In the event you had requested me which property, of all of the cool IPs on the market, would get a significant push to new genres, I’d by no means have guessed that Dungeon Fighter can be an choice in 2025.
An action-oriented MMO that first stole hearts within the early 2000’s, Dungeon Fighter is getting a good-looking new figurehead in The First Berserker – Khazan. And you recognize what? So far as missionaries spreading the nice phrase of Dungeon Fighter to the lots go, it isn’t half unhealthy!
Khazan is a Souls-like at its coronary heart, with an emphasis on ruthless aggression. The sport needs you to be aggro, speeding in and dodging harm, slicing by way of enemies in a deluge of blood splurts. With such violence comes shameless pleasure, and the sport is fast to thrust you into the motion ballet that has enraptured 1000’s of Souls-Like fiends world wide. Me included: I am a misplaced trigger.
Developer Neople reveals a deep understanding of what followers of this model of motion recreation need, primarily by way of its method to fight design. You get a block and a dodge, proper? Normal bundle. However, time each excellent – earlier than you are hit – and also you get a replicate or ‘blink dodge’ that present extra alternatives for offense, or a stamina bump. You’ll be able to be taught a parry by way of the ability tree, however there’s one other parry that solely works in opposition to particular unblockable pink assaults. The sport throws instruments at you, trusting that you are a scoundrel who loves messing round with all these choices. And guess what Neople? I’m a scoundrel, and revelled on this nonsense.
This aggressive method depends closely on stamina. Fight, particularly in opposition to bosses, is a recreation of motion and response – utilizing up nearly all of your stamina to pump out harm, then taking part in defence till you are again on the entrance foot. Stamina recharges over time, however sure ability tree upgrades can present boosts to stamina technology on replicate and dodge. Your enemies have stamina, too, and depleting that opens them as much as a strong Brutal Assault that completely refills your assets, and permits you to go all out but once more.
It is an intriguing method. Souls-Likes have been stamina-reliant ever since Demon’s Souls, however few have constructed a lot upon the useful resource. Every part ties into stamina. The results of this, at Khazan’s finest, is that gamers can have interaction on this participating back-and-forth till you deplete a boss’s stamina fully, earlier than cashing out the next stun state for an enormous hit, a full stamina bar, and an open stage to drag of your nastiest combo. As such, a lot of the sport is constructed round pushing your benefit, staying proper within the face of enemies to stop them from catching their breath, and planting you within the hazard zone always.
Initially, I discovered myself torn between going ham and taking part in overly defensive. However at round 12 hours in all of it clicked. As you acclimate to Khazan’s effervescent waters, you spend much less time holding again and extra time up in individuals’s faces. On this zone, Khazan has a vigour to it that entraps the center and saved me eager. Let me put it this manner: I’d a lot fairly spend three hours grinding Khazan than play an hour another recreation out proper now. Sure, together with that one.
The sport’s method to weapons and gear freshens issues up too. There are three weapons sorts in complete, which does not sound like rather a lot, however every compliments a particular model. I, caught up within the haze of fast-paced gentle assault flurries, stayed true to the twin wield weapon sort, however for those who like massive hits or extra conservative pokey fight the greatsword and spear respectively will preserve you content material.
You’ll be able to then praise your model with gear that drops, all coming in quite a lot of attractive types and stat sorts. Gear can even are available units, which have bonuses when mixed collectively, and you may even re-roll stats on gear items you wish to fantastic tune your personal shirtless himbo. It is a large a part of Khazan. Gear set bonuses are extremely helpful, extra so than pure defensive stats, and a few of the ring/necklace units are bonkers. 30% diminished total harm taken? 50% elevated summoned bestie harm? Ridiculous numbers that show invaluable throughout difficult fights.
No matter your method, it is price noting what a lot of you might have assumed already: Khazan is tough. It is bizarrely laborious. Now, I’ve performed my justifiable share of difficult Souls-Likes, however the distinctive quirks of Khazan set up it as its personal unusual place within the style graph of how laborious video games like this pull your tooth out.
