The First Berserker: Khazan, like many Soulslike experiences before it, combines dangerous exploration with extraordinarly difficult enemies and bosses to fell, ensuring that genre fans have plenty to keep them busy for upwards of 40 hours. And if those ultra-challenging bosses are your main draw, you may be curious how many you’ll come across during your journey through the game’s dark and twisted world. The goal is to be prepared, after all, so we can’t blame you for wanting to know.
Well, look no further. Here’s how many bosses are in The First Berserker: Khazan and where you’ll find them all.
All bosses in The First Berserker: Khazan
There are a total of 16 main bosses to face off against in The First Berserker: Khazan, as well as an even larger selection of optional bosses encountered in bonus missions, which you’ll unlock by having discussions with NPCs around the Crevice (the game’s hub), collecting certain special items, or completing specific tasks.
Below is a list of all main and optional bosses, as well as the mission in which they’re encountered. Needless to say, spoilers await you beyond this point.
Main bosses
These bosses are encountered in The First Berserker: Khazan‘s main missions, which means you’ll have to learn and overcome their challenges to move the adventure forward. These range from tough to immensely challenging, so the average player can expect to spend quite a while learning their moves and finding the right time to fight back.
Yetuga – Banished Hero
Blade Phantom – Trials of the Frozen Mountain
Viper – Forgotten Temple
Volbaino – First Act of Revenge
Aratra – Strange Stench
Rangkus – Traitor Revealed
Maluca – Veiled Knives
Elamein – Devoured Village
Shactuka – Inconceivable Truth
Trokka – Witch’s Castle
Bellerian – Hermit Mountains
Skalpel – Corruptors’ Fortress
Princess Ilyna – Strange Melody
Hismar – Fall of the Empire
Reese – Bloody Sanctuary
Ozma – Master of Chaos
Bonus mission bosses
These bosses are encountered in The First Berserker: Khazan‘s bonus missions, which are optional levels you can take on to find extra gear, scrolls, upgrade items, and more. We highly recommend you complete all of them on your journey, as the additional loot and experience are well worth the time. Additionally, some of these bosses will essentially be retooled versions of encounters you’ve already had (perhaps with a new move or two), making the learning curve for defeating them a bit lower than you’d expect.
Keshta the Unyielding – Stormpass’ Phantom of Combat
Whether you pre-ordered The First Berserker: Khazan or bought the Digital Deluxe Edition, doing so entitles you to a set of in-game gear. Those who pre-ordered can obtain the Fallen Star armor set, while Deluxe Edition purchasers can score the Hero’s Weapon and Armor set. Those who both pre-ordered and purchased the Deluxe Edition can earn both of these sets. But if you’ve started up the game and want to know when you can actually claim these bonuses, we’ve got the answer for you.
Difficulty
Moderate
Duration
2 hours
What You Need
Access to The Crevice (main hub)
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Where to claim your Pre-Order and Deluxe Edition bonuses in The First Berserker: Khazan
Step 1: Before you can access your bonuses, you’ll need to beat the first two main missions of The First Berserker: Khazan.
Step 2: After completing the game’s second mission, you’ll be in the main hub known as The Crevice.
Step 3: From the place you spawn head behind a large pillar in the center of the room to find a shiny barrel.
Step 4: Interact with the shiny barrel to claim any pre-order or Deluxe Edition bonuses you’re entitled to.
As with most Soulslike titles, The First Berserker: Khazan offers a tough and lengthy campaign that will push your skills to the limit. Whether you’re facing tense exploration through dangerous environments or facing off against massive bosses with equally massive health bars, you have a lot to deal with here.
As the opening hours of The First Berserker: Khazan unfold, you’ll learn a lot about how the game functions via in-game tutorials and a handy encyclopedia. But we’ve compiled a few additional tips to get you started with the game so you can be as prepared as possible for what’s ahead. Let’s take a look at our tips for The First Berserker: Khazan.
