Berserk and The Band of the Hawk Reviews
'Berserk and the Band of the Hawk' manages to adapt the popular manga series in all of its glorious badassery in video game format for fans and newcomers alike.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk captures the essence of the series in spectacular fashion.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is great. The strong visuals and story are complemented well by the gameplay. It should be satisfying for both fans of the gameplay style and fans of the Berserk franchise, and still approachable enough for fans of neither to enjoy. The only downside is that Warriors games' signature gameplay can lead to fatigue in long play sessions. It's a solid and polished game that is definitely and easily recommended to all.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a guilty pleasure that is best digested in small doses. It's really entertaining to savagely murder dozens of enemies with such a large weapon in a single swing, but with such simplistic combat and generally unaggressive enemy forces, the novelty wears thin after a while. On one hand, it can be a great entry point for those who have been curious about the original manga and anime, but at the same time, this is also a fairly dumbed down telling of these stories and characters. Long-time berserk fans will be excited to hear that the story does go further than the "Golden Age" arc (an overly represented arc) and actually has extensive story that goes into the "Falcon of the Millennium Empire" arcs. Any Musou fan already knows if they are interested in Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, but this is not the grand Berserk game Guts deserved.
Simple, violent and rough around the edges, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is just like its protagonist, Guts, and equally just as endearing in small doses.
Berserk and the Band of Hawk is a fun and beautiful experience, especially for those who read the Manga or watched the anime. The soundtrack and the fast paced gameplay give you intense moments that will make your experience even better. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours, the game start to feel repetitive, and the lack of additional modes gives you no reason to play the game again after finishing the main story.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk offers an interesting story full of action but fails to deliver on the gameplay. It is a game for the fans of the series but it should also serve as an introduction to newcomers.
Berserk is targeting its niche audience, those of which are fans and those who don't mind limited gameplay style, content and ideas in the light of experiencing the story of this classic series with their beloved characters.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Berserk and The Band of The Hawk is certainly a nice change from the regular Dynasty Warriors games- It was a pleasant surprise and something I greatly enjoyed. The source material makes for a very entertaining story in the main campaign mode, and it kept me playing for several hours straight at a time! There is a lot of content and plenty of extra modes to keep you playing for a while… not to mention a Platinum trophy that will certainly require dozens of hours to secure!
The only reason you should be picking this game up is if you are a huge hack-and-slash fan, a big fan of Musou games like Dynasty Warriors, or a Berserk fan. If you aren't any of those, then you should skip this game.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the end, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk offers plenty of content for fans of the franchise in an impressively presented package.
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.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is an average but frustrating game.
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 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.
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.