Anyone remember Asura's Wrath? I sure as hell didn't other than remembering that Asura was voiced by Liam O'Brien for the English dub, that it had a lot of QTEs, and was heavily influenced by Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Well, one of the games ProtonJon wanted to complete for this year was Asura's Wrath and I watched most of it as he streamed his playthrough of it. Asura's Wrath is this weird game or for some, an interactive movie where story-wise and presentation-wise, it's amazing. Each level is presented like an episode to an anime with a preview, opening credits, and ending credits. The credits are one thing it does well unlike Metal Gear Solid V where it spoils everything basically. The worst offenders being the Skulls where they went from being "Oh, crap! The Skulls!" to "These guys again." The first time it was done and if you had no idea who they were, it works since it can create tension about who exactly the Skulls are, but each and every time they appear after that, they're no longer special as you expect them to appear and have to deal with their bullet sponge selves if you have to fight them in direct combat -- they're jokes if you can catch the Mist and Armor ones with sleep grenades. Back to Asura's Wrath, the way the game's presented makes it feel like you're experiencing an anime and it pulls you in to wanting more after each level, after each episode. Unfortunately, its gameplay isn't that great.
Asura's Wrath was developed by CyberConnect2, the studio behind the .hack games and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja games. The latter is where I think the game's combat draws the most from and also features some stuff that reminds me of Naruto like one of Asura's transformations makes him resemble Naruto's tailed beast mode with its goofy, rubbery-looking arms. I haven't played the Ultimate Ninja games, but I remember hearing people say its combat is pretty good and that's to be expected since they're fighting games. The melee combat in Asura's Wrath on the other hand, functions, and I feel like that's the most damning part about it. When you finish watching an amazing anime, cartoon, TV series, or film, sometimes you watch it again later on. With Asura's Wrath, the watching part is great, but it's also a game. Without good gameplay, replaying games isn't that enjoyable. I don't like QTEs, but the way it was implemented in Asura's Wrath works to make it feel like you're doing something during the more cinematic moments, especially during the end of the game. It's just the melee combat system that isn't good. If it was more like at least Devil May Cry 1 or God of War where it was more than attack, dodge, and build your Burst Gauge to progress through the level, then replayability if not the first playthrough would have been more interesting and worthwhile. As far as I'm aware and have seen, there aren't any input moves like launchers, dash attacks like Dante's Stinger, or weird stuff like being able to breakdance in Bayonetta. I don't think there are even combo variations because it looks like there's only one light combo, a heavy attack, a ranged attack, and that's it.
The rundown of this is that Asura's Wrath is a passion project to me. I'd place it in the same spot as Drakengard and by extension Nier, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, God Hand, Okami, Zone of the Enders, and Team Ico's games. Just these unique, weird, uniquely weird games and some for their time where some were very well-received when they were released while others became cult classics after a while. I would even go as far as say they're similar to Demon's Souls, a bit of Earthbound/Mother, and Ni no Kuni. The difference? They didn't get enough of a following where their publishers and/or developers felt like another entry or making another, similar game was worth it. Demon's Souls wasn't like other games at the time. There were difficult games and difficult hack 'n' slash games, but people weren't used to how Demon's Souls worked or at least how hard it punished you for overextending or making bad calls. Now? It has influenced so many other games and the stamina bar and risk calculation are, for better or worse, almost staples for melee combat in games. Time will tell if Nier will become a massive franchise that spawned from essentially a dead one or if Zone of the Enders will ever have a third entry.
Also, the main theme of Asura's Wrath, In Your Belief, is beautiful. Like with other main themes, there are variations of In Your Belief for the game's soundtrack. One of them is used for, if I recall correctly, two boss fights There is also whistling featured in its soundtrack for Yasha's theme and its variations.
Speaking of whistling,
Life is Beautiful, is it not? Deadly Premonition is such a weird game. "Clear as a crisp spring morning. 'F K' in the coffee."
For FEH stuff: My free 5* special hero was spring Camilla (+Def, -Spd). I love that she still has the highest defense out of all the ranged fliers. Also, you know what would be great? If the developers remembered that the -serpent tomes existed or made tome versions of Berkut's Lance/Barrier Sword and Safeguard.
