BERSERK and the Band of the Hawk Critic Reviews

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is amazing. It’s perfect for fans of series, it’s perfect for fans of the Warriors franchise, it’s perfect for gamers looking for a fun “mature” game that isn’t Call of Duty. It’s hard to imagine a manga that filled me with horror so many times, filling me with such joy as a game, but it does. Get this game, if only to open the door to a darker generation of Warriors games.

The lack of multiplayer holds Berserk and the Band of the Hawk back from being the greatest Omega Force title, but players who are okay with this will find an experience that both captures the soul of the source material as well as one of the purest, most hyperviolent, titles to hit the market.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is the pinnacle of musou games, as far as I’m concerned. Omega Force and Koei Tecmo have experimented with the formula for years, and everything they’ve learned and perfected has led up to this game. Berserk Musou gives you the addictive, outrageous hack-and-slash combat musou games have had for ages. It gives you the unique characters and varied mission structures that musou games have only had in the last few years. And on top of that it gives you a gripping, mature, and masterful narrative that a musou game has never had. Until now.

Even though Berserk and the Band of the Hawk isn’t the best way to experience the Berserk story, its story is so in-depth that it would still be a great way to experience it for the first time.

Do you want to slice some demons into little meat chunks as a troubled badass, and perhaps missed out on the great Dreamcast and PS2 renditions of Berserk? Get Band of the Hawk. Seeing the story continue past the Golden Age is enough for an enthusiast to buy in. Otherwise, wait for the price to match what's being offered.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is not only one of the best Musou titles to date, it’s the first license to truly fit the mould effortlessly.

Berserk: Band of the Hawk is a pretty good fit for the Dynasty Warriors formula. It keeps up the story's tension with a dramatic mission structure, and doesn't shy away from the source material's mature themes.

Although it is not without some flaws typical of the kind of game, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is an unmissable product for all gamers who grew up reading the immeasurable dark fantasy epic of Miura genius: the title manages to translate perfectly in pure action as appreciated in the pages eponymous manga.

Quotation forthcoming.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk shows that the manga by Kentaro Miura was a perfect fit for a musou game, thanks to a plethora of powerful characters and horrible monsters.

Despite repetition issues, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk combines its memorable story with Musou-style gameplay to produce a fun package for both fans and newcomers to the series.

If you have no interest in the anime or manga and simply want a musou game, there are better, more fleshed out options out there, but for Berserk fans it’s rich with cutscenes lifted from the latest anime, faithful to the story, and gives you a chance to hack folk apart as Guts. In other words, it’s a lot of silly, fan-pleasing fun with plenty of scope to improve in a potential sequel.

A standard musou experience, graced by an impressive narrative universe that makes it unmissable for the fans... and rather boring for anyone else.

Although Band of the Hawk is incredibly faithful to Kentaro Miura´s manga, it becomes boring after playing several stages. We miss multiplayer modes in this musou.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is, as Musou games go, undeniably enjoyable and satisfying.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk won't deceive anyone, nor does it try to. It's a musou where you will mostly play as Guts slaying hundreds of enemies in each phase, enjoy sequences in between missions taken directly from the anime and won't suffer from a high level of censorship, trying to pay respect to the original work. It won't get any GOTY prize, but it is an interesting game if you're looking for something different from the usual western games.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk doesn’t strive to expand upon Koei Tecmo’s signature style in any meaningful way, but for longtime fans of the genre, perhaps there isn’t much need to innovate. Being able to relive Guts' early adventures during the Golden Age and beyond is sure to excite fans of Kentaro Miura's epic.

It doesn't bring anything new to the table past the usual Warriors style gameplay, so if you're both a Berserk fan and a Musou fan you'll get the most out of it.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk its one of the simplest Musou games that Koei Tecmo has made. It is not a bad game by any means but it also doesn't offer anything different or new from what we have saw in any other titles from the genre and one that, sadly, doesn't fully capture the essence of the story that its based on. Simply put, is one game that fans from the original manga or anime will enjoy, but also one that other players will forget really quick.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk's gameplay would definitely stand toe-to-toe with other licensed musou games like One Piece: Pirate Warriors and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, but maybe this game could have strayed further away from the typical musou formula like what fans saw with Attack on Titan. Instead, it seems Omega Force played it a little too safe.