Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2 for the Gamecube is the third in a short series of anime-based fighting games that I’ve had the pleasure, and in some cases, the displeasure of reviewing. The fact is, after a childhood of playing poorly crafted games like Dragonball Z: Super Butoden and Yu Yu Hakusho, I’d rather be strapped into a chair with my eyes pryed open and forced to watch ‘Rich Girls’ on MTV than to play another anime-fighting game… until now.

Naruto, the anime, is great. I would go so far as to say that Naruto has spoiled me on other anime. Waiting every week for the next episode gives me a feeling that I haven’t felt for cartoons since I was a child. Naruto is the type of show that is immediately engaging, and with each episode, not only manages to leave you thoroughly impressed, satisfied, and clamouring for more, but it also teaches you a lesson. This feeling, this indescribable torrent of emotions that the anime invokes is completely realized in Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2.

The fact that this game doesn’t just look like Naruto, but feels like Naruto is the what makes it such a stand-out game. Which is sad, because honestly, recreating the feelings of the anime should be the foundation that anime-based fighting game is built on. I’ll do my best to explain one of the greatest games that you’ll never see to the fullest degree.

Naruto, as a fighting game, is more stacked than Pandora Peaks. It has everything that you would expect from a full-fledged, big-name, fighting-game, and much more. The game comes packed in with a choice of modes for as many as four simultaneous players. It has arcade mode, survival mode, time attack, team battle, simultaneous team battle and even some secret modes that I will elaborate on later. The game also has one of the most in-depth story modes I’ve ever encountered in a fighting game. The story mode gives you a summarized, but completely accurate recreation of the Naruto storyline, from the first arc, all the way to the upcoming chapters that are going to play out in the coming weeks on the TV series. Naruto is already in it’s 64th episode at the time of this review, so clearly, that’s a lot of story and a lot of fights!

There is also a store mode, in which you are greeted by Anko (exam coordinator/spicy lady/SEETHROUGH NETTED SHIRT), where you can buy all of the extras that you have unlocked with the money that you earn from fighting in the various modes. You can buy all sorts of neat stuff from the beautiful Anko, such as secret characters, extra stages, new storyline episodes, new gameplay modes and literally everything else under the sun. You’ll spend hours on end earning money to buy items and expand the game. In fact, the only thing that I can’t seem to convince Anko to sell me is some of that sweet, sweet, kunoichi poontang.

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2 rectifies it’s predecessor’s problem of a lack of selectable characters quite nicely, by including all of the characters from the first game, and the majority of the characters that are active members of the current story arc. In short, aside fom the main team, there are two representatives from each team, except the Sound Village’s team, who, while all cool in their own right, totally jobbed in the anime, and thus, got zero representation. Aside from that, there are a few instructors, a couple of fan favorites, and A LOT of surprises.

The greatest thing about the characters in this game is that they are not just skins, slapped onto some generic fighting figure. All of the characters have distinct fighting styles and they all accurately portray their techniques and abilities from the show, both visually and in terms of execution. Normally, I don’t do something this drastic, but considering both my love for this series and that you’ll never see this game, I’m going to go through and list every character in the game and tell you a little bit about each one.

Uzumaki Naruto is the protagonist of the anime series and the central cog around which the storyline revolves. The character of Naruto began as somewhat of an attention craving bumbler, whose lovable, but mischievous nature always seems to get him in trouble. Around the time frame of that this game represents, Naruto, having learned lessons through the experiences of his peers and through his own experiences, has become a hard-working, determined young man who never loses faith in himself and his friends.

Naruto’s fighting style in the show and in the game revolves around his Kage-Bunshin No Jutsu (Shadow Replication Technique) which was originally a technique that he could never seem to master. Now, he has come to rely on it to get him out of all sorts of jams and defeat several opponents with far greater power. His fighting style could not have been represented any better than it has been in this game. Every special move that Naruto has, from the Sexy No Jutsu to the Naruto Rendan have made it into the game, fully in tact, and just as animated as in the show.

Uchiha Sasuke is your quintessential anime bad ass. He broods… HARD. I’m talking, hands in the pockets all the time, he has a dark past, he’s been to Neverland Ranch, the whole nine-yards. From Sasuke’s first appearance in the series, it was clear that he was going to be THE MAN. He is the Vegeta to Naruto’s Goku in every way. A super genius number one rookie of the Konoha Ninja Village, and the last known surviving member of the Uchiha Clan. His storyline presence is huge in this series and his personality, like Naruto’s, shines and grows with each battle.

