Asura’s Wrath is one of the few games that—on paper—seems to fall below expectations on just about everything and yet somehow still turns out to be pretty good. It’s almost like a cheesy 80’s action film with not much substance. The game just kind of exists to exist, and as negative as that sounds, it isn’t necessarily a horrible thing. The game manages to be entertaining simply by the over the top action, characters, cutscenes and ficticous story.
Asura’s Wrath will distance itself from a lot of audiences at the beginning of the game. The first chapter in the episodical campaign will turn a lot of players off, I would imagine. At this point, the story is very lackluster and frankly, just awful. However, they make up for this later by introducing a good plot that creates reasons for Asura’s never ending rage. If you’re able to look passed the awful introduction to the story that, from a far, looks like a bad mix of Lost Planet and Final Fantasy 13-2, then you’re in for a pretty good experience.
The characters themselves are all demigods, so they are presented as very unique warriors that vary on extremes yet somehow seem to create a bond. This makes the game feel like you are having constant epic boss fights—much like the feeling of playing Infinity Blade for the first time. The epic tone of the game never goes away. The game is very reminiscent of the God of War series with less emphasis on combat. The giant set pieces and battles with gods make for an easy comparison though.
Asura’s Wrath is one of the few games today that takes up the B- movie slot left behind long ago. In the current market, you either see AAA games or indie titles and not many games in between the two. Asura’s Wrath is able to come in between to provide an overall good, but not amazing gaming experience. This is a good thing for the industry that games like this are able to be made and are able to be successful in their own way without having to sell millions of copies.
But back to the game in specifics. Asura’s Wrath is a very weird game. Most of the game is somewhere in between the Walking Dead and Final Fantasy, as far as graphics go. Some of Asura’s and his friend’s features look cel-shaded, but in other places the graphics can be defined as “normal” graphics. This makes for a fairly pleasant viewing experience, even if Asura does look like he’s made of rocks from Borderlands glued together.
All in all, Asura’s Wrath is a good game but nothing that will be remembered. The characters and setting (as odd as they are) aren’t likeable for the most part and some are just down right annoying. Not to mention the overarching conflict for the betrayal that leads to Asura’s Wrath being one of the most ridiculous plots in gaming. It’s an obvious poke at religion, which is all fine and dandy, but at some point you have to wonder, is this all they could really think up? Really? And when you’re not fighting demigods, you’re fighting the Gohma, the blandest, most generic enemy I’ve ever seen. Basically, they exist because they’re evil. Why? Who knows? They’re evil because they’re evil. Also, they did nothing but go to a zoo and pick out animals, cover them in black and red and call them the Gohma. It’s ridiculous and fighting them is just as annoying.
With all this said, the revenge story does keep the crazy plot moving and the episodical approach breaks up the game into bite sized bits and this is the best way to play the game. In the end, the game is pretty short, so it’s a bit steep for a sixty dollar purchase. I would give this one a rent because it’s worth playing and experiencing but not worth the cost. A solid play that doesn’t quite leave a mark.
