Replayed this in honor of Miura and aside from the manga itself I honestly think this is my fave piece of Berserk media.
While the 1997 anime is incredible, it still only adapts the Golden Age Arc and is incomplete. The Golden Age Arc trilogy of movies are very enjoyable, especially if you're already a fan, but they leave out a lot of finer details and are even more incomplete than the 1997 anime, the 2016/2017 anime has horrible CGI/animation and cuts out some events from the manga so it's easily the worst among Berserk media. I've never played either of the other 2 Berserk games so I have no opinion on them.
However this game right here is the most complete retelling of the story released to date. Starting at the iconic Golden Age Arc and ending at the end of the Hawk of the Millennium Empire Arc after the fight with Ganishka and right before Guts and friends get on the boat for Elfhelm. It does a really good job of fleshing out the characters personalities, motives and development, showing their little day to day interactions with each other and all the other finer details that the newer anime and movies missed out on and it definitely highlights the philosophy of Berserk very well.
The gameplay is that same mindless, stylish addictive hack and slash Musou formula you'd expect with tons of cool combos to unleash and each of the characters have distinctive playstyles, there's much less reused assets than your typical Musou when it comes to the attack animations since there's a smaller cast, all the levels are fun to traverse and the boss fights with the Apostles are actually pretty challenging and fun compared to most Musou styled boss fights. The game also has this Endless Eclipse Mode which is like a horde mode where you fight an endless stream of demons and have to advance through layer after layer of the Eclipse to unlock some bonus content like costumes, characters etc.
My only minor complaints are 1) there's no English dub and Berserk has an amazing English dub so that's disappointing and 2) while there is much more blood than your typical Musou game it still censors some of the more explicit content of the manga.
Still all in all If you enjoy musou games and like Berserk you'll definitely have some fun with this one, hell even if you know nothing about Berserk I'd say this will still do a good job getting you into the series. Oh and Slaying thousands of enemies with Guts (Especially once you unlock the Berserker Armor) or Zodd in his Apostle form just never gets old.
While the 1997 anime is incredible, it still only adapts the Golden Age Arc and is incomplete. The Golden Age Arc trilogy of movies are very enjoyable, especially if you're already a fan, but they leave out a lot of finer details and are even more incomplete than the 1997 anime, the 2016/2017 anime has horrible CGI/animation and cuts out some events from the manga so it's easily the worst among Berserk media. I've never played either of the other 2 Berserk games so I have no opinion on them.
However this game right here is the most complete retelling of the story released to date. Starting at the iconic Golden Age Arc and ending at the end of the Hawk of the Millennium Empire Arc after the fight with Ganishka and right before Guts and friends get on the boat for Elfhelm. It does a really good job of fleshing out the characters personalities, motives and development, showing their little day to day interactions with each other and all the other finer details that the newer anime and movies missed out on and it definitely highlights the philosophy of Berserk very well.
The gameplay is that same mindless, stylish addictive hack and slash Musou formula you'd expect with tons of cool combos to unleash and each of the characters have distinctive playstyles, there's much less reused assets than your typical Musou when it comes to the attack animations since there's a smaller cast, all the levels are fun to traverse and the boss fights with the Apostles are actually pretty challenging and fun compared to most Musou styled boss fights. The game also has this Endless Eclipse Mode which is like a horde mode where you fight an endless stream of demons and have to advance through layer after layer of the Eclipse to unlock some bonus content like costumes, characters etc.
My only minor complaints are 1) there's no English dub and Berserk has an amazing English dub so that's disappointing and 2) while there is much more blood than your typical Musou game it still censors some of the more explicit content of the manga.
Still all in all If you enjoy musou games and like Berserk you'll definitely have some fun with this one, hell even if you know nothing about Berserk I'd say this will still do a good job getting you into the series. Oh and Slaying thousands of enemies with Guts (Especially once you unlock the Berserker Armor) or Zodd in his Apostle form just never gets old.