Berzerk: Recharged Review (DAwesme)
This is a almost a good game, but it is not close to being a Berzerk game. This game modernizes Berzerk by adding a health system (in place of multiple lives), power ups, and new mobility options. Everything is very fluid and fast, and this leads to this game being a somewhat fun, brain off Twin-stick shooter. However, this is not Berzerk.
When I think of Berzerk, I think of super limited mobility, paired with an endless labyrinth of rooms, filled to the brim with evil robots, who will stop at nothing, not even themselves, to kill you. It's a very cautious and tense game: You can only fire one bullet at a time in the direction you are walking, and everything, from the robots to the walls, want you dead. And of course, there is Evil Otto, the insanely fast bouncing ball of death that is sent out whenever you take too long in a room. These all merged together to make a super memorable arcade game, that until recently seemed forgotten, along with its sequel, Frenzy.
With that setting the stage, here is how all of that is changed for Berzerk: Recharged:
Everything is super fast, from the robots, to the player.
Touching the walls no longer kill you
Robot Friendly Fire no longer exists
There are more varieties of enemies, but there are way less of them in a room, which takes away from the game's tension
Evil Otto is extremely slow, to the point where I almost feel pity for him
In addition, there's a lot of general problems with the game:
The walls have a weird shading effect that obstructs the player, projectiles, and enemies. This is very prominent at the bottom of the screen
There isn't a good indication of when you get hit, so unless your watching your health bar constantly, you don't really know how much health you have left.
When you die, the game waits maybe a quarter of a second before going to the game over screen, meaning the death animation doesn't really play out. There is a death animation in the Co-op mode, but it has a similar issue to the life issue, where you don't realize you've died until after you're gone. Everything lacks impact, contributing to the nothingness I feel when playing
To the game's credit, the updated voices sound nice and feel like they would be used if Berzerk was made today, and you can disable health, power ups, and the dash, which does make the game feel more like Berzerk, but the overwhelming lack of impact anything has sinks the game.
I want this game to be good, and I want this game to Bezerk. As of writing, it is neither, and the Humanoid writing this feels destroyed.