Berserk Boy

I went in expecting a competent Mega Man tribute and came out genuinely moved by the craft on display here. Berserk Boy is the debut from a solo developer, and the fact that it landed at an 83 on Metacritic without the backing of a major studio feels like a small miracle worth celebrating out loud. The heart of the whole thing is the form-swapping system. You begin with the Lightning Berserk form, and the electric air dash it gives you is already something special: tag an enemy, zip to the next, chain the momentum, repeat until the whole screen crackles. It feels closer to Azure Striker Gunvolt or a combat-focused Sonic than anything from the classic Mega Man library. As you defeat bosses across five hub worlds, you earn four more forms: Flame Drill, which lets you bore through terrain and punish enemies up close; Ice Kunai, a shinobi build that trades raw speed for lethal shuriken pressure; Soaring Wind, which opens the vertical space of levels you thought you understood; and Mine Buster, built around explosive chain reactions and invincibility-frame launches. Each one genuinely plays like a different character dropped into the same stage, and the level design is smart enough to keep requiring all of them rather than letting you coast on a favourite. The Metroidvania hooks are lighter than a dedicated entry in that genre, but they work. Most stages hide resistance members to rescue and Berserk Medals to collect, and you cannot reach everything on your first run through a level. Coming back with a newly unlocked form and finding a route you previously ignored is a quiet, satisfying loop. Completing hostage rescues in a level unlocks EX time-trial versions, which offer a harder test for players who want to chase rankings and optimise their movement. There is also a Modern mode with infinite retries and a Retro mode with a finite life pool and tougher enemies, so the game genuinely scales to your tolerance. The one structural irritant: the true ending is gated entirely behind collecting all medals across every stage, and beating the game without them gives you nothing but a screen nudging you back to the levels. A handful of reviewers found that demotivating, and the complaint is fair. The presentation is extraordinary for a one-person production. The pixel art is clean, expressive, and large-character work that looks like the best of the GBA era running at high resolution. The soundtrack, composed by Tee Lopes of Sonic Mania fame, is the kind of work you leave idling on purpose just to hear it loop. Where the game shows a little wear, it is in the late-game forms. The Soaring Wind sections slow the pacing noticeably, and a fully upgraded Mine Buster makes late combat trivial, which flattens the tension right before the final boss rush. Enemy variety is also thinner than the form system deserves. These are genuine notes, not dealbreakers, and the lightning form alone is worth the runtime. If you grew up with Mega Man Zero or ZX and have mourned the absence of anything that scratches that specific itch, Berserk Boy is the closest thing released in years. It knows when to be fast, it knows when to breathe, and the handcraft behind every pixel is palpable. For a six-to-eight hour campaign built by one person, it finishes cleanly and leaves you wanting a sequel.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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