[Image: Asuras-Wrath-cover-art.jpg]

Here's an interesting game I only recently took an actual interest in. Asura's Wrath tells the story of Asura, voiced by Liam o'brien, a god that was betrayed and stripped of his powers, who seeks a way to save his daughter Mithra from the Seven Deities who are usurping and corrupting her powers. It seems to vaguely be a God of War rip-off, except AAAAAAWESOME!!!! Just look at this video and tell me this isn't like... the coolest thing ever.

Need I say more? It's like if God of War, Fist of the North Star and Dragonball were all mixed together into one ridiculously cool game!

But, of course, opinion varies... What do you guys think?

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Comes out February 21st (North America)

Also, it seems like one of those repetitive games that start out fun, but you slowly lose interest in. Kinda like Dynasty Warriors with quick time events.

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My thread on the game The Little Battlers here:
http://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-The-Little-Battlers
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Button-mashers are almost the only genre of game I find tolerable anymore anyway.

I may get it when it comes out! I was interested when I read an article about it a few months ago, anyway.

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Some manner of Octopus.

I myself have been anticipating this game for some time. Tried it at ComicCon. It's awesome but a little over exaggerated. Perhaps Capcom's answer to DragonBall Z? Anyways, can't wait for it to come out.

Heh, Asura my boy... YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER!?!?
xD
And after watching the latest video of him fighting one of his mentors with a gigantic blade on the moon, soon getting hurdled towards earth itself with an incredibly long katana impaled on his chest, protruding from his back, hitting hard ground after burning up like a meteor; losing approximately 5 arms and still have the strength to remove the gigantic blade that was already deeply trenched into the earth's core with one hand.

I might say he's just as hardcore as Kratos if not more.

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Great Scott! Signature made by me finally!
"That's what they'll say to me, say to me, say to me... This One's A Fighter!" Gym Class Heroes Feat. Ryan Tedder, "The Fighter"

Call me Septy, if my name's too long; Read my stories: Shadows of The Condemned, The Lost Birthday and The Crimson Winter

I might say he's just as hardcore as Kratos if not more.

Wow... That's certainly no easy feat.

But yeah, Asura is pretty damn cool and I find Liam O'brien to give him justice rather well. Now that I think about it, that's two divine beings that have been tricked by other divine beings and come from God of War look-alike games with grey hair he voiced, the other being War from Darksiders O_O Freaky...

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Here's a pretty cool trailer that shows the rest of the cast (Mainly Asura's daughter and the seven deities, which I just globally call 'Kill Count')

I really love the character designs and how different they all look. We also get to see Mithra, the daughter we have to save, and she looks pretty good. As I've stated a few times before, Asura is voiced by Liam O'brien but we also get the name of the black-haired character that talked to Asura and claimed to be god in the english trailer and he's named Yasha. I'm also fairly sure that he's voiced by D.C Douglas, also known as Wesker from Resident Evil and a ton of other stuff. But he's not the main bad guy, it seems, that place would go to Deuce, who also looks really cool. He appears just before Mithra does, in the trailer.

Pretty damn excited for this, to be honest... But Bioshock Infinite comes out before, in January... Oh well, it'll keep me busy XD

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It seems Capcom's Japanese Youtube channel is treating this like a 'drama' series with episodes n' stuff, at least when it comes to their marketing. This is episode two and we meet(?) Asura's wife and get a closer look at his daughter. Asura with pupils is kinda freaky, sometimes, but you get used to it. We also get to see that crime he's accused of: After being summoned to a leader-like figure, Asura blacks out and wakes up with the leader dead and his blood on his hands. After fighting some big dude despite the five lances stabbed in his back, Asura heads for his home where he finds it ravaged and his wife dying, though, of course, she still has enough strength to give a death speech to motivate Asura for revenge even further. He then freaking jumps miles high and burst down to Mithra's location like a damn meteorite! I guess I understand; Why walk or run or drive to some place when you can jump there? He's then utterly defeated by Deuce, who seems to be the leader of the deities, or something, and gets sent to Earth for his trouble.

Well... Kind of a bummer, ain't it?

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So, something weird happened yesterday...

