Berserk Boy Review

15.03.2024 - 15:01 / thesixthaxis.com

There’s a huge amount of nostalgia for classic side-scrolling platformers like Mega Man X and Sonic, but that means there’s also countless games that have struggled to capture that same energy and appeal. I was worried Berserk Boy would be another one of those, but despite wearing it’s Mega Man X influences on it’s sleeve, there’s more to this game than meets the eye, and it’s easily one of the most impressive platformers I’ve played in recent memory.

The armoured hero aesthetic of Berserk Boy is a pretty obvious homage to the blue bomber, and the opening beats of the story don’t stray much further from that script either. A mad scientist wants to take over the Earth with his army of Dark Energy minions, but a human resistance has sprung up to squash those plans. Untrained and underpowered, Kei isn’t the ideal hero at first, but when he comes in contact with a strange orb, he turns into the titular Berserk Boy and platforming combat ensues.

While the roots of the narrative aren’t entirely original, I really appreciate how creative and endearing the characters that inhabit it are. Everyone from your companions to the bosses you battle features a fun design and some quirky dialogue, helping sprinkle plenty of personality into an otherwise pretty standard heroic sci-fi quest.

There’s an incredible amount of personality infused in the gameplay of Berserk Boy, too – instead of entirely lifting the game feel and combat flow of one iconic side-scroller, it feels like a really well-realised mashup of the best parts of several games. Running, gunning, and platforming has the momentum and smoothness of Mega Man X, but there’s a much bigger focus on maintaining momentum and movement so it feels like a combat-focused spin on the way you’d navigate classic Sonic the Hedgehog levels.

Part of that comes from the emphasis Berserk Boy puts on melee combat. Rather keeping distance and pelleting foes with bullets, you’re constantly dashing between foes and chaining attacks together in quick succession, building up a Berserk meter that you can spend to dish out even stronger attacks. That loop adds a sense of urgency and a quest for constant action to your combat encounters that elevates the experience and creates so many fun encounters across each map.

Plus, as you progress through multiple biomes and over a dozen stages, you unlock even more tools for destruction in Berserk Boy that let you really tailor the experience to how you want to play. Defeating each major boss gives you a new transformation that not only alters your basic attacks, but your movement abilities, eventually letting you fly, dig through tunnels, or lock-onto and zip-between multiple enemies. Upgrades back at your home base then let you unlock additional