A Berserk board game is in the works

[Walter]

There are a few very strange things about this game. For one, it names previously unnamed apostles:

It also includes some weirdly named ability cards, like when Guts deflects an attack, it's called:

I think the overall design looks really professional. The figures are small (they're always small in such games), but well designed. The character-specific traits come across well even in miniature. But these anomalies shown above just give me a bit of pause about how the Berserk license is being treated by the game maker. Where did these apostle names come from? If they're confirmed and from Miura's secret sourcebook well... cool! But I would love to know.

And is the implication of Falcon Guard that Guts self-identifies as a member of the Band of the Falcon...? Or is it that he's guarding against apostles who are members of the NEW Band of the Falcon? Probably not, given that there are scenarios where you're fighting non-apostles. So... I'm just a bit confused!

 

[Beelzebud]

like when Guts deflects an attack, it's called

I think that's a reference to a Italian swording posture/technic called "La Posta di Falcone" or the guard of the Hawk, I believe this comes from Kingdom of Heaven movie(no idea if it's a real thing, probably not) but also saw it in other medieval media like books or series..
It's basically a guard stance where you hold your sword above your head and then all attacks/blocks are blows from above using not only your strength but also the sword weight+gravity. Thus the Hawk/Falcon thing

So they just mixed things to try to make it look cool, but it kinda doesn't because it has nothing to do with what's happening there and also Guts having an attack "called" Falcon-whatever would never happen even if it was a shonen lol Maybe the dragon-slayer will be renamed Falcon Slayer


These apostles names got me some weird felling, specially Hazuppa since to me it's completely made-up, Daroga somehow evokes me something like a Japanese accent pronunciation of Draugr, or even a reference to something like it, I needed to google that name to be sure it's not a name of something else because it evoked me the sound of something familiar that at first I believed was something Tolkien related, maybe because it's similar to Dagor Dagorath(that's not a character). I would believe if this name really came from Miura even if on a sole note without linking to any character/place/thing, sounds like a word plays he would've done, I guess we'll never know.
I think they just choose unnamed apostles on purpose so it doesn't fell weird to have then like pawns, but they need to be named something..


Overall I liked it very much, the mechanics looks cool, top quality, the cards are well designed and they chosen good panels for battle moves. I would buy it even without enough friends to play

 

[Aazealh]

I think that's a reference to a Italian swording posture/technic called "La Posta di Falcone" or the guard of the Hawk, I believe this comes from Kingdom of Heaven movie(no idea if it's a real thing, probably not) but also saw it in other medieval media like books or series..
It's basically a guard stance where you hold your sword above your head and then all attacks/blocks are blows from above using not only your strength but also the sword weight+gravity.

So they just mixed things to try to make it look cool, but it kinda doesn't because it has nothing to do with what's happening there

That particular name for a high guard does indeed look like it comes from that movie. Using that name here is a really stupid idea because it just invites confusion, and as you said Guts is also not even using a specific posture in the scene they're depicting, he merely reacts to Serpico's stratagem in an unexpected way. 0/10.

I would believe if this name really came from Miura even if on a sole note without linking to any character/place/thing, sounds like a word plays he would've done, I guess we'll never know.

I can guarantee you these names didn't come from Miura, otherwise we'd know about it.

 

[Aazealh]

I've solved the mystery behind those apostle names.

A forum member that wishes to stay anonymous contacted the board game creator and asked him directly where they came from. He replied that they were provided by Hakusensha. I was shown the exchange.

This was surprising to me, and I had an intuition that prompted me to check the volume. Took mere seconds and bingo, there it was: those "names" are taken from random bits these two apostles say before dying.

For those who can read Hiragana, you'll see that the above panel says "Hazuppua" while the bottom left bubble has the guy say "Ide darougaaaa". Both are mangled speech, the one on top because his face is getting split from the inside, the other because he talks while transforming.

Honestly, it's a puzzling – and pretty stupid – choice to have phonetically taken these random bits of dialogue to name these guys (they could have just been Apostle type 1 and type 2, like the villagers and nobles or the Daka). I'm not going to accuse the game designer of lying, but I have a hard time believing a Japanese person would do something like that. Either way, these are definitely not real names and should be disregarded.

