REVIEW: ‘The First Berserker: Khazan’ Demands Perfection, But Doesn’t Offer It

A former general-labeled-traitor must battle his way through vicious beasts and conniving conspirators to uncover the truth behind his betrayal. As you might expect, this sets Khazan, the titular hero, on a long, winding path full of immovable objects. From publisher NEXON and developer Neople, Action-RPG The First Berserker: Khazan seeks to turn you into an unstoppable force, for better or worse, with plenty of trial and error exploration and punishing boss encounters to test you along the way.

From the start of the game, as Khazan gazes up at the moon with a gaping void in the center, the tone is clear. Everything is terrible; everything wants to kill you, and Khazan is somehow lucky enough to be possessed by a spirit. This allows him to not only survive but grow strong enough to destroy everyone standing in his way on his quest for revenge. Despite the title, though, Khazan is not a mindless brute solely focused on vengeance.

He’s portrayed as an honorable man who’s trying to bring the men who betrayed him to justice, and he’s rightfully pretty upset about it. This bleak tone pervades the entire experience, from the environments you explore to the characters you’ll save. This isn’t inherently a negative thing, but combined with the punishing gameplay, it makes it harder to throw yourself after successive deaths in The First Berserker: Khazan.

The First Berserker: Khazan is dark and bleak, and that tone never lets up.

For what it’s worth, there’s plenty that The First Berserker: Khazan does well. The story, while bleak, does provide an excuse for cool scenes before boss fights and between missions. This also provides a lot of context for the bosses you’ll fight along the way. As you meet or rescue more characters you have the opportunity to flesh out both Khazan and the world he lives in. You’re even provided with a map of character relationships, which updates through the course of the story. It’s very handy if you’re overwhelmed by the barrage of proper nouns. For fans of Dungeon Fighter Online, you’ll even run into the occasional familiar face.

Many action RPGs are about improving yourself to overcome a challenge, and luckily, The First Berserker: Khazan excels in this area. There are numerous avenues for improving your character, like spending your ‘Lacrima’ to improve one of your five stats, which govern your health, stamina and various other abilities. You also gain skill points as you defeat enemies, successfully guarding attacks and more. These allow you to access unique abilities for each of the three weapon archetypes – dual swords, great sword and spear – and a few skills that apply to your character as a whole.

These abilities can change, augment, or otherwise improve your existing attacks or provide powerful buffs, like allowing your attacks to hit twice in the case of the spear skill tree. One of the game’s greatest mercies is allowing you to redistribute these skill points anytime you’re not in combat. This is useful for experimenting with the various skills, but it also allows you to switch things up when certain abilities prove less fruitful on certain enemies.

Additionally, there are a few items hidden throughout each stage, and collecting them allows you to access another set of passive upgrades. These upgrades are less impactful than leveling up, but every little bit helps when dealing with powerful bosses. This also gives you the incentive to explore the zones instead of rushing to the goal, allowing you to take in the gorgeous world within.

The world is beautiful even if it is absolutely foreboding, ranging from realistic locales packed full of detail to more fantastical vistas ripped straight out of someone’s abstract dreams. Though the gameplay is divided into selectable missions, each taking place in wholly isolated locations, exploration feels similar to anyone familiar with the genre.

Heading out from your spawn point, you can delve headlong into danger, exploring environments that will have you searching high and low for a way forward. In real-time, you’ll have to battle enemies and dodge traps and hazards while progressing through precarious terrains, like walking over a particularly unstable patch of ground, sending you falling to your death without much warning.

If you’re lucky, or through enough trial and error resulting in many deaths, you may find a shortcut or another safe point, allowing you to circumvent a swath of enemies that were previously wearing you down. After enough of these small, perilous steps forward, you’ll eventually come to the main attraction of the genre: the boss fight. Unfortunately for The First Berserker: Khazan, this is where any momentum you had will, more often than not, come to a sudden and violent stop.

Boss fights demand perfection, taking away some of the fun from the experience.

The usual pace of my time with the game was to enter an area, die a few times exploring, then learn the path through and reach the boss. At this point, with few exceptions, I would spend a few hours dying at the hands of the boss as I learned all of their attacks and weaknesses. This learning phase wouldn’t have been so bad if it felt rewarding at all.

Other similar games in the genre typically require you to learn a boss battle extensively but still leave room for mistakes. Several bosses also possess a unique attack that spells certain doom for a player that doesn’t learn to guard or dodge it, but in this game, these attacks are usually part of their regular rotation. 

In The First Berserker: Khazan, you will need to learn to deal with every possible trick the bosses have to throw at you. A single, swift kick from a boss can remove a third of your health, and mastering the first phase of a fight means little when a boss regularly uses a combo that can easily kill you if you mistime a single guard or dodge.

As a veteran of the genre, I’m used to the frustration that comes with getting stuck on a boss, but these boss battles demand perfection in a way that removes a lot of the fun of progressing. Finally, defeating these bosses feels incredible nonetheless, especially because you’re able to play more aggressively while dodging or countering their attacks. Still, it’s hard to feel like any of them were worth it. Despite the mechanics they implemented to make it easier to eventually overcome a tough boss, dying to bosses repeatedly makes the game feel like a slog.

When you die in The First Berserker: Khazan, you drop your Lacrima, the essence you collect from every enemy you defeat. It’s left at the spot where you died and can be collected if you don’t die again before gathering it. When you die in a boss fight, your Lacrima will be dropped outside of the boss arena, allowing you to safely collect it and spend it before heading in.

This game features what is referred to in-game as a boss challenge, a passive aspect of boss fights where you’re rewarded Lacrima based on the damage you inflicted during each attempt. In theory, this allows you to grow stronger even when you’re stuck on a boss, eventually allowing you to overcome your enemy. In practice, though, you receive so few Lacrima each time that you’ll need to die a dozen times before potentially earning a level up. At that point, you’ll increase your damage by three or receive another 25 health, which is virtually unnoticeable when fighting a boss.

These post-death Lacrima rewards also encourage you to rush through a stage instead of defeating enemies along the way. The Lacrima you miss out on is worth getting to the boss sooner so you can start learning their attacks faster, and you’ll receive the resource every time you die anyway. Ultimately, this leads to an oddly paced experience with a lot of frustration when you get stuck on a boss.

There is plenty to enjoy about The First Berserker: Khazan, but it requires you to commit to overcoming its challenges in a way most other games do not. There is a difficulty option that makes bosses less challenging but for the masochistic players that relish a challenge, they may be too stubborn to make the switch. But if you have a lot of time to kill and you feel like punishing yourself, you should jump in.

The First Berserker: Khazan is available for PC via Steam, PlayStation5 (PS5), and Xbox Series X|S.