Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage Review

Overall Rating

Great Visuals
Original storyline
Good voice acting

Uninvolving
Repetitive
Too many cutscenes, too often
Quite short

Sword of the Berserk is a strange game: it really doesn't know what it wants to be. On the one hand, it's a sort of 3D scrolling beat 'em up and on the other it's nothing but a computer generated movie. You play Gatsu (aka Guts), a wandering warrior with a flying elf for a sidekick, who is on a quest to cure his simple minded sister. When he happens upon a band of thieves attempting to hold up a travelling side show, Gatsu intervenes and kicks their butts. The sideshow then invite the travelling hero and his followers to view their show in the next town as a reward - but little do they know that the show's strongman has a dark secret - he's infected with a strange plant based disease that turns people into zombies - Mandragoria. When the townsfolk find out, they attack the sideshow and the strongman mutates into a bizarre monster. Gatsu again grabs his trusty sword and slays the monster.

That's when the adventure really begins and the rest of the story is told in the form of a lengthy cut scene. But that's the problem with this game - there isn't much of a game here. In the first half an hour of 'playing,' you wont actually do much except watch cut scenes that tell the story. What you do actually play in a traditional sense, are a series of rather short and un-engaging 3D Golden Axe type stages that simply involve running around for a bit bashing the attack buttons until all the enemies are dead (they even do that comedy flash/disappear thing when killed). When they've all been dispatched by Gatsu's sword (usually takes about 2 minutes), the next 10 minute cut scene kicks in - and that's the drill for the rest of the game.

The game is visually quite impressive and could easily pass for a mid generation PS2 title, but that's irrelevant when there is so little actual gaming involved. Once you complete the main adventure, several new modes are added to increase the longevity, such as a battle mode - ala Panzer Dragoon, but it's not really that great. A great showcase for the DC's graphical capabilities, but not a game that'll keep you hooked for any length of time if only due to the lack of un-interaction and laborious movies.