I went on the Japanese PSN to download the Asura's Wrath demo because I had heard from Siliconera that a demo would land there at one point and, fair enough, there it was. I download it, doesn't take that long and I get to play it but, as soon as the first cutscene pops up, I realize something's wrong: The demo is in english. But I'm certain I downloaded it from the Japanese PSN, so... what's up there? XD

As for the demo itself, it's AWESOME!!!!!!! We only get episode 2 and 11, but they're actually pretty damn long Episode 2 is a battle against Wyzen, the morbidly obese god that tries to crush Asura with a mere finger. This part of the game is a weird kind of shooter. It's hard to describe, but it's not bad. What surprised me is that there's also quite a few moments of quick-time events. You know, like in Kingdom Hearts where a big triangle appears as a cue to press it for something to happen? You do that a lot but, to my surprise, the impact of doing or not doing it makes the cutscene different and not just drag down your health. Wyzen you shoot the hell out of Wyzen, you burst him into space and he becomes the enormous god that smushes us with a finger. After we destroy him with the awesome power of hatred and rage (Great message for the kiddies =D) Yasha arrives and we get the beginning of a speech but it gets interrupted by an ominous 'To be continued' After that, I played episode 11 and, in this one, we fight Augus ON THE MOON, a formidable warrior that was apparently once Asura's mentor. This is where we get a better look at the game's main gameplay which actually plays really well, once you get used to it. It kinda ressembles Kingdom Hearts or Dynasty warrior.

What would be interesting to mention is that neither Augus or Wyzen have actual health bars and you just have to pound them until your rage meter is filled and press R2 to enter WRAAAAAATH MODE!!! And that's where most of the quick-time stuff goes on. After you beat Augus up a little, he'll take out his sword and start throwing giant energy slashes at Asura as if that was nothing. This is ridiculously epic. I would have thought too much would be like not enough, but this is too much and it works great, here.

One funny thing is that, while Wyzen and Augus do their classic antagonist speech (They always do) there's an option that appears on the top left of the screen that says 'Shut Wyzen/Augus up' and, if you do, you jump at them to rip their faces off XD

I'm glad I found this game. This is gonna be sweet

EDIT: So, the demo is also on the American PSN, but it's the exact same version except with one of the opening message changed from Japanese to english.

Also, when fighting Augus, there's two songs, one of them is a weird classical tune that mostly plays during direct gameplay and the other plays during quick-time events and is seriously badass. It sounds like something out of a Conan movie with trumpets and a really grand feel to it.

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I should fake a US PSN just to get this demo. I've played at ComicCon, but what the heck, I'll get it anyway.

So, I learned something pretty funny, a few seconds ago.

The voice of Augus, the battle-loving God you fight in episode 11, in the demo, is provided by Andy Serkis. Who's Andy Serkis, you might ask? He's the guy that voiced Gollum in every Lord of the Rings movie and even the most recent Bilbo Baggins movies.

That's so weird, because Augus sounds nothing like Gollum, which shows that mister Serkis has a lot of talent as an actor.

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So I downloaded the demo and played it today. I went in with zero background knowledge except for the name of the title, and I really enjoyed it! The whole thing was exciting, there was never a moment of "action, then battle, then repeat". I played the one against the huge dude, and the whole time I was like "no way, he isn't going to do that! He isn't going to catch the hand!" It was full of action.

Not sure if I'm going to get the full game, but the demo really impressed me! I wouldn't have gave it a try if you didn't have such excitement for it Dude!

It really seems like it's another game pandering to the absurdist action genre that has been going on since Devil May Cry(but was highlighted with Bayonetta and God of War) - and I had my doubts that it would live up or do anything but leave the stale aftertaste of its ancestors. I'm glad it's turning out well, though!

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Some manner of Octopus.

Not sure if I'm going to get the full game, but the demo really impressed me! I wouldn't have gave it a try if you didn't have such excitement for it Dude!

You should play Episode 11, the other part of the demo, because I really think it's the better of the two. The shooter levels are fun too, but not as much. It could be because of the orgasm-like awesomeness of Andy Serkis as Augus, but i guess we'll see XD

I still think you should give it a try, Hazel. This is no God of War. Just from the demo, I think it's much better.

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Yeah I'll give it a try tomorrow! The shooting part was confusing at first because I kept playing as if it were a third person shooter, using the right stick. Catching the missiles was pretty epic too. I think it'd also be a lot more cool if I knew the story up to that point, because it seemed very deep and interesting with those flashbacks and stuff.

No big news, but I just wanna mention that, during pretty much all of episode 11 (In which we fight Augus) the music that plays is actually an orchestral song called New World Symphony. Here's a lil' video of it that sounds great.

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So, the game came out yesterday and I played all the way to episode 6! (Which I assume is not very far) and, no surprise here, IT'S CARPING AWESOME!!!