The First Berserker: Khazan can be a brutally difficult game at times, especially on its Normal difficulty (more on that below). As such, grinding up even moderately better gear and increasing your levels just a bit can make a bigger impact than you’d expect. Don’t be afraid to find good grinding spots to help you get better prepared for bosses or tough areas.
Foes that yield a lot of Lacrima aren’t an uncommon thing to find near the end of a level. For instance, there’s a great grinding spot in the opening level right before you fight the game’s first main boss Yetuga. After dropping the cart down to the Blade Nexus here, you can head back up the cart and head right to find a large yeti creature. By using your charged heavy attack a few times, you can easily beat this guy down quickly. Rinse and repeat for a whopping 480 Lacrima per run (which is quite a lot early on). And if he runs off to fight the human foes below, you can go ahead and whoop their asses for even more Lacrima.
There’s no shame in playing on Easy
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As stated before, The First Berserker: Khazan is an exceptionally challenging experience that is certain to test the mettle of even seasoned Soulslike veterans. With that in mind, the game will provide you an opportunity to bump the difficulty down early in your adventure. There’s no shame in opting to go this route, as the goal of any game is to have fun playing it.
That being said, some trophies/achievements are disabled when playing on Easy. Keep this in mind if you’re going for 100% completion. But you can always consider this route as preparation for a harder future run. Ya know, just ease yourself into it!
Also, if you didn’t swap to Easy when prompted by the game, you can find the difficulty settings under the Accessibility tab in your Settings menu. Here, you can also bump things back up to Normal at any point.
Experiment as much as you’d like
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The First Berserker: Khazan has multiple weapon types and a lot of different skills you can invest in for each of them. Part of the fun of this brutal Soulslike experience is figuring out which of these weapon and skill setups work best for you. Since you can respec your skill points for free at any time, you should experiment with all the weapon types and as many of their skills as possible to see if you can find a build that feels just right.
Blocking tends to work better than dodging
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Your build and playstyle will determine what works best for you between dodging and blocking in The First Berserker: Khazan, but in our experience, blocking seems to be the safest choice in a lot of situations. You can absorb quite a few hits while blocking even at the beginning of your journey, and investing in the appropriate stats to bolster this even further can make you quite a tank as you continue through the game. Because you generally won’t take any damage at all when blocking, you can use this method to patiently wait out difficult enemies or bosses, waiting for just the right time to get in a hit or two.
Of course, if a defensive playstyle isn’t your cup of tea, you can also weave in plenty of parries to save your stamina and whittle away your opponent’s. And it goes without saying that dodging remains a viable strategy against certain types of attacks (especially grabs), so don’t discount it entirely!
Complete Bonus Training for extra rewards
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The First Berserker: Khazan is a very loot-driven game, so you’ll find a smorgasbord of weapons, armor, consumables, and more as you defeat enemies and explore the environments of each level. However, there’s a relatively well-hidden additional way you can score some useful items, and it also offers a nice dopamine hit in the process: Bonus Training challenges.
Bonus Training challenges are found within Daphrona’s Codex, which is accessed in your menu. You’ll notice a treasure icon beside the names of some enemies. If you look at their codex entry, you’ll see challenge that can be completed to earn a listed item. These usually ask you to defeat an enemy type in a specific manner or without taking damage. Whatever the challenges ask of you, make sure you return to the Codex entry after completing it to claim your prize!
If you’re diving into The First Berserker: Khazan, you may have taken a glance at its skill trees and felt a bit overwhelmed. There are a lot of skills to choose from, and it can be difficult to figure out which suits you best. We’re always trying to make things easier for you, though, so we’ve decided to list our picks for the best skills to buy first from each tree, which should make the game’s opening hours slightly more manageable.
Note: Remember that while Common Skills are used across any build, weapon skills are exclusive to that weapon. As such, only invest skill points in the weapon you’re currently using. You can always unlearn them for free at any time and move them to another skill tree if you decide to swap weapons.