Sasuke’s style of play in the game is not based on power, but speed and cunning. Cunning is the very essence of the ninja, and of this game, but Sasuke takes it to a whole new level. Countless juggles, a great deal of style, and lots of teleportation work to make Sasuke a worthy character for beginners and experts alike. Sasuke’s firebreathing technique really puts him over the top, as it can hit over 20 times (if you are willing to sacrifice Chakra), does massive chip damage, and leaves him a respectable distance away from the opponent. His super is the Lion Rendan, an attack which you may have seen in the Chuunin Preliminary battles if you had watched the series. It comes to life just as brilliantly as in the anime, does a ton of damage, and it is incredibly gratifying to land.

Haruno Sakura’s character in Naruto serves the purpose of being ‘the japanese female,’ and little more. Bursting with untapped potential, treated as a second class ninja, eternally jobbing and consistently being placed in the role of either cheerleader, rescue bait, or as a last resort, reluctant savior, Sakura is the complete archetype for modern Japanese woman. She’s beautiful, charming, intelligent, and generally positioned out of the way, to be seen and not heard.

Sakura’s representation in the game is chock-full of ‘inner sakura,’ in the sense that all of that untapped potential, and things that we are TOLD that she is better at are brought to the surface in this game. She doesn’t know many techniques in the show, but she is better at channelling chakra and strategizing than Naruto and Sasuke (her teammates), and she is better with shurikens and kunai. Sakura is a projectile and teleportation machine. She is kunoichi to the fullest, because she gains her greatest power through the element of surprise. Sakura’s super is a full on physical ranbu, in which you see her bashing her opponent to bits, all the while her inner self-projection, ‘inner Sakura’ is throwing punches in conjunction. When she’s done with you, she watches animatedly as you fall to the ground. Sakura has what I consider to be hans down the most visually entertaining super (not impressive) in the game. It just makes you laugh.

Another great thing about Sakura in this game is that they not only included the default Sakura (pictured left), they also included a personification of her that I like to call ‘Bukkakura (right), with long hair,long sleeves, and a glaze-worthy smile. She’s so cute looking, and it hides her wide forehead! Bukkakura’s original appearance was during the first few episodes of the show, before she ‘became liberated.’

Hatake Kakashi (seen above, masturbating in the forest) is the direct sensei of Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. He is the very epitome of cool. He reads hentai-manga, he always has a witty response to every situation, he fears nothing, he’s good with children, and you can definitely tell he’s a representative of the Hidden Village of Leaves by how stoned out of his mind he always is.

His in game presence is just as vivid and apparent as in the series and manga. Kakashi’s personality shines through in all of his attacks and in the finesse exuded by his strings. His super move involves him channeling his Chakra into electrical energy and then, if fully charged, he will reach through you, sending jolts throughout your body. Some might remember this attack being performed at Zabuza in the series. The creme de la creme of Kakashi’s attack repitoire would have to be his ‘1000 Years of Pain.’ It is a perfect counter, in which he pulls out his issue of Cum Cum Paradise and reads it tauntingly, showing you that he doesn’t have to use his full potential, and if you attack during this time, he vanishes and appears behind you with his 4 longest fingers pointed upwards and… well… I’ll let the images tell the tale.

Hyuuga Neji is the resident tough guy. He is a predeterminist with an silent arrogance that permiates throughout every action he performs and every speech that he recites. Neji is the type of person that believes that all fate is set at birth, and that it is an inescapable reaper that collects its debts from you like a robotic pimp. A super-genius fighter, wielding the Byakugan, Neji can see your tenketsu (chakra holes) and seal away your ability to create Chakra.

Neji’s character is a breakthrough in terms of exemplifying his anime personality to the fullest in his style of fighting. His main power, thanks to the Byakugan and his technique, is the ability to at will, close your tenketsu at will, and erase large portions of your Chakra meter with his attacks. He is a turtler to the fulles in both the anime and the game, as his absolute defense… defends… absolutely! His super attack is the 64 palms. This attack blew me away in the anime, and it has the same dazzling effect when done in the game too. He pounds his index and middle fingers on both hands into you one after the other, 64 times, in a matter of seconds, completely erasing your entire Chakra meter and utterly destroying your life guage. I wish I could accurately depict this move verbally, but it’s just too awesome for words.

Rock Lee, the man with no ninjitsu talent and no ability to use Chakra, is the unsung hero of the ‘Kung Fu’ team (Neji, Rock, TenTen). Naruto refers to Rock as ‘Geji-Mayu’ or ‘Fuzzy Eyebrows,’ and he, like Naruto, has a crush on Sakura. There are some things that should be made clear about Rock before I continue. As goofy as he looks, he is hands down, the most popular character in the show, aside from Naruto. Rock’s philosophy is that with hard-work, a dropout can out-perform a genius in any activity, and he constantly proves this with his actions throughout the series.

