Picture this…after fighting a battle with an army of demons and single handedly defeated the enemy commander, your repaid with the murder of your wife, the abduction of your young daughter, and becoming the patsy of a coup’ de ta. How would you feel?
Asura’s Wrath…it’s a game in it’s own category, is it an on rails shooter? Yes. Is it a better beat em up? Yes. Is it an anime? Damn near. This game is an amazing trip full of anger, beatdowns, and epic boss fights. Asura takes the anger of Kratos and takes it to the next level. The game is a beautiful work of visual art, the attention to detail in the Buddhist culture is amazing, not only is the game visually striking, but the animations are intense and quite fluid. When Asura puts his fist in someones face, your own jaw hurts a little.
- “At this point you are allowed to cry and wet yourself…”
The game also has an amazing soundtrack, there are a few out of place scores, like Yasha’s wannabe cowboy theme but aside from that strange choice, the music is heavy, epic, and accentuates the pure anger Asura has for damn near everything. The sound effects are just as hard and give every hit some meaty weight. The voice acting was good too, if your an anime buff like…most of us here, you’ll recognize more than a few voice actors lending their acting to the more important characters. Now there’s a few lines that are cringe worthy, but there are so many gems (mostly from Asura’s awesome teacher; Augus) that you tend to gloss over the anime cheese. Now on to game play, the game jumps genres so often it hard to classify this game as anything other than action. Sometimes it’s an on rails shooter, other times it’s a Dynasty Warriors like beat em up, and it even hits a simulator on the only not too angry chapter of the epic story. The controls are tight most of the game but has a slight lag time before the dodge but if you’re good at punchin’ dudes in the face then you won’t even notice. The game is heavy on the quick time events however, this might be a turn off for some but it’s more Heavy Rain-ish than let’s say…Resident Evil 4, if you mess up you A. Look stupid or B. Die and look really stupid. Timing and reaction speed needs to be good or again, you’ll look really stupid and no one likes looking stupid…right?
THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS
I genuinely liked Asurna’s Wrath, the story was driven, well written and was a work of art in game form, it’s replay ability is pretty low unless you want all the achievements. I suggest a rental or take it from a friend unless you REALLY want it for your collection. The game is heavy on beatings and even let’s you interrupt monologging. I recommend this punchy piece of gaming fun and give it 8 shots out of 10…I’m just a little tipsy.