 

[Walter]

Wow, that's pretty silly. I can't imagine a native Japanese speaker would see those garbled lines (in hiragana) and think: "That must be their name!"

Imagine being punched in the throat, and when the police arrive and ask who did this, you're still wheezing, so they write down the suspect as "Count Breeve."

 

[Aazealh]

Wow, that's pretty silly. I can't imagine a native Japanese speaker would see those garbled lines (in hiragana) and think: "That must be their name!"

Just to be clear, nobody (Japanese native or not) could possibly be mistaken that these are names. Whoever did this deliberately took random sentence fragments and decided to call it a day, knowing full well they were pulling some big bullshit. I find it quite disrespectful towards fans, especially since this will inevitably confuse people beyond the scope of this board game, who might use it as an "official" reference because they don't know any better.

 

[Aazealh]

So the campaign launched yesterday and it's the full package for a pretty good launch price: just 199 euros. There's also a "Black Swordsman solo expansion set" that's sold separately for 79 euros. That's great value overall (better than for their previous titles) and unsurprisingly they've met their goals with over a million euros pledged so far.

Delivery is planned for November 2026.

 

[Walter]

That price is doable. I might get it after all!

 

[Grail]

Cool, thank you for the summary. That price definitely seems reasonable. I guess it's time to finally start practicing miniature painting!

 

[Beelzebud]

The solo expansion set looks very good, we can play with Guts and have Puck as a "pet"

Also it includes a bunch of nice miniatures. The BYOA capability is also cool, I would love to see what members here can came up for campaigns.

I think I'll get both of them and hope to get it to next year Christmas(delivery time expected to November 2026)

The cherry on top to me it's the Griffith exclusive miniature, a good surprise and it looks very good. It comes together with a enemy card so it's fully "playable"! (as an enemy)

 

[Beelzebud]

They release the biggest update until now, which includes an All-In option with all add-on and expansion for a discount price, and also a God Hand members add-on with the five miniatures and enemy cards.

For 335€ I think it's worth it mainly because of the miniatures(and I loved the dice tray) and the sleeves adds a big plus if you're mainly "collector" and not a player.

But I need to admit that it's a bit expensive for the size of the game itself with only 11 adventures. They do not seem to have some randomness needed to do a bunch of replays, but personally I'm good with it because it's then more faithful to the manga.

 

[Aazealh]

For 335€ I think it's worth it mainly because of the miniatures(and I loved the dice tray) and the sleeves adds a big plus if you're mainly "collector" and not a player.

Sleeves cost nothing and are only useful if you play the game a lot. For a collector who might not even open the box they have no real value. Anyway, this is a clever upselling technique, they're boosting the price by 50-75% just with add-ons.

 

[LolRose]

Not a huge fan of the Femto model to be honest, think the other members look pretty alright but something about him is seemingly off. Maybe it is the base.

 

[Beelzebud]

Sleeves cost nothing and are only useful if you play the game a lot.

I agree, but honestly all the other add-ons and expansions, just considering product value, are worth the money(to me) even paying individually for them.

All the previous add-ons + expansion announced already had the same cost of 335€, and the sleeves + God Hand Add-on were announced together with the All-in, so for someone who would already get everything it's like you're getting the sleeves + God Hand "for free"

If it was to pick each individually I would pass the extra dice set and the sleeves as they do not add much personal value to me, the God Hand seems a bit expensive for only 5 figures and enemy cards, but it has a big personal value so I would get it anyway.

In my case I would get this:

But instead I got the all-in for -10€ + sleeves + double the dices and the fake leather bag(which is not worth the money but it's cool)

To me it's a good deal
And I work with marketing so I know I'm being induced to believe that I'm getting a discount while I'm actually spending more

And if you take in account the value announced to the post-campaign retail, individually picking all the items sums up to 514€, that's completely out of my pocket range haha

 

[Aazealh]

Not a huge fan of the Femto model to be honest, think the other members look pretty alright but something about him is seemingly off. Maybe it is the base.

