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Review: Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 |
Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 is the latest in the series of fighting games based on the whirlwind success anime series of the same name, and is exclusively on the Nintendo Gamecube.
It takes everything that the former games released under the same title and added more characters, backgrounds, game modes…basically a whole lot more of what we had before. In this case it’s what I like to call Super Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 Turbo. It’s a great game that fans of the first two, and of course any Naruto fan, should enjoy.
This game, like anything else Naruto that some fans won’t criticise for being butchered by the North American looking glass, is a Japan only release. For anyone outside of said region, you’ll have to import. Thankfully the Freeloader Import Enabler allows you to enjoy games from other regions without any complicated modding or soldering techniques. If you’re interested in this, you’ll have to get that as well.
Pretty much anyone looking to import this game will be quite familiar with the Naruto universe, so I’ll just go over the absolute bare facts. Uzumaki Naruto is a young ninja from the Konoha (Hidden Leaf) village in the Fire Country. He and his other shinobi/kunoichi compatriots deal with all sorts of challenges ranging from weeding a neighbour’s garden to stopping all-out coups from rival villages and maniacal ne’er do wells. There are a whole lot of sub stories and conflicts between the Konoha characters as well, not the least of which is the love-hate-rivalry triangle between Naruto and his team mates Sakura and Sasuke.
As this isn’t a stateside and/or crumpet stand release, I’ll take the time to explain the mechanics of the game as thoroughly as possible. The button setup is unlike a large number of fighters out there; one-of-a-kind, if I may pretend to be as all-knowing to say so. A and B are your main attack buttons. B is your taijutsu, or hand to hand combat. Mash this button a lot and you’ll whip out your character’s basic attack combination. The A button is labelled as ninjutsu. This will usually mean throwing a kunai knife or three, but it actually encompasses a whole lot more than that as the signatures of character’s fighting styles are represented by most of you’re a attacks. Alternating between these two buttons will give you a generous list of attack chains, some starting or ending low, in the middle, or launching your opponent in the air before slamming them back down to the ground with a straight kick (for example).
Special moves are very simple. Just press a directional button with either the A or B button. For example, Sasuke’s f+A is his signature fire breath, while Naruto will set a Shadow Clone of himself to uppercut the opponent from under the ground with d+A, as he did against Hyuuga Neji in an episode fans will remember well. Back plus B is a slower melee attack, usually a “wind up punch” sort of move that will go through most normal attacks coming at you and reply ever so satisfyingly. Back plus A is a character’s counter move/stance, if he or she has one. Hold that combination while receiving an attack and your character will either avoid it and set up for a counter attack, or start up a special counter attack. It may be as simple as teleporting out of the way and throwing a bunch of kunai, or a signature move such as Kakashi’s unforgettable, rear-extremities violating Thousand Years of Pain. A few of these such as Neji’s Kaiten Spin use up chakra, the form super meters take in this game.
Chakra is an immensely integral component of the game, much more so than in many conventional fighting games. It fills up quite quickly according to normal parameters (hit your opponent, block attacks, get hit etc) and thankfully so, because of its myriad uses. The bar has four marks, each representing twenty-five percent of the bar. At one hundred percent you can perform one or both of your character’s super moves. At seventy five percent, you can kawarimi. That’s fancy ninja talk for counter attack. Basically the only way to get out of a combo is to kawarimi out. Simply hit L or R with enough chakra and you’ll teleport out of it and return with a weak attack of your own. This makes up a great amount of the strategy in this game with few other technical aspects such as six punches and kicks or other sorts of nonsense. You’ll have the safest chance to inflict damage when your opponent has too little chakra to counter, and you’d ideally have enough to counter that counter if it does occur. Also, do you take the safe route and reserve your meter for this precious technique, or do you want to save it and unleash a crippling super move? Decisions, decisions.
Press L or R to sidestep around the circular or thereabouts arena. A well timed sidestep can be the start of a high damage combo. Y activates a near useless throw, one with atrocious range and negligible damage. It’s intended to set up combos, but since you can kawarimi out of it, you usually have more viable options than this.
