The too-simple, two-button combo system left me wanting more.
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It’s aggravating because there are seven other playable characters that could have cut down the story mode’s repetitiveness drastically, but out of 46 Story Mode missions lasting a total of around 20 hours, only five let you choose a character besides Guts.
I would have loved to experiment more with other characters.
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But alas, Guts is who you’ll have to smash through Story Mode with in order to even unlock these characters for use in other modes. His extra combo finishers and new sub-weapons are unlocked as you progress, and both offer a few brief moments of newness. Guts’ cannon is stand-out here, doing a considerable amount of damage and noticeable side-effects to enemies, stunning them or outright obliterating them in an AoE explosion.
You can also ride horses into battle, but mounted combat isn’t nearly as effective as attacking on foot and it gets old fast. It’s a funny sight and they are an excellent method of transportation, but when it comes down to it, it’s still easy to follow the same tactics against mobs over and over and over again.
That repetition is partly because the mechanics that’re here aren’t really used. You are capable of guarding and dodging, but I rarely needed to do either unless I was up against a formidable boss. But most of those are surrounded by minions, which made it much too easy to quickly fill the Frenzy and Death Blow gauges for massive damage.These balanced boss fights were far and few between.
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So I cranked up the difficulty, but even then Band of the Hawk barely put up a fight. And for some reason, even though it wasn’t significantly harder, it rewarded me with absolutely absurd amounts of experience as though I’d done something to earn it, basically power-leveling me and putting me even further above the competition.
So most of Band of the Hawk is a pushover, but there is one boss fight that spikes frustratingly hard in the other direction, even on normal mode. The boss is surrounded by tornadoes and throws gravity magic balls and blades at you if you’re able to bypass the whirlwinds of death. This is all to be done while your movement speed is cut in half, which can only be remedied – temporarily – by destroying a marker that sometimes also takes refuge within the barrage of tornadoes. It was so mind-numbingly absurd that I could only beat it by cheesing. Actually, I really can’t tell if I even was cheesing, or if my method was what Berserk and the Band of the Hawk intended. Yes, I’m still salty. But the point is this boss fight wasn’t good.I spent a lot of time tinkering with the unexpectedly interesting accessory-customization system.
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There are no extra awesome new weapons or gear to be found in Story Mode.
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Endless Eclipse Mode, on the other hand, is where you’ll unlock more things of interest. There are Warhorses (such as Griffith’s White Hawk’s Warhorse) and outfits, some of which are pretty awesome aren’t found until deep into Endless Eclipse, and a special character, Wyald, one of the Apostles that shows up as a boss in the Story Mode, complete with a Transformation ability. The downside is that like most of the rest of Band of the Hawk it’s quite repetitive, but at least it’s difficult for a change because the enemies gain health and hit harder the deeper into the never-ending abyss you go, and you don’t regain health. Finally, a challenge! And, because rewards in Endless Eclipse Mode are unlocked on different levels, up to 100, and each playable character unlocks different things, there are a lot of hours of replayability in this mode.
As for the story, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk pulls directly from its acclaimed source material, and it’s actually not a bad way to start if you’ve never read or watched anything Berserk-related before. It’s primarily action oriented, but what makes the franchise shine is its sometimes hard-to-watch dark-fantasy story. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk starts with the Golden Age Arc, the beginning of Guts’ and Griffith’s story, and includes nearly two hours of anime footage.It even expands on that arc extensively with more scenes, events, and mid-mission conversation—which is, unfortunately, all in Japanese with no English option other than subtitles. Reading a multitude of subtitles is difficult if not impossible when focused on slaying enemies; I wish I could re-read this dialogue somehow. Even so, I learned more about Guts’ world by playing this game than I did by re-watching the movies, for sure.
The second half of the story, which goes into The Black Swordsman Arc and beyond, drops the anime footage and speeds through plots covered by the anime and manga. In hindsight, I wish I’d finished the manga before playing because I feel main plot points are somewhat spoiled for me now, but it did pique my curiosity enough that I still want to read the full details on Guts’ story.
Verdict
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is mindlessly repetitive, but its combat is still somehow addictive enough to be an enjoyable action game with a dark-fantasy story that stays true to its source, most suitable for fans of Berserk. It even left me craving to try out new characters in Endless Abyss Mode. But it desperately needs more challenge and variety to carry it through its campaign, especially considering you can’t bring a friend with you.