His proportions are a little off, and his wing(s) looks wrong, they made it like a cape that's flying off dynamically while it's longer and more static in the original, wrapping around his body (which makes sense since it's a part of said body and not some adornment).

And I work with marketing so I know I'm being induced to believe that I'm getting a discount while I'm actually spending more

Well as long as you're aware then it's OK. A grown man ought to be free to spend his hard-earned money however he wants, and there are worse ways to blow 300€. I'll probably get it too.

And if you take in account the value announced to the post-campaign retail, individually picking all the items sums up to 514€, that's completely out of my pocket range haha

This is also just marketing to induce FOMO. They'll only have a few units for stragglers, the bulk of buyers are getting it now.

 

[Beelzebud]

His proportions are a little off, and his wing(s) looks wrong, they made it like a cape that's flying off dynamically while it's longer and more static in the original, wrapping around his body (which makes sense since it's a part of said body and not some adornment).

Yes! I thought it was the cape but wasn't sure. People keep talking about his stance with the closed fist like he's about to bump some friend, but I'm okay with that it's not a big deal as it's when he used his powers for the first time trying to smash SK, but it's for sure the cape/wing that seems wrong.

Well as long as you're aware then it's OK. A grown man ought to be free to spend his hard-earned money however he wants, and there are worse ways to blow 300€. I'll probably get it too.

Hahaha honestly it's been I time since I spent anything around this value exclusively to me, and it fells worth each every drop of sweat from my hard work (although I work at home in pajamas )

 

[Aazealh]

The crowdfunding ended today with 2,733,772.28 euros (~3.185 million dollars) pledged by 7689 backers.

It's their biggest campaign to date, ahead of Mythic Battle (1.945 million euros from 6278 backers), a Conan expansion (1.7 million from 7572 backers) and Champions of Rokugan (1.65 million from 5683 backers) based on Legend of the Five Rings. Obviously the Berserk license is a draw but it seems that it didn't necessarily bring all that many more people than usual and instead amounted to bigger pledges on average.

For the record, here are the rewards that were offered over the course of the campaign. Delivery is announced for November 2026, so a full year from now.

Note that, uncharacteristically for European prices, this doesn't include VAT. So the standard "Berserker Pledge" is actually 239€ (~$278) while the "Eclipse Pledge with Shaded Miniatures" is really 486€ (~$580).

The "Late Pledges" system will open on November 13 for those who missed the campaign. It's also a foregone conclusion that they will do an expansion or two in the future.

 

[Beelzebud]

The Pledge Manager / Late Pledge opened today

Anyone who missed the campaign can back it now.

They said previously that you'll just not get Griffith mini + enemy card as a Gift, but can buy it separately. But I'm still seeing it included in the Berserk or Eclipse "combo" and not available as add-on. So if you hurry maybe you still get the gift!

 

[Beelzebud]

There was a new update yesterday, which included the adventure book for the main campaign and the solo mode(and some pictures of molds for minis)
PS: This material is not finished yet, still pending proof-reading(some things are weird), see them here

It describes the initial setup for each of the 11 adventures of the campaign, some things are expected to be a surprise on mid-campaign from what we already saw from the adventure 6(Flora's mansion) were it's possible to get a Guts Upgrade mid-adventure with the Berserker armor and Zodd and Grunbeld apostle form(after you first defeat them). This is obviously intended for non-readers to fell surprised during the campaign, but it also adds some in-universe felling to me.
The adventures are named, in order: One More Night , Trolls At Enoch , Hold The Church, Lost In Qliphoth, Escape Qliphoth, Flora’s Mansion, A Beachside Retreat, The Docks Of Vritannis, Royal Gala, Vritannis In Flames and The Kushan Tempest

With those initial descriptions we also have a glimpse of how much the game needed to change the history to adapt, for instance adventure 7 - A Beachside Retreat starts with the Heroes gathered inside the beach cabin and suddenly the crocodiles pishacha break in, no mention of the moonlight boy(expected as there was no mini for it) but I still had hope of at least mention of him and maybe a event card during the campaign describing his body of light helping Guts regain consciousness. Adventure 9 - Royal Gala also left something off the game, there's no mention of Guts vs Serpico fight, and it briefly mentions Farnese and Magnifico reunion and he convincing her to go to the Gala ball and her having a condition that her friend should be invited too, a harsh adaptation here, I understand letting the 1x1 fight out of the game, but this adventure epilogue was the worst to me together with the Adventure 1 but I believe this one still can be read proof and made better.