Common Skills
Berserk Spirit – Berserk Spirit is found in the Resources sub-tree. This skill increases how much Spirit you can when attacking. Since you’ll need Spirit to use many of your active abilities, this is an important skill to have as early as possible.
Brutal Attack: Reap – Brutal Attack: Reap is found in the Brutal Attack sub-tree. Having this skill means you’ll always earn a bit of health when performing a brutal attack from the front. This is especially helpful early in the game when your healing resources are so limited, and it could be just enough to save your life against a tough boss.
Javelin: Charge – Javelin: Charge is found in the Javelin sub-tree. This skill allows you to charge your javelin throws at the cost of an additional Spirit charge. Since there are a lot of situations where archers are pinging you from afar, this helps you make quick work of them. It can also be used to deal a huge chunk of surprise damage to an enemy you’re trying to pull, giving you a leg up in battle by the time they reach you.
Dual Wield Skills
Blazing Assault – Blazing Assault is found in the Swift Attack sub-tree. This skill provides you with a fifth strike when using a swift attack combo. It doesn’t sound too exciting on paper, but more strikes mean more damage, and more damage means dead enemies.
Whirlwind – Whirlwind is found in the Switch Attack sub-tree. With this skill, you can use a heavy attack after a swift attack to send yourself into a whirlwind leap that spins you into an enemy for huge damage. This is one of the best ways to chip away at bosses, and it’s only made better once you reach level 18 and pick up Phantom: Sword Dance, which offers a huge damage buff when using this skill.
Blowback – Blowback is found in the Guard sub-tree. Having this skill unlocked will cause you to deal damage to enemies when you pull off a successful brink guard. If you’re particularly adept at brink guarding, this can boost your overall damage output by a surprising amount, especially against extremely aggressive enemies.
Greatsword Skills
Mortal Blow – Mortal Blow is found in the Swift Attack sub-tree. This skill lets you follow up a swift attack with a fast, high-damage heavy attack. Since the greatsword is very slow by default, this can be especially useful during the early hours of the game by letting you land extra damage without leaving yourself open too long.
Heat of Battle – Heat of Battle is found in the Unbreakable sub-tree. With this skill unlocked, you’ll have more poise and take less damage when you’re hit mid-attack. More poise means you’ll be less likely to be interrupted by an attack, making this a must-have against enemies that you know will be trying to sneak in hits during your combos.
Armor Breaker – Armor Breaker is found in the Guard sub-tree. This skill allows you to follow up a block or brink guard with two swift slashes. While it won’t suit every person’s playstyle, defense-minded folks can use this to “turtle” behind their blocks, deal quick damage at the end of an enemy’s combo, and then return to a guard stance to repeat the process. At level 18, you can grab the Heart Piercer skill, too, which gives you the option for a nice stab attack after the initial Armor Breaker combo.
Spear Skills
Moonlight Stance – Moonlight Stance is found in the Swift Attack sub-tree. This skill applies a 15-second buff to your Spear after you complete a swift attack combo, granting you afterimage attacks with all subsequent strikes. This is the bread and butter of the Spear, so your goal should be to always keep it active. The extra damage this buff provides is invaluable, and picking up Moonlight Stance: Vitality at level 10 can increase your stamina recovery rate while under its effects.
Crescent Strike – Crescent Strike is found in the Shrewd sub-tree. This skill sends you leaping into the air to slam down on a foe. It also deals extra damage to weak points. Nearly all of the active abilities you can use with the Spear are fantastic, so which is truly the best will come down to preference. But in our opinion, this skill is a great early-game choice due to how quickly it activates, which makes it easy to use during tense, rapidly-paced battles.
Breakdown – Breakdown is found in the Guard sub-tree. With this skill in your repertoire, you’ll deal increased stamina damage to any enemies affected by brink guards. The Spear is already a great tool for eating through an enemy’s stamina, and this just speeds things along even more!
