The First Berserker: Khazan

• Genre: Action RPG (Souls-Like)
• Spoiler Free Review: No real spoilers in this.
• Time Played: 62 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Definitely felt a bit too long. A good amount of the levels are just twice the length they need to be. Most side mission levels are solid for what they are, but each of the main ones (of which there are over a dozen) are hours each.
• Soundtrack: Kind of your standard fare for the type of game, mostly just ambient noise, but when combat happens they bring our the percussions and chanting choir. It fits, but it's not like it has catchy tunes.
• Why I played: This seemed like it was gonna be one of the most Hell Yeah games I would get to play in some time, and while it was to a degree, it wasn't quite the game I expected. I also really like DNF Duel and hope they do more games outside of Dungeon Fighter Online.
• Did I cry: Not really, there are some moments where they could have pulled it from me if they had spent more time with character development and story, but it definitely takes a back seat most of the game.
• Jank: For the most part the game is pretty polished, mechanically speaking. There is just a little wonkiness with inputs and them not always seeming to register, once I got around the timing of that I rarely had issues, but I definitely feel like the game could have offered a little bit more leeway in when you entered inputs.
• Difficulty: Extremely difficult. This is probably ones of the hardest games I've played. I have calluses on my finger tips I did not a couple weeks ago.
• Recommend to others: This is another one of those examples where the game is just too damn hard to easily recommend. Even to souls vets. I did really enjoy it, but it's tough. It's not the most punishing, but surmounting each wall is a test of patience and fortitude.

Khazan was a really tough game, as mentioned, and something that makes it's difficulty different from other souls-likes games is the much faster pace of the combat. I'm not quite sure any From Software's games make you block 5 times in less than 2 seconds, maybe Sekiro? Speaking of which, the fact that there are in fact several ways to block. 4 ways? 5 if you count the "perfectly timed" brink block, which would mean two ways to dodge, as well. Each block requires the block button, but your standard and brink are just the button, meanwhile, you can do different kind of counters with most the face buttons which have different times you can use them. 

Additionally, you have a skill tree, making Khazan play a little bit more like a character action character, with special moves and conditions in which you can combo certain attacks into others, or new attacks altogether.

 

To be honest, going into it, I thought this was going to be more of a character action game, maybe with some adventuring, somewhere between God of War and Darksiders. If you watch a trailer that is mostly cinematics, special attacks, boss battles, traversing the land, it seems like that might just be the case. But nah, the game is structured almost entirely like a level/mission-based souls-like. You have your regenerating potions, you have your campfire, you have corpse runs, you have traps and enemies waiting behind the corner.

Something that bothered me a bit when I first started to play, because I wanted to play this badass berserker who is just mowing down his enemies in the trailer. Instead, I have to sneak around corners, backstab people, assassinate them from above. Very non-berserker things. That said, as the game went on, traversing became a bit more like that, you get a lot more abilities and power and skill scaled in my favor most of the time maybe with the exception of a few really difficult elite enemies or otherwise bad situations. I even managed to beat a few bosses on my first try.

There are a lot of bosses though 20+? Plus some variants of them to fight later. so a "few" is no big feat, and some bosses took hours. Which is why I wish I could just pause the damn game. It doesn't have any online features, so why can't I pause this damn game. This is just rude as hell, sometimes I need a break in the middle of battle. I'm not Khazan, I have a life outside the game, and it's not ruining anyone elses experience if you let me pause my damn single player game.

While I do wish it was more of an adventure game, I do have to commend the level design. Across 60  hours of gameplay, I think some of the "different" environments can look a little samey. A lot of castles, manors, dungeons, catacombs, dark wrecked towns, caves, etc. I mean, your typical fare for the genre, but I feel like the layouts were very solid. The "platforming" was pretty good but there should have been a jump button, then they could have had more which it almost seems like they wanted to. I liked a lot of the touches to the levels and they felt truly handcrafted with a lot of care and attention to detail. You can always see where you will end up even if you have no idea how you will get there. Something missing from most open environment games.

It was a tough game and I'm torn if the next thing I want to jump into is something similar while I am feeling amped up and locked in, or if I need a big palette cleanser. I still really liked it, when things lined up, playing Khazan makes you feel like a badass some aspects of the story telling felt a bit rushed, like they had the ideas and expected you to extrapolate with those, maybe falling in line with the souls-like story telling too much. This isn't that type of world, it's an existing world that has other games in it's franchise.