As I said, Rock has no talent at ninjitsu, so he has dedicated himself to hand-to-hand combat (referred to in the series and ‘Taijutsu’) and he does nothing but train and work hard, and has done so, like a walking Chinese stereotype, his entire life. His hard work has been manifested into most broken character in the show and the game. Rock is one of the few characters in the game that cannot throw shurikens, but he is also the only character in the game that can power-up. He can do it twice, actually, right at the start of the round. The first power up is an instant speed and power boost that propells him ahead of all of his opponents and makes him a match for anyone he faces. The second power up, in which he sacrifices his energy and becomes literal God, allowing him to perform the Ura Renge (Reverse Lotus), which can hit you from any spot on the arena, and he instantly charges up his super-attack repeatedly.

A great deal of attention was payed to Rock in this game. When you recreate the legendary battle between Rock and Gaara, Rock performs a special super that he will ONLY do on Gaara, that comes straight from the show. That’s some fan-pleasing goodness right there.

Might Guy (Gai for short), is the Kung Fu team’s direct sensei, and somewhat of a surrogate father to Rock Lee. Gai found Lee as a child and motivated and trained him to greatness. You will see a lot of Lee in Gai, because Gai molded Lee into his very image from childhood. There are no other words to describe Gai than ‘undeniably cool.’ Gai is like the cool dad next door that you could never quite convince to sodomize you. He is also Kakashi’s eternal rival, as they have fought 199 times and their score is 100-99, but neither of them will admit who is ahead. Their rivalry now manifests itself in seeing whose team of students excels in the Chuunin Exams.

Gai’s playstyle is very similar to Lee’s. They share all of the same techniques, with a few different properties and variations. Gai has a few more teleport attacks than Lee, and his range is a great deal longer. He also does immediate chip-damage with all of his normal attacks, whereas Rock has to power up once to do that. The only thing that puts Gai behind Rock is that Gai can’t open gates to power up. His super, in the game consists of one of his famous motivational speeches, which leads into a bone-crushing, emphatic, bear-hug of love. Gai is a brilliant character in both design and execution, not in spite of, but because of his similarities to Rock.

Ino is the self-proclaimed leader of the Jobber Team in Naruto. Their team, while all cool in their own right, is always relegated to serving little other purpose than to propell the storyline or to play off of other characters quirks with their own weirdness. Ino’s number one rival is Sakura, and her number one purpose seems to be to try to outshine Sakura when it comes to trying to gain the attention and affection of the CLEARLY gay Sasuke. She spends most of her time, with Sakura, who is ironically her best friend, on the sidelines, cheering on her teammates, or trying to out-cheer Sakura for Sasuke. Ino is the very manifestation of Japan’s love of and desire to rape, underaged, blonde, white girls. A worthy rival to Bukkakura, Ino has also recently ‘liberated’ herself by cutting her hair shorter.

Ino’s play-style is very unique, in the sense that it incorporates a lot of teleports. She’s not very good at channelling chakra and she doesn’t know very many techniques in the show, so in order to balance and make her a worthy adversary for the rest of the competitors in the game, 8ing had to give her a lot of mix ups and teleports. Ino’s power, like Sakura, is greatest when she is able to surprise her opponents and keep them grounded. Her super incorporates her using her favorite technique, the Mind Transfer technique. She fires a mind-beam at her opponents, and if it connects, she takes over their bodies for a short period of time. After she does, she dances around in the body and then calls Choji (her missing teammate), and he cameos his way in by performing the much-loved MEAT TANK attack on the subdued opponent. The limitations to this technique, like in the show, are very apparent. For one, if she misses this attack, she is left vulnerable for quite some time, and in the show, if she is still in the body when the body takes damage, she also receives the damage. In the game, she teleports back into her own body before she receives the damage. Very well executed and true to the show.

Shikamaru, at the time this review is being written, is currently enjoying ‘HOT SHIT’ status. Seemingly unmotivated and lazy, Shikamaru is never interested in doing anything. He doesn’t much enjoy fighting, and he thinks that most situations are too troublesome to get involved, as he would rather be staring into the sky. But to judge a book by its cover in terms of Shikamaru, is to miss out on one of the most complex and engaging stories of all time. Shika is actually a super-genius with an IQ of over 200 and the wisdom of an old man. The reason why he is always bored with everything is simply because he seems to know everything. An all-powerful strategist, Shikamaru is a master of ‘Go (japanese chess)’ and has the ability to formulate over 100 strategies at a time to predict all of the opponent’s moves. His special ninjitsu revolves around the use and manipulation of shadows. Shika is no pushover, even though he’d like for you to think otherwise.

