The First BerserkeR: Khazan TLDR Battle Card Review

The First Berserker: Khazan is technically a Soulslike - and a pretty darn good one at that, especially when it comes to the combat having that good gameplay feel. It’s tight, snappy, responsive, and in a lot of the best ways, brutally challenging.

Now, I say “technically” a Soulslike because it is heavily Nioh-inspired, and much like the Nioh games, it walks that Soulslite line of being half Souls, half character action game - with a heavy emphasis on things like skill trees and weapon combos. And while I often don’t like to just compare one game to another, calling Khazan a Nioh-lite or Nioh Jr. feels extremely apt in this case because it borrows so much from Nioh’s framework that it can almost feel derivative at times. I’ve often pitched Khazan as “Nioh without the high, mid, and low combat stances.”

For proof, here’s a list of one-to-one comparisons: Khazan adopts Nioh’s mission style wherein you launch missions/levels from a map select screen vs. the traditional Souls interconnected biomes. It has the aforementioned weapon-based skill trees with several abilities that are extremely similar to ones found in Nioh. It has a burst counter with red-coded attacks just like in Nioh 2. It also eventually has its own version of a “Guardian Spirit” via the Blade Phantom. Human enemies have a stamina bar that functions the same as the player’s, recovering between attacks, but monsters have a set bar that decreases over time til resetting at zero. The levels even have a Kodama equivalent in the form of Jarlings. Within levels, you can also fight revenants to loot their gear or summon them to aid you in combat (albeit NPC-only, no online). The gear system is even the same as in Nioh, with the same types of passive stat boosts and set bonuses, mirroring Team Ninja’s games right down to the UI for the menus and even the inability to send overflow gear to a storehouse once you hit the max inventory limit…

Not all of that comparison is meant to be negative though - in fact, Khazan manages to evoke so much of the Nioh formula with that snappy gameplay feel that it honestly stands as a worthwhile entry for those interested. The boss fights are a ton of fun to master, and the missions’ level design improves increasingly over time. For those looking to scratch that Nioh itch or even for newcomers, Khazan has a ton of fun challenges to offer.

But for those looking for something that stands equal to Nioh’s quality or perhaps even hoping to surpass it, you likely won’t find that here. In some areas, it matches those original games’ quality, but in others it stands firmly in their shadow. My two biggest complaints are #1: the lack of weapon variety (only three types total, with only one weapon slot vs. Nioh’s two, limiting the ability and drive to experiment with different weapons or approaches to combat) and #2: some frustrating crashes that got really bad mid- to late-game and some known but unaddressed trophy bugs. But for a lot of people, those won’t be huge factors - especially as the game gets updated.

So hopefully, this breakdown has helped you decide: Is Khazan the right Soulslite for you? For me, it was a great time - not a perfect one, especially as a diehard Nioh fan, but one I’m still personally glad I experienced.