SkullKast 100 - Flowers of Oblivion (DC Game)

Walter

Walter

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Episode 100: Flowers of Oblivion (2h 33m)
The SkullKast crew — Walter, Aazealh, and Griffith — play through all of the 1999/2000 Dreamcast game "Berserk: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion" (JP) / "Sword of the Berserk Guts Rage" (US). This is a pretty great game, but it's not very easy for everyone to just jump in and play. We wanted to talk in-depth about it and demonstrate how closely it adheres to the overall tone and feel of Berserk, so a video-podcast is the best way we could figure that out.

Listen to the podcast for a teaser of the full thing, and find the YouTube video of our playthrough here.

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Wow impressed you guys we’re able to beat the game in under 3 hrs! Was that standard for DreamCast games back then or is the Berserk DC game shorter than average?
 
Theozilla said:
Wow impressed you guys we’re able to beat the game in under 3 hrs! Was that standard for DreamCast games back then or is the Berserk DC game shorter than average?
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It was a VERY short game for its time. I beat it in about three hours my first time through it, and subsequent replays took a little less than one hour (due to skipping cutscenes).
 
Theozilla said:
Wow impressed you guys we’re able to beat the game in under 3 hrs! Was that standard for DreamCast games back then or is the Berserk DC game shorter than average?
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It's a short game, and I wasn't really playing for speed, but I did put it on Easy so I could focus on talking instead of expertly mowing through enemies.
 
That was a fun and interesting new take on the podcast. Heh, I didn't even realize it was released before the Conviction arc was even finished! I thought the only real preview it had for readers was Casca's return to lucidity (and that was a long ways off), but it really hinted at a lot of things to come, like Guts and Casca's reunion, Griffith's return, and his formation of an army of Apostles.

The game may not have aged well, but it still looks leagues better than the 2016-2017 anime. Shows how a little expressiveness in the character models and a lot of proper cinematography can go a long way.

Walter said:
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Shame you failed this QTE, though, because the success is just as amusing.
 
That was a fun one. Im sure you guys already thought about it, but you should really also upload the SkullKasts on youtube. Im sure that there would be interest for them on that platform.
 
That was great! I have never played this game and it was very fun watching you guys play it and listen to your thoughts about it.

I also have to agree that it's probably the best Berserk game. When I started reading the manga and since I have a PS4 I wanted to buy the "new" game, but it didn't look that good... Did you guys like/dislike the ps4 game?
 
Honestly, the game looks pretty good and playable even for today standards. Too bad, I don't own a Dreamcast console or a PS2(anymore) so I can play none of the two.
 
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Theozilla said:
Wow impressed you guys we’re able to beat the game in under 3 hrs! Was that standard for DreamCast games back then or is the Berserk DC game shorter than average?
Click to expand...

Like people said, it's a very short game to begin with. But more than that, it's just very unique. It's very narratively-focused, heavy on cutscenes, and with a visual fidelity that was pretty impressive back when it was released (December 1999). It was also the first game to ever feature "Quick Time Events", as we mention during the podcast. It's really more of an interactive movie, but with actual good gameplay in it. A kind of hybrid that's unlikely to be made again.

Keratos23 said:
When I started reading the manga and since I have a PS4 I wanted to buy the "new" game, but it didn't look that good... Did you guys like/dislike the ps4 game?
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I haven't even bought the new game... And I own a lot of Berserk-related stuff. I think that answers your question. The Dreamcast game remains uniquely relevant to Berserk today, and while the PS2 game was less meaningful, it was a well-executed, fun romp. The Musō one was just a cash-in, a Berserk skin applied to a gameplay that hasn't changed in 20 years.
 
I love that you guys did this! Really fun podcast, and it worked well with video. I'd never seen this full story and it added a new layer onto the story.
 
Hey! This is my first post. I've really enjoyed the podcast for a while now, but this episode was just out of this world. Thanks for all the effort you guys put into creating content and this community. It was really neat to see how many little connections a game that came out in 1999/2000 had to the current episodes—Casca's brief moment of awakening and her reference to a terrible dream in particular.
 
I finally finished watching the podcast and I really enjoyed it. Back in the day a friend of mine had a Dreamcast and the game and he showed me the fight with Zodd, but other than that I didn’t have a good idea of what the game was about, so it was good to finally fix that.

On a different note, @Griffith, I must say that I’m loving your references lately; Trapper Keeper? one-hour photo? Man, we must be getting old. :ganishka:
 
m said:
On a different note, @Griffith, I must say that I’m loving your references lately; Trapper Keeper? one-hour photo? Man, we must be getting old. :ganishka:
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Thank you, and I definitely am considering I'm astonished you could @ me in a post and it showed up in my notifications! :flora:
 
Oburi said:
Was Nico a boy or girl? I always thought Nico was a boy but I think Aaz referred to Nico as "she".
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Niko was a boy. I don't remember referring to him otherwise (wasn't I taking about the nun instead?), but if you heard it then it was a mispronunciation.
 
Aazealh said:
Niko was a boy. I don't remember referring to him otherwise (wasn't I taking about the nun instead?), but if you heard it then it was a mispronunciation.
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Yea probably. Just making sure. I love the voice actor for Balzac. The voice actor is actually the same guy who played Sarah Conner's mental hospital psychiatrist in the first two Terminator movies. Honestly my best memories of playing this game with friends when it first came out was cracking up every time Balzac was mentioned, us being 12 year olds and thinking the main bad guy in the game was named "Ballsack". Little did I know at the time that this was actually the same Berserk universe that I would discover a few years later with the anime and become obsessed with for the rest of my life. I didn't even make the connection until I read it somewhere. Really is a great game though. Especially for the time. I can't believe it had quick time events. I had totally forgotten that. In the late 90's / early 2000's, so many amazing games were coming from Japan that were so different from anything else we had. Resident Evil and Metal Gear, but also Sword of the Berserk, Genma Onimushu, Dino Crisis, Ninja Gaiden. My friends and I loved finding the new one, because not only were they more difficult, but they were usually darker, more violent and always hinting at some greater mythology.

Anyway thanks for the playthough guys. Hadn't actually seen this game all the way through since I first played it. It's actually really well done.
 
Oburi said:
The voice actor is actually the same guy who played Sarah Conner's mental hospital psychiatrist in the first two Terminator movies.
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Doctor Silberman?! So random. :ganishka:

Oburi said:
Honestly my best memories of playing this game with friends when it first came out was cracking up every time Balzac was mentioned, us being 12 year olds and thinking the main bad guy in the game was named "Ballsack".
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This is actually due to the US actors mispronouncing the name. It's from French writer Honoré de Balzac and should actually be pronounced "Bahl Zack".
 
I was watching the podcast last night and when the mandragora roots were tearing through the corridor I was literally yelling, "Jump guys!" :ganishka: I am actually in the middle of playing through this myself. Someone dumped a stack of old Dreamcast games in my lap and "Flowers of Oblivion" was in there.

Does anyone know if there's a better translation of the original game script online somewhere? The clarifications on the podcast of what Zodd tells Guts during their showdown was really helpful.

I find overall the plot a bit confusing and I wonder if it's due largely to the translation.
 
Sorry to bump, but I didn't think this was worth starting a new thread about. Has there ever been a retranslation of this game's script? The 2000 English version leaves a lot to be desired.
 
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