Berserk: Millennium Falcon Arc - Flowers of Oblivion Chapter

Berserk: Millennium Falcon Arc - Flowers of Oblivion Chapter, also known as Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage in English-speaking western territories, is a video game for the Sega Dreamcast based on the Berserk manga by Kentarou Miura, who was in charge of the scenario draft and character design.^[1] It takes place between volumes 22 and 23 of the Berserk manga; right after Guts and Puck depart for Elfhelm with Casca, but before Farnese, Serpico and Isidro join the party. It was released in Japan by ASCII Corporation in late 1999 and in western territories early the following year by Eidos Interactive. The music is composed by Susumu Hirasawa, who also composed the 1997 anime series' music.

Story[]

After leaving Rickert and Erica to venture toward Elfhelm, Guts, Puck and Casca come across a caravan being robbed by bandits. They invoke Guts' wrath when they notice the approaching Casca and state their intent to take both her and the caravan's performing girl. After the bandits are dispatched, the girl introduces herself as Rita, and expresses her hope for Guts to attend the performance that her troupe is to hold in the nearby town. At Puck's insistence, and after sensing something within the strongman in the cart, Guts accepts Rita's invitation.

But during the show, the strongman, Job, is revealed to have a repulsive growth on his body; the villagers begin to stone him upon recognizing it. Despite Rita's pleas to the mob, Job transforms into a monster, which Guts kills to Rita's dismay. At that moment, a carriage arrives, from which the town's ruler, Baron Balzac, emerges to inspect Job's body. Thanking Guts, Balzac explains that the village has long suffered an incurable plague that turns its victims into rampaging monsters called "Mandragorans". Noticing Casca's regressed state, Balzac convinces Guts to come to his castle while having Rita arrested for her association with Job. Once at the castle, Guts is taken by Balzac to his secret laboratory, where he learns of the Mandragora plants that possess people and cure disease.

Balzac talks about the lifespan of a Mandragora and how he has been trying to obtain the heart of a fully grown plant since it has infinite healing possibilities. But as the heart is located in a Mandragoran-infested village on the edge of his domain, Balzac offers to use his resources to heal Casca if Guts retrieves the heart in his stead. Though the swordsman distrusts Balzac, especially since the latter is holding pre-Mandragorans in his dungeon, he accepts the proposal while informed that he may confront a nun named Eriza, who is protecting the Mandragora's heart.

Back upstairs, Casca and Puck, who have accompanied Guts to Balzac's castle, see a painting of a beautiful woman before they find Rita about to be executed before a rebel group raids the castle and take her captive. The rebels proceed downstairs and release the transformed Mandragorans. After Balzac excuses himself to attend to the emergency, Guts fights his way through the freed Mandragorans. Suddenly, Puck flies in to tell him that the rebels have kidnapped Casca. They hurry out, coming across Rita's dog, who leads them to the abductors. Before a fight between Guts and the rebels can ensue, however, their leader Dunteth reveals that Casca is safe and takes the swordsman to their underground base. On the way there, Dunteth explains that Balzac once was a kind ruler until the epidemic changed him into a tyrant. Upon reaching the bottom of the base, Guts' presence causes the spirits of the dead to rise, and he dispatches them before he is reunited with Casca. Guts explains that despite Dunteth's words concerning Balzac, he must get the Mandragora's heart so the baron can cure Casca. Dunteth decides to assist Guts so they can barter with Balzac, and Puck explains that Casca will be safe in an elven spring chamber with him and Rita looking after her.

After fighting animal-based Mandragorans and bandits, Guts and the rebels reach the Mandragora village. Though the villagers behave serenely, they transform into Mandragorans the moment one of the rebels plucks out a Mandragora plant with Dunteth killed by one of the transformed villagers. The Mandragorans soon cease their attack when a nun, Eriza, appears and plants the Mandragora back into the Earth while Rita runs into the village. Rita reveals that Balzac's men have attacked the rebel base and took Casca hostage to force Guts to bring them the Mandragora's heart. When Guts demands her to tell him where the Mandragora's heart is, Eriza instead explains the past of a simple boy named Niko, who lived a blissful life before he died one winter night while clutching a strange item. She relays that the Mandragorans only want peace and that they live happier than humans.

