Asura’s Wrath

Game Info

There’s something seriously wrong with Asura’s Wrath, but it has nothing to do with its soundtrack, story, gameplay, aesthetic, or anything of that nature.  No, the main problem with it is its target audience, which is basically me and all the other people that were in my college anime club.  Asura’s Wrath is hands down the closest you could ever come to playing a 13-episode shonen anime series, and for me that’s not a bad thing.  Everyone else on the other hand…yeah. You’re better off if you just stop reading and move along to something else.  Now are all the anime fans still with me?  Good.  Grab your Pocky sticks and your Ramune soda and read on.

When I say that Asura’s Wrath plays like an anime, I mean that in the most literal sense possible.  It’s sectioned off into different episodes, each one with opening and closing credits, and there are bumper illustrations that announce where the commercial break would be if this was on television.  There are even spoiler-filled next episode previews that give you a glimpse of what you can expect to come in the next “episode”.  There’s even a hot springs episode!  I’m not exaggerating.  This really is the closest humanity has ever come to playing an anime.  So how does an anime play?  Well, most of the time it’s by using those oft-dreaded quick-time events, which is then followed by some solid Devil May Cry-style brawling segments, followed by some Panzer Dragoon-style on-rails shmup shooting set-pieces.  Mix those three elements up and you have yourself one Asura’s Wrath.  The end result is definitely something that’s entirely unique and, if the initial sales are any indication, will probably be never seen again.  And while I must say that I enjoyed the entire run, I have to admit that it has little in the way of replayability.

Graphically, Asura’s Wrath is somewhere in the middle ground of the Unreal Engine spectrum.  It doesn’t look nearly as good as Arkham City or Mass Effect 3, but it looks much better than Hunted or Daggerdale. Graphics look especially rough when zooming in to close-ups of the characters when the textures take their sweet time loading and the screen tears like tissue paper in a tornado.  From a distance though, everything looks quite good, especially during the God of War style combat segments where motion blur is used to effective convey Asura’s god-like speed and agility.  Most of the games parts that involve more player input than just pressing “X” in a certain amount of time require you to build up your burst meter by attacking with your fists or shooting with your…fists, which then results in a super takedown.  Or the opening a door.

While most games sometimes attempt to take it “over the top”, Asura’s Wrath takes it over the top of the top of the top.  For example, the games first boss fight involves a skirmish with a baddie who grows to planet size.  His final attack involves him trying to squash you with his index finger, slowly dropping it down towards human-sized Asura with atmospheric re-entry heat causing it to burn with glowing fire.  And he LOSES!  That’s just one instance and many more insane exploits follow it.

Asura’s story of betrayal and revenge is blend of Asian mythology and Western science fiction, with some spaghetti western thrown in for good measure.  It won’t have you on the edge of your seat and at times I found it hard to empathize with the main characters since they all look like cyborgs with their metallic skin and glowing eyes.  Nor is there any sort of character growth.  At the beginning of the game, Asura’s mad.  At the end of the game, Asura’s mad.  At least all the bad guys are dead.  Or are they?  You see, to get the true ending, you have to get the highest grading rank on 5 episodes or play through 50 episodes, regardless of grade.  Then, after replaying the games lengthy final episode, fighting the same end boss in all of his forms, you’re greeted with a minute long cutscene that is, at its heart, a commercial for a piece of $6.99 DLC.  So after shelling out the initial cost of the game, you have to pay to see the games true conclusion.  For shame, Capcom.

So in the end, I can only recommend this to anyone with a remote interest in the Japanese animation storytelling format and a penchant for QTEs.  And that is who my final score is aimed at.  Everyone else should see that number to be a 4.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get a second job so that I can afford to see this game’s ending.