The First Berserker: Khazan review: a competent Soulslike that’ll test your patience

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Soulslike games come in many flavors. Some emphasize parrying enemy attacks like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, while others completely rely on dodging them, like Black Myth: Wukong. When I played The First Berserker: Khazan, I was looking forward to seeing where its mechanics fell within the Soulslike spectrum. It turns out that it’s squarely in the middle.

Up until a boss battle against a giant bipedal ox, I was parrying every single attack. I finally saw the value in dodging instead of parrying when its flaming weapon inflicted chip damage even though my parry timing was perfect. That boss battle taught me that I couldn’t solely rely on blocking and I needed to utilize every tool in my kit to survive.

The First Berserker: Khazan has some of the most balanced defensive and offensive combat systems I’ve experienced in a Soulslike game, as well as some rich progression. However, some frustrating boss mechanics, braindead AI, and puzzling mission structure hold it back from reaching its full potential.

Standing out from the pack

The First Berserker: Khazan is a Soulslike RPG spin-off of Dungeon and Fighter, a side-scrolling beat-em’ up franchise. It follows a disgraced general named Khazan who is falsely accused of being a traitor. He forms a pact with an entity called the Blade Phantom, who grants him supernatural powers to get revenge on those who wronged him. The game acts like a prequel to the Dungeon and Fighter series, as it tells the origins of the Khazan Syndrome, an ailment passed down to Berserkers that causes increased strength at the cost of mental degradation.

While its story isn’t the most original, it’s much more coherent than your typical Soulslike game. Unlike games like Elden Ring, which is filled with cryptic lore, The First Berserker’s story is comparatively easy to follow as Khazan continuously recruits new allies to his revenge quest.

The First Berserker utilizes an anime aesthetic that’s most similar to Bandai Namco’s own Soulslike, Code Vein, but with much more cel-shading. Its tone is edgy and brooding, but the saturated colors contrast nicely and pop in the character models and environments, making it stand out compared to the plethora of Soulslike games with dull and muted color palettes.

Many inspirations

The combat feels like it takes inspiration from a variety of contemporaries in its subgenre, especially Sekiro. Khazan can parry enemy attacks in order to reduce their stamina and break their stance. He can also dodge incoming attacks like in Black Myth: Wukong and timing them perfectly lets Khazan inflict quick counterattacks. This makes The First Berserker’s combat feel like the best of both worlds, but that comes with a major downside.

Bosses and enemies are very aggressive like in Bloodborne and Lies of P, often attacking in chains with multiple hits. Stamina doesn’t recover fast enough to keep up with these constant hits, though. I often felt that my stance kept getting broken. Sekiro didn’t have a stamina bar for dodging, which is what made its parrying mechanics feel fair. Even with stat upgrades that boosted Khazan’s stamina recovery rate, it didn’t feel like it was enough to withstand constant onslaught of attacks.

Thankfully, there’s some flexibility with Khazan’s skill tree. Of his three available weapons, the dual wield sword and axe, the greatsword, and the spear, I felt that the spear fit my playstyle the best with its long reach and wide attack range. I was able to put skill points into specific spear techniques as well as upgrading my counterattacks to give myself even more defensive options. Skills points can be returned and reinvested at no extra cost, which adds to the system’s versatility.

One standout feature that The First Berserker has is that it gives players Lacrima (this game’s version of experience points) upon dying in a boss battle. Like in many other Soulslike games, I spent hours trying to defeat certain bosses, but made no progress. Depending on how close I was to defeating the boss, I earned more Lacrima. It’s almost a mini roguelite system: Even though I was constantly getting my butt kicked, at least I was making a smidge of progress each time.

Khazan can call on an ally for help during boss battles, and it works similarly to Lies of P. By fighting copies of himself found at random spots in levels, Khazan can earn a consumable called a Shard of Advocacy to summon allies. Allies inflicting extra damage or being distractions is helpful, but the AI isn’t very helpful. In one particular fight, I fought a boss that could create areas of fire that constantly drained HP. My ally simply wouldn’t move out of the fire, leading to its early demise. Another boss had an attack that would draw me in, but could be easily avoided by running or dodging backwards. My ally never did that and died at that point of the fight every single time.

Tying the ability to summon allies to a consumable is frustrating, especially when trying to farm for them. Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it considering how easily allies can die. I feel like I’d be better off fighting the boss alone most of the time.

Growing pains

While the combat is mixed, The First Berserker’s level design is top notch, filled with accessible shortcuts to make getting to bosses easier. Lowering drawbridges, finding keys to locked doors, and activating elevators all felt immensely satisfying after fighting my way through hordes of monsters.

Whenever Khazan goes to a new level, he starts a mission. Players progress through the levels and dungeons as usual, unlocking save points along the way like any normal Soulslike game. However, Khazan can’t warp between any of them. That isn’t inherently a problem, but it’s compounded with one incredibly baffling mission structure decision: If you want to go to a new level, the entire progress of the current level is reset.

While the save points unlocked will still be available, every single door and puzzle needs to be done again. This stifles backtracking and exploration. There was one particular level and save point that I found that was perfect for farming Shards of Advocacy. However, once I left the level to do a side mission in another level, I was unable to quickly access that same area again and would have to go through the entire dungeon once more just to do so. Farming for the consumable was annoying enough, but having to redo the dungeon to reach that same point was even worse.

Equipment like weapons and armor are dropped by enemies or found in chests, and The First Berserker’s loot system is one of the most manageable I’ve played in recent memory. It doesn’t overwhelm players with new drops every five seconds like other Soulslike games, such as Nioh, do, and there are plenty of ways of using old equipment you don’t wear anymore. You can simply sell them for gold, or dismantle it to earn some Lacrima to go towards increasing Khazan’s stats. Additionally, old equipment can be consumed to change the attributes of other equipment or increase their level. The process is incredibly streamlined and I never felt like my old equipment was going to waste.

The First Berserker: Khazan really tested my patience, even more so than other Soulslike games. It almost made me want to snap my controller in half at times. But as tough as its bosses were, its systems are easy to grasp. Even with some questionable design choices in the mission structure and issues with the way stamina is handled, the game’s flexible combat made me want to see the journey through. Khazan may be the first Berserker, but I wasn’t far behind myself; I must have caught Khazan Syndrome the way I was losing my mind playing this game.

The First Berserker: Khazan was tested on Xbox Series X.