Okay, so in order to defeat beings called the Gohma, the human race has developped some kind of weird magic-technology that essentially creates the eigth guardians generals (Deus, Augus, Yasha, Asura, Wyzen, Olga, Kalrow and Sergei) and, though they're pretty much not even really trying while fighting against space-Gohmas, things start going bad when the use of some giant purifying cannon lets loose the biggest Gohma of all, called Vlitra Gohma, essentially a giant pointy duck mouth coming out of the Earth (No joke) which Asura manages to subdue, but not defeat, thanks to holy power given to him by his daughter Mithra, whose seen as some sort of holy priestess, or something. This power turns him into Six-Armed God, Vajra Asura and he promptly kicks butts and then returns to Gaea. Once there, he gets an 'invitation' from the Emperor and Mithra (Voiced by Kari Wahlgren, by the way) suggests that maybe he wants to give him a medal for defeating the giant Earth-Mouth. Like in Star Trek 5 (I think it's 5, anyway) when Captain Kurk asks 'What does God need with a spaceship?' I have to ask 'What does a demigod need with measly medals?' but I digress. The rest is essentially what you know: Coup d'État, fake treason, must run and so on. One thing I didn't really know and thought to be more of a metaphor (Which it isn't) is that, after briefly fighting Deus, Asura actually dies and ends up in some kind of Limbo-like area where giant columns of rock stretch infinitely to the sky called Naraka. There, a gold spider talks to Asura and gives him some sort of motivation to keep climbing the pillars. Once out of Naraka, Asura suffers from amnesia but not for long, since he remembers roughly everything once Wyzen starts boasting. We kill Wyzen and then get our butt kicked by Yasha.

Yep. That's pretty much the 'Intro' par of the game. AWESOME!!!

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Well I have actually been really anticipateing this game,and im happy to know im geting it today!
although i can't shake one thing...mithra reminds me of maya off of phoenix wright.Not personality wise just design wise.But its not a big deal.Iv played the demo to this game and i enjoyed the heck out of it (I replayed both missions twice).
All I can say...ITS TIME TO RELEASE SOME WRATH!!!
:p

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So, just beat the game (No joke) and here are my few thoughts. Spoiler alert.

Okay, let me start with the bad parts. From the start (Actually, especially at the start) the game has a really bad habit of having the music being really, really loud. It's so loud that, many times, you can't hear the dialogue between characters and that's pretty bad because the voice acting is very good! Next, continuity is a bit all over the place and there are still a few things I don't get. For example, most of the Seven Deities as well as Asura seem to be made of some sort of robot-like matter... I must've missed a crucial line of dialogue, because that really seems weird. Are they robots?! Are they... androids? Borgs?! I dunno. Another example is that there's a pretty funny scene that takes place in a sauna with two beautiful women and Asura and Augus just relax, though they know they will eventually fight. After some time, they pretty much decide to go and the episode ends. Next episode, we're on the freaking moon! O_O Woah, dudes, when did you decide to go on the moon? That seems kinda far-fetched...

Another very slight problem is that Asura never really changes, but you could argue that he doesn't really need to change. True, he often lets his rage get the better of him, but he only uses it to fight for a just cause (Or, at least, what he believes to be just) and, in the few scenes we see him with his family, we can see that he truly loves his wife and daughter, so he's already a pretty well-rounded character.

So, as for the game, it's a lil' complicated. First, Asura is killed by Deus, ends up in Naraka, comes out of there, kills Wyzen, gets killed by Yasha, ends up in Naraka again, comes out of there, kills Kalrow, kills Augus and then, something interesting happens: After witnessing the destructiob of an innocent village (Destroyed by explosives aimed at him) he transforms into some sort of six-armed skeleton-like shining golden being that, of course, kicks butts. The only thing that can take down this super-powered Asura is both the Bramasthra, a giant-super-canon-in-space, and Yasha, whose had a change of heart after seeing that the human souls, which he thought were sacrificed for the cause of saving the world, were essentially being wasted on anything for no good reason, which he could not accept. After destroying most of Deus' armies, we kill Sergei and then both Asura and Yasha team up to go take down Deus, which they do. Deus is cool to fight, he essentially has the same powers as Kessler from the InFamous games (i.e Thunder bolts, lightning-fast teleportation etc.) but he goes down pretty easily but then, the true nemesis is revealed and it is THE F**KING PLANET ITSELF!!! I'm not joking, Deus explains that Gaea literary doesn't want any human souls on it and naturally creates the Gohma to get rid of them. As if that wasn't enough, Gohma Vlitra is revived and more powerful than ever, taking the form of seven giant black snakes coming out of the Earth. So what do Asura and Yasha do? THEY GO TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH TO KILL WHATEVER IS INSIDE!!! That's just freakin' crazy! XXXXDDDD The last boss is really cool, too, essentially a magma-like version of that creature Asura became when witnessing the destruction of that innocent village. After you kill Vlitra's Core (Exactly what it's called, too) everything seems cool and the credit roll.

Except afterwards where we get a scene with that strange gold spider saying 'There's a lot of work to be done here, in Naraka... Hehe...' and we get the prospect of a hidden episode (Which I still haven't unlocked)

Well... that was one crazy ride XD

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yeah the secret ending is kinda cool sorta refrences a futer game with the main character being asu-iv said t much.

