Asura’s Wrath

In between producing the original survival horror series that is the Resident Evil franchise, working on Devil May Cry and the world renowned Street Fighter CAPCOM must be finding it tough creating new and exciting IP’s right? Well no. Wrong. Asura’s Wrath is CAPCOM’s latest new title, which is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in February and this is a game to watch from the demo that we have been privy to play.

A general to the Gods, Asura was once regarded as a high ranking general who has won wars. To his surprise, upon his return from his latest victory Asura has found his emperor and wife murdered and in the centre of a murder enquiry. Fast forward twelve thousand years and Asura finds himself on Earth starting his fight against the Gods to save his daughter and clear his name.

Now the story maybe sounding thin on the ground however the gameplay is where this game is at. From playing through the demo it is clear that CAPCOM have taken a lot of influence from Japanese anime in the style. Graphically, Asura resembles something from Dragonball Z mixed with the artistic prowess of Super Street Fighter IV. This is by no means a bad thing as it gives the game an over the top feel.

That OTT feel of this game is complimented by the Unreal Engine 3 which gives the developers a massive hand when creating a game of this type. Much like Gears Of War – which uses the same engine – Asura’s Wrath is an over the shoulder third person game. However, unlike Gears, Asura is a hack, slash and shoot game. It utilises long range attacks and marries them with up close and personal attacking.

Interestingly though, CAPCOM have held back on making the game a full free roaming hack ‘n’ slash they have restrained the game to play more like a movie with the occasional input from the controller. The majority of the demo was cut scenes and the odd bit of button mashing to feel like the 60 minutes or so wasn’t entirely wasted.

Now here is where the demo hits a little glitch – when control of the game is handed to the player, little things underwhelm the experience. For instance when shooting, Asura will not turn around. He is fixed facing forwards. As there is so much action happening on the screen, a slow response from pressing the button and the game acknowledging the push, or if at all again detracts from the over all package that CAPCOM are creating.

Obviously as this is a demo, we do not know what stage of production the game was at when this was released to the world, however Asura’s Wrath is building up to be something quite new, refreshing and daring change from one of the big publishers in the industry. The sheer clout of Asura’s Wrath can be felt in the two levels that CAPCOM have provided and that the scale of this game is just epic in every way.

Asura’s Wrath is due on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 from 24th February and our recommendation is that this title is one to watch. OOT Hack ‘N’ Slash titles are few and far between these days. Even fewer come from the big names such as CAPCOM. With the niggles of the control system, this can be forgotten on the style that has been created so well by the same people that brought us Street Fighter and DMC. And if it is one thing that CAPCOM do well is style.

GoldA few niggles aside, Asura’s Wrath is pretty much ready. Our only thoughts to finish this off it to package the game with some kick ass artwork in the box and we are set. Gold awarded as from what we have played, it’s a great looking game. You can see for yourself by downloading the demo from the PlayStation Network or the Xbox Live Marketplace now!