Funilly sufficient, the common ranges aren’t laborious in any respect, however Khazan is so fast at throwing difficult bosses at you, particularly relative to the hardship you will face within the mission main as much as them. The second boss has two phases, with completely different assaults unfold between them. The third additionally has two life bars, unblockable assaults, vastly completely different assault patterns between the 2 kinds. The fourth boss has a passive elemental harm burn that whittles down your well being, an unlimited AOE assault, and it is even break up into two flooring in order that the boss can completely cowl one flooring in an unlimited blanket of fireplace that’ll simply straight up kill you. The sport shortly throws you into the maw of an incredible beast, beneath the understanding that you are a masochist that’ll take pleasure in pulling your self out of its jaws.
Because of this Khazan does not have a problem spike, because it had been, extra of a problem stegosaurus. One can glean from the sport that you just’re meant to bash your head in opposition to these bosses. In truth, the sport rewards you for doing so! Each time you die in a boss battle, you get a kickback of level-up forex you could slowly use to enhance your stats after every botched run. Identical for ability level XP, too. So the bosses are constructed as these massive partitions that it is advisable to bash your head in opposition to and – finally – by way of. Now, that is masochism.
In order for you, you may summon a Spirit of Advocacy that can assist you out. It is much like different ghostly allies from the sport’s contemporaries, nevertheless it begins off weaker than an American lager. To energy them up, it is advisable to defeat summonable mini-boss phantoms for forex, the identical forex used to name in your golden homie to your facet. These are unfold throughout the assorted missions in Khazan, and are supposed as non-obligatory challenges that make progress by way of common enemies spicier and, in flip, make the missions’ last battle simpler. A trade-off that equals the scales.
What this implies for these totally caught, although, is that if you wish to enhance up your summonable pal, it is advisable to farm. Farm up forex to summon allies, certain, but in addition to strengthen them up sufficient so you may surpass your foe. Once more, for those who’re a lover of smashing your head into bosses advert neuseam like me it isn’t an enormous downside, however spare a thought for Terry Jenkins, age 45, recent again from a shift down the mines and seeking to play some video video games in his spare time. He, and regular individuals I would assume, is probably not eager on gathering dozens of summon tokens. And who can blame ’em, actually?
The sport additionally suffers from ample boss reuse, which would not be such a nasty factor if the sport had unfold the second coming of major story fights out a bit extra.. The second boss I discussed earlier has a barely completely different variant; you are requested to battle them in a facet quest proper after the primary story mission by which you first encounter them, similar for the fourth boss, and this pattern continues. When used conservatively, boss reuse generally is a welcome sight. Even a hype one. However in Khazan, it is achieved too usually, too quickly, and so the enemies lose their wow issue solely.
The sport has a kind of animated film really feel with its 3D cel-shaded graphics that gained me over. It is like the sport popped out of a kind of greater finances CG anime films, and this goes a good distance in setting the sport aside from grimdark Souls-Like motion recreation quantity 56 on Steam proper now. The background artists have additionally achieved a stellar job; from the second the sport began, I discovered myself looking on the vistas simply out of attain and going, cor, that appears beautiful. Khazan breathes recent life into the Dungeon Fighter universe in a manner that nearly made me wish to obtain the OG MMO. It is a love letter, actually.
The place this falls to the realm of mediocre is the story itself, which is a reasonably commonplace revenge story with the world’s angriest man searching down those that did him incorrect. It is fairly commonplace, although it is facet missions the place issues go from common to comical. I shall not spoil it right here, however aimagine Khazan handing an orphaned child gorilla a loaded gun, just for Khazan to be horrified that this gorilla has not solely attained candy revenge, but in addition a boss bar beneath him half-hour later. Nice job Khazan, very cool. In any other case the sport is a soaking in tragedy and offended yelling which, y’know, I am not averse to. It is simply not precisely the primary draw right here.
Khazan is the proper instance of a recreation that is greater than its particular person parts. The sport does re-use rather a lot, however the gooey core of the sport is so participating, so enjoyable, that you do not actually care. It is moorish, devilishly so, and whereas the sport does not nail all the pieces, it’s got sufficient guts behind it to warrant a sturdy advice to nearly everybody. That’s, except you battle with the problem these types of video games champion. In that case, Khazan will not welcome you to the Dungeon Fighter universe with an open hand, however fairly smack you away with a closed fist.
The First Berserker – Khazan was reviewed on PC, utilizing a code supplied by the developer. It is obtainable for PC, PS5, and Xbox Sequence X|S on March 27.
