Brash Buster

I really like Evil Otto so I figured "eh what the hell I'll make a post about him"

I actually don't remember how I learned about Berzerk, but I was immediately interested that this game with a pitch black background and electronic voice clips had a bouncing smiley face and if you saw it you had to freaking run because you could NOT kill it.

Like yeah sure Pac-Man's got a black background in a neon maze with ghosts and some people have turned that into something creepy (shout out to that one Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic) but Pac-Man had more games. Pac-Man had a world (and a World 2, 3, and Rally) by the time I learned about him, one that explained his abstract setting. Berzerk had nothing set in stone, even if there was the Atari 2600 version's manual and the board game; by the time I learned about either of those I was in my 20s and had already been marinating the idea of this big smiley face that exclaimed monotone proclamations of murder. I think for me Evil Otto kinda struck the chord that Sinistar struck to a lot of people, this old arcade monster who would kill you immediately.

There was also this fangame (Mushroom Kingdom Fusion) where at the end of a Windows 98 Minesweeper level the face from that old version of Minesweeper turned into Evil Otto for a boss fight; that was actually the first time I was exposed to his design and voice, so that fight holds a lot of nostalgic value to me.

I also really like the idea that if Evil Otto was 3D he'd basically just look like he does in the game, like some 3D Dot Game Heroes thing where his animation isn't any more fluid in a 3D world and he's got this blocky volume to him. I 3D printed him, even.

I really don't like what Berzerk Recharged did with Evil Otto. Like I was probably overthinking the simplistic graphics and stuff but he looks too cutesy now, I really like how the original sprite was grinning ear to ear I mean I guess with I should have seen the signs since even Frenzy (the official sequel that nobody talks about) kind of downplayed Evil Otto by making him killable and having a "Mama Otto" that was just a background thing that looked like a big round frowny face. Still, Berzerk Recharged looks like it was made out of PowerPoint shapes and I don't like its design.