Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, released in Japan as Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion (ベルセルク 千年帝国の鷹篇 喪失花の章, Beruseruku Sennnen Teikoku No Taka Hen Wasurebana no Shō), is a hack and slash action video game for the Dreamcast based on the popular Berserk manga by Kentarō Miura. The game is set between volume 22 and 23 of the manga; right after Guts and Puck depart for Elfhelm with Casca, but before Farnese, Serpico, and Isidro catch up with them. The music is composed by Susumu Hirasawa, who also composed the anime series' music.

Released around the same time as Shenmue, Sword of the Berserk is notable for its early use of quick time events (QTE). It used these to determine the different non-linear paths the player would take, depending on whether they succeed or fail in pressing the displayed button quickly enough during a QTE, allowing different ways to complete the game.^[1]

Plot summary

After saving a traveling performer named Rita from bandits while on their way to Elfhelm, Guts, Casca, and Puck come to a small castle town to rest. Upon arriving, they learn of a disease that transforms its victims into "Mandragorans", making them go berserk, killing people, even their loved ones, without thinking. As the story progresses, the ruler of the castle, Balzac, shows Guts a room in the castle where people infected with the disease are kept. Balzac says he's searching for a supposed cure. Guts learns from Balzac that the disease comes from an unusual plant, the Mandragora that grew into a tree located in a nearby village on the borders of his domain. After meeting a group of rebels that abducted Casca and learning the man became a tyrant to their people, Guts decides to carry out Balzac's request for the Great Tree's heart since the duke told him that it might provide a cure for Casca's madness. But while Guts is joined by Rita and a group of rebels, Balzac's men raid the rebels' hideout and capture Casca.

Losing their traveling companions while Guts confronts the Mandragorans' matriarch Erica, who maintained her free will to protect the Mandragora that grew from the remains of a boy named Niko, he and Rita find Balzac's men slaughtering the Mandragorans. Erica, upon seeing the utopia she created destroyed, chooses to destroy herself and the Mandragora Heart rather than hand the latter over with only the pendant she made from Niko's charm remaining as Rita picked it up. Guts was about to fight Balzac's men when Nosferatu Zodd arrives, the Apostle having freed Casca from her dungeon cell earlier, and they have a brief rematch that once more ends in a draw. By that time, encountering a young woman with a similar madness that the former believes to be Balzac's daughter, Puck and Casca stumble into the chamber where the fragment of the Madragora Heart that Balzac managed to get his hands on awakens. This causes all Mandragorans to act up and run amok in the town as Guts and Rita return.

Fighting his way through the Mandragorans and Balzac's underlings to the castle, Guts and Rita see the mysterious girl and take her with them as they reach Balzac's throne room. When Guts demands where Casca is, Balzac explains it is too let for either them to get want as Rita asks how he came to be this way. Balzac proceeds to tell he was once a kind ruler until the pressure of juggling his responsibilities as both a ruler and as a husband eventually got to him and he now finds comfort in only bloodshed. Balzac also reveals the woman to be his wife Annette whom he saved with a drug extract made from the Mandragora's Heart, which made her unable to age yet rendered her a mindless child who cannot remember him. Regardless, Balzac drinks the more potent extract to become a monstrous-figure that Guts quickly dispatches before saving Casca from a fully grown Mandragora. However, out of irony after the Mandragora is killed, Casca's exposure to the creature briefly restored her sanity before she reverts back to her usual mindset to Guts's dismay, but Guts is given no time to mourn this turn of events as Eriza's pendant, revealed to be a Behelit, dropped from Rita's person and ended up in the dying Balzac's possession as he offers Annette's life to be reborn as an Apostle that Guts quickly kills. With the town reverting to some normacy, Guts and his group continue their journey with Rita promising to remember them. Back in Balzac's castle, the Skull Knight recovers Balzac's Behelit and swallows it.

Cast

Soundtrack

Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion Original Game Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by Susumu Hirasawa
Released	December 15, 1999 (1999-12-15)
Genre	Film score Ambient Electronica Progressive Symphonic
Length	42:30
Label	Hakusensha, Marine ENTERTAINMENT MMCC-7008
Producer	Susumu Hirasawa, Kentaro Miura
Susumu Hirasawa soundtrack chronology
Lost Legend (1999) Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion Original Game Soundtrack (1999) densha (1999)

Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion Original Game Soundtrack (ベルセルク 千年帝国の鷹篇 喪失花の章 Original Game Soundtrack, Beruseruku Sennnen Teikoku No Taka Hen Wasurebana no Shō Orijinaru Gēmu Saundotorakku)^[2] marked the return of Susumu Hirasawa, composer and performer of the soundtrack of the Sword-Wind Chronicle anime. Unlike the anime's soundtrack, Hirasawa composed and performed the game's opening theme, "FORCES II", and ending theme, "INDRA" (coincidentally, Hirasawa started his career as a musician with a band called Mandrake, and they made a song called "Mandragora"). "ZODDO II" uses a similar horn arrangement to "Immortal Man" from Virtual Rabbit and is a different version of Fear/Monster from the Berserk anime; "Sister's Story" uses a line of Thai kathoey chanting of "Kun Mae #2" from Kun Mae on a Calculation played backwards for the intro. Hirasawa would later compose and perform the opening and ending themes of Chapter of the Holy Demon War and the theme song of the Golden Age Arc film trilogy. The first-pressing limited edition of the soundtrack included the 2000 Berserk calendar and collector stickers.

All songs written and composed by Susumu Hirasawa, except tracks 4, 6, 7, 8 and 10 by Masaya Imoto and Hiromi Murakami. 

Besides the tracks included on the soundtrack, there are compositions present in the game that have never been released officially. They have been ripped from the game's GD-ROM and released on the internet.

Reception

On release, Famitsu magazine scored the game a 30 out of 40.^[3]

References

External links

• Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage at GameRankings
• Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage at MobyGames
• Millenium Falcon (Dreamcast) soundtrack at NO ROOM - The official site of Susumu Hirasawa (P-MODEL)