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Yeah, just got the secret ending too...

Damn it, I didn't think this was gonna be the kind of game that gets sequels... Now, I'm gonna have to expect more! It'll be even worse if CyberConnect2 cancels any plans for such a game...

How does that golden spider dare do that to Asura's daughter?! I trusted you, odd demon-like being that lived in the Purgatory!

Better not disappoint me, CC Corp.!!

At least the ending resolves the issue of whatever happened to Olga...

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Yeah I was woundering what happened to hr the nerire rime after wha happened to Deus.
but truely,as a game i think its bad overall.some times its 3-5 minutes of gameplay then 15 minutes of quick time events which can also come out of no were with out warning so you can hardly ahve a break in cut scenes.You have no idea how many syncronization point i lost just trying to drink some of my water in a cut scene at times.But yeah it doesn't seem like a game overall.I think the story is great and the concept of the game,but I wish their was more.It seems more like a active anime,not a game.

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While I loved every second of the experience, I sadly have to agree. It really is like an interactive Dragonball Z anime than a real video game, but that's not a necessarily a bad thing. I actually enjoyed some of the quick time events, but I do see how someone could dislike this.

Angry Joe from the reviewing website 'Blistered Thumbs' actually did a very fair and very intelligent review of the game, saying that the strengths of it are in its story, characters, voice acting, music, graphics and sheer epicness but that the thing that kinda drags it down was the repetitive gameplay. But, if you ask me, repetitive gameplay can be forgiven if everything else is awesome, which was the case for Asura's Wrath.

In fact, one of these aspect, the music, was so good that I'm actually going to get the soundtrack when it comes out on March 7. That might not seem like a lot, but I never legally buy OSTs, especially when the internet offers so many free alternatives. The only series I've loved enough to buy their OSTs was .hack//G.U and Bleach. Then again, .hack//G.U's composer, Chikayo Fukuda, is also the composer for Asura's Wrath soundtrack, so it only makes sense XD

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DLC Time!

Yep, we were promised some DLC, something Capcom sure loves to sell, and we got it. Today was released Episode 11.5 and, on April 3, we should see Episopde 15.5 also released. Episode 11.5 is being downloaded on my PS3 right now and it should deal with what happened after Asura defeated Augus (A giant Gohma arrives and an armless Asura picks up the broken Wailing Dark sword in his teeth Zabuza style and heads for the giant dinosaur-like Gohma) and episode 15.5 will be Yasha's battle against Deus. In episode 16, Asura kinda comes into the battle while it's halfway through and Yasha was pretty much getting his buttom kicked, so I don't really know how much fun that could be...

One thing that's weird is that it seems to mostly be animation, like an anime episode. If it's only an anime with QTE, then even I think it won't be that great... but I guess we'll see. Both episodes are two bucks each, by the way.

What's cool, though, is that Capcom also announced episodes 19 to 22, which will reveal the "True Ending" Now a lot of people are bitching that Capcom should have just put the real ending in the game itself and not make us pay to have it. I, however, don't really care. Buy it or leave it. Or watch it on Youtube, or something, whatever. The three extra episodes (That are actual gameplay, not just QTE) will be seven bucks and will come out April 24th. If you don't have seven extra bucks to put on this excellent game, then that's kinda sad.

Anyway, I'll give my thoughts on episode 11.5 later

EDIT: ...Just finished it in around 4 minutes. This is BAD. I'm serious, this is some horrible piece of DLC. I didn't really have anything against anime animation instead of the usual graphics assuming that the animation is actually good. Those anime graphics SUCK!!! I'm dead serious, this is like... really, really old animation. Sometimes, Asura doesn't even look like Asura. Worst part: it really is all QTE. I didn't have anything against QTE in the real game either, but that's because the graphics were really good and cool to look at (So much so that I often found myself not noticing that a QTE was going on) but now, the graphics are shiiiiit. And, like the cherry on top of the sundae, there's a pretty big continuity flaw: Wailing Dark is INTACT! Didn't Asura's just punch it in half to defeat Augus because the sword was sliding its way through his stomach? C'mon, guys!! Besides, the blade gets tossed off pretty quickly, so... what the hell?

I am not buying episode 15.5. I'm serious, skip those two episodes, they are NOT worth your two bucks. I'm still gonna check out episodes 19-22, if only because there won't be any horrible anime graphics in those, but... Damn, is that disappointing!

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So it really is a gigantic QTE fest? Definitely not buying this now. If I wanted a Dragon Ball Z QTE fest I'd actually buy the Dragon Ball Z QTE fest (aka piece of trash) known as Ultimate Tenkaichi. At least then I'd have beautiful new HD animation from Toei.

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