Originally a Manga series of books, Naruto was set loose on the world with the theme of ninjas. There are different cities, with different style originally filled with peace. What was once a fairly peaceful world, the levels of protection are crumbling. Each student has their own different style of attack, and powers, generally being passed down by their parents. Each of the young students go to school with each other, trying to learn the basics so that they can grow up and serve their city well as well rounded ninja.
The cast is spattered with a coloured collective set, branching out from the serious, to the light of heart. Some are built in with threatening character flaws, like the main star Naruto who has a Kitsune spirit sealed into his body, which was done to protect the village from an attack. Because of this spirit sealed away in his body, most people in the village shun him and he is viewed as a misfit. Nonetheless he attempts to rise above this to become a Hokage, the leader of their town, and a ninja with immense power. You have his rival with an on again, off again friendship as they battle against each other. He, Sasuke, has the ability to copy other ninja abilities for his personal use and betterment. His family was killed off by his brother, and because of that loss, he uses that memory to fuel his growth.
The series goes through huge story arcs, and because it is styled with ninja, you go through the similar storylines. There is a lot of death, and fighting, which often spawn from issues like attempted assassinations. There are underhanded activities undertaken from other towns trying to become the supreme ruling force. There are fights that span over several episodes, which are entertaining from start to finish. Most of these deal with issues also involving crushes, and adolescent insecurities, while trying to rise over all of the problems in one fluent motion. There is even the development of Rock Lee, who has no ninja powers, but what he does have is heart. He uses this detriment to be the best combatant in spite of his shortcomings, and trains his body vigorously to reflect this.
When this is brought into the game, it lacks the entire level of story. You will not unroll a new side-story, or anything like that, even in the story mode. It leads to a battle after another without really explaining the reasoning that the fight is going on. This is quite classic in most of the fighting games, and so it is up to you, if you have not seen the show, to figure out why these battles are going on. They do have unique interactions with the opposing characters though, with the pieces of voice acting for an introduction. Depending on whom they are facing, it will be a repeating set.
The game sports an interesting cell shaded battle system, and this ensures that the characters do look fairly nice. I am an avid fan of cell-shaded games, from Jet Set Radio to Viewtiful Joe. This would end up being my second favourite anime cell shaded game, falling behind Yu-Yu Hakusho. Each of the characters looks appropriate, just as if they were plucked from the clutches of anime, and plopped down for everyone to play. It is about everything that could be asked for when playing the game. The problem I run into though, is there is not enough. In this rendition, which I hear is changed in the future incarnations, you are limited to only a handful of characters. They are the main ones of course, but only from the beginning of the series.
The battle style is pretty simple, with most of the characters having very similar moves. Some of them do range from being a bit quicker when it comes to attacking, or a larger range of attack, but in the end they do come up being a tad bit too similar. You can chain combos together fairly easily, as each character has an easy set to pull off. Generally they just consist of hitting the same button around seven times, so there is no degree in difficulty memorizing them. What works out well though is the counter system, which is quite easy to counter in mid combo, attacking from another side. Each character also has one special move that they can pull off, once their power bar is filled from successful attacks. This move is generally very short distance, where you will need to be right in front of them, and more often than not it fails. It is incredibly easy to avoid, or attack them before it gets to you, so it does not feel fair while playing.
There are several different modes that you can play through, but nothing too expansive. The closest thing there is to that is survival mode, which you can play through. The longer you play the game, the more difficult it gets. Mainly the computer does not ramp up in difficulty, rather you have your life ramped down, so that it makes it easier for them to beat you. Even still, you can easily go quite a few levels before you are dethroned from being the king ninja. Even the 3D arenas are quite limited. There are no “ring outs”, which means it is either a battle till someone drops, or time runs out.
The game is fun to play though. Either from creating a long list of combos out of nowhere, or having the battle boil over into a total free for all. This is also just their first attempt at the game as well, and it does provide an excellent base for them to build off of. I hear in the next game released there will be more than triple the characters, and we should even see that arriving on our shores in a few months. This game should solve a few of the clipping problems, like where body parts will fade through others, as well as expending the battle system.
It does make sense that the characters are fairly limited at this stage. Naruto translated for the English audience has only been out for the last few months, so it is close to where the show is. That is where the game ends though, and makes it feel more of a free demo game that you get with a subscription, or perhaps even a download. It seems that they should have just held off on this game, and released the second one. In fact they have even released a few more in Japan, where the series has been going strong for quite a few years now. This only seems to be an example of what the game is capable of, and it needs more time in the over before it could be considered done and fit for consumption.
In the end there is not too much substance for the game. It is pretty fun, and even easy enough to pick up and play. While you do play it for a few hours, at that time you will have unlocked everything in the game, and move on. Since it is so short in that sense, I recommend that you rent the game, play it to your hearts content, then see if you think you would want to buy it rather than just chance it. I only wish that the developers had added more to the game, consider it had came over from Japan, and have had more than a year to add content to the game or improve it before setting it free on our shores. Chances are that the second game, all ready planned for release in North America, will be better than this one just by adding more characters. All and all, Captain Gordon gives this game a C+.