Other than some weird texts and adaptations, the game setup looks cool to play, the board tiles, tokens and heroes placements really seems to create a nice in-universe atmosphere as we're into the story. There's also some mentioning of specific mechanics that should make each campaign unique, in some we need to retreat, defend and survive, other we need to keep villagers alive, rescue and keep alive, hit'n run to escape, kill everything that moves around you, in Vritannis docks the Heroes are unarmed and can't use all of their attack cards, probably some surprises during the adventure with the event cards too.
I'm anxious to play this game!

I'm still to read the solo modo adventure book, but it's based on the Black Swordsman arc + Lost Children chapter, I'll bring my thoughts on it as soon as I read.

 

[Aazealh]

I mean, there's a number of fundamental problems with it, which was to be expected.

For example, in their system the most important characters are Guts and then Schierke and you can tell the game is built to have them in every "adventure". However the very first adventure is based on a night where Schierke wasn't in the group yet. You'd think they could have adapted this particular scenario to have someone play Casca instead if they really wanted to allow for 5 players. Otherwise stick to 4 players or just don't feature it, replace it with something else.

You can also tell that despite their professed love for the series, they're not all that familiar with it. Case in point, in the French version of the booklet, they say that the Eclipse occurred "a few months earlier" and there's other awkward phrasing like saying they're going to "the elves' country". Amusingly, while the English version is clunky because it's based on the French one (at least, I assume it is), it lessens some of these issues because the wording is less specific, but introduces others like describing Casca as Guts' "friend", which is a serious understatement. And that's just for the first adventure.

In the second one, they mess up the timeline of events, saying an old man stops the group and gets them to help save his village AFTER they leave Flora's house. This means that they go help out of the kindness of their hearts. They also completely misrepresent the priest. What's surprising to me is that the game aspect doesn't necessitate these changes, they're seemingly just the product of the team's lack of familiarity with the story.

Adventure 5 has you "getting lost" in the Qliphoth and you gotta beat more trolls (as Guts) before you find the exit. Way to dumb down the characters. No mention of Slan (I imagine she comes in as a surprise), but it still would have been better to set things up differently, including by splitting Guts and the others apart, like in the manga. Adventure 6 describes Guts as being particularly angry because Zodd "participated" in the Eclipse, which is very misleading. It's also unnecessary because the other apostles did (don't get me started on "Hazuppa" & "Daroga"), so it doesn't have to be about Zodd specifically.

For Adventure 7, I could understand glossing over the boy's presence (although they could have actually made it work), but their depiction of how the group prepares for the assault (it's all about Schierke) is wrong and once again, unnecessary. Adventure 8 has the same problem as 1: it should just be about Isidro & Schierke but they turn it into something else, and they unnecessarily change the timeline of events on top of that. Adventure 9 also has a messed up timeline but I'm more shocked to discover that Glénat calls Farnese' former order the "Holy Silver Chain Knights". Guess their translator thought iron wasn't fancy enough. She improved on the original!

I'm skipping a bunch of things, but I do wonder how they conclude the last Adventure, since in the manga Guts beats Ganishka while on top of Zodd. Overall it makes for a bit of a weird campaign for non-fans, without a clear beginning or end, nor any real coherent developments for the characters. It's frustrating because I feel like between this and the solo campaign, they actually had enough space to tell a coherent and mostly faithful story.

A quick note on the Black Swordsman solo campaign: it feels like a missed opportunity to not have Puck as a playable character. The introductory description contains mistakes and inaccuracies just like for the other booklet. And it feels like it should conclude with Guts facing the Count, then the God Hand, instead of having two more adventures afterward that very roughly cover the Lost Children chapter. It feels like at least one "Adventure" is missing from Lost Children (facing the guardians), and then it ends awkwardly, before Guts gets reunited with Casca or even goes back to check on her. Would have been better to hold off until they could release a "full" version of the Condemnation arc.

