Asura's Wrath Demo.. wtf!

[Pharsalus]

A few minutes ago I downloaded and played the PS3 demo for Asura's Wrath and I and fucking stunned at it's shittyness. I remember seeing a preview for it some time ago in Game Informer and like the whores they are they gave it a ton of positive buzz. I didn't expect a whole lot from the demo, but damn was I let down.

I start off as some Akuma looking prick who is fighting a big buddha looking statue boss who knows something about my daughter yadda yadda.. and then I get into the combat, a rail shooting sequence capped off with quicktime events, woo!

Yahtzee fanboy status aside I genuinely dislike quicktime events, they are the ultimate cop out of gaming. They are the designers lack of faith in their own game mechanics made manifest. In the case of Asura's Wrath the developers seemed to have eschewed making a game at all since the game play presented in the demo is nothing but a big quicktime event.

After repeating the "rush up to the boss" sequence a few times I finally manage to get the drop on him, in the literal sense that I am falling upon him from several kilometers up in the air. It is then that this demo lays it's coup de gras upon me; i hit R2 for my own reasons and what looks like a console (that DOS like thing that comes up in some PC games if you hit ~) pops up and covers 4/5ths of the effing screen! I couldn't devise a way to clear my screen and so I promptly quit, and started typing this.

If the demo is any indication Asura's Wrath looks to be yet another highly polished turd to add to the pile of current generation crap.

Any questions, comments, complaints?

 

[TheTygerfire]

The second half of the demo supposedly has more standard combat and less QTE, but I didn't play it because, if I ever do play it, I don't want to see too much of the game.

Also, you weren't impressed at all at the over-the-top presentation and the classical epic storytelling?

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I was thought it was pretty good, the quick time events didnt piss me off like in other games and it did a very good job of providing feedback with them.
Also the style of the game is just effing cool

 

[Soxafloppin]

I enjoyed it. To be honest I was in kinks at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

 

[hazabaza1]

It wasn't as good as I was hoping, but still fun. I'll probably get it when it goes down in price. I hope it doesn't just fucking letterbox the whole game.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it's a game for people who really only like the moving pictures but not any sort of playing part, and there is quite a big market for that so yay for them.

But I can only watch a walkthrough otherwise the QTEs will force me to kill someone.

 

[lordlillen]

i loved it, if there is any way to make QTE the right way is to make them the core of the game not yust three of them at random moments. i love how its alot like over the top animes like one piece and tengen toppa gurren lagann.

 

[weker]

I thought it was really really really good, and I really found the combat enjoyable after 2 or 3 plays. I found it was tricky to fully understand the combat in one play though, and the QTE are done right really adding to the sense of impact and don't feel like their just a button push to continue the clip. I have to also admit the control scheme was a bit wacky.

My go tho, the presentation was wonderful, excluding the few bad textures the way the game is played is wonderful, and is a real love letter to the lovers of over the top anime like Dragon ball, One Piece and Gurren, hell it almost have the same soundtrack for epicness.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I've got the demo on standby for whenever i come off my epic UMVC3 binge... Must get better with Phoenix Wright dammit!

Is it any good? Wait OTT anime epicness you say? 'K i'll try it... Riiiiight after this match.

EDIT: Wow that was awesome! QTE's actually added to the impact of the fight without being punishing, looks like DBZ without the "i will stand here for 20 episodes charging my laser!" bullshit.

The art style looks cool as well, time to look up the release date!

 

[Palademon]

I thought it was great, and I knew QTEs were coming, and I actually like QTEs.

Designer laziness? You try making situational actions and not have customers yelling at you for either not telling them or shoving tutorials in their face every 5 minutes.

You seem to be upset by something by the sounds of it you had no previous knowledge of.
"Let's play this over the top Japanese style QTE fest! Oh wait, I HATE THOSE!".

 

[Sonicron]

Oh, it's out? Well, guess this will be the first download on my brandnew X360 Slim. Can't wait to see how it holds up...

On QTEs in general, I rather enjoy them if they're done right. I remember having a lot of fun with Ninja Blade, a fast-paced game which should fall into the same category as Asura's Wrath (and which actually graded you on QTE execution).

 

[Nico4]

The demo is both ridiculously entertaining... and disappointing. When I saw the trailers for the game, I thought "anime style fighting? This should be entertaining," and while the game certaintly does have this, the game also can't decide what kind of gameplay it wants to be. As said, the first part switches between QTE's and Rail shooting and almost normal combat so much, the game starts to feel schizophrenic. The other part is more traditional, but it just goes on for bloody ever.

So in short: the game is schizophrenic and repetitive.

 

[TitanAtlas]

I kinda liked it... it has that over the top entertainment value. For example, In my country (portugal) many years ago Dragon Ball was a huge deal... and i mean HUGE!! Every kid, be it male or female watched it, there were toys and shows and everything you could think of. That's why this sort of exagerated game is welcomed, and caught my interest right away!!

The game will be feautured in episodes, like a beat'em up/ fighting game and not adventure type of game. The QTE, i agree i hate, but after also playing the demo, i gotta say... for the first time i don't care about QTE. I loved everything about this game, the style, the exagerated story, the macho man stances ("I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!" followed by "YOU CAN TRY, BUT YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED!!! *MEGA BLAST*").

I guess it's a opinion thing... for some people the QTE alone are reason enough to dismiss the idea of enjoying the game, but for others they might like the style, story or somethign else...

For me the idea of beating the crap out of a giant, destroying a Massive ship, continuing to kick the giant's ass, launching him into space with a mega-six armed punch, having him turn into a planet sized enemy, and making him blow up by triggering a flurry of punches with such a huge impact that send such planet sized giant to kingdom come, is a huge interesting element that catches my interest in both the epic and hilarious sense!!!

Same for defeating your old master on the goddam moon, so that you can be sent into earth, while beeing impaled by a sword that goes from one side of earth to the other, and preparing yourself o do a mega punch!!!

Like i saied... the over-the-top exagerating type of story and combat really caught my interest. Also CyberConnect2 is doing the game, and they are a great company that care a LOT about the games they make, so i feel like i can, and i guarantee i will trust them.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I only did the first part, but hearing that it continues to a second part will make me pick it up again.

But impression with the first part were...mixed, at best. I have nothing against QTEs, but I do not like rail shooting very much at all when the cursor isn't centered.

Either way, enjoyed the FF13-2 demo much more.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I just now played it and it was awesome. Namco Bandai really fouled up with Dragonball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi. In a series that was full of fighting games they made UT cutscene combat.

This is how to do it, Asura's Wrath mixes both the combat and QTEs in a way that they feel right. The QTEs aren't there to punish the player, they're there to spice up what would otherwise be cutscenes of the character kicking ass. I felt involved through the whole battle, I also like that I could just shut the boss up if his speech started to bore me.

 

[anthony87]

I've been interested in this game since seeing the first screens.

After trying out the demo? Definite day one purchase for me. It just.....the sheer balls to the wall ridiculousness of it all is amazing. That part where Augus STABS THROUGH THE EARTH I was literally on the edge of my seat going "Wait...that sword isn't gonna go.....HOLY FUCK IT IS!!"

I was genuinely pissed off when that "to be continued" screen came up.