Supremely fucking confident. In its presentation, in its dedication to the trimmed down action gameplay, in its boldly unique aesthetic premise, in its kind of trope-y story, in its blatant misogyny: you get the unshakeable feeling that CyberConnect2 knew what they were making, what they wanted to say, and how they were going to have the player experience it. Does it all work? Absolutely not. Does it even matter? That's gonna depend on how easily you buy into the broader experience Asura's Wrath is offering. It's insane a game like this even exists, in all its grandeur it makes you yearn for more from the gaming industry as a whole. Not necessarily in the sense that I want more games like Asura's Wrath specifically, but games that are willing to be themselves as opposed to the modern AAA trend of making every game their own individual mean of any other genre adjacent AAA title.

Still absolutely gorgeous (at least it is on RPCS3, not sure how it's lookin' on native consoles these days) while also finding this distinct visual balance in its character designs between humor and coolness, which is further reflected in its increasingly ridiculous setpieces that sometimes border on the edge of spectacle and gag -- it's too bad the same couldn't be said for how the game treats the women in its story, mostly being reduced to objects one way or another. Par for the course in shounen anime I guess, but I consider it the one actual blight on the game overall. There's other smaller issues like there not being a whole ton of enemy variety and the action segments can be pretty repetitive, but the pacing and visual language is so fucking on point that those less desirable aspects kinda melt into the back of your brain when the good shit is happening.

People who liked the kaiju shit in Final Fantasy XVI but wanna play a game without 20 hours of MMO questing to get to the good parts should definitely try to find a way to play this one. Also any God Hand enjoyers who thought that game had too much gameplay and not enough Star Wars-themed Hinduism-Buddhism-FotNS-Berserk fusion.