 

[Beelzebud]

I agree with everything, but as I said I still expect then to fix most of those texts until the final version. And they are completely open to feedback as it is a crowdfunding(they mention it). So no one better than you Aaz, but it's frustrating that they are being paid for that work and still make those mistakes.

There's still some things we don't fully know, as the event cards who advance the story mid-adventure, but there's previous mentions of a adventure "epilogue" in the event card, when we finish the adventure there's more texts of how the adventure ends, I saw some of these in the gameplays of Flora's Mansion, and apparently it connects to the next adventure prologue(what we see now in the adventure book)

I'm skipping a bunch of things, but I do wonder how they conclude the last Adventure, since in the manga Guts beats Ganishka while on top of Zodd.

Yeah, I also didn't mentioned everything that bothered me, but did so because I believe there's still box to get it fixed. I already read 3 different versions of the rule book for instance, although not entirely(just the first time) I noticed some differences in the texts, and yes it looks like the English version is based on the French, other backers mentioned that some translations seems to be confusing because they came from French.

When it comes to Ganishka battle, they also mentioned already that there's a ally card for Zodd, not sure how that mechanics will workout, the mechanics for allies from what we've seen so far is pretty simple, the allies go first and all the players can control them, they have high life and damage to balance not having skill cards. Enemies have some buffs when a condition is met, so hopefully they add some mechanics to make Zodd fly in the water and maybe a combo with Guts(or any hero, by the way they've been doing things)

including by splitting Guts and the others apart, like in the manga.

There's some "pit"/"pitfall" tokens in this campaign, I assumed those will made the characters to split, maybe some go ahead in the board like taking a shortcut so it'll encourage trying those. Maybe just the difficult may have players wondering what to do when surrounded, the clock is ticking, and there's this pit over there. Yeah it's different than the manga, it's more dynamic and not the same group will be split in the same way, but we're sure and maybe it'll, maybe if it's guts who touch the pit token he'll got alone directly to the girls while the other keep surrounded and only go behind in the board.

A quick note on the Black Swordsman solo campaign: it feels like a missed opportunity to not have Puck as a playable character. The introductory description contains mistakes and inaccuracies just like for the other booklet. And it feels like it should conclude with Guts facing the Count, then the God Hand, instead of having two more adventures afterward that very roughly cover the Lost Children chapter. It feels like at least one "Adventure" is missing from Lost Children (facing the guardians), and then it ends awkwardly, before Guts gets reunited with Casca or even goes back to check on her. Would have been better to hold off until they could release a "full" version of the Condemnation arc.

Again, the event card may play a role here when it comes to the end of the last adventure, it may end with just a rough narration epilogue-like of what happens. I believe the Binding Chain chapter is very hard to adapt to the same gameplay style they choose, while Birth Festival may be a expansion they plan to sell in the future as it can be multiplayer but not with the same characters, they already hinted they have plans on expansions, and the reincarnated Griffith enemy card and mini was a free gift to the campaign backers, this piece is still off the board, idk how it can be used in-game but it's a hint to link Millennium Falcon start to Condemnation end.


A lot of "maybe", yeah. But I understand it's a adaptation and in order to have the multiplayer mode to fells like players can do things the way they wants and not just following a script, some things needed to be sacrificed in the way, it's not the medium to tell the story perfectly, we always have the manga for this.

Surely there's things that can improve, but I'm still excited to play the game

 

[Aazealh]

I agree with everything, but as I said I still expect then to fix most of those texts until the final version.

I don't know man, I wouldn't assume too much in that regard.

And they are completely open to feedback as it is a crowdfunding(they mention it). So no one better than you Aaz, but it's frustrating that they are being paid for that work and still make those mistakes.

So I'm paying 500 bucks and I also get to work on it for free (in the hope that they might implement some of my feedback)? No thanks.

When it comes to Ganishka battle, they also mentioned already that there's a ally card for Zodd

That's good to know.

I understand it's a adaptation and in order to have the multiplayer mode to fells like players can do things the way they wants and not just following a script, some things needed to be sacrificed in the way

Seems pretty heavily scripted regardless.