Press X to activate your character’s super move. Yes, you heard me right, super moves are performed by pressing one button. It fits in with the simple commands and fast paced action, though the idea was certainly difficult for me to grasp the first few times I played GNT2. The first super move for everyone works identically. Your ninja moves forward and, if he or she hits the character, initiated an unblockable animation depicting one of his or her signature moves of awesomeness. Naruto churns out some Shadow Clones for the Naruto Combo, Sakura’s inner self coordinates the most devastatingly painful series of pummelling punches you’ve ever seen, and that genius of a pothead Shikamaru has a wall pop up out of nowhere so he can hilariously use his Kage mane no Jutsu in the exact same way as he did in the show.
All that I’ve mentioned so far has been presented in the first two games. There are a number of additions to the system this time around, though, that add a number of additional layers of depth. Foremost is the fact that every character now has two super moves. This means a new one for all the returning characters. Some are simply far more damaging ones that are only available when your health bar =< 40%, and flashing (much like the early King of Fighters games’ desperation attacks). Most are simply more violent versions of their normal supers, though special mention must go to Naruto and his ultimate Rasengan attack. The well-animated sequence and huge amount of damage it inflicts really is a sight to see. Others are performed with pressing down plus X, or pressing X in the air. Most of these ones only require seventy five percent of your chakra bar, and don’t hit just one person. They therefore have a bit more flexibility, especially in multiplayer bouts. The most interesting example of this is Shikamaru’s d+X; it sucks up the opponent in a shadow, but does little damage. However, it will hit everyone on the battlefield more than ninety percent of the time (depending on their distance and position), is unblockable, and is a great setup for wakeup pummelling. All for less than the full chakra bar? How gracious of you. Also, time now stops when the auto-sequence supers connect, ensuring you won’t get an aggravating time over waiting for the final hit to connect.
Some characters have other uses of the chakra bar, almost giving a reason to clutter the chakra bar with those 25% and 50% dots. Rock Lee, the fan favourite ninja with no skill, can open his gates. Basically this means he unlocks the stoppers in his body that control chakra flow, granting him great strength albeit with a high risk. The first time you press down + X, you take up 50% of your chakra to increase your strength and speed. It’s almost essential that you do so in order to compete, since Lee is essentially a straight fighter who depends on melee damage. The second time you do this, he goes all super saiyan, draining his health down to critical and re-generating chakra at an unbelievable rate. His super move in this mode is the almighty Ura Renge, which can hit from anywhere on the screen and inflicts around eighty-something percent damage. His sensei Might Gai can open a first gate in much the same way, giving him access to the Omote Renge his pupil made famous in the show.
Kakashi can use 50% of his chakra to activate his Sharingan, granting him the fastest counter in the game (though nowhere near as awesome as his original) and the ability to use many characters’ super moves against them if hit while in his counter stance. Beware though; this slowly drains the super cool sensei’s health. Sasuke can activate his Sharingan as well, though it only takes 25% of his chakra (the only command in the game which uses this small amount) and doesn’t drain his health, mainly because his is…well, natural. Sasuke’s two forms are largely similar, though they have a slightly different move list. His normal stance has a more “solid” play style, and has the Shishi Rendan (Lion Combo). His Sharingan stance has a fast counter, and two super moves (effectively giving him three supers in total): his sensei’s Chidori, and one where he jumps in the air and lets loose with a flurry of air fireballs faster than Akuma in a Vs. game. The downside is that some of his combos don’t connect as easily; instead of setting up for a last hit, he’ll launch the enemy across the screen instead, for instance. Both Kakashi and Sasuke can go back and forth between their stances anytime they want (going back from Sharingan to normal takes no chakra).
Naruto’s second “form” is very desperation-type in nature. While he has full chakra and forty percent of health or less, d+X unleashes the Kyuubi, a legendary demon fox whose essence was sealed in Naruto at his birth. He has an entirely different, feral fighting style that inflicts massive damage, and his super move in this mode is an unblockable flurry of said slashes.
One small but sensible addition to the basic gameplay is guard break. It’s pretty elementary in this game. If you take too many blocked hits, the flashes go down from blue to yellow to red, and shatter at a certain point. The only thing is that the window of opportunity is very small, so if you stop for even a second between making that final hit and taking advantage of it, the “guard meter” has already regenerated. It does offset the worrying instances of each player just hitting a blocking opponent until someone builds enough chakra for their (unblockable) super move, which occurred often in GNT2.