But Guts still insists that the Mandragora's heart as Eriza takes refuge in the village's church, following after her through an underground passage where she assumes Mandragoran form to defend Mandragoran Tree: revealed to be spawned from Niko's body. Though Guts manages to cut out the tree's heart, Eriza refuses to part with the only thing she has left of Niko and flees with the heart. But she finds the entire village being burned to the ground by Balzac's forces under the command of the baron’s advisor Gyove. Faced with a conundrum, Eriza chooses death with the Mandragora's heart and runs back into the burning church, a horrified Rita's horror noticing Niko’s pendant which Eriza dropped prior to her demise – a beherit.

Gyove and his men flee for their lives when Zodd has arrived in the village. Having been sent by Griffith for a special task, Zodd learned that Guts was nearby when he unintentionally freed Casca and Puck from a spirit infested cell. Approaching Guts, Zodd states that he wants to resume where they left off. Eventually, after their battle ends in a draw, Zodd departs to resume his task while advising Guts to save his woman. Though Rita is glad the people infected by the Mandragoras are returning to normal, the people in question find their loved ones dead and blame Guts as he leaves without defending himself.

Meanwhile, Puck and Casca stumble across a laboratory while finding a way out of the castle, coming across a bedroom where they find a girl who Puck believes to be Balzac's daughter, who has a state of mind similar to Casca's. Hearing voices coming from upstairs, Puck and Casca take refuge in a room that houses an infant-like creature revealed to be the a fragment of the Mandragora‘s heart that Balzac acquired. When Balzac enters the room, the heart grows around Casca while uttering a shriek that rallies the Mandragorans in the dungeon to run amok by the time Guts and Rita return to the town. Fighting their way through the Mandragorans and Balzac's underlings, Guts and Rita arrive at the castle and see the mysterious girl. They take her along and, after Guts kills Gyove, they reach Balzac's throne room.

When Guts asks where Casca is, Balzac explains that it is too late; desperate, Rita asks Balzac how he came to be this way. Balzac confesses that he was once a kind ruler before the pressure of ruling his land while caring for his ill wife eventually broke him as he found comfort in spilling the blood of others. When Rita asks about the happiness of his "daughter", Balzac reveals the girl to be Annette herself. Balzac reveals that he cured Annette with a drug extract made from the Mandragora's heart, yet it kept her from aging with Annette's mind eroded to that of a mindless child unable to remember her husband; Puck noticing the similarities to the relationship between Guts and Casca. Tired of talking, Balzac drinks a substance to become a Mandragoran before Guts defeats the monstrous man. Guts and Rita run off to find Casca, the latter losing Eriza's pendant as it drops near Balzac's body.

Guts eventually reaches the chamber of the Mandragora's heart, which grows into a giant Mandragora with Casca trapped inside its petals. Guts manages to kill the gargantuan creature and freed Casca, shocked to find Casca recognizing him – claiming to have woken up from a "bad dream" – before reverting back to her child-like state with Puck deducing her momentary recovery as a side effect of the Mandragora's possession. Guts then senses Balzac's blood activating the beherit on pendant. Balzac offers Annette to the God Hand to be reborn an Apostle, but Guts disposes of him soon after. With the town returning to some state of normalcy, Guts and his group part ways with Rita to continue their journey; the performing girl promises to remember them. Back in Balzac's castle, the Skull Knight recovers Balzac's beherit and swallows it as material for his Sword of Beherits.

Cast & Crew[]

Voice director: Kris Zimmerman

Voice cast:

Soundtrack[]

Main article: Berserk: Millennium Falcon Arc - Flowers of Oblivion Chapter Original Game Soundtrack

Notes[]

• This is considered to be the first Berserk media to be released in North America before the 1997 anime series (released by Media Blasters in 2002) and the manga (released by Dark Horse Comics in 2003).

Gallery[]

Sword of the Berserk- Guts' Rage in Dreamcast Magazine (USA and Canada, Issue 6, 2000)

References[]

External Links[]

• Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage at Game Rankings.

Appendices[]