Anger Problems Can Be a Good Thing - (Asura's Wrath [PS3])

Capcom has been serving up some pretty weak stuff for a while now. Ever since the whole Megaman Legends 3 deal and the all the BS surrounding Ult. Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I'd been eyeing this project from a while, however, and I wasn't going to let Capcom's shittiness ruin what looked like a great game. And trust me, Asura's Wrath is a great title. Well, mostly.

You play as the demigod Asura, who's wrath and anger know no bounds. Fueled withe will to protect his daughter and wife, he is Working as a member of the 8 Guardians to rid Gaea of demons called Gohma and their master Vlitra. During the openning scenes we learn that his power can also be augmented by his daughter Mithra. Her prayers become power called Mantra, which can transform a warrior and give them amazing new abilities. Asura, for instance, grows an extra four arms once unleashed with Mantra power, which you use to mercilessly beat the tar out of Vlitra in the opening segments.

Shortly after repelling Vlitra and returning home, Asura is set up by Deus, a scheming demigod who intends to use Mithra to harvest Mantra from the people of Gaea by force, thus allowing the remainin gods to obtain the power to defeat Vlitra. He crashes into Gaea, yet his rage refuses to let him die while his daughter is tortured to empower his betrayers. He resurrects 1200 years later to find the world in shambles, but still burning with the desire for revenge. You eventully cut down every one of your betrayers as you make your way to kill Dues, who's gone mad with power.

One of my favorite fights from this game is against Asura's rival, Yasha. Video by Hyagiz.

The combat system is pretty simple. Circle handles all of you normal melee attacks, which can be charged for more damage, while triangle handles heavy attack, most counters and special attacks. In the rail shooting modes, triangle instead performs a lock-on attack. Square is used for all ranged attacks, while X is the atypical jump button. While there is not block mechanic, you can dodge and counter many attacks, but damage is not all bad in this game.

You have three meters to watch: health, rage and unleashed. Damage you deal and take with charge both your rage and unleashed meters, and I found myself sometimes running headfirst into attacks to help boost one or both meters. The unleashed gauge, once filled, enables a superpowered mode wheere your attacks a quicker and you no longer loose stamina when you use heavy attacks or special attacks. The rage guage pretty much has to be filled to enable a QTA event to end each secton of the stage. Combat is quick to learn, hard to master and incredably satisfing. You really feel like you unleashing every bit of rage felt by Asura. However, this is where the game starts to run out of steam.

Yes, Asura get into a fight on the moon. Deal with it.

The story is intersing enough for an action title, but aside from the very end, I wasn't surprised. I might have to complete it on all game modes to unlock more endings, but the game is incomplete. There are 18 chapters broken up into 3 sections with a secret "true ending" chapter that becomes unlocked once you "S" rank a certain number of chapters. Each chapter feels like an episode of an anime, complete with opening credits, splashed durign loading screens and wrap-ups. While this can get annoying on multiple playthroughs, the presentation is a fresh approach to storytelling in a rather cookie-cutter genre and something only CyberConnect2 would do.

The style is double-edged sword, forcing to player to watch long yet amazing cutscene before putting them into brief QTA scenes or combat sequences which tend to last 1-2 minutes at best. Other than that, the game is pretty cool and enjoyable. While I wouldn't buy it now for $60 (the game is only 5 hours long for one play through), this one is on my radar as a bargan/price drop purchase. The animation is great, and all of the contributing artist created some great still images for the comic book styled interludes between chapters. If you can borrow it, do that. Otherwise, just rent it for now.