The First Berserker: Khazan Steam Charts & Stats

Promising Start, But Quickly Falls Into Repetition The game begins with engaging combat and challenging boss fights, offering hope for a solid experience. However, as you progress, it becomes painfully clear that the game relies heavily on repetition. Mission stages feel almost identical, and side missions are just recycled versions of main missions. The same enemies keep appearing over and over again, from the tutorial to the very end, making the world feel stagnant. The story doesn’t do much to make up for the lack of variety. At the full price of 60 euros, this game feels like a missed opportunity — it doesn't deliver enough content or fresh experiences to justify the cost. The repetition quickly drags it down.Also, game starts off strong with a lot of variety and detail in the environments, giving the impression that the developers put significant effort into the beginning of the game. There's plenty to explore, and the enemy variety seems fresh and engaging. However, it's as if the developers gave up after this initial part. Once you move past the opening sections, the game quickly falls into a pattern of recycling enemies and environments. The creative energy from the start seems to have disappeared, leaving behind repetitive and uninspired gameplay. It feels like the developers were more focused on making a good first impression than delivering a well-rounded experience throughout the entire game.

Close to perfection!. If you are a rutined souls player, start the game on normal mode (hardest option) and dont use any summons (theres a trophy for that) Then trust me, you will be in for an amazing hard and rewarding ride! Mechanics are through the roof, and the boss fights are amazing, it could however use a little more on the exploration side, as some of the areas leading up to a boss feels very short, and a bit too easy to explore. The sidequests often takes place in an areas you just visited and just re-use the same scenary, but beside from that , this is very close to perfection. The fights are some of the most rewarding and satisfying fights ive ever met in a soulslike, and ive been through alot! Go get it and face the challenge! You get alot of value for your money. 9,5/10

Overall the developers deserve praise for putting out a good game with excellent combat and pretty good controls--a game that works really well on day 1, which is not the norm these days. The graphics, setting and mood set the stage for a revenge tale with a twist and I enjoyed the look and feel of Khazan a lot. The stark difficulty between the levels and the bosses, especially a number of bosses towards the endgame made me loose enjoyment in the game immensely. This, combined with small things that made me feel like the developers were intentionally trying to frustrate and anger the player just made me lose interest. After a while, I never looked forward to the boss fights because I knew they would take a lot of time due to their huge health pools, healing both of HP and stamina, and mage fights where they would teleport to the other side of the arena on a whim. I also felt like the frequent $%&t talking on the part of bosses and your blade phantom when you die really didn't add to things and felt like extra salt rubbed in when you're on try #20 of a boss. After defeating most of the bosses after Maluca I didn't feel any sense of achievement but more of a feeling of, "I'm glad I get to move on... why am I doing this again"? Many are quick to point out that you can't play this game like a souls game--duh--many of us have beat NG++ playthroughs in Nioh and other difficult action games. We know how to play these games and I can beat a lot of the bosses in less than 2 minutes with unending spear combos and well tweaked combinations of gear. It felt like the developers felt they had something to prove and went all out on the boss difficulty--and for this player, it really affected how fun the game was. Although I never did, a lot of people switched to easy and came to the realization that it only slightly changed the difficulty. A big part of the problem is for many people they get stuck on a boss and you really can't progress until it's over... I love challenging fights but I don't want to have to spend 20 tries memorizing patterns that don't translate to anything else, only to have to memorize more patterns for the next boss and so on. I want to gain skill in fights, not spend time memorizing because there is no way to get past the 1/4 million hit point dragon unless you do. Outside of the boss combat and general combat, there is not a ton to really pull me in to this game--the story is good but not gripping--the level design is only about a 6/10, and the graphics can get overly gray and monotone after a while, lacking the sparkle and grandiosity of other action games. The loot system is heavily influenced by Nioh 2 but lacks the same intricacy and stimulus to keep grinding... overall good, but not phenomenal. Props to the developers for making a game with some awesome combat that blends many different elements and lets the player choose if they will be more parry focused, dodge focused, or even higher risk reward reflection focused. Although there are only 3 weapon types, each one is really flushed out and well thought out--personally I tend to pick 1 weapon for a playthrough anyway so I don't need 400 weapons. You can't have everything in a game but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of Khazan and am glad I bought it... I just wouldn't recommend it to most gamers because of the difficulty. I put almost 60 hours into Khazan and I would say that 50% of it was fighting bosses. In contrast I have 300 hours each into Elden Ring and Nioh 2 plus all their DLC's, and about 80 hours into Lords of the Fallen.

