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Review: Naruto: Narultimate Hero |
My (online) name is Racewing, and I’m a Naruto fan.
I resisted it for the longest time, as I kept hearing nothing but mindless dribble being spouted back and forth, but I accidentally started watching the anime some months back (in particular, I was avoiding some work that I had to do that day) and couldn’t stop. I fell in love with the characters, I fell in love with the story, I even gave in and read ahead using all the
manga fanslations I could get my hands on.
I’m hooked on this thing to an even higher extent than I used to be on Slayers, my former “favorite” series. I’m still wrestling with the decision to put Sakura and Ino under pink bedsheets in one of my “special brands” of fanfiction. I completely identify and sympathize with Jiraiya, and I wouldn’t mind being him when I get that old.
Actually, I think I’m already at least halfway there. Hoo-sha.
The point to all that TMI up there is, nearly every word said from this point on will be as a Naruto fan talking to other Naruto fans.
Those of you who aren’t, here’s my review, and it’s the sad truth:
“This game is decent, but it will take a lot longer for you to get into it, and by that time, whatever novelty or potential it may have had will probably have worn off by then. If you’ve got the money or whatever other means to procure this game, then by all means, give it a whirl, but you’ll probably end up going back to Soul Calibur 2 in a few days tops, you horrible, horrible casual gamer, you.”
There, that’s all, you can leave now.
Are they gone? Are only the Naruto fans left?
Good.
All right, then. Let’s get dangerous.
In HerV’s review of Naruto: Great Ninja Battle for Gamecube, Blaze mentions that he purchased both the game and the Freeloader disc. I ain’t that rich, and my PS2 is modded (otherwise I wouldn’t be able to play it in the first place). That all being said, I’m pleading the Fifth as to exactly how I got my hands on the game. I will say, however, that it’s worth the
money if you already have an import-playing PS2, or know of a cheap way to get it to play imports. I wouldn’t go the route of buying a Jap machine just for this baby (as I’ve heard some people have done), though. I know not too many people will be able to get their hands on this disc, so I’ll try to be as in-depth as possible.
The first time I booted this up, I almost cried when I saw the Bandai logo. Bandai and I have a long, twisted history–specifically, they’re the folks who have seen it fit to give me horrible, horrible sentai and Power Rangers beat-em-ups year after year, with no end in sight. To say that I’ve grown bitter with them by now would be an understatement.
Fortunately, they’re only the publishers this time around–the development was handled by another company by the name of CyberConnect2, behind the .hack games for PS2. (I never played .hack, but that’s neither here nor there.)
As a result, this game is actually fun. Who knew?
Like the other Naruto game, this one is polygonal and cel-shaded. Models are full 3D, however, the actual fighting itself takes place in our glorious forgotten friend, 2D! Thank goodness.
Unlike other games which attempt this (Yoshi’s Story, Mega Man X7) the 3D-2D melding here means that we get the best of both worlds. You fight in 2D, with angles sometimes temporarily shifting in perspective for special moves and ninja techniques.
Then there are the super jutsus. Jutsu animations are full 3-D cutscenes,
showcasing, among other things, the characters performing popular signature
techniques on the opponent as if your very own cut of the anime itself were
taking place.
This means that, if you want to, you can recreate the Rock Lee/Gaara fight.
You can have Rock Lee perform his Initial and Final Lotuses on Gaara. It
will look, sound, and sometimes even feel as if you’d just stepped into a
Naruto episode. And this time, Rock’s last-ditch techniques can actually
matter.
The super jutsu animations are rendered fully in real-time, by the cel-
shaded game engine, and are superbly animated, strikingly accurate, and
just that well-done. It’s hard to describe in mere words how much this
adds to the experience–hopefully this review should come with at least
some pictures so you can get the idea yourself.
As far as the aural ambience (that’s “sound” to you uncultured non-
postmodern lay-people) goes, the music is all traditional “ninja-esque”
stuff. It fits the game, but I won’t lie in saying that a lot of the
pumping tunes from the anime could have been used instead for much better
results.
The sheer number of sound bites you’ll end up hearing during the fights
really add to the atmosphere, however. Your fighters constantly chatter,
trash-talk, grunt, groan (all in Japanese, of course), and so will helper
characters. Rock Lee pep-talks to himself every other minute. Kakashi, in
his taunt/recharge stance, hums a little ditty while reading Flirting
Paradise. Kunai and shuriken whiz by, wind blows in audible gusts, boxes
break, bells clang and clatter, water ripples and splashes. It all comes
together beautifully.
Now to sink into the meat of the game. Lots of people were disappointed
that the Gamecube version only featured eight unique characters (and two
special ones). Still, it was understandable, because a Gamecube disc holds
maybe a third of the amount that a DVD can, and there weren’t many
characters introduced in Season 1 to begin with.
With that in mind, and knowing that this is a Season Two (and slightly
beyond) game, where so many new, wonderful and unique characters were
introduced that it was almost impossible to keep track of them all, this
new installment should contain tons of playables, right?
…sure. If you consider twelve “tons”. With only six playable at
start. True, getting the rest isn’t hard, but still, it’s the principle of
the thing.
