Asura`s Wrath

Ok, in Asuras Wrath you play as Asura (duh) a sort of fallen demi-god trying to rescue his daughter from his former comrades who have betrayed him. The backdrop for this whole story is a huge war beetween the "gods" and these strange mutated looking creatures seemingly trying to devour the worlds life.

To say it simply, this game is truly unique.

It takes elements from 3rd person beat em up, 3rd person shooter (sort of) and heavy rain style quick time events. You sort of drift between all these gameplay styles in every stage of the game, and they all work really well.

The third person combat is very easy to grasp with a focus on simplicity and cinimatic flair rather than true difficulty or mastery.

The "shooting" parts are just as simplistic with an easy to use lock on system and a normal target and rapid fire mechanic.

The quick time events are really the center of attention though as they occur seemlessly within many of the games lengthy cutscenes. These QTEs are almost as easy as the rest of the game but youll need to pay close attention as they do sneak up on you from time to time.

Now you do have a health bar... but you probably won't notice on the normal difficulty or below. Those looking for any kind of challenge from the game will need to ramp the difficulty up to the max, and even then the game still remains quite easy in comparison to other current gen titles. I've only died once in the whole game and that was simply because I got a little too immersed in the story and failed to respond to the QTE on screen. (woops! oh well you get a trophy for continuing from gameover. so all was not lost)

Anyways, the story is top notch and will be one of the main reasons youll want to pick this game up, Asura as a character is always explosivly angry (and rightly so) and he is easy to relate to and feel for... despite him being a little phsycopathic at times. The script for the game is beautifully written and both english and Japanese voices are fantastic.

The music in the game is also plays a huge part in making the game so enjoyable and immersive with huge sweeping orchestral scores setting the perfect mood for this epic story.

Yes there is a horrible cliffhanger at the end... but the main bulk of the game is so enjoyable I really don't mind.

I'm currently playing through the game for the third time, experimenting with some of the unlockable guages (which alter certain gameplay elements) and I have yet to grow tired of the game. This is really saying something as I usually return most newer games these days within the first week of owning.

If I had to pick issues I have two minor ones to point out.

1. There doesnt seem to be any proper movie gallery in the game. you can replay small parts of certain cinimatics but not alot of them.

2.(and this may just be my tv disagreeing with the game) But I found the sound balancing to be increadably bad. Sometimes voices will be loud and music quiet, other times the music will be so loud the voices can't even be heard!

Small issues though really in a game that in my opinion is the best release of 2012 so far.

This really is a game for those looking for something... more than a game. Its an interactive experiance. It has an anime style flair to it and ALOT of rediculous OTT action. The game IS more cutscene than game... but its so fantasticly done I just can't fualt it.
If this sounds like your kind of thing from what I've written then DO NOT HESITATE, BUY NOW!!! As a more accurate score- 9.5 out of 10 (If you really hate long cutscenes and story driven games subtract a few marks)

Thankyou for reading!

From the studio that brought the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, Asura's Wrath is that of a different kind of game. With an anime style, over the top action and a big focus on story, Asura's Wrath is unlike anything else out there and it ends up being something special.

The story of the game focuses on the main character Asura, a demigod who is part of the Eight Guardian Generals who protect heaven and earth from the creatures known as the Gohma. When Asura returns home from a huge battle with the Gohma he is asked to meet the Emperor, only to find him murdered. Asura is blamed for his death and after escaping imperial forces he runs home to protect his family. He returns to find his wife murdered and his daughter Mithra kidnapped. Asura's former allies and the leader of the Guardian Generals revel they are behind it all and they need Mithra's power to bring about "The Great Rebirth". Asura is easily defeated and is sent to his death. He awakens in the land of Naraka and heads back to earth to exact his revenge and save his daughter.

The story is the biggest focus of Asura's Wrath and the game nails it. The story is highly enjoyable and it has the most insane action scenes I have ever seen. The setting is a unique blend of Asian Mythology with science fiction which makes for a fascinating universe and fantastic characters. What you are watching is highly entertaining with so many scenes you will never forget.