As I said, Shika is a strategist, and that’s the way that you have to play him. He has several moves that force you to incorporate these actions. His meditation stance branches off into a couple of different types of teleports, and he can teleport a lot, mid combo and create huge, extremely difficult to block mix ups, attacking you from all angles and directions. He doesn’t know a lot of techniques, and perhaps that’s why his shadow fighting techniques weren’t executed very well. His only shadow attack is is super, which is easily telegraphed and hard to connect with. Shika is a freaking beast in this game. He is one of the few characters with a 100% damage combo. He is another recipient of ‘artificially hard due to added teleport attacks’ too. Anyone who likes Shikamaru will be undeniably impressed with his fierce gameplay. The coolest thing about him, however is the unique guard animation that he has. In order to play off of his cliche, instead of actually blocking and taking impact, he dodges almost all of the fists and feet thrown in his direction. It looks really cool and the animations are extremely impressive. He still takes chip damage from kunai attacks though, even if it doesn’t look like it. Truly a character for the lazy strategist in you.

Kiba and Akamaru are members of the ‘ZUH?’ team. Kiba is an insanely cool character who usually acts tough and fearless, and fights with his ninja dog, Akamaru. Kiba is a master of hand to hand combat and knows a lot of techniques to use in conjunction with Akamaru. I don’t know much about his story, aside from the fact that as a youth, he used to always get a hearty laugh out of Naruto’s antics in the classroom. It’s funny, because he actually acts a bit like Naruto used to, minus the ‘failure at life’ part.

Kiba’s fighting style is simply ferocious. He has all of his attacks from the show and a bunch more. He plays like a combination of Blanka, Wolverine and Galford. He is also one of the few characters in the game with an air throw. Some of his specials include sending Akamaru to subdue you while he sets you up for a combo, or rolling into a ball like Kano and ripping you across the screen. His super is ridiculously hardcore, and it’s straight from the Chuunin preliminary matches. Akamaru jumps on his back, and then transforms into ANOTHER Kiba, at which point, they both go M. Bison on that ass, drilling you harder than Kobe on an ugly white girl.

Hyuuga Hinata is a shy, forgettable personality, whose character was crafted to cater to the people that those of us who are blessed with ‘awesome’ couldn’t give a shit about. Hinata is a cool character, both in design and execution, due to the fact that she is cute and quiet on the surface, but a fireball of pint up sexual tension on the inside. Her clit is burning with the secret desire to be recognized and then raped by Uzumaki Naruto. She has done nothing but watch him try and grow, harder than anyone else, her entire life, and I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of bean-flicking h-doujin, dedicated to exactly this scenario. Hinata, while related to Neji, is not his sister, but she does have the powerful gift of the Byakugan, passed down through her family line for centuries. Like Neji, she can see chakra and power, but her field of vision surpasses Neji’s in the sense that she can see that destinies can be changed.

The Hyuugas are beasts in this game, as they can both cancel several combos into each other, elongating their strings to the point of excess. The disadvantage that Hinata has to Neji is that she can’t erase chakra. The advantage is that she has more damaging combos and knocks you away on offense and defense, leaving her relatively safe at all times. Her super is comprised of several striking attacks and shoulder blocks, which she finishes off by literally blowing shards of chakra at her opponents for massive damage and ultimate force. She is a really impressive character and a lot of fun to play, her inner spirit truly shines through in this game.

This vision of loveliness is Haku, from the Hidden Village of Mist. Haku is your typical androgenous, anime-stereotype character. Secretly a confederate in the Japanese military’s plan to make anime-fans a little bit more fruity, Haku’s mere gaze can invoke arousal in even the sturdiest heterosexual. Haku only made a brief appearance in Naruto’s storyline, but his message will forever be engraved into Naruto’s mind. ‘My only purpose as a ninja is to be a tool. I am Zabuza’s tool.”

Indeed. Haku is the biggest tool in the game. Powerful and elegant in nature, Haku can deal almost incomparable damage to his opponents, and in the right hands, can perform strings so deadly that even if your life guage isn’t yet depleted, you are already engulfed in a feeling of hopelessness. You can choose to use Haku with his mask, or to disorient your little Naruto buddies, you can choose him without the mask. He is one of the few characters with three outfits, but unfortunately, he doesn’t wear the pink dress that he sported earlier in the series.

