Asura's Wrath Review

It is fair to say that Asura's Wrath is completely and utterly bonkers.

Format(s): PS3 (Version tested), Xbox 360

I went into Asura's Wrath not really knowing what to expect and, having played it, I am still not quite sure as to exactly what it is.  It is not quite a game, nor is it a movie,  I guess an interactive experience would be an accurate way to describe Asura's Wrath, think Heavy Rain with an extremely out of this world story and a Japanese Anime style.  Asura's Wrath feels like an experiment undertaken by an extremely passionate group of Anime fans, which happen to work at developer Cyber Connect 2, who eagerly wanted to create a story with a strong Anime flavour.

The story follows a demi-god named Asura - seeking vengeance on his comrades, The Guardian Generals, who have framed him for the assassination of their emperor and murdered his beloved wife and abducted his daughter.  Asura confronts those responsible, but they manage to defeat Asura and cast him from heaven.  12,000 years passes and Asura manages to resurrect himself due to the sheer rage he grudges against those that were responsible for the atrocities committed.  As he comes back to life, and is witness to the absolute chaos The Guardian Generals have wrecked upon the world, his rage intensifies over the course of the game.  It is with his burning anger that Asura becomes capable of producing some incredibly jaw dropping feats such as, being able to rapidly slice up an asteroid into a million little pieces, punching enemies so hard that they are literally launched into space and using brute strength to prevent a giant thumb, of an earth sized statue, from crushing Asura.  It is safe to say that the game requires, maybe more than a little, suspension of disbelief.

On the most basic level Asura's Wrath is a game that is based pretty much entirely on Quick Time Events, which is actually not a negative, as it is impossible to fail the OTE sequences.  A cut scene will not be failed if button prompts are not inputted correctly, although overall episode statistics will suffer.  No matter how I much I tried it did not seem possible to fail a QTE.  Asura's Wrath uses QTEs rather cleverly, it does not feel like a passive experience when hitting the button prompts.  There are certain scenes that require a button to be hit in quick succession, but that particular button will be highlighted multiple times over the screen and they will rapidly disappear one by one the more times it is pressed, and this makes Asura feel like an incredibly powerful character.  Asura's Wrath use of QTEs does not hinder the experience, but actually enhances the story and makes you want keep following the drama until the conclusion.

One problem I had was during certain dialogue heavy scenes it was difficult to hear what the characters were saying as the musical score became very loud and the character speech seemed very quiet; this was particularly an issue during the opening scenes of the story.  It was not an issue during most of the game, but during certain scenes, I would not have a clue as to what was happening between characters without the subtitles switched on.

Asura's Wrath consists of 18 episodes, which take around 10 minutes to complete, within 3 separate acts.  Each episode opens and ends with credits - it all very much feels like a television show.  Before beginning a new episode some beautifully crafted eastern static illustrations are depicted, accompanied by some fittingly appropriate oriental music, furthering the story and acting as a prelude to the next episode.  The episodic nature of the game feels like it was originally designed to be released as a downloadable title, as it would make perfect sense to release a bundle of 4 - 5 episodes over a few weeks or months.

Visually, Asura's Wrath looks like a mixture of Japanese inspired myth infused with a heavy dose of science-fiction, which sees some epic action sequences followed by even more epic action sequences.  Enemies seem to also have an element of Tolkien influence as well as Japanese myth.  Certain enemies will be protected by Japanese style golden encrusted armour and have huge heavy Sci-Fi looking weapons attached to their bodies.  I actually found myself wondering whether some of the enemies were mechanical devices or whether they were actually home to sentient life, it could be possible that they were both.  It is popcorn for the eyes, a visual feast, which will see huge set pieces such as an encounter with a giant neon space Buddha and a a six armed Asura battling one of The Guardian Generals.

Asura's Wrath is around 80% cut scene, so most of the game will require a lot of sitting back and watching with the occasional times that require specific button prompts to be entered.  The other 20% of the experience involves more traditional 'gameplay' elements, which will see some God of War type hack en slash combat and also some on-rail shooting segments.

Asura has both light and heavy attacks during the hack en slash battles and Asura will battle some very cool enemies, such as a giant Budda mechanical soldier and there are some memorable boss encounters against giant snails and mutated turtles.  The on rail-shooting elements feel like playing Rez, but without the brightly lit neon vector graphics, and have some pretty cool moments.

The aim of the traditional gameplay elements is to build up enough of the burst meter to perform a finishing move and defeat the enemy.  Once a finishing move is initiated a cut scene will be triggered and the story will continue and the game will go back to on screen button prompts until the next encounter.  These 'traditional' gameplay elements are by far the weakest part of the game, as it seems impossible to fail and thus removes any feeling of challenge, but the absolute absurdness and hugely enthrallingly entertaining set pieces are the main reason why Asura's Wrath will keep you hooked.

The game is rather short and will probably only take around six hours to complete for most players, which some will view as a negative, but I felt that it actually was the perfect length for the type of interactive experience it aspires to be.  For those that want to extend the experience, episodes can be replayed on higher difficulties, mission scores can be improved upon by finishing them in the quickest time possible and scoring a high number of battle points.  A various number of artworks and videos can be unlocked for meeting certain criteria, as well as unlocking another ending and also not forgetting non-story specific trophy achievements can be unlocked for those that find fun in achievement hunting.

My main gripe with Asura's Wrath is not with the game itself, but with the decision to release the 'true' ending as DLC.  Quite frankly, I find this kind of decision to be deeply disturbing and it is a worrying trend in the videogames industry.  DLC is not inherently a bad thing, it can extend the life of a game and add new interesting ideas that were not possible in the main story, but people should not have to fork out extra money to see how the game, which they have already paid for, properly ends.

Conclusion

Asura's Wrath can easily be started and completed within a day, but I would recommend it to people that are fans of Anime or to those that just feel like playing something different.  It is definitely a guilty pleasure type of game, it feels like watching a really cheesy Masters of the Universe type film, albeit with more impressive visual effects.  Asura's Wrath would be more suited to a downloadable game and at a £40 price point is possibly a little too high to justify purchasing, but at a price drop I would say it is worth the money.  Asura's Wrath is the perfect game for a rainy day, just switch off your brain and devote an afternoon/early evening and enjoy the over top story and Sc-Fi/Japanese myth inspired visuals.  It is best to go into Asura's Wrath knowing what to expect, those looking for a hack en slash type gameplay experience will likely be disappointed.

7/10