As you navigate the challenging world of The First Berserker: Khazan, you’ll spend a significant amount of time checking every nook and cranny for sweet loot. There’s plenty of it to find, too. But as with almost every Soulslike game, some of The First Berserker: Khazan‘s loot is sporting a trap! While not technically a mimic, there are some scary things lying in wait for you as you pick up loot throughout the game’s levels, and failing to recognize them could cost you a huge chunk of health — or maybe even your life.
Here’s how to spot one of these traps and what you can do to save yourself from them.
How to spot a Crypt Devourer in The First Berserker: Khazan
While exploring levels in The First Berserker: Khazan, you’ll occasionally see dead bodies that glow red. Interacting with these corpses will normally earn you some Soul Tier Dust and a brief dialogue sequence, but some are housing something dangerous beneath them. When you interact with one of these, you’ll be greeted by a giant worm-like creature called a Crypt Devourer, who will grab you, deal damage, then throw you haphazardly onto the ground. In some cases, the throw can even send you into a pack of enemies or off the side of a level where you’ll fall to your death.
Luckily, once you know how to spot a mimic, they no longer pose much of a problem.
For starters, corpses with a Crypt Devourer waiting beneath them tend to not glow quite as strongly as normal ones, so keep an eye out for a less potent red dust around it. Due to the lighting in the environments, though, this isn’t always a perfect science.
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To know for sure whether you’re facing a trap corpse, pull out your javelin and place your reticle over the corpse. If it turns red when doing so, you know there’s a Crypt Devourer there. Throw the javelin to kill it in one hit and save yourself from getting tossed around by an ugly worm.
Soulslike games come in many flavors. Some emphasize parrying enemy attacks like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, while others completely rely on dodging them, like Black Myth: Wukong. When I played The First Berserker: Khazan, I was looking forward to seeing where its mechanics fell within the Soulslike spectrum. It turns out that it’s squarely in the middle.
Up until a boss battle against a giant bipedal ox, I was parrying every single attack. I finally saw the value in dodging instead of parrying when its flaming weapon inflicted chip damage even though my parry timing was perfect. That boss battle taught me that I couldn’t solely rely on blocking and I needed to utilize every tool in my kit to survive.
The First Berserker: Khazan has some of the most balanced defensive and offensive combat systems I’ve experienced in a Soulslike game, as well as some rich progression. However, some frustrating boss mechanics, braindead AI, and puzzling mission structure hold it back from reaching its full potential.
Standing out from the pack
The First Berserker: Khazan is a Soulslike RPG spin-off of Dungeon and Fighter, a side-scrolling beat-em’ up franchise. It follows a disgraced general named Khazan who is falsely accused of being a traitor. He forms a pact with an entity called the Blade Phantom, who grants him supernatural powers to get revenge on those who wronged him. The game acts like a prequel to the Dungeon and Fighter series, as it tells the origins of the Khazan Syndrome, an ailment passed down to Berserkers that causes increased strength at the cost of mental degradation.
While its story isn’t the most original, it’s much more coherent than your typical Soulslike game. Unlike games like Elden Ring, which is filled with cryptic lore, TheFirst Berserker’s story is comparatively easy to follow as Khazan continuously recruits new allies to his revenge quest.
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The First Berserker utilizes an anime aesthetic that’s most similar to Bandai Namco’s own Soulslike, Code Vein, but with much more cel-shading. Its tone is edgy and brooding, but the saturated colors contrast nicely and pop in the character models and environments, making it stand out compared to the plethora of Soulslike games with dull and muted color palettes.
Many inspirations
The combat feels like it takes inspiration from a variety of contemporaries in its subgenre, especially Sekiro. Khazan can parry enemy attacks in order to reduce their stamina and break their stance. He can also dodge incoming attacks like in Black Myth: Wukong and timing them perfectly lets Khazan inflict quick counterattacks. This makes The First Berserker’s combat feel like the best of both worlds, but that comes with a major downside.
