Before A Rush Of QTEs, Asura’s Wrath Has On-Rails Fist Shooting

Most of the videos of Asura’s Wrath show Asura fighting Wyzen, a cocky boss that dwarfs a planet. He tries to crush Asura with his finger, but Asura defeats him by pummeling it with his four arms. This part is a button mashing sequence for the player. Complete it and Wyzen turns into orange space dust.

That’s actually the end of an Asura’s Wrath episode. Yes, episode, like a TV show or serial drama. At the beginning Asura an average, enraged demi-god with just two arms and Wyzen, albeit more portly, is roughly the same size. It’s a fair fight, so there aren’t any QTEs (quick time events). Asura has a light attack (circle) and a slower heavy attack (triangle). He can jump too and throw spirit fists by holding down square. You can aim this rapid fire attack by moving a cursor with the right analog stick.

The fight continued until I maxed out Asura’s burst meter. An icon flashed informing me to hit R2, which switched the game into a QTE sequence. Instead of random buttons, CyberConnect2 president Hiroshi Matsuyama explained they wanted to link attacks to specific motions. You move the analog sticks down to make Asura stomp his feet, for example, and pull them away from each other to make Asura extend his arms.

I completed the QTE scene, but the fight wasn’t over, it was just getting started. Wyzen grew, threw Asura, and the game changed from brawler to on-rails shooter. Asura ran towards the Godzilla-sized boss on his own. I had to hit Wyzen using the rapid spirit fist move and dodge missiles by moving left or right. Again, the goal wasn’t to scrape away at Wyzen’s life bar. It was to build up Asura’s burst meter which changed the scale of the fight again.

The next phase had Asura parallel to Wyzen. I fired more fists to hurt Wyzen, but reflecting missiles by pressing triangle just before they hit Asura boosted the burst meter faster. In the next sequence, Asura scaled up Wyzen by leaping on flying rocks. The perspective changed again and now Asura was falling towards Wyzen, like a skydiver about to land. The shooting sequence continued with Asura blasting away with his fists and tossing missiles back with a cool looking somersault move.

The battle continued all the way to the start of this article. In the spirit of the game and their vision I’ll say… to be continued with our Asura’s Wrath interview.