The gameplay is a basic action game with 3 different styles of play. Beat `em up sections, on-rails shooting and quick time events. The game is split into episodes that play out like an anime TV show. The idea of the beat `em up and on-rails shooting sections is to build up your rage meter at the top of the screen. Once it's full you will be able to activate Burst mode which will advance the story. During the burst mode scenes you will be taking part in quick time events where you press the on screen button at the right time to improve your score. If you fail the quick time events there is no real failure since the story will stay the same. At the end of each episode you will get a results screen showing how well you did and what your rank is.

You can replay episodes to get a higher score and to meet a certain requirement. You are treated at the end of each episode to an ending segment with great artwork by Japanese artists and previews for the next episodes. There isn't that much to the gameplay as you will be watching it more than playing it. This may put some people off depending on your tastes but the parts of the game you play are fun. The game plays more like an interactive anime TV show so the story is a much bigger focus than the gameplay. It's a gamble but the payoff is fantastic and very entertaining. There is also a gallery mode where you can unlock CG art, Illustrations, ending videos of the episodes, unlockable gauges and customisable bumpers for the commercial breaks during episodes. The game clocks in at around 6 to 7 hours which is quite short. But with 8 DLC episodes on the way soon, the experience will increase in length.

The graphics get the job done and they look beautiful. Powered by the Unreal engine, the character animations look fantastic and the settings are amazing. On occasion the framerate will drop but it's doesn't distract from the overall experience. Artwork you can unlock looks beautiful and the same goes for the episode endings.

The soundtrack is outstanding and really epic. There are various styles like orchestral, guitar and even Symphony No.9 in E Minor is included. The soundtrack fits perfectly to the epic moments of the game. The English voice acting is very good and there is an option to switch to the Japanese voices for those who prefer it.

Overall Asura's Wrath is a special game with a fantastic story and amazing presentation. While there is more story than gameplay which will vary with some, the overall experience is an unforgettable one. If you're a big fan of anime and want to try something different this is a must buy. If you prefer more gameplay and don't care for story then this probably isn't for you. It's a brilliant title that accomplishes what it was set out to do and it ends up being highly memorable.

Well, this is certainly an oddly risky release from Capcom, a company whose output seems to be solely reliant on a small handful of 'safe' franchises of late. Asura's Wrath is a game that's fairly unique in what it's aiming to do... and it's debatable as to whether or not that's a good thing as what it's aiming to do appears to be to show what God of War would have been like if it was Japanese developed and was being adapted from an anime series version of said franchise. The game is every bit as nuts as that probably makes it sound.

Set on some ill defined, ancient/fantasy version of Earth called 'Gaea', the story revolves around a group of 'Demi-Gods' called the Eight Guardians, each representing one of the 'eight Mantras' (Think the seven deadly sins with one extra). You control the Demi-God of Wrath, Asura as he is finishing a battle between the Eight Guardians and the armies of Vlitra, an immensely powerful monster created from the will of the planet Gaea that must be subdued every few thousand years or it will wipe out the fairly primitive humans who worship the Eight Guardians it appears. Following the battle, Asura is framed for murdering the emperor the Eight Guardians serve as part of a conspiracy between the other seven guardians, who want to take Asura's daughter (A priestess with immense 'Mantra power')for some unknown reason. For good measure, they also kill Asura's wife... and then Asura himself. Now... if you've played God of War, you'll know killing a guy like Asura right after epically trolling his life so badly is not going to keep him down for long, and sure enough Asura crawls his way out of what passes for hell in this game's world only to find he's been gone twelve thousand years, and his former comrades now rule the world as the 'Seven Deities', using humanity as nothing more than fuel for their soul powered godhood, in the name of attaining eternal peace for Gaea in the long run. So with nothing on his mind but revenge (And seemingly saving his daughter as a secondary concern), Asura proceeds to go on a rampage across Gaea as he wages a one man war against the seven deities and their vast armies... but severely outnumbered and outgunned, what hope does the angriest God around have of victory against far more powerful beings than he? Lucky for him he's starring in what is essentially the unholy offspring of God of War and Dragon Ball Z, where death is a temporary set back and when your opponent is stronger than you, you just scream very loudly after he beats you up until you get stronger than HIM. This is macho excess at it's finest and damn it all if it isn't a total hoot to see. Each 'episode' of the game is designed to resemble the format of a Japanese anime TV show, with opening credits (No theme songs sadly), mid-episode 'bumpers'(Place holder screens that would be used to book-end ad breaks on TV) and narrated next episode previews. The presentation is perfectly realised and the way the whole package is put together is hilariously authentic. The story is actually a very good one despite it's seeming simplicity... touching on all the old tropes you know and love from action anime shows while also managing to be genuinely engaging at the same time, making you care about characters who are, for all intents and purposes, total d-bags. It's worth noting that while the game does have a conclusive finale to it with episode 18, there is a 'true ending' to the game that is fairly easily unlocked that seems to be a set up for a sequel to the game... this is NOT the case. This is actually a set up for the downloadable content, which consists of a four episode pack costing around a fiver and adding in four further episodes that closes the book on the story completely and honestly? These extra episodes provide a much better climax than the already fairly good one already there... even though it costs extra... but that's a matter for later...

