Asura's Wrath

Asura is a demi-god whose wife is killed and his daughter Mithra is taken by the demi-god Deus. Mithra is to be made priestess in order for Deus to use her powers to 'save the world'. Asura is defeated in battle but his rage gives him the determination to rise up and take revenge.

Asura's Wrath is presented as a series of 18 TV-like episodes, and you spend most of the time watching cut-scenes rather than playing. It does try to be more like an interactive animé rather than a game, but the game sections are pretty bland. During the cut-scenes, sometimes there are quick-time events, although only a few buttons are used; mainly pressing Y, pushing the left stick in a direction, or hammering B. It seems an odd decision to have a game with a large focus on quick-time events being less challenging than any other game which makes use of them. It becomes predictable and a chore to play, rather than any degree of reaction based skill.

A lot of the game-play is hack-and-slash type affair, X shoots projectiles, B does basic attacks, Y performs a hard attack, A is to jump and RB is to dodge. Once you have killed so many enemies, you can activate 'Burst' which usually progresses you further into the level. This soon becomes tedious and you will be repeating the same pattern every battle. There is also a flying type game-play element where X shoots projectiles and Y shoots homing missiles. My tactic of toggling the left stick to lock on to many targets and then firing homing missiles could be done repeatedly and mindlessly to progress through these sections.

Some of the bosses are huge and epic and you will be taking on evil red elephants and tortoises.

The sound is great and the music often works really well with the action. Graphically, the game looks very impressive, and the cut-scenes are full of the usual over-the-top Dragonball-Z style action sequences. The story seems to lack enough substance to justify dragging it out over the length of the game. My initial thoughts on the game was 'why didn't they just make a film?' but it is too long for a feature film. But then I thought 'why is this game so long?' It could easily be shorter and made into a film.

Annoyingly, to unlock the true ending, you need to pay for the extra DLC which is a bit crafty and unethical of Capcom. You have to give some credit to Capcom for trying to create a different sort of experience, but I believe if you are going to do something; you have to do it properly. Placing a large emphasis on Quick-time Events but making it simpler and less intensive compared to other games which use them sparingly seems a silly design decision. The entire game just ends up feeling bland, boring and mindless and isn't much more than fancy graphics and presentation.