Haku has a few unique gameplay quirks that really push him over the top. For one, he is really good at chakra techniques and ninjitsu, so he is fully packed with techniques. In the show, he can form seals with one hand, a talent that no one else has displayed to this point. In the game, since that’s kind of hard to recreate, he was given a few better options. At the cost of some or all of your chakra, Haku is the only character who can throw Ice Shard shurikens and allow them to hang in the air by holding down a button, until he is ready to release them, mid combo. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that his shurikens hit about ten times. So yeah, that affords him infinite possibilities for dealing damage to you. His super attack is his Ice Mirror Cage from the anime, and it is recreated in full force, naturally.

The other representative of the Hidden Village of Mist is Zabuza. He can be best described as the Micheal to Haku’s Macaully. He fucking PIMPS Haku, hard, making excellent use of Haku’s talents in order to stay on top of the ninja food chain. Zabuza’s character is that of a true ninja. He is a nomad with no alliances to anyone, not even the Mist Village, he has a very strong code of honor, despite his constant deception, and he makes his personal Nindo (way of the Ninja) clear throughout his appearance in the series.

See that big sword up there? Zabuza has that in the game. It’s about 10 feet long, and this is NOT just a compensatory decoration either. Zabuza is a close to mid-range character in the game, as he has no shurikens or projectiles. He kind of looks and fights like Gattsu from Berserk, but with Ninjaness. Zabuza, despite being an unrelenting beast at close range, gets beaten out HARD by ranged characters due to his lack of effective teleports that allow him to get close, and his lack of projectiles that allow him to attack from afar. On the other side of the coin, if you even THINK of coming within 10 feet of Zabuza, he is going to slash you to bits with his big-ass phallus. Zabuza is also a pretty slow guy for a ninja, but being that he’s the biggest character in the game, it’s understandable. Zabuza’s talent is silent killing, and he exercises this talent hard with his Ninpou Killing Technique super. He enshrouds the entire stage in mist, and then, as his confused opponents look around nervously, he just rules them with about 8 powerful, unseen slashes and then laughs tauntingly. If he performs this move in a combo… just give up.

Kankurou (seen above shaking little kids down for money) is just all sorts of awesome. A cool, collected representative of the Hidden Village of Sand, Kankuro is a Ninjutsi Puppet Master. He fights with his full-sized Puppet, Karasu, which he manipulates through Chakra-controlled puppet strings. When he is not loading Karasu with clever weapons, tricks and tools, he is hanging out, apprehensively, with his brother, Gaara. Kankurou is a genius of deception and he is the type of person who feels that his greatest strength comes through secrecy and keeping his techniques hidden. Kankurou can do all sorts of creative things with Karasu, including disguising Karasu as someone else. Truly a great, and original character.

The greatness of Kankurou shines through the most in his gameplay. I didn’t know that he was going to be in the game, because he seems really hard to execute, due to Karasu, but man, it was worth it. Kankuro’s the zoner of the game. He uses Karasu much like Dhalsim uses his limbs. With Karasu, Kankuro can hide safely in a corner of the ring, while manipulating Karasu to do all of the dirty work for him. Karasu has a multitude of attacks, from smoke bombs and shurikens, to the ability to fly across the arena like M. Bison. In addition to this, if any enemy does actually manage to get close to Kankurou, they can both attack you simultaneously, mixing attacks from the front and the back, creating a cage that is only escapable through replacement jutsus. Karasu has one more excellent ability… he can absorb attacks from the enemy, at the cost of Chakra, thus giving Kankurou a nearly absolute shield from harm.

The drawback of Kankurou is that he is not a beginner character, as, without his puppet, he doesn’t have very many techniques, and if the puppet gets knocked across the screen, Kankurou can suffer a lot because of it. Learning the nuances of the game and keeping opponents at bay is Kankurou’s strength.

… shit. Look at that sinister looking motherfucker. That’s Gaara, beware. Gaara is a self-loathing, maniacal, homicidal maniac. Somehow, Gaara is able to keep his composure when he needs to, but a lot of times, his compulsive need to kill powerful shinobi gets in the way. Gaara has a demon inside of him that controls sad, both alongside, and against his will. With his gourd, which is also filled with sand, Gaara is nearly invincible in any environment. No one messes with him and everyone fears him, even his brother Kankurou and his sister Temari. If it were up to the multitude of characters in the show, they would just avoid Gaara completely. Unfortunately, he’s in the Chuunin exams and he has a secret mission that, of course, involves a lot of murder.

