Surprise of the show, as Asura's Wrath is not the DMC/Musou clone it kinda appeared to be in the first few trailers. The game is actually very heavily story based, in fact that's the main focus of the game, providing an epic story that you can play. The game is weaving cutscene and gameplay together in unique ways as the fallen demi-god Asura seeks revenge against his former compatriots in the pantheon of earth's gods, from stealing his daughter, who also happens to have immense power locked away inside her.
Remember the first trailer of Asura's Wrath? Giant glowing finger from a space Buddha crushing Asura who's a tiny speck on earth? That is one of the weaker bosses in the game.
While not playable, I saw a full boss demonstration, which showed you how different Asura's Wrath is from most other action titles. The game is not separated by levels or checkpoints, as it's entirely driven by the story, and the boss fight we were shown, ran a gamut of different gameplay styles that all fit the situations Asura was finding himself in. You went from running across a barren wasteland in a sort of race against this massive boss who's running along with you a few miles away, and he's tossing missiles and destroyed spaceships at you, at this point, Asura has a ranged energy blast he can fire, by moving a crosshair across the screen while running. When a object the boss throws comes too close to Asura, the player has a split second to press a button to toss it back at the boss.
Then the battle changes to an aerial view, and Asura needs to dodge and get close to the boss to smack him, then it will change back into the running sequence, where a few more hits drives the boss to become it's massive planet swallowing celestial form. This is all governed by Asura's ANGER METER, which gradually fills up as the fight progresses. When the boss begins to crush Asura with his giant finger. It's at this point Asura's ANGER METER is full, and he can power up to one of his many forms (in this case, he grows 6 arms) pounding the buttons will cause Asura to power up further, and this will produce a crack in the boss's finger, the cracks multiply, and the boss will freak out and die in a massive explosion that leaves a continent sized crater.
While all this portions of the game are playable, they are all presented very stylistically and cinematically. It has a very anime episodic feel to it, which is what the team is going for.
Think of every awesome manly anime there is, Fist of the North Star, Berserk, Hajime No Ippo, multiple it x 1,000,000,000 and make it playable. That's Asura's Wrath.
Even though the game is heavy on the cutscenes, there will be sequences more akin to DMC, where Asura has to cut through multiple smaller-scale enemies, and it's these sequences were Asura has a number of fighting moves to use (although this was not shown in detail.)
