PixlBit

Taking epic (and angry) to the next level.

At first glance, Asura's Wrath didn't seem like more than just another God of War inspired action game. In the following videos and previews however, the non-stop action, unique art style, and incredibly epic set pieces make Asura's Wrath a game to look out for.

For those who don't know, Asura's Wrath is generally a tale of an extremely angry character, Asura, as he takes his wrath out on multiple god-like entities. One of the unique things about Asura as a character is that he can have up to six arms to do battle with. As he takes damage he can lose them, and while having less arms slightly limits his combat ability, he can still do a lot of damage, even if he's down to his last arm.

As I began my demo, I was greeted by a gigantic, stone pseudo-god character facing off against Asura. Though in a weakened state, Asura faced this enemy with sheer determination and of course, rage. The foe taunted Asura by stating that he was aware of the state of Asura's daughter and that he had obtained a monstrous power from her. Asura immediately began to get even more angry, and to make it worse, the enemy grabbed Asura and threw him extremely far away. Asura with his will of steel recovered and before I knew it I was in the thick of battle.

This fight was divided into three different phases; the first was kind of like a rail shooter. Asura ran along by himself, but I was able to control strafing movements, dodging, and of course the attacks. He had two different kinds of shots; one of which was more like rapid fire blasts, while the other was a homing flurry of powerful energy. As the player shoots and does damage to the boss, it builds a meter under Asura's health bar, which when filled caused a state called “burst” where you press the R2 button to initiate a quick time event that usually transitions to the next phase of the fight. In a short cut scene, the boss attacked Asura with a giant air ship, fully equipped with missiles and lasers. This battle played out a bit differently. Asura held his ground in an area with spawning enemies while having to dodge the constant laser fire and deflect missiles which damage the air ship.

Once that was defeated, the last portion of the fight was actually a huge cinematic quick time event, where you engage the stone-like enemy in combat and ultimately punch him into outer space. I must say that it was awesome to see, but not as awesome as the events that followed. While in space the enemy unlocks his latent power and becomes an immense god who could have literally held the whole world in his hands. Looking to take vengeance on Asura, he plunged his gigantic finger into the Earth to try and squash Asura for good. Using all of his might, and with a little deus-ex machina involved, he held his ground still and caught the giant finger that was looking to end his life. Through quick time events and button mashing, Asura's gigantic effort was a victorious one after one desperate punch to the gigantic pointer finger. With that last attack, the enemy exploded into nothing. When they showed Asura one last time, he was left, armless, but alive and still full of rage.

While I was impressed by the scope of the demo, I did find it surprising that it wasn't just God of War style brawling, but it included a few different elements with the shooting segments. While I don't think these segments will be the centerpieces of the game, they work well enough and complement the crazy action that happens non-stop in this title. Overall I was pretty impressed and if the game can live up to the epic scale of its set pieces then we'll have a great title on our hands when it is released in 2012.