Berserk Boy comes blazing onto the scene courtesy of the passionate indie team at BerserkBoy Games. You can instantly see the homages to classic platformers like Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog in its vibrant 16-bit visuals and speedy gameplay. This is a turbocharged love letter to the action platformers of yesteryear.
In Berserk Boy, you take control of young resistance fighter Kei as he unlocks strange powers from mystical Berserk Orbs to take down the evil Dr. Genos. It’s a familiar setup, but man does it feel good to run wild in this world. The slick animations and catchy electronic soundtrack set the mood for some frantic robot-bashing action.
From grinding rails Sonic-style to switching powers mid-combo like proto-man Mega Man, it’s clear Berserk Boy has taken inspiration from the greats. But rather than just aping the past, it remixes these elements into its own rad recipe. The result is a polished and inventive riff on retro platformers that stands tall on its own cyberpunk-infused merits. Strap in folks – with its breakneck pace and visually popping world, Berserk Boy is locked and loaded to take players on one hell of a wild ride.
Speed Devil May Care
Berserk Boy keeps the pedal to metal with its relentless action platforming. The game propels you ever forward through creatively designed levels packed with enemies to bash and hazards to avoid. It’s a race to the finish as you chain combos, unlock new mobility powers, and push your reflexes to their pixel-perfect limits.
The basic loop is simple yet deeply satisfying. Build up momentum by chaining air dashes and grind rails before slamming into foes. Follow up with a devastating shockwave blast to keep your combo meter sky high. When you enter this frictionless flow state it’s almost euphoric – nothing can touch you. The more baddies you batter, the sooner you can unleash screen-clearing super attacks. It becomes an addictive cycle of building energy and stylishly unleashing it.
As you progress, Kei unlocks wild Berserk transformations that completely change his moveset. Suddenly you can drill through floors, chuck endless icy shurikens, even fly freely through the air. These new traversal tools get put to clever use traversing the branching multi-route levels. Certain paths become accessible only after attaining specific powers. This encourages you to revisit earlier stages to find hidden collectibles and prisoners to rescue. It’s hardly a dense Metroidvania, but it spices up the core running and gunning.
Now, Berserk Boy may look retro, but it ain’t exactly NES Hard. The platforming starts out taxing your thumbs, but soon becomes almost automatic. Challenging enemies and oppressive hazards make themselves scarce too. By the halfway mark, I was gliding through most levels with triple S ranks no sweat. Rookie players can switch to Classic mode for some extra old-school bite, but veterans may find the ride gets a tad too smooth.
Still, when you’ve got moves this stylish, who cares about difficulty? Whether it’s effortlessly surfing enemy waves as the icy ninja or spinning wildly through the air as the fiery drill tornado, Berserk Boy empowers you to cut slick swaths of destruction through its expertly crafted stages. The vibrant world blurs around you in a smear of satisfying cathartic action. What it may lack in consistently demanding gameplay, Berserk Boy more than makes up for with the hypnotic rush of its core run and gun platforming. This is 16-bit bliss bottled – drink deep.
A Visual and Auditory Blast
It’s clear a lot of polish went into making Berserk Boy shine as brightly as possible. The slick animations capture a sense of speed and weight that brings each ability to life. Kei cracks like a whip when air dashing, fiery explosions detonate with screen-shaking impact, and enemies satisfyingly pop and shatter under your attacks. Despite the old school vibe, everything runs butter smooth even when the action gets positively chaotic.
Vibrant, varied environments like the neon cityscape, lush jungle valley, and fire lit factories give your eyes plenty to feast on. Layers of parallax scroll by at mach speed while enemies and collectables pop out cleanly against the backgrounds. It strikes a wonderful balance between retro pixel charm and modern sheen. I didn’t notice any performance dips or technical hiccups during my entire playthrough.
And I’d be remiss not to spotlight composer Tee Lopes’ stellar soundtrack. Any fan of his previous work on Sonic Mania will feel right at home with the uptempo fusion of driving synths, wailing guitars, and infectious melodies. It’s an auditory adrenaline rush, capturing the forward momentum of gameplay perfectly in musical form. I instantly had most tracks stuck in my head long after turning the game off. This is a score I’ll be adding to my pump-up playlist posthaste.
From the crackling electric sound effects to the booming announcer constantly hypeing you up to GO BERSERK, everything fires on all sensory cylinders. When it comes to presentation, Berserk Boy is firing on a level far beyond its indie stature. The dev team clearly cared about making their retro-homage as slick and stimulate as possible. This is pixel art theatrics done right – an audiovisual treat bursting with hand-crafted passion.
I really struggled to find any noticeable rough edges or corners cut. Perhaps a few enemy and environment sprites lean a bit too heavily on nostalgic archetypes. But from its exquisitely animated characters to its toe-tapping soundtrack, Berserk Boy’s presentation raises the bar for what small indie teams can accomplish. The game blasts forward at a blistering pace, and its stellar style keeps up every step of the way.
