Review #79: Asura's Wrath

 Don't make him angry, you won't like him when he's angry.

 Here at "Of Swords and Joysticks" I've stood against Capcom's shady DLC practices. I've stood against games that tried to be movies. I've stood against "true ending" DLC, also known as "necessary" DLC. Asura's Wrath has all of these, but it's just so off-the-wall insane in epic proportions that I'm willing to forgive it and look the other way, this one time.
 You'd be wrong to call Asura's Wrath a game, it's not game, it's an interactive movie. Every chapter is made up, most of the time, of three long cut-scenes and two very short gameplay moments. What little gameplay there is, it takes the form of a very simple action-brawler or an even simpler shooting gallery, think Sin and Punishment. Both of these are very basic and repetitive, and every now and then you'll be bombarded with QTEs. I repeat, this is not a videogame, if you want a videogame look elsewhere. If, on the other hand, you are in for a very anime-inspired story that could very well be a tribute to the Shonen genre, with great characters, a very unique look and don't mind the fact that you won't be making the flashy stuff happen, then this could be your "game".

 The game pits you as Asura, a demigod that embodies the Mantra of Wrath. Betrayed by the other 7 demigods, they murder his wife, kidnap his daughter and leave him for dead. But not even the depths of Naraka(Hell) can hold the anger of this man, fueled by anger, it takes him 12000 years to climb out of Naraka, and he is going to stop anyone and everyone that dares make his daughter cry. The story pays homage to plenty of Shonen tropes, the friendly rival, the anger makes you stronger trope, the bazillion punches at the same time technique and many, many more. The game also takes a lot of inspiration from Buddhism, with character designs directly inspired on many statues and depictions of it's more mythical ethos mixing it with a lot of Sci-Fi for good measure. It's also very, very insane. Bosses can power up and get bigger than the planet itself, Asura can render a whole spaceship fleet to scrap just by shouting. The feats that Asura will pull off are nothing short of epic, and they make you want to keep on going to see just what will happen next! Cut-scenes are fantastic, and they better be if they are gonna take up 80% of the game!
 As for the gameplay, after a cutscene ends, you'll either be in a brawling or a shooting stage. Brawling stages pit you against tons of enemies or a boss, and they get reduced to the same objective: Hit them or cause enough damage to raise a gauge below Asura's Health bar in order to trigger Burst Mode, which basically pits you in an epic QTE and takes you to the next cutscene. As good as these are, failing the QTEs have no impact on the outcome, most of the time anyways, they only punish you in the grade you receive at the end of the episode and sometimes lose a bit of health. Fighting is very simple: You have a weak attack, a Strong attack that has a certain cooldown period and a dodge button. Asura can also jump and shoot energy pellets from his hands, but most of the time these are pretty useless in brawling stages. Shooting stages also need you to fill the burst gauge, but now you control an aiming reticule as Asura moves along, and you must dodge enemy blasts as you shoot back. As a whole, the gameplay is very basic and at times repetitive, but gameplay is not the game's focus, so in a way, I can excuse it.

 The game's strongest point is, definitely it's presentation. Firstly, the game is styled after an anime show, during each chapter you get mid-chapter bumpers and after each episode you get an "In the next episode" advance. These advances are totally legit and feel right out of a show, so believable that it's quite fun to watch them, even if they spoil a bit of what's gonna happen next. After each episode you also get a couple of extra scenes, these are just handrawn artpieces, by various artists, with text and no voice overs. The art is pretty good and these fill in a couple of details from the story so it's worth going through them. I've stated it at least twice already, but the cut-scenes are really well done. They convey actions very clearly, and blows feel very, very powerful. The sense of scale is truly marvelous.
 The graphics are deceptively involved. Y'see, the game has an art-style all of it's own, but if  you delve deeper, you'll notice that the skin of the demigods was made to look like lacquer, like the Buddhist statues. As demigods get damaged, their skin gets cracked. And that's not even counting just how good character design is, every demigod is memorable and each one has their different markings and styles on their bodies, they are also complimented by their fantastic personalities(And all of them are reminiscent of stereotypical anime characters mixed with the Mantra they are supposed to embody). Music is every bit as good, there's plenty of pieces and they all sound amazing, it's also used in very smart ways, like pitting some pretty depressing songs during certain fights. It works, it works so well. The game has dual audio, and while I didn't delve into the Japanese track, the american dub is nothing short of fantastic. They also have some heavy hitters like Steve Blum as Sergei, Robin Atkin Downes(My favorite voice actor, he voices Travis Touchdown in No More Heroes!) as Yasha and Liam O'Brien as the titular Asura. They do their jobs perfectly, and everyone pulls a convincing performance.

 The game is on the short-side, but there's a nice amoung of unlockables. There's original artwork and concept art, these come with information that explains the world of Asura's Wrath, it's highly recommended that you read them if you are invested in the story. There are also various unlockables life gauges, and these confer various changes to Asura. One makes him die in one hit, one makes him stronger, one makes the Burst gauge raise faster, etc. But it's not all good... Capcom does it again with their shady DLC practices. The game ends with a pretty nasty cliffhanger, so much so that you'd better consider the "Normal ending" as the ending.... unless you cough up 7 dollars for the True Ending DLC. Really Capcom? This DLC is really good, it has some of the most epic moments in the game... but I recommend you skip them and Youtube them. Do not encourage Capcom's shady practices, this is a fantastic "game", but do not encourage Capcom. Do not. And you know they planned it all along, as a DLC-only character's voice actor is credited during the ending. Capcom, what happened to you? When did you stop being cool? You embody everything that is wrong with Videogames this days. EVERYTHING.
 Honestly? I'd rather games not follow Asura's path. Games should be games, not glorified movies. I want to play, I want to make stuff happen, not watch it happen or have the game make me believe I am making it happen by pressing buttons. But still, despite that, the story the game tells is pretty friggin' good. If you like the Shonen anime genre, this is a no-brainer. But if you expect a good game? Skip this one, avoid it like the plague. Asura's Wrath is not a game.
 9.0 out of 10.