Asura's Wrath is too cool to be true. So cool, in fact, that ends up being just that. A cool overglorified visual novel with a lot of wasted potential.
One thing that Asura's Wrath makes pretty clear is that what matters the most is the story. Pulling from bits and pieces of mythologies here and there, Capcom managed to create a plot interesting enough to get me to the ending, plus its unnecessary hidden episode. It is full of tropes and obvious anime set pieces, but it excels when it comes to character design, epic duels and 'deity drama'.
Fights are the highlights of the game, with some of them crossing the line of ridiculous, while still holding its own pretty well. It is engaging from beginning to end, even if the writing fails to be anything more than fodder for MORE duels and gibberish.
One other thing that impressed me a lot was the art style. This game is from 2012 and still manages to be one of the best looking anime games I've ever played. Quite stunning, visually, at least. That was, in fact, what made pick it up in the first place.
But this is where Asura's Wrath stops working. It is a nice "battle shonen", but that's it. It forgets to be a game most of the times and when it remembers, it's just not good enough. The gameplay is repetitive, boring, lazy and it seems to be there just for the sake of being. The only actual good fights are the ones against Augus and the final boss.
Outside of art direction and some points in storytelling, there's not a lot to do here. The hidden episode is a waste of time, the soundtrack if forgettable to say the least, enemy variety sucks, there is little to no challenge and the unlockables just weren't enough to boost its replay factor.
You either do it out of love for the story or you leave it.
I do get the appeal of this game. It may seem like I don't, but I truly see beauty in it. There was a lot to explore here. The sheer sense of scale and overarching plot could've turned this into Capcom's own God of War clone. A cool one. But it's not like they dropped the ball. They didn't even get a hold of it in the first place.
If you want a fun interactive battle shonen to have in your console, this could be nice. Maybe give it a go on Youtube, at least. If not, don't even try it.
One thing that Asura's Wrath makes pretty clear is that what matters the most is the story. Pulling from bits and pieces of mythologies here and there, Capcom managed to create a plot interesting enough to get me to the ending, plus its unnecessary hidden episode. It is full of tropes and obvious anime set pieces, but it excels when it comes to character design, epic duels and 'deity drama'.
Fights are the highlights of the game, with some of them crossing the line of ridiculous, while still holding its own pretty well. It is engaging from beginning to end, even if the writing fails to be anything more than fodder for MORE duels and gibberish.
One other thing that impressed me a lot was the art style. This game is from 2012 and still manages to be one of the best looking anime games I've ever played. Quite stunning, visually, at least. That was, in fact, what made pick it up in the first place.
But this is where Asura's Wrath stops working. It is a nice "battle shonen", but that's it. It forgets to be a game most of the times and when it remembers, it's just not good enough. The gameplay is repetitive, boring, lazy and it seems to be there just for the sake of being. The only actual good fights are the ones against Augus and the final boss.
Outside of art direction and some points in storytelling, there's not a lot to do here. The hidden episode is a waste of time, the soundtrack if forgettable to say the least, enemy variety sucks, there is little to no challenge and the unlockables just weren't enough to boost its replay factor.
You either do it out of love for the story or you leave it.
I do get the appeal of this game. It may seem like I don't, but I truly see beauty in it. There was a lot to explore here. The sheer sense of scale and overarching plot could've turned this into Capcom's own God of War clone. A cool one. But it's not like they dropped the ball. They didn't even get a hold of it in the first place.
If you want a fun interactive battle shonen to have in your console, this could be nice. Maybe give it a go on Youtube, at least. If not, don't even try it.