Now that most of the game mechanics are out in the open, I’ll address the aesthetics of the game. Like many anime-based video games, the graphics are cel-shaded, and look very good. While some may voice their concern over the detailed art of the manga and anime being dulled down by the sometimes simplistic visuals of the game, it doesn’t hurt Naruto in any notable way, and really does feel for the most part that you’re “playing the show.” In fact, the first time I started up the game I immediately noticed it to be a few degrees sharper than GNT2. All the voicework is done by the actors in the show, which adds greatly to the authenticity and is quite overwhelming to one Canadian such as myself (“Star Wars Rogue Leader! Featuring the voice of Wedge Antilles!”). Even the announcer is that guy with bronchitis who coughs (and does, after every utterance of “hajime”). The music is not taken from the show, but fits in well enough with the Naruto universe. Some particular tracks such as the one played for the Water Country bridge stage are exhilarating, and they all have a specific tempo and feeling that fits in rather well with the background they are paired with. There are quite a few new backgrounds this time, ranging from the infamous peeping grounds of the hot springs to the sand village at night, complete with the swing set Gaara always hung out at when he was a wee one. My personal favourite has to be Tanzaku-gai at night, with the crackling lantern, cobbled street, and the palace sitting majestically in the distance. My bias probably stems from the fact that it reminds me of Kairi and Hokuto’s stage from Street Fighter EX 1, but I digress.
The last Gekitou Ninja Taisen game had twenty one characters, including the alternate versions of Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto, as well as Kiba’s companion dog Akamaru and Kankuro’s puppet Karasu. In GNT3 all major teams are now fully represented, and the alternate versions of the aforementioned characters are merged into their normal selves, thereby opening up some extra space on the select screen. Many of the new characters in this game are the female members of the genin teams since, well, they didn’t matter as much. But now, oh the joy! The end result is an impressive roster consisting of twenty-nine characters. Everyone has one alternate colour to their default costumes. In addition Sasuke has access to his old, less huggable outfit, Haku can start with or without his (urgh) mask, and both long-haired Ino and Sakura (dubbed Bukkakura by DYLE, reviewer of GNT2) as an alternate to their newer, shorter coiffures.
Temari is the female member of the Sand trio. Level headed and rather haughty, she’s an alluring rival and my personal favourite female in the series. Her trademark gigantic fan looks more like an ice cream sandwich when closed, but forms her main platform of attack. The wind attacks she throws out from there are best used at long range, and inflict an almost unfair amount of damage. The accent on her main super move is perhaps the most viscerally painful image in the game.
Tenten is the feministic weapons expert who teams with Rock Lee and Neji. She’s a long range fighter as well, but a far more complex one at that. She’ll throw kunai, shuriken, and what look like big wooden splints at you from a number of directions, flying all around like Zhang Ziyi with a Minnie Mouse hat. She’s especially good for people who like to attack from every direction at once and make your opponent wonder just what in the hell you’re planning to do next. Unfortunately she’s not as strong hit-for-hit as other powerhouses in the game, but it’s characteristic of her fighting style, which I would probably liken to Ibuki’s from Street Fighter III. Her supers consist of throwing a crapload of ninja grapeshot from the air, or connecting for her Choshou-Ryu, as graceful an assault of sharp things rushing at your head and torso can possibly be.
Akamichi Chouji is perhaps the closest approximation to a grappler in this game. He’s slow but hits hard. His A attacks don’t throw kunai, or any other projectiles. Instead he’ll lunge at the opponent and whip out a heavy belly to belly suplex throw. A variation is a vicious power bomb (to wrestling aficionados, I’d liken it to a more painful rendition of Billy Kidman’s BK Bomb). His super moves are variations of his Multi Size-Meat Tank Jutsus, but the most entertaining ability Chouji possesses is his down + A, whereby he eats his favourite brand of barbeque potato chips to build up chakra. Not immensely useful, but very in character.