Gaara is the Cable of Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2. He has range, priority, power, he’s scrub-condusive, and oh yeah, he has absolute defense. Gaara’s sand shields him from harm, even when he attacks due to the range and area coverage of his attacks. Even if you’re behind him (the best place to be in this game), he can hurt you. Ironically, all of Gaara’s attacks are freaking GORGEOUS. Everything that he does is stylish, beautiful, and oh yeah, insanely deadly. His sand attacks have to be seen to be believed, as there has never been anything like it in any fighting game prior to this. Gaara’s super is his famous ‘Sabaku Kyuu -> Sabaku Koutou’ attack, where he entraps you in a sand coffin, and then forces all the sand into and out of your pores in a single isntant, completely destroying your bones. Gaara is a scrub GOD… and naturally, as the most powerful Chuunin Preliminary Exam participant, the boss of the game.

Iruka and Mizuki are second class ninja of the Konoha Village that made appearances early in the series. Iruka was Naruto’s first sensei, and the first person who recognized or acknowledged Naruto as anything but a write-off prankster. Like Naruto, Iruka-sensei was raised as an orphan, with no one to look to for support, and he vowed to never let that happen to Naruto.

Mizuki, on the other hand is a second class ninja who tricked Naruto into stealing the powerful scroll of Kage-Bunshin in the first episode of the show and became a rogue shinobi. Naruto, in order to save Iruka sensei from Mizuka, summoned up the power of Kage-Bunshin, by reading the scroll, and defeated Mizuki, thus, finally learning a variation of the technique that had caused him to flunk class so many times. Mizuki’s actions, ironically, were the spark that drove Naruto in the direction of the first step towards greatness.

Iruka and Mizuki are just pallete swaps of each other and they don’t really poses any special techniques. They are however both powerful in their own right, due to having a great deal of teleports, and the ability to throw giant throwing stars at their enemies. From a distance, if you throw a charged shuriken with either of these characters and then dash right after, you can hit for over 30 hits of damage in a large arena and begin a powerful combo. Their super is undeniably cool. The opponent is vaulted into the air after a series of martial arts attacks, and then pursued and slammed down. At this point, from the air, Iruka/Mizuki throws four shurikens and pins you to the ground, and then drops down into your belly, spinning like a drill for MASSIVE, MASSIVE damage. Truly a cool super that makes a couple of otherwise irredeemable jobbers worth having and playing in the game.

Don’t like Naruto very much? Well, there’s always Kyuubi Naruto to satisfy your thirst for god-like power. Kyuubi Naruto is Naruto, once he has been posessed by the Fox Demon that had been imprisoned inside of him before he was born. Kyuubi is an evil ninja demon that was sealed away by the 4th Hokage (at the cost of his life), and before Naruto was trained on how to control it, during times of intense stress, Kyuubi’s chakra would leak out and engulf Naruto and everything around him. Naruto becomes a destructive force like no other when this happens. No more techniques, no more shadow replication, no more shuriken, only violence. Kyuubi’s full power remains to be seen, but even the small portion apparent in Kyuubi Naruto is nothing less to snicker at.

In the game, Kyuubi Naruto’s power is a rush to use. He plays sort of like Wolverine from from X-Men vs Street Fighter, Berserker Barrage and all. Naruto’s combo-ability skyrockets and he abandons the use of projectile attacks. Naruto gains speed and the ability to teleport behind opponents and surprise them with ease. As I stated, his super is a berserker barrage, but other than a few new strings, increased damage, and the absense of anything even resembling Shadow Replication, Kyuubi Naruto isn’t much different from regular Naruto. Kudos to the designers on actually making him feel frightening though.

Recognize this fellow? Something seems a little different, right? This is Sharingan Kakashi. Notice how he has his other eye revealed, and how he all of the sudden doesn’t look baked. This is when Kakashi gets serious. The truth about Kakashi is that he is famously known as the man who has copied over 1000 techniques with his Sharingan. Could he be a survivor of the Uchiha clan as well? No one knows, but one thing is for sure, if you see Kakashi’s sharingan, you’re probably about five seconds from meeting your maker.

Sharingan Kakashi plays very similarly to Kakashi, but he’s a much better character by far. He is easier to use, he has more damaging strings, his counter is instantaneous and it puts him behind his opponent for deception techniques, and he has two supers. His first super is the one that he retains from normal Kakashi, where he charges electrical Chakra and decimates you. His second super is the only super-counter in the game. If Kakashi, the copy ninja, has a full super bar and he catches your super with his Sharingan, he will steal it and use it against you instantly. This makes Kakashi insanely strong, despite his lack of an ability to do high damage in a single string. The cool thing about this super is that no punches were pulled, as, in every super, he has a vocal for it, and he puts his own spin on it (such as electrifying it, or adding a pose). He’s good stuff, and that super counter is beyond satisfying.

There are two SUPER hidden characters in the game too. Once you unlock all of the secret characters in the game, two more question marks become open, and you have to earn a ton of change buy the two most unique characters in the game.

