when fighting in the above-mentioned narrow streets and stairwells. If Gattsu hits a wall or other solid object, he doesn't complete his swing, resulting in you missing the enemy. Granted, this is fairly logical, but it makes the game incredibly frustrating at times, because you'll need to resort to your wholly inadequate fists and powerful, but limited arsenal of weapons, instead of being able to carve your way out of the swarm of enemies the game throws at you.
In an attempt to break up the standard fighting, Yukes has added a quick-time event system, much like the one in Dynamite Cop and Shenmue, where you are required to enter specific button combinations to avoid certain in-game dangers. It's a welcome addition, and I enjoyed the sequences, as they gave me an opportunity to test my reflexes(although, they're hardly difficult) instead of just smashing my through the level.
The in-game sound effects are good enough, with the requisite metal 'clangs' and painful screams of your opponents. The music is enjoyable with fast-paced beats keeping the adrenaline flowing during the heat of battle. The voice acting is exceptional, Eidos made use of the team responsible for LOK: Soul Reaver, and it shows. Lines are delivered with emotion and the characters' personas are brought to life by their off-screen counterparts. I enjoyed the story, but at times I felt the cinemas went on just too long when all I wanted to do was smack around some goons.
SotB is an enjoyable game despite a few shortcomings. The action is intense, the storyline solid and there are a few secrets to be unlocked for those people who are willing to play the game through a number of times. Oh, and for those of you that care, there's a whole lot of blood in the game, and by a whole lot, I mean buckets of the stuff.