Aburame Shino, the mysterious bug dude with Clark Steel levels of silent coolness, is a difficult character to gauge. His combos are decent, but not stellar. His main form of attack is the army of bugs he houses in his body, taking the form of a swarm of black dots accompanied by buzzing sound effects. It doesn’t exactly look quite like a swarm of insects, but it passes for the medium it’s forced to be portrayed in. Hitting with a swarm of these bugs will drain an opponent’s chakra, and entangle them for a short while. Shino can throw them from his hands, have them fall from the sky, or even crawl on the ground all sneaky-like to entrap a fighter’s feet. Thing is, they’re pretty damn easy so see, and to block. A crafty opponent can easily avoid them, and the computer AI isn’t going to be fooled by such tactics. However, with the right timing, the silent but deadly Shino can string together an infinite with swarms and swarms of bug attacks, their chakra-sucking properties invalidating a kawarimi escape in the best of circumstances.
Orochimaru was playable in the last game, and his former Sannin team mates join the fray. Jiraiya is a rather large target, with some strong combos. His character really shines in this game through his counter stance where he enwraps himself in those spiky porcupine spines resembling his hair, and his super moves where he summons a giant frog to either engulf you in fire or just fall down and squish you. An interesting note: when you choose a character from the select screen, he or she will utter a short “let’s go” kind of catch phrase. Occasionally, but not always, Jiraiya will go through his entire self-introduction spiel. Like, all thirty seconds of it. Little details like this are what make this game an authentic Naruto experience.
Tsunade is the first medical ninja, with a penchant for gambling and inhuman strength. Her combos have a worrying tendency to cause massive damage, and launch her enemy into the air, setting up for painfully easy juggles. Her first super has her kick into the ground and cause an earthquake that would send the patron saint of Mount Saint Hilary shaking in his boots. Her second super regenerates a considerable amount of health, though strangely she still has to hit the enemy in order for the animation and benevolent effects to kick in. Her breasts look absolutely huge in 3D, too.
Sandaime, the third Hokage, dons the hokey yet respectable ninja outfit he wore during his last epic battle with Orochimaru. He’s got quite a few flashy tricks as befits a ninja master (I guess), such as spitting fire or water, and splitting the ground to summon a battalion of angry stalagmites. His main super is really quite amazing; he summons his monkey companion Enma who slashes up the enemy good, then transforms into the large Bo staff for Sandaime to whack you out of your senses. The camera angles used in the animation are quite dynamic, and hearing the feral monkey wiseman utter “Henge!” is just the icing on the cake.
Chuunin examiner Anko is a very special character, since she’s the only one in this Gamecube release not also in the Playstation 2’s Narutimate Hero games. Merely relegated to the game’s shop last time around, she now joins as a full-on competitor. The main non-jailbait centre of fan service in the game, she’s very…wiggly. She actually wiggles her arms as she throws a punch, sits on the ground in a very inviting way before viciously countering, and uses those snake arms she inherited from her tryst with Orochimaru more often than Orochimaru himself uses them in the game. Her first super move is just a combination of slashes and snake arm attacks, but her desperation super is the absolute greatest hurricarrana in history. And her winning poses from grabbing the television screen to just…bending over slightly…it’s beautiful.
The boss of this game is none other than Uchiha Itachi, the menacing older brother of Sasuke who alone slaughtered his family and clan. While not quite abusive enough to merit the “SNK Boss” moniker, he’s a mindbending adversary nonetheless. His combos inflict above average damage, and can link into them from a well placed kawarimi counter. He actually has clever applications of the kage bunshin, including an EXPLOSIVE super move. His signature, vaguely sacrilegious Tsukiyomi super is highly damaging and quite simple to whip out before the opponent knows what’s coming. While Gaara was a adequate boss last time around with his high defence and odd play style, Itachi is all the more fitting because he’s just more than a few levels better than you, period. I should also like to mention that his model in this game has a much more bishy look to him than he does in the show. And I kind of liked it. :S
Akamaru and Karasu now have one super move each, but why should you care?
The selection of game modes in Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 is fairly comprehensive. You’ve got single player arcade, time attack, survival, and practice modes, as well as the Shadow Battle mode. Two players can engage in one on one versus, a new two players-on-two computers arcade mode, and the much toted “Three Man Cell.” With three or four players you can engage in the multiplayer mode. The sheer amount of chaos that occur in this mode is hilarious, and in my mind easily goes toe to toe with Super Smash Bros. Melee for best multiplayer fighting game, especially since it has a more “credible” system. The only complaint I may have for the multiplayer mode is that sometimes there’s so much crap going on at one time, you end up just mashing buttons with the hope that you end up seeing your character standing at the end of it all.