OrochiMaru is the ‘Loki’ of sorts in this story arch. Always in the background, always pulling the strings, plotting, deceiving, and setting up hits. Orochimaru is the type of ninja who doesn’t like to resort to getting his hands dirty, but instead prefers to use his sound ninja, some sand ninja, and even Sasuke to do his dirty work. Make no mistake, however, Orochimaru is insanely powerful, and he can both seal off, and increase anyone’s ability to use Chakra at will. Ever-confident, always mellow, and slyly cool, Orochimaru, from his raspy voice to his devilishly appealing grin is everything that Cobra Commander wanted to be, but couldn’t.

Orochimaru’s strength in the game is nearly unmatched. He is good at combos, juggles and dealing damage, and he also has some really good ninjitsu techniques. The best technique that he has is the ability to (at the cost of Chakra) disappear from the arena for long periods of time, and then reappear and surprise the opponent at will. Orochimaru’s super, in execution, is the best in the game, hands down. He first uses his extremely long cunnilingus tongue to slam the opponent to the ground for a ton of damage, and then he seals their chakra for the rest of the round. This completely screws opponents over. Chakra isn’t just important for supers, it’s important for avoiding combos by using replication, and for using various special abilities. Even if his super didn’t do 50% damage, Orochimaru would have you defeated before the match even started if he were to land this super at the beginning.

YES. This is the guy. Extra Sasuke is Sasuke after he disappeared for a long period of time during the storyline and reappears like a hero after being intensely trained in the use of his TWO sharingan by Kakashi. There is not much that can be said about Extra Sasuke except that he’s the best thing ever. Seriously, I have taken a liking to calling him ‘Homoerasuke’ due to the fact that I’m just totally gay for him.

From the first time you unlock Extra Sasuke, it is clear that this is your gift and your thanks for putting so much playtime into the game. He appears in a torrent of leaves, prepared to kick some serious ass. Overall, Extra Sasuke isn’t much better than Sasuke, but he has a few things that are unique to him that make him both the most fun character to use, and the coolest character in the game. The subtle differences are his black, speed-suit, longer bangs, and the presence of the Sharingan in both of his eyes. The major differences are in his play style. His combo strings are pretty similar, but he has more juggle-ability, he can zone really well, and he has the ability to teleport right behind his opponents from anywhere on the screen, at any time, costing him no Chakra. He’s fast. He has several moves that incorporate his speed teleport, and he has a new counter that he learned from copying Rock Lee during the first appearance of his Sharingan, early in the series. The most drastic changes are to his super ability though. First, he has two of them. Second, one of them is an air super, making him the only character in the game that can super from the air, giving him a huge advantage. His ground super is a variation of Kakashi’s lightning super, obviously taught to him by the man himself. His air super is an aerial version of his Katan Koukakyuu No Jutsu (fire breathing technique) in which he sprays fire darts all over unsuspecting opponents.

There are two other characters in this game that are playable as well, but they aren’t full characters, and I’ve already mentioned them… sorta. Akamaru and Karasu take up two character slots in this game. To me, this is the only downside of the roster. Akamaru is just Kiba’s dog, and Karasu is just Kankurou’s puppet. These characters each have their own set of attacks, minus a super. Akamaru is hard to hit, as he’s just a dog and he’s all cute and tiny, and Karasu has guard-armor, which allows him to attack while taking hits. Great.

Meanwhile, hotties like Temari of the Sand Team, and Ten-Ten of the Kung Fu team are dubiously missing. There are also a few other missing characters who were great parts of this story arc as well. These characters are Kabuto, Jiraiya, and the entire Sound Ninja squad. This is possibly because Kabuto isn’t much of a fighter, Jiraiya has never faught, and the Sound Ninja, as much as I liked them, especially Dosu, were total jobbers, through and through. Perhaps the character who deserved a spot in this game the most would be Shino, due to his unique and inventive fighting style. But I’m certainly happy with the roster as it is.

I tried to google up a picture of Jiraiya, but for some reason I got linked to a site that sells Penis Enlargement Pills.

FINALLY, now that I’m done summarizing (lol) the characters… back to the review.

Can you guess how the characters were rendered? Yup, that’s right, Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2 makes use of more Cel-Shading to bring your favorite anime characters faithfully into the 3D realm, and of course, it has worked wonderfully. Every single character in this game has been crafted to perfection. From subtle nuances like shirt-wrinkles and dangly strings and laces, the characters look exactly like their anime counterparts. The animation is vivid and everyone is brought to life wonderfully. If you’ve seen Budokai 2, the character models are mapped just as perfectly and cleanly. You never see any breakage or interference, none of the polygons mix together, and the facial expressions and mouth movements perfectly match the characters’ dialogue. Movements are fluid and graceful, and there is never a hint of slowdown.