Incentives Undercut by Repetition
Berserk Boy encourages you to replay its levels to find all the hidden collectibles and rescue captive resistance members. Completing these optional objectives unlocks time attack EX stages and the true final boss fight. It’s a nice carrot on the stick for completionists like myself.
The main draw is using abilities gained later to access new areas in previous stages. Certain paths remain locked until you obtain the drill dash, flight, or other mobility powers. Retreading older ground to uncover these branching routes breathes some new life into the linear levels. It adds a dash of Metroidvania spice to the straightforward platforming.
But be prepared for some repetitive backtracking. Many alternate routes reuse similar simple platforming challenges tailored to your newest ability. And with no method of tracking progress, running through areas you’ve already scoured gets dull fast. I didn’t mind replaying stages, but being forced to slowly comb everything a third time to find one missed side path killed my momentum.
Adding insult to injury, some levels gate access to chunks of content behind absurd requirements like rescuing 60% of prisoners before opening. And many of these folks hide behind the exact alternate routes you likely lack the skills to access your first run through. It’s transparently forcing repetitive playthroughs, and the lack of variety turns this incentivized exploration into a bit of a slog.
It’s a shame the recursive level design undercuts the joy of discover in Berserk Boy’s optional content. The basic loop of using new powers to uncover secrets and bonuses in previous stages is quite rewarding. But the execution leaves much to be desired – An in-game map tracking collectibles found would go a long way towards easing the boredom of repeat runs. As is, the arbitrary backtracking mandated dampens the pace of exploration rather than encouraging it organically.
Built to Blast Through
With its energetic pace and moderately short levels, most players will dash through Berserk Boy’s story mode in 6-8 hours. I clocked in around 7 hours myself while rescuing prisoners and only dabbling in EX stages. Speedrunners can certainly shred through much quicker. So if you’re looking for an expansive Metroidvania epic, temper expectations.
But for an indie platformer focused on moment-to-moment thrills, it’s a good length that doesn’t overstay its welcome. And the post-game incentives add decent replayability for completionists. The bite-sized EX levels serve up tight platforming challenges to master. And collecting enough hidden Emblems unlocks a secret final boss with amped-up abilities.
Still, after those credits rolled I found myself wishing for even more. Some form of New Game+ or an ultra-hard ”Berserk Mode” could have extended the explosive gameplay loop. Perhaps DLC stages down the line can satiate fans thirsty for more robot ninja combat. As is, the slightly brief runtime matches Berserk Boy’s go-for-broke pace, but leaves you wanting another hit.
Berserk Boy is clearly designed for quick visceral playthroughs – and excels in delivering that core adrenaline. There’s ample challenge in fully clearing levels and plenty incentives to replay. But don’t expect your breakneck playtime to last more than a few sessions. The experience is intense and polished while it lasts, but leaves you craving just a bit more. It’s a glowing example of quality over quantity – but a bit more quantity could have removed any question of needing more from this stellar debut.
Nitro-Fueled Nostalgia Done Right
Even with some repetitive exploration and difficulty dips, Berserk Boy delivers an addictive dose of what it promises – frenzied retro-style action platforming. It proudly wears its retro inspirations on its sleeve while remixing elements into its own stylish beast. Effortlessly surfing waves of enemies and unleashing screen-filling attacks in vividly realized environments scratches an primal gaming itch. When everything clicks, few experiences match Berserk Boy’s infectious gameplay flow.
By condensing the most thrilling aspects of classic Sonic and Mega Man into a polished indie package, Berserk Boy Games has bottled potent 8/16-bit lightning. Minor grievances like repetitive backtracking and occasionally too-forgiving difficulty can’t overwrite the pure childlike joy of its core run and gun loop. This is a stellar debut that left me grinning ear to ear.
I’d love to see the developers expand on these ideas in a sequel. Bring more enemy and hazard variety, densify the Metroidvania-lite level design, add a hardcore mode – there’s so much potential still untapped! But even as-is, Berserk Boy delivers a quick shot of euphoric retro action platforming done right. It’s a vibrant cyperpunk love letter from fans, for fans. So break out those game pads and get ready to GO BERSERK!
The Review
Berserk Boy
With its slick presentation, inertia-fueled gameplay, and sharp nostalgic style, Berserk Boy is an electrifying retro action rush that’s hard not to love. Minor issues hold it back from true greatness, but can’t diminish the infectious joy of its core run-and-gun platforming. This is a promising debut from Berserk Boy Games that has me pumped for a turbo-charged sequel.
PROS
- Satisfying core combat and platforming loop
- Great style and presentation with slick retro visuals
- Awesome electronic soundtrack
- Varied mobility powers change up gameplay
- Good incentives for replayability
CONS
- Difficulty drops off later on
- Repetitive optional backtracking
- Environments and enemies lack variety
- Fairly short runtime