The Three Man Cell mode is interesting, yet at the same time rather disappointing. The three-on-three mode was present last time around, but has had some tweaks. Essentially it’s the same as the team mechanics of a traditional King of Fighters game, but now Tomy decided to add combined team attacks. During the match, kanji may appear on your character’s portrait under the life bar and flash wildly. When this is activated, you can initiate the team super by pressing back + X, and it connects just like a normal on the ground super move. Your other two partners appear, and the three of you proceed to pummel the living crap out of your opponent in the air, knocking him down to the ground, and knock the holy hell of out him or her one last time before hitting the ground.
The damage this move inflicts depends on the members of your team. For example, a team with no storyline chemistry at all (let’s say Sakura, Temari and Haku) will inflict maybe between thirty and forty percent damage. However characters with more chemistry together will inflict more. The arranged three man teams that Naruto fans have learned to associate their favourite genin together will inflict a monstrous eighty-five percent or thereabouts of damage, with all three members participating in the final smackdown (it’s usually just your current player who makes the last hit). Interestingly, the three Sannin also count as a legitimate team. Most characters not in a specified three man team have certain people they have chemistry with and make good combinations. Sandaime works well with instructors such as Anko and Iruka, for example.
While the idea is cool, the final product of the Three Man Cell is somewhat peculiar. For one, the animation is exactly the same for every team and eclectic combination; there are no instances of characters using their signature moves in tandem to speak of. I was really looking forward to Naruto and Sasuke using their shuriken/bunshin trick, for example. Also, damage inflicted by other attacks is reduced in this mode, especially normal supers. Initiating the team super move costs no chakra whatsoever, although if you do connect with it you use up whatever amount is in your meter. The strategy basically degenerates into waiting for that intrusive kanji to show up and try to hit with your team super move. It’s an odd, one-hit wonder of a game mode. Not to mention that the team chemistry mechanics are off, as you can just pick any random Konoha ninja combination and be sure to inflict an adequate amount of damage with the team super. I can only be grateful that Akamaru and Karasu are exempt from Cell battles. The image of a small dog dishing out a double axe-handle punch three stories in the air is perhaps more than I can handle.
I’m sure you’re waiting for a verdict of this game, on whether or not I would recommend you buy this game. For a Naruto fan, I’d say a definite yes. It’s got all the flash and authenticity that marks it as the perfect product for a follower of the franchise. The fighting system is simple, but quite entertaining, certainly more robust than the Playstation 2’s button-mash-your-jutsus offering. One-on-one bouts demand careful use of your chakra, and can entail many an entertaining mind game. The multiplayer mode is an absolute blast, and is the perfect way to spend a casual video game night if you and your compatriots have already overheated the Xbox from Halo 2 marathons. (I’d recommend this before Halo mind you, but I’d rather just assume the most probable situation for the sake of it.) For those who are not fans of Naruto, you probably wouldn’t go to the trouble of importing it in the first place, but you should have a relatively fun time playing it at your friend’s house who does happen to be a fan and own it.
Is there a possibility of a Gekitou Ninja Taisen Four? I don’t rule it out, yet I would question its merit to import after having acquired both the second and third helpings. A lot has been added to the game this time around, but I believe this particular game series has reached its peak. There’s only so much you can add before it just ends up as a rehash of the former game with some cheap gimmicks tacked on. While some may moan that they’re favourite tertiary, non-combatant character is not selectable, and they want to use some certain incredibly badass fighters that only just appeared in the anime or have yet to appear, I don’t think it’s enough to justify another release. Seeing their jutsus in a fighting game is all fine and dandy, but should I pay another sixty dollar Canadian plus shipping to see them, in the same game I have now? I’m not so sure I would.
Regardless of the possibility of future endeavours, GNT3 is a rewarding fighting game and a superb example of using a franchise to create credible offshoot products.
Final Verdict? I’d say an eight out of ten when considering the one-on-one modes alone, but the multiplayer mode is a half shade of blue away from perfect. I’ll just give it an even four out of five stars or 80% under that oh-so-obtuse percentage system. Definitely lower for non Naruto fans, though by how wide a margin I’m not even going to venture to guess.
