Asura's Wrath is an epic anime-inspired button mashing adventure with some of the most jaw-dropping sequences in gaming.
Throughout the game you'll experience Asura blasting and punching his way through anything that gets in his way through intense quick-time events complimented by beautiful and well-animated cutscenes, or by engaging in a hack and slash-style beat 'em up sequence where you will be put to the test.
The gameplay is fairly basic and mostly utilizes your reaction time and ability to dodge attacks. It works well with this kind of game and it really is quick to pick up and master. Those looking for depth in character customization or strategies won't find much here, but for what it is, it's enjoyable due to the epic and exaggerated contexts. Sometimes a charging enemy will begin to perform a scripted counterable move, and instead of getting the expected counter-attack icon, nothing will happen due to you being mid-air before the quick camera shift showcasing your enemy's charge. This can be frustrating and other gameplay quirks sometimes take away from trying to reach high scores to simply defeating a boss.
The quick-time events are surprisingly challenging if you're not an expert with them, and make use of the controls in various different ways. Button mashing is definitely in the spotlight here. Your quick time events could show up for almost any reason at any part in the game, so be prepared.
Unfolding before your eyes will be some very stylish and detailed visuals that very much fit the style of an anime. A few minor graphical quirks and texture pop-ins appear here and there, but other than that, the animations and intense story-telling unveiling itself on screen will be big enough of a distraction.
The storyline is the highlight of Asura's Wrath and surprised me in many ways. It takes from almost every action game or anime out there in every way, taking the formula we know and making it happen in an interactive but unique setting. It does well in not feeling like a cliche-filled ripoff of anything in particular, and is a beautiful tribute to emotional, epic and over-the-top games. You'll be bombarded with awe-inspiring moments and an epic musical score putting you on the edge of your seat. The game seems to parody an anime's way of offering various episodes in a season, like a TV series. You'll see a foreshadow after each episode telling you what to expect in the next episode, and there are 'commercial break' loading screens whenever something shocking or suspenseful occurs.
The biggest downside to this cinematic and interesting storyline is yet another clever ploy for downloadable content purchases. Capcom is known for these sorts of things, and you'll be missing out a lot on the final moments of the game if you don't wish to shell out a good handful of cash. I won't spoil anything here, but the game will end on a simple note, leaving you satisfied with what the game offered you as a conclusion. Then, you'll be teased by a sudden after-credits cinematic that tells you in order to see the TRUE ending, you must achieve a near-perfect rank on at least five previous episodes. If you push enough effort into that, you'll be able to witness the 'true' final episode, which is pretty much the same final episode as before, but instead with a cliffhanger-enticing cinematic tacked on at the end. You'll be desperate to see what happens, but you can only do that if you have (North American PSN) $6.99 on hand. If you give into this plot, you'll be given a whole extra chapter containing four brand-new episodes that will finally give you an one hour and over epic and eye-opening epilogue to this intense tale. The DLC itself is actually quite impressive and really does finish off the game well, but if you're not willing to give into Capcom's DLC traps, you'll have to stick to watching it elsewhere.
The good:
-Fantastic cinematic presentation and overall experience.
-Some of the most memorable and massive combat sequences.
-Suspenseful anime presentation.
-Above average English voice acting + the option to switch vocal tracks to the original Japanese voices.
-Interesting graphic style containing excellent animations with character.
-The DLC epilogue series of episodes are impressively decent and conclude the game to satisfaction, if you wish to purchase them.
The bad:
-Capcom's typical DLC shenanigans.
-A handful of bad gameplay and graphical quirks.
-Rather annoying constant battle cries from Asura during combat.
-'Coming up next' clips after each episode give away almost too much of the following episodes' story.
Overall, Asura's Wrath is a rough around the edges success from CyberConnect2 and I'd love to see them make more games like this in the future, minus the DLC ploys. Asura's Wrath is an 8.1/10 for me.