Berserk and The Band of the Hawk Reviews
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is Omega Force's latest Warriors-styled experience based off an anime. The brutal nature of the battlefield feels right at home as you move from one fight to the next with the once-young man named Guts exploring his life through its veritable rollercoaster of ups and downs.
As an introduction to the world of Berserk, this would be a great title to play, as it definitely piqued my interest to read the original manga. For those burned out on musou titles, I’d say this is still a game to look into. Much of it is familiar, but the structure it provides manages to turn a quickly-tiring style of gameplay into something more engaging.
If you can overlook the small roster and annoying to defeat boss encounters, you will find that Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a fine experience and a must have for anyone who is a fan of the series as a whole.
Berserk and The Band Of The Hawk is one of the best musou titles to date, offering tons of quality content, a well told story and fun gameplay that will enthrall fans of the franchise and newcomers alike.
A bloody romp, a fun time with no brainpower required. One good story followed by one not so good story and literally infinite side content. Fans of the Warriors series will get exactly what they expect, plus extra entrails. Fans of Berserk will likely get a kick out of sundering enemies in two as the black swordsman as well as the host of accompanying characters but may be disappointed that some story details fall by the wayside.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a fantastic hack-and-slash for Berserk fans, and a good one for any other action fans.
Though you may do get bored from time to time with its unchallenging levels and repetitive gameplay, blasting through enemies and beating monsters’ asses are still fun experiences. You may also choose stay for its gripping and emotionally captivating story, as well as the intensity of the characters you get to control. I love it simply for its stunning manga-style yet realistic graphics, its story, and because I can still appreciate a Dynasty Warriors format. You may choose it for these reasons too, and especially if you are someone that enjoys a good hack-and-slash.
At the end of the day, it does what it says, it's a Warriors game, and it does it as well as most of the other games do. It's nothing spectacular, but it is good mindless fun.
Taking everything in to account, “Berserk and the Band of the Hawk” is a decent Dynasty Warriors spinoff and an excellent Berserk game the fans have been eagerly awaiting. There are a few nitpicks as well as some weird design choices that might hold some people back from enjoying the game to its fullest; but, if you can enjoy an extreme power trip with memorable characters and a shocking story, this is one game definitely worth checking out.
There’s no doubting that Berserk and the Band of the Hawk won’t be for everyone – the fact that it’s a Musou game alone will make it a divisive title for gamers. Those who enjoy the games though will find it one of the finest Musou titles to have been released for some time. Everything about ‘Berserk’ works perfectly within the genre, with the series’ brutal combat and massive scale of battles portrayed perfectly in the game. The lack of multiplayer options and the small character roster is a disappointment, but it doesn’t do enough to take anything away from what is otherwise an enthralling experience for both veteran ‘Berserk’ fans and newcomers to the series. There’s hours of savage entertainment to be had with Berserk and the Band of the Hawk and I can’t see myself putting the game down for quite awhile.
BERSERK is certainly not a perfect game, it suffers from confusing and struggling story-telling, repetitive gameplay and not working design concepts. Omega Force tried to squeeze the Berserk franchise in the Dynasty Warriors concept, removing a lot things that make it work and adding some new, not nearly as good things to it. However BERSERK nails one thing: Being Berserk. During the first ~6-7 hours BERSERK´s gameplay works well, due to unlockable combos, leading to a very enjoyable experience, combined with the brutal and fitting presentation. Honestly, I wouldn´t recommend BERSERK to someone who´s new to the franchise, it just can´t tell the story properly in order to understand what makes it so great and is just to “niche” to be enjoyable over its playtime. However, for Berserk fans like me this game fills a hole, the wish to finally play these amazing battles himself, to slaughter thousand of enemies himself and to experience this story himself.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a game made for fans; Musuo and Berserk. Berserk fans will pick at the intricacies, or lack thereof, in the story mode and Musuo fans will lament it for the lack of innovation and shallow offerings. It’s a hard sell for either market, but for what it is worth; I did enjoy seeing the characters come to life on screen and flying through levels in the berserker armour.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is an average but frustrating game.
Overall, Berserk: Band of the Hawk is probably the best adaptation of the manga's story to date, and lives up to the chaos, havoc and authentic visual style of Berserk - Where it falls short, however, is when you start to compare it to other Musou titles, or if you try to jump in without ever seeing a single speck of the original story - My recommendation? Read the first 16-or-so chapters of the Berserk manga, to learn the underlying characters, story and premise, then move onto playing Band of the Hawk; that way the movie cutscenes and dialogue will fill in all blanks up until the end of the game, which stops short around an arc or two where the manga currently rests. If you've played Musou games in the past, this title may seem extremely simplistic and a bit watered down, but for newcomers to this subgenre of war game, there really isn't a better introduction, or a better time to get into them than right now.
In the end, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk offers plenty of content for fans of the franchise in an impressively presented package.
I enjoyed this game more than I did the last set of proper Dynasty Warriors games. There was a better connection with the characters, even though I was unfamiliar with the anime. It found a way to tell a much better story from the source material and make it a great experience overall as it focuses on a smaller group of characters. There are still a few hiccups in frame rate and draw distance, but this game is doing a lot with what the PS Vita has to offer.
This vision of Berserk loses a lot of its narrative potency because it cuts around it and provides only the most basic of skeletons for narrative context.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a strictly by-the-books Warriors-style game. There's enough value here for die-hard Berserk fans, if only for collecting Behelits, which unlock artwork and galleries, and they can enjoy the fun of mowing down tons of helpless foes. However, in comparison to most other recent Warriors titles, Berserk feels unambitious. As an anime adaptation, it's a darn sight better than something like Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage, but it seems to coast on its popular license rather than trying to do something special.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk doesn't do much special compared to other Warriors games, but it's a fun romp for fans of the series or Koei Tecmo's Warriors titles.