The gameplay in Asura's Wrath is an odd beast, consisting as it does primarily of three methods of play: The standard third person beat-em-up segments, which are essentially room clearing Dynasty Warriors-lite affairs which are actually fairly sluggish to play in places, the 'into the screen' shooter segments (Played the new Kid Icarus game? Like that... but playable) and most prominent of the bunch is the QTE segments, which occur constantly throughout the game, and to be honest, they do drag a bit after a while. There is amusement to be had from the way some of the QTEs are used though, with them being used to enhance the madness of some of the OTT fight scenes for example... such as when two characters are punching each other at lightning speed rapidly your QTE prompt will be a screen filled with dozens of attack button icons, meaning you have to press that button like crazy to bump up your score/ranking. It can get old, but there's fun there. The game's structure is designed to mimic the format of an anime TV series, with "levels" broken up into 'episode' numbers. The episodes usually last around half an hour a piece (With a couple being much longer than that), with 18 in total on the disc (And further episodes available for download in yet more DLC cash grabbing tomfoolery). It shouldn't take you any longer than 11 hours tops to get through the game, and as there's no multiplayer or extra game modes that means that what's here is fairly slight on the content front. There are unlockables and the like of course, but more than likely this is a game most will play through once and then not bother with again. You'll have fun, yeah, but just the once probably.

Graphically, the game looks great. The game is clearly using the same graphics engine as the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm titles unsurprisingly, and they pack a ton of detail into the look and design of the characters and the game world, but the visuals occasionally adopt a very 'jagged' look to the edges, which, while at worst a minor distraction, still hurts an otherwise pretty game. The soundwork is truly phenomenal also, with some extremely strong voice work on both the english dub and the Japanese original (Switchable in game) and a superb soundtrack mixing loud rock and hauntingly downbeat tunes expertly.

It's a lot of fun to play and it looks and sounds fantastic, but Asura's Wrath is still very much a niche product that aims itself squarely at fans of anime first and foremost to an extent that I could see it being offputting to anyone who isn't already a part of that fandom. The fairly large volume of cutscenes and QTEs will likely not add to the game's mainstream appeal, and the frustrating DLC based concluding chapters of the game certainly left a bad taste in my mouth, even if the ending on the disc was satisfying enough on it's own. It's a fun experience, but a short lived one that takes a lot of shortcuts with it's gameplay sequences and uses far too much QTE padding. The story is fantastically well put together, but this is not a game worth full price in my opinion. £15 or less? Sure, that's fine... but just be warned that the style of this game is aimed at a very specific mindset/fanbase and could very easily just come off as a repetitive button basher with more cutscenes than gameplay to a lot of you.