An incredible soulslike that's like a perfect combination of Nioh & Sekiro. Combat is incredibly satisfying, the story is pretty solid & the characters are really cool. The only gripe I have with the game at all is that it repeats some of the bosses in side missions, but it's not a big deal since basically every single boss is fucking incredible. Highly recommend to any action fans.

A [meh] souls-like, besides having a similar combat style and bonfires, there's nothing else that makes this souls-like a souls-like. Re-skin, reuse and repetition are the biggest and most evident issues of the game. The story is mediocre, and the OST is not noticeable and, unfortunately, forgettable. [h3] The biggest issue is exploration. [/h3] There are no zones or regions; it's just "missions", which are short levels with a hard start and a hard end with a boss, no matter what. There's nothing connecting missions with each other; just drop in, get to the end, kill the boss, repeat. On top of that, the level design and visuals were mediocre. Once you complete a mission, you will likely get a side-mission or 2 or sometimes even 3 on that "level". But those optional missions are "re-skined" main missions, you get spawned at a "sliced" map of the original missions with the exact layout but some paths are blocked and monsters are of different type along (some adjustments to environment to fit the mobs and minor changes to environment, but the re-used parts are so evident it became obnoxious). These "isolated" levels diminished the feeling of exploration to almost nothing, but it is itemization that made it a complete nothing. There were some collectibles besides the "estus flask" updates that gave you minor power creep, but nothing special, just an item lying around; something to look out for. [h3] Reusing bosses and maps is the second biggest issue [/h3] All of the optional bosses were just either downscaled main bosses, or exact same boss with a different skin, or just a mob with a larger HP pool. This made the optional missions just dogsh*t in my opinion. Before you even started, you already knew that you won't see anything new or cool on that level. Some side missions were different, but 95% of them followed the same formula and offered nothing but items, soulstones, and jins to make yourself stronger for main missions. What was nice was having a bonfire just before the boss, + dying left your "souls" at the entrance, and you even gave you extra "souls" for trying and failing the boss to giving you a chance to catch up with a recommended level. [h3] Itemization is the third biggest issue [/h3] Having attributes and sets is nice., However, they matter too late into the game. Once you've picked your set, the attributes and rarity were nice to fiddle with, but it doesn't come in until after 20h. In the early game, the attributes and levels barely matter. In my opinion it is a poor design to make a game system that is good for late game(+30h), but it fails to captivate anyone in early-mid game. It is the Item Levels that made me not care about items after around 5h. Your inventory becomes a mess of random bullsh*t; same items but different levels. Picking items became a "oh cool a "helm of whateverthefuck" lvl 10, whatever, I'll see it 20 more times". [h3] Early game is actually okay [/h3] Before you notice the above issues, the game is decent. Combat is "arcady" compared to typical souls-likes, but that's not bad, it was kind of fun. It's not that serious, so you mostly just do combos, dodges/guards/parries, and mess around with mobs and bosses. However, once you've unlocked all the skills (around 20h) there's nothing new to be done; you just do what works and deals the most damage on repeat, nothing changes at that point, especially with bosses. What was really good was the freedom to experiment. The attributes were easy to switch, and most importantly, the skills were free to respec at any point. This allowed to to spec into any of the weapons and set at any point and time, and doing so made the game fun for the first hours, until the other issues became more evident.

Very good game. Bosses are challenging but not impossible. The combat is super fun, ran the dual wield for the majority of my playthroughs (Both NG and NG+) and loved it. As someone who hasn't really played many souls like games or any actual souls games at all, I had a blast with this. 10/10 - My personal GOTY 2025

Peak combat. This is one of the best action games out there. You like dodge centric gameplay of Dark Souls? You can dodge through the flashiest boss attacks. You like parry centric gameplay of Sekiro? You can parry through the entire game(almost). Most souls-like game lean towards one of these combat styles and getting just one of them right is not something every game can do but these mad lads have executed on both flawlessly. The 3 weapons play vastly different because of the different skills they have. And you have multiple playstyles within each weapon because of the bonuses offered by the variety of armor sets present. The bosses are phenomenal. One common complaint is that the bosses have too much health but that forces you to be aggressive while really learning the boss' moveset down to the T. No getting lucky here. All the bosses have different phases where they get more complex attacks. And learning them is a joy(most of the time). And man that final boss. Once you learn him. its a euphoric feeling. Level design is alright. Environment variety is meh except for a few levels later on in the game. But the combat is so good that its still one of the best action games out there.