To make matters worse, the game only takes up half of a DVD. We did not
run out of room for this game, by a long shot. Will someone please tell me
what’s up with this? Delay the game, or start earlier; I don’t really
care, and I doubt many would if they knew that the time was being taken to
add characters. The developers need to get it into their heads that half
the draw of Naruto itself is the diverse, varied, and numerous cast. I
don’t want to see this again. And as time goes by, the cast is just going
to get even larger. I hope whoever’s doing the next game is prepared.
Oh well. It’s no use crying, the game’s already made and pressed. The
good news is, that while we didn’t get a large cast, we got the cast that
mattered. After playing with all of them, here are my thoughts:
Naruto: The all-arounder, natch. A little slow, but has power. Though
his non-super moves are the worst–the Sexy no Jutsu and the fart? I saw
Shadow Replication maybe once with this guy, I think it was in a super.
Kind of disappointing. Still, his loudness (and he is very loud) makes him
fun to play.
Sasuke: I don’t use him much, but he’s a faster Naruto. Glad to see him
get his fire moves, and one of his supers is the infamous arm-breaker.
Great stuff.
Sakura: My second-favorite girl is, sadly, bottom tier. Moves pretty fast,
attacks almost as slow Dhalsim. Jutsus are fun though, and look out for
lots of Inner Sakura sightings. All hail Inner Sak.
(At this point, allow me to stress my annoyance at Ino, my fave female, not
being in this. Le sigh.)
Kakashi: ALL HAIL KAKASHI, DAMMIT. Not a lot of power, but fast enough to
make up for it. One of his specials is none other than the Thousand Years
of Pain. Wonderful. Taunt with him and he reads Flirting Paradise while
humming and regaining Chakra. Plus, he has the Sharingan on his side. Some
of his supers have him activate it, after which he can copy the opponent’s
special moves. Yes.
Haku: Fast, but WEAK, and NO RANGE to boot. One of his supers, is, of
course, the ice mirrors thing, including a super version where the opponent
is forced to eat a gazillion pins until the mirror cage explodes. Fun to
watch.
Zabuza: Second Tier with Gaara. Fast runner. Great power. Moderate
attacker. BIG ASS SWORD. Range second only to Gaara. People who play
against him–prepare to get wet.
Rock Lee: DUDE. This guy makes up third tier all by himself. I maintain
that he can hold his own against ANYONE, though. He’s got power and speed;
his attacks, however, work kind of weird until you get the hang of it,
mainly because he attacks low more often than most folks. His special move
is the Konoha Whirlwind, used to power a leg sweep. This is, hands down,
the best sweep in any fighting game ever. His supers include his speed,
the Initial Lotus, and Final Lotus, plus a special after-attack after said
Final Lotus that we didn’t see in the anime, where Rock damn near becomes a
living comet. Also, if he opens his Life Gates, he stays SUPAR LEE
temporarily instead of becoming incapacitated. It’s the Lee we’ve always
wanted!
The Hyuugas: Exactly what you’d expect. I use Hinata more because Neji’s
a fucking asshole. Neji’s special move: Absolute Defense. Hinata’s
special: she uses her medicine pack to heal herself. Both of them have
Byakugan and the Chakra Points thing for supers, as well as others. Neji’s
great if you want to power your way through fights and look completely
badass doing it–Hinata’s more of a finesse fighter, plus she’s just really
cute, what with all that insecurity n’ stuff.
Shikamaru: I didn’t expect this guy to make the cut, but I’m pretty glad he
did, because he’s SITLL Mr. “Whatever” in every fight you put him in. He’s
got his shadow puppetry jutsu, natch. Can also call out Chuunin team
members for a super. Average character otherwise.
Gaara: Yes, folks, now you can play as Gaara. I have to step back for a
second here when talking about the G-Man, because the designers did
something with him that I totally respect:
They make you fight like Gaara.
Seeing as he has that big-ass gourd on his back, he can’t dash. At all.
On top of this, his walk speed is about 75% of everyone else. The only way
to move quickly is by jump-dashing, and that can leave you vulnerable
sometimes.
This is compensated for by him having damn near the best normal and special
attacks in the game. He attacks with his sand. That sand can go almost
ANYWHERE you want it to, and it seems to have better combo properties than
everyone else’s limbs (even Orochimaru’s!). His sand gives him the widest
upward and outward range of everyone (even Zabuza). His low attacks are
unpredictable because they involve sand coming out of the fricking ground.
He even blocks with the sand. If you fight Gaara, you will be cursing the
sand. HATING THE SAND. It is greatness in execution. He’s a skill
character to start, but Gaara players can become cheap as all hell once
he’s learned.
Orochimaru: …man, what can I say? They made the bastard true to form.
Excels in everything. Has his sword out at all times. OOZES Sephiroth
personality and Cable-level cheapness. If you pick him, expect your
opponent to get somewhat angry. Still, his level 3 super (which I won’t
divulge here because people who only follow the anime haven’t seen it take
place yet) is almost worth it.