Bosses and enemies are very aggressive like in Bloodborne and Lies of P, often attacking in chains with multiple hits. Stamina doesn’t recover fast enough to keep up with these constant hits, though. I often felt that my stance kept getting broken. Sekiro didn’t have a stamina bar for dodging, which is what made its parrying mechanics feel fair. Even with stat upgrades that boosted Khazan’s stamina recovery rate, it didn’t feel like it was enough to withstand constant onslaught of attacks.
Thankfully, there’s some flexibility with Khazan’s skill tree. Of his three available weapons, the dual wield sword and axe, the greatsword, and the spear, I felt that the spear fit my playstyle the best with its long reach and wide attack range. I was able to put skill points into specific spear techniques as well as upgrading my counterattacks to give myself even more defensive options. Skills points can be returned and reinvested at no extra cost, which adds to the system’s versatility.
One standout feature that The First Berserker has is that it gives players Lacrima (this game’s version of experience points) upon dying in a boss battle. Like in many other Soulslike games, I spent hours trying to defeat certain bosses, but made no progress. Depending on how close I was to defeating the boss, I earned more Lacrima. It’s almost a mini roguelite system: Even though I was constantly getting my butt kicked, at least I was making a smidge of progress each time.
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Khazan can call on an ally for help during boss battles, and it works similarly to Lies of P. By fighting copies of himself found at random spots in levels, Khazan can earn a consumable called a Shard of Advocacy to summon allies. Allies inflicting extra damage or being distractions is helpful, but the AI isn’t very helpful. In one particular fight, I fought a boss that could create areas of fire that constantly drained HP. My ally simply wouldn’t move out of the fire, leading to its early demise. Another boss had an attack that would draw me in, but could be easily avoided by running or dodging backwards. My ally never did that and died at that point of the fight every single time.
Tying the ability to summon allies to a consumable is frustrating, especially when trying to farm for them. Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it considering how easily allies can die. I feel like I’d be better off fighting the boss alone most of the time.
Growing pains
While the combat is mixed, The First Berserker’s level design is top notch, filled with accessible shortcuts to make getting to bosses easier. Lowering drawbridges, finding keys to locked doors, and activating elevators all felt immensely satisfying after fighting my way through hordes of monsters.
Whenever Khazan goes to a new level, he starts a mission. Players progress through the levels and dungeons as usual, unlocking save points along the way like any normal Soulslike game. However, Khazan can’t warp between any of them. That isn’t inherently a problem, but it’s compounded with one incredibly baffling mission structure decision: If you want to go to a new level, the entire progress of the current level is reset.
While the save points unlocked will still be available, every single door and puzzle needs to be done again. This stifles backtracking and exploration. There was one particular level and save point that I found that was perfect for farming Shards of Advocacy. However, once I left the level to do a side mission in another level, I was unable to quickly access that same area again and would have to go through the entire dungeon once more just to do so. Farming for the consumable was annoying enough, but having to redo the dungeon to reach that same point was even worse.
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Equipment like weapons and armor are dropped by enemies or found in chests, and The First Berserker’s loot system is one of the most manageable I’ve played in recent memory. It doesn’t overwhelm players with new drops every five seconds like other Soulslike games, such as Nioh, do, and there are plenty of ways of using old equipment you don’t wear anymore. You can simply sell them for gold, or dismantle it to earn some Lacrima to go towards increasing Khazan’s stats. Additionally, old equipment can be consumed to change the attributes of other equipment or increase their level. The process is incredibly streamlined and I never felt like my old equipment was going to waste.
The First Berserker: Khazan really tested my patience, even more so than other Soulslike games. It almost made me want to snap my controller in half at times. But as tough as its bosses were, its systems are easy to grasp. Even with some questionable design choices in the mission structure and issues with the way stamina is handled, the game’s flexible combat made me want to see the journey through. Khazan may be the first Berserker, but I wasn’t far behind myself; I must have caught Khazan Syndrome the way I was losing my mind playing this game.
The First Berserker: Khazan was tested on Xbox Series X.
