Berserk Boy Review (Yaerveth)
Berserk Boy is a wonderful Mega Man Zero/ZX clone with the gameplay gimmick borrowed from Luminous Avenger iX games where you have to dash into your enemies to tag them. However, I felt like this gimmick is underutilized in Berserk Boy since the stages barely have enough enemies to keep the combo flowing, but that’s like my personal wish while it’s quite obvious that the game isn’t designed around combo-ing onto enemies since the stages have different layouts that make use of different Berserk Orb abilities. There is, however, a way to keep the combo flowing and that is done by collecting energy orbs that are floating around that replenish your combo meter as well as your energy meter. On top of that, they add up to your score which determines your final rank at the end of the level. The energy meter depletes when you dash or use different Berserk Orb abilities and keeping it full is a crucial part of the gameplay. It fills back up if you wait around for like 2 seconds, though. Except for this energy meter, you have another meter called “Berserk Meter” that fills up when you hit enemies, then you can use it to unleash the ultimate attack of any Berserk Orb which is quite useful.
As you progress through the game, you gain new forms through new Berserk Orbs you take from the bosses and each of them has their unique skill sets. You have to make use of their unique abilities to progress most of the time and that’s a good way of presenting their abilities to the player. You can also buy new skills for them from Quinn who is located in Resistance Base. The whole story revolves around these Berserk Orbs. There’s an antagonist who tries to harness their powers to attain his goals which usually come down to world domination and as you can easily guess, the story isn’t that mind-blowing. It comes down to a cliché story where you have to stop this guy from achieving his goal. The protagonist, Kei on the other hand has a special ability that can merge with Berserk Orbs without any force. There’s also a talking bird called Fiore that helps you along the way who also plays a huge role at the end. There’s also a counterpart of Roll from Mega Man called Dizzie who dons the role of navigator but also comes down to help you with combat too when the moment calls for it. Kei is originally a teleporter who can teleport anywhere but chooses to navigate through the stages for gameplay purposes, of course.
You can rescue other Resistance members you find in stages, collect Berserk Medals to unlock the ending and go for S ranks for achievements. The stages are usually long and make good use of Berserk Orb's abilities which is a good design in my humble opinion. You also get to unlock EX Stages after rescuing every Resistance member in each stage. I personally don’t have any problems with the game itself, but my only complaint is that the sprites are a bit big and some of them look off, but nothing that will take your joy away. The soundtrack is wonderful and iconic, I immediately fell in love with it. And if you’re wondering about whether it’s metroidvania or not, no. Most of the stages are linear, but some of them require you to take different paths. You could say that some of them are semi-metroidvania. The ending sequence was also blood-pumping with that new form and QTE stuff!
TL;DR
A perfect Mega Man Zero/ZX clone with a great soundtrack and a wonderful level design with lots of forms to choose from! Some stages are semi-metroidvania, but most of them are linear. If you’re familiar with Luminous Avenger iX and Mega Man Zero/ZX games, Berserk Boy won’t disappoint!