As you can probably guess, this game isn’t balanced. The power levels of
each character stay true to the manga/anime. If you’re Sakura and your
opponent picks Orochimaru, Gaara, Zabuza or even Rock Lee or Kakashi, be
prepared for hell. Then again, it does make for some nice dream matches
that adhere to canon–lower level ninjas are NOT going to be able to beat
high-level ones without a lot of work (and sometimes it’s just plain
futile), just in the series.
So. We’ve got our cast. What’s the game play like?
Remember all those Dragonball Z fighting games, which tried to realize the
dashing, zooming, beam-laden fury of the anime, but, sadly, lacked the
intuitive control or the smooth mechanics to pull it off?
These guys did it right.
You have one “action” button (for attacks, mainly), one button for
controlling your jutsu level, one for throwing shuriken, one for activating
any items you may have picked up.
When a fight starts, both characters will be plunked into a stage which has
two planes, foreground and background (think the old Fatal Fury games), and
where each plane likely has multiple levels to be jumped to. The
characters can walk or dash left or right, jump, double-jump, jump-dash
towards their opponent, ninja-streak between fighting planes, and–the best
part–if they come to a wall/tree/scaffolding/girder, instead of stopping,
they’ll simply run up it. If a character stops in mid wall-scale, they’ll
just stay there. Surfaces are sometimes hidden–there’ll sometimes be a
ledge you didn’t know was there before, and you can jump on top of trees as
well.
Another nice touch: some stages have bodies of water on them. If your
character lands on the water, they’ll walk on it. This, however, drains
Chakra from your Chakra meter (think super bar). If you run out of Chakra,
or your opponent hits you with a knockdown attack, then you fall in and
lose some life.
There’s a combo system, as well as one for countering. Combos really are performed by repeatedly pressing only one button, but the direction one hold before each press of the action button matters. One combo will allow you to tack on a special jutsu at the end–another will allow you to uppercut the opponent, then follow them up in the air to punch them back down. Off-the-ground combos exist as well.
However, many of these hits can be countered, because every character has a Replacement Technique. As in, that bit where you disappear and replace yourself with a log. (Not all characters will use logs–Rock Lee will simply disappear, for example, and Zabuza will leave you hitting water where he used to be.) You’ll then reappear behind the character, and, more often than not, smack them down instead–unless a Replacement Tech is done back to you. To ease up on the potential cheapness of this, when
Replacement Tech fights start, the timing to accomplish one gets tighter and faster, until it’s practically impossible to do it at all.
Also, there are items. Items are thrown out by each person’s assist character (Orochimaru has Kaubuto, Lee has Gai, etc.) that can do everything from throw Fuuma Shurikens to teleport your character to call in your assist directly. Gai’s assist is the cheapest thing ever. He’s nigh-unavoidable.
Super moves are activated by pressing Triangle either once, twice, or thrice, depending on what level you want (you need enough Chakra as well). You’ll start to glow, and then you have to hit the other opponent, which is tough, because often mad turtleing will ensue as soon as your character starts glowing blue. (This is where the invisibility item is great–it masks your color, as well as makes shuriken pass through you.) If you manage to hit the opponent, a jutsu cutscene will start.
You don’t just watch it though. While it’s going on, each player has the option to press a certain sequence of face buttons–the digital version of jutsu seals, I suppose. If the person on the receiving end of the pain wins this button race, they can actually end the super after the current cutscene, thus minimizing damage. Otherwise… ouch.
Anyway, as far as the engine goes, I thought it was shallow compared to most (that there “one physical attack button” thing goes a long way towards that image), but I was only half right. When two people learn eveything that their ninjas can do, the result is a fast-paced, whizzing, shuriken-throwing, punching, kicking, ninja-technique-trading, underhanded item-tossing, disappearing-reappearing battle that makes you feel like you’re playing the anime.
In fact, the only disappointing thing about it is the knockdowns. If the opponent scores a combo on you that’s enough to knock you down, you can press a button (either X or O, I forget) to leap back upand get back in the game in a split-second. However, if you flub it (and the timing’s pretty tight on it), be prepared to be down for five seconds, easy. Mashing won’t help either. This is really the only thing that disrupts the otherwise perfect flow of the action.
The presentation is top-notch: it’s got art everywhere, and interactive menus with Kakashi, Hayate, and Anko(omg yes) animatedly chatting and guiding you along. Stages rae set in classic Naruto locales (i.e. the Leaf training grounds) and some places that have now only cropped up in the anime (the Sand willage, for example–complete with tightropes and biting
tornado-level winds). Lots of structures in the background can be broken, yielding special items.
This game isn’t as import-friendly as most fighters are. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a single word in English, anywhere. It’s a double shame because there are tons of unlockables–soundtracks and pictures and manipulable character models and such. If you get this game, be prepared to troll Gamefaqs every day or so looking for new translation guides. It’s not hard to figure out how to get the fighting started, though.
If you’ve got the means, pick this baby up. I admit I thought it was shallow for a few days, but then I decided to actually spend some time with it (instead of just trading jutsus back and forth with my pals in order to watch them all) and found that it goes a little deeper than first impressions will show. It’s already teeming with potential–a second, tweaked revision of this (with more characters, plzkthx) could impress even non-Naruto fans.
Hopefully, we’ll get one.
