// The First Berserker: Khazan
The First Berserker: Khazan is an action role-playing soulslike. Yep, another one. They released a demo, so I thought I’d give it a try and see how it holds up. Here are my first impressions of The First Berserker: Khazan.
It’s developed by Neople, the South Korean dudes who made Dungeon Fighter Online. I know little about DFO aside from it being insanely popular with a lot of people. As of 2023, it had grossed $22 Billion dollars. This puts it in the same company as Spider-Man, Transformers, and Looney Tunes.
I only mention this because Khazan is a character in some capacity from DFO, so there could be a lot of people interested in picking this one up. But as it’s a complete blind spot for me, I’ll be judging this demo as its own thing.
So has the game got the sauce? If initial impressions are anything to go by, I think it just might.
// But first, Khazan?
Khazan is a certified handsome anime man who begins this tale imprisoned in a rolly cage with his arms all slashed up so he cannot use them. He gets hauntified by some ghosts or demons, which allow him to kick ass and do all the dark-souls-like-stuff he can do. They also say mean things in your head as you walk around sometimes. Something about succumbing to the evil or giving over your body or whatever. You know the kinda stuff.
You begin your quest hacking through the remainder of the imperial soldiers who are trying to catch you. The game throws in some snowy mountain monkeys, apes, and yetis for good measure.
He’s voiced by Ben Starr (my beloved). You don’t get to hear too much of him in the demo until the end, but sounds like he’s doing a bang-up job as usual.
The visual style looks to hit about the halfway mark between Elden Ring and Genshin Impact. The humans are definitely anime lookin’ mfers and the world (so far) is much brighter and more vibrant than FROM games usually are. Yet, it still has some grunge in its pockets. I like the style, but I’m interested in seeing more locations.
Digging through the trailers, there does appear to be many more dark and grungy locals, as opposed to the more bright and colourful stuff. The official media kit also offers a good look at locals and concept art.
// Soulslike
Let’s get this out of the way early. If you’ve ever played a souls game, you’re going to be very similar with the systems and workings here. You collect souls, bring them to bonfire, level up your stats there, restore your healing item, lose them when you die, etc, etc.
Everything has its own Khazan inspired names, but it’s essentially the same.
The difficulty is definitely there compared to a non-souls 3D character action game. It doesn’t feel as tough as the Name Brand souls experiences you know and love, however.
When you visit a bonfi- sorry, “Blade Nexus”, you can cash in your souls, er, “Lacrima” for levels. You do this by increasing one of your five stats: Endurance, Proficiency, Strength, Vitality, and Willpower. These will each increase a handful of related stats.
Per usual, you drop your Lacrima when you die and need to go get them. This game gives you a little bit of help when it comes to the bosses, however. Depending on how far into the boss fight you get, you will get some Lacrima for your efforts. Your drop re-appears outside the boss fight. This allows you to slowly but surely gain levels as you keep trying a boss fight. It keeps our progress moving, rewarding your efforts.
The game also has a difficulty selection, which you won’t find in a FROM game.
You have different armour sets and accessories you can equip, naturally. Khazan will also get an additional boost for wearing some complete sets of armour. A nice feature.
// Combat
The game feels good. Although a lot of the basics are the same as other souls games, it’s the small differences that make it stand out to me.
You have a block and a dodge at your disposal for methods to avoid being killed. If you time your block perfectly, you will parry the enemy (it’s called something else, but it’s a parry). Same idea if you perfect dodge an attack, which lets you shoot out of the way using less stamina. The thresholds for these things feels fair. It feels right. Tighter than something like Ghost of Tsushima, but looser than Sekiro.
Doing things like perfect dodges to keep more stamina is critical, because stamina management is very important in TFB:K. As you might expect, you run out of stamina if you are constantly dodging, blocking, or attacking. But if you take a hit while your stamina bar is empty, you are stunned.
This lets the baddies beat the every loving piss out of you. A death sentence in a boss fight.
Initially, it also feels like it regenerates more slowly than I’m used to. Could this because I put almost all of my points in Strength? Probably. I did see there were methods of lowering stamina regen times, if you build into it. Regardless, it was something I had to keep a close eye on, especially before I really got into the flow of combat.
Speaking of strength, let’s talk about your offensive capabilities. You have different weapon types available to you. In the demo, I had access to a dual wielding sword & axe combo, a greatsword, and a spear.
They all felt very different in their use, so I’m inclined to say that you will have a very good selection of play styles available to you. I went with the greatsword, because I love playing a lil guy with the biggest-assed sword or club I can find.
The game also adds a skill-tree. You can use it to build longer combos, increase damage, add new moves, etc. My first unlock was an ability that deals damage when I hit a parry. It seems extremely powerful, and if all abilities carry this much weight, you might really be able to get into some drastically different builds.
You have an overall skill tree, and a separate one for each weapon type.
The demo ends after what I assume is the first major boss of the full game. I’ll spare you the details so as not to spoil it, but it felt just like the kinds of boss fights I love in Bloodborne and Sekiro. It was definitely the tipping point for me onto the “this game has it” side of the fence.
// Worth Watching Out For?
My time with The First Berserker: Khazan was great. Will it go down as an all-timer? It seems unlikely to me. I think it will be a very solid entry into the genre and well worth a play. I would even go as far as to say it may be better than most off brand soulslikes.
The combat feels very snappy and quick, rewarding good timing and mastering your weapon. The visuals are crisp, and the performance was perfect. Some system and gameplay decisions, as well as the addition of a difficulty mode, might make this a good entry point into the soulslike genre.
The story has yet to hook me, mostly because there has not been much. However, there’s lots of room to grow and tap into the lore of DFO.
If you’re on the fence, go try the demo! It’s a few hours of gameplay and should give you a pretty good idea if Khazan your cuppa tea or not. I suspect I will be playing Khazan once it hits store shelves.