+ Fantastic combat + Spectacular skillset + Engaging stories + Chad main - Damage sponge bosses - Mediocre chapter design. Conclusion: Peak parry-oriented ̶S̶o̶u̶l̶s̶-̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ Nioh-like game in the market right now i freaking enjoy it so far :D. Very recommended.

Combat/Gameplay = Top tier Art style = High tier Level design = Upper mid tier Story = Mid tier Everyone's so gorgeous in this game, wtf. Unrealistic... just the way I like it.

A Souls-like Gem That Deserves All the Praise Being a veteran of the souls-like genre for years now — and having completed 100% of all major titles like Dark Souls 1–3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro — I can say with absolute certainty: this game deserves the highest praise. 1. Gameplay The gameplay is as fluid as it gets. Combos, movement — everything feels intuitive, comfortable, and native from the very first moments, only getting better from there. You’ll find all the classic actions you expect like parrying, dodging, weapon skills, ranged combat, etc. The game doesn’t rely on flashy gimmicks to stand out — it just delivers the golden standard of the souls-like genre, and that’s more than enough. It’s satisfying and addictive. 2. Graphics Running the game on a high-end PC, I experienced no stutters, crashes, or visual bugs. Occasional FPS drops from 120 to 100 were rare and only happened in 2–3 areas total. Visually, it blends anime-style art, like Genshin Impact, with classic souls-like architecture. And the result is a fresh, clean look that becomes just right after a few hours. Reminded me a bit of what I felt during the Borderlands series — not in art style, but in how it introduces something new and instantly recognizable. Environments, armor sets, bosses, levels — everything is beautifully designed. The visuals are subtle, crisp, and pleasant in every aspect. 3. Performance As mentioned, the game runs flawlessly — even from day one. No hotfixes were needed to fix major issues simply because there were none. It defaults to 60 FPS, but I capped it at 120 and it handled it perfectly. This is how every launch should be. Khazan was polished out of the gate, and I expect it’ll only get better with future patches. 4. Story & Narrative The story is there, and it’s simple — as you'd expect in games like this. It's not God of War-level emotional or rich in lore like Sekiro, but it still works. You stay invested in Khazan’s fate, and the motivations remain clear throughout. There are a few light choices, but this game focuses on gameplay and exploration over branching narratives. Yet, there is this lovely girl named Elamein, and her storyline definitely found a place in my heart! 5. Sound & Music I’m a huge fan of orchestral epics in souls games, like absolutely unmatched DS3 boss themes Sadly, that majestic, grand atmosphere is mostly missing here. It’s not a dealbreaker — but it’s noticeable. That said, there was one specific castle level with a hauntingly beautiful tune that stuck with me so much I looked it up afterward and added it to my playlist. So no, hope is not lost! I just wish there was more of that energy throughout. Music does elevate the experience — and its absence is felt a bit here. 6. Replayability & Content At the moment, the game caps out at NG++, and replayability isn’t infinite like Elden Ring. There are only three weapon types (Dual Axes, Spear and Greatsword), but each offers enough variety to make replays feel fresh — especially once you’ve mastered enemy patterns and boss mechanics. The NG+ runs aren’t radically different — minor changes in enemy stats and drops — but that doesn’t take away from how much fun it is to run it again. And with more content promised in patches, the future looks promising anyways. 7. Final Verdict I enjoyed this game just as much as my very first souls-like, and that says a lot. My first playthrough lasted around 70 hours, and I savored every minute. Nothing stood out as a downside — because nothing managed to break the immersion or pull me out of the experience. Thus, I wholeheartedly recommend trying Khazan even for just a couple of hours to see if it’s for you. Yes, it’s challenging. But with challenge comes true reward. Victory feels earned here. For me personally, the game arrived at just the right time in my life. It wasn't necessarily motivating, but it helped me reflect. It gave me something real to focus on for a while. 10 out of 10!! :) Thank you for this experience.