You’d be forgiven for thinking that Berserk Boy was simply another drop in the endless sea of Mega Man-styled games out there; even ignoring its similar naming convention, the trailer presents you with fast-paced side-scrolling action, new abilities gained by defeating bosses, and an electric guitar-filled soundtrack absolutely dripping with the right kind of cheese. And while the game does clearly owe some of its DNA to various 16-bit classics, the end product is something more modern and approachable than I was expecting.
Yes, the game is firmly built upon a Mega Man foundation. But probably not the exact blueprints you’re expecting—Berserk Boy is taking far more from the structure and mechanics of the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX styles of games than the OG or X entries. It has a mission-based structure, for one, and not every stage ends with a boss fight. And instead of gaining new weapons from bosses, you get entirely new ability sets, called berserk forms, to transform into at the press of a button/flick of the right stick. These Berserk forms are not only completely unique from one another, each with its own set of verbs for both platforming and combat, but every form also has its own suite of upgrades you can purchase from the shop at your base of operations, accessible in between missions.
Swapping between these forms on the fly to suit the needs of whatever situation I was currently in was easily the highlight of the experience, personally. The game really hit a high for me after I had gained the third berserk form, an ice kunai throwing ninja transformation, as I started swapping forms mid-combo during combat encounters. Look, I’m a simple man, and I reckon that throwing a bunch of kunai in one direction, dashing into the air to avoid a hit, bouncing off a couple enemy heads, then proceeding to change to my flame drill from midair(!) to diagonally fling myself into the ground beneath my remaining opponent’s feet before bursting out of the dirt again, shredding them to pieces upon my subterranean reemergence, will undoubtedly go down as one of the cooler things I’ve done in a video game in 2024.
Your capabilities while platforming are similarly varied and provide a lot of opportunities to take advantage of your diverse move set. One of the last couple berserk forms grants you the ability to fly, and the fifth and final one, Mine Buster, is built around explosions, including launching yourself directly airborne while safeguarded by invincibility frames. Unfortunately, I found these last two forms to be more of a drag than the previous three; the flying sections are too slow and uninteresting compared to the frenetic pace of everything else in the game, and a fully upgraded Mine Buster form completely trivialises the majority of combat encounters, to the point where I went out of my way to not use it during the final boss rush. Combat (and the game at large) isn’t meant to be punishing or even hard in the way that a lot of Berserk Boy’s biggest inspirations are, so I can’t begrudge the game for having its final berserk form make you feel completely indestructible in combat. I just wish it was as interesting to use as your first trio of transformations.
Rounding out your list of berserk forms is the one you start off with, an electric form built around zipping through the air and “tagging” objects before hitting them with a burst of lightning. For my money, the platforming was at its best when it tasked me with pulling off consecutive mid-air dashes and tags over bottomless pits—a song it comes back to often but one that never gets old. (Sidenote: Your move set when playing in this form reminded me a bit of Pulseman, the oft overlooked Sega Genesis/Mega Drive action platformer from Game Freak, of all developers.). It’s a genuinely good game that plays like a combination of Mega Man X and Sonic the Hedgehog, has barely been played by anyone, has an interesting developer pedigree, and it’s available right now for free if you’re a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscriber, so what’re you waiting for?
Outside of the combat and platforming, some aspects of the game feel a bit undercooked. There’s not much in the way of enemy variety, for one, which is a shame when the combat feels as great as it does. The developers clearly prioritised unique boss encounters in that regard, which is definitely the right call if a concession had to be made, but a larger number of unique robots to blow up would be my number one request in a hypothetical sequel (that I very much hope happens!). The base of operations that acts as a hubworld also ends up feeling like an afterthought, though you can tell that at some point in development there were more lofty ambitions here. There’s one sequence near the end of the game where you actually have to make your way to a ruined and abandoned section of city by platforming your way out of the base instead of teleporting like you do for other missions, and despite how small and short of a sequence it is, it really did a lot for the world-building and just generally making the game’s world feel larger than it had for me up to that point. I found myself really wishing for more instances of that, because it’s otherwise an overly large and empty place you come back to between missions to purchase upgrades that gets invaded by a handful of enemies after boss encounters. There’s also a roadblock to the final level of the game that requires you to find 50 doodads, 5 of which are hidden in each level, that I can see being a big groan inducer for some players, but I personally found this to be a nice excuse to go back and revisit earlier levels with the complete set of berserk forms.
When it comes to presentation, there’s not much to complain about here besides the character designs being a little on the generic side. The sprites are big, colorful, and chunky, and everything is very lovingly animated, particularly the multitude of attack animations, and the colors are gorgeous on the Switch OLED. Visually, it all feels like what you remember any number of beloved Gameboy Advance games to look like, which is about the highest compliment I can pay a sprite-based game in this style. The soundtrack is unsurprisingly excellent, coming from esteemed Sonic Mania and Penny’s Big Breakaway composer, Tee Lopes. He provided some super crunchy riffs on this OST, which left me really looking forward to the game’s wider release so I can add some tracks to my video game music playlist on Youtube – vacuuming and doing dishes will never be the same in my household.
Berserk Boy surprised me with how much it was able to find its own identity when I came in just expecting a solid little Mega Man-like. Its combat and ability set are top-class in the genre, and the game as a whole is really only being held back by some slack on the edges, namely with its hubworld and enemy variety. The game is good, with moments of greatness, and if the developers are given the opportunity to iterate on the core that’s here, a sequel (Berserk Boy 2? Berserker Boy? Berserk Boy 2 Man?) has the chance to be downright excellent.
Berserk Boy
Release Date: March 6th, 2024
Platforms: PC, (Steam) & Nintendo Switch
Price: £15.99
Many that’s to Ryan at Lost in Cult for the review code.
About Matt Murray
Matt is the host of the podcast “Critical Diversions.” A solo podcast on the latest gaming news and recent games he’s been playing. He also runs a game club through the podcast Discord.