The supers animate in a lovely fashion. When you start a super, a graphic of your character pops up on the screen like in other fighting games, and then a pre-ordained sequence begins for most characters if the move connects. The camera zooms around supers matrix-style (minus the bullet time) depending ont he characters, and if you win with the final hit of a super, you get this old school Street Fighter-esque finishing flash that emphasizes itself on the point of contact.

It’s really the subtler details the create the greatest emphasis on the ninja-feeling that this game is trying to convey. When characters run, sparks trace their steps, bringing their speed to the forefront. During jumping attacks or vanishing jutsus, you see beatiful dust trails and smoke effects that look like they came directly from the show. The faster characters do that slick move that causes them to vanish, leaving only a shadowy after-image of where they once were. Konoha replacement jutsus are complete with cut logs, leaves and smoke. Orochimaru, like in the show, turns into black mist. Mist village members explode into droplets of water. There are so many astoundingly beautiful details in this game that one could become lost in them forever.

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2’s backgrounds are gorgeous. They are rendered beautifully in 3D, using the classic technique. The use of this technique works well, both creating a unique contrast between the backgrounds and the characters, and centralizing focus onto the fighters. The game, as expected, uses several locations from the cartoon as arenas. All of the backdrops effectively recreate their anime counterparts, but for the sake of the game, there are a few changes to all of them. Depending on the arena, you can fight in small areas, medium sized areas, and large areas.

Some of the stages in this game are extremely lively and vibrant, with animation and constant movement going on at every angle. The chuunin preliminary battle stage, for example, is full of characters who were there in the program. They’re hand-drawn too! Another good stage is the jungle arena, where the gang first met Orochimaru. The thing that makes this stage is the giant snake that periodically slithers out from the shadows to greet the fighters. Some of the stages, on the other hand aren’t all that visually stunning. The toad king arena and the Konoha gate don’t really have very much going for them at all.

There are a couple of drawbacks that I have to mention here too. For one thing, the backgrounds are just that, and literally nothing else. There is zero interactivity between the backgrounds and the fighters. The fighters are trapped in circular or square platforms within the backgrounds. Since there are no ring outs, characters are kept within the ring by the magic of an invisible force field. There are no obstacles within the arenas, such as trees, or rigid floors, so stages don’t feel very interative or real. It’s like, despite them all being completely three-dimensional, they might as well have just been like the backgrounds in Tekken 2 for the Playstation.

Now, onto the gameplay. I suppose that the reason why the rest of the review is so damned long is because I didn’t really want to get to this part. Depending upon your point of view, the gameplay is where it all comes together, or completely falls apart.

If you are a storyline-scrub for the story and the show, then the game is definitely faithful to the manga and anime in terms of character power levels. If a character is strong in the show, then that character will definitely be equally as much of a beast in the game. If a character is weak in the program, he or she isn’t going to have very many clever techniques in the game. Gaara, Kyuubi Naruto, and Orochimaru, for example, are at the top of the food chain in this game. Sakura and Ino, are women, however, so, just as God intended, they are inferior.

On the other side of the coin, if you are a fighting game fan, after a couple of hours of play and a little bit of investigating, you will find that this game is more broken than my right wrist after an intense game of Sexy Beach 2! JEEEESUS Christopher, nearly everyone in this game has 100% combos. The throw in this game, which almost everyone shares, is designed to vault your opponent into the air, setting them up for an upward Shuriken, which vaults them higher, leaving them vulnerable for a juggle involving a few regular attacks and then a super. That’s nearly everyone’s basic juggle, and it’s brutal. Master that if you want to stomp out the fun for a beginner.

This game was designed for casual gamers, children and fans of the show, plain and simple, and that’s what the gameplay reflects. The control scheme was very intelligently incorporated into the game. A lot of companies (DIMPSDIMPSDIMPS) could learn a lot from this. The basic controls for the game are the same for everyone, making it so that you only have to learn how to play the game once. The characters, however, all play very uniquely, so even though you only have to learn the commands once, you will have to come of with a completely different strategy for playing each and every character in the game. This is just awesome.

While you don’t necessarily have to, best success tends to generally come from playing a character the way that he fights in the series. Neji, for example is a turtler who likes to keep opponents grounded and unable to use chakra, while Lee is an offensive character who is only good at close range. This is what really makes the game great. At a simple, unsophisticated level, it’s so much fun. High level play, however, is pointlessly retarded.

Which brings me to quite an awesome tangent. Did you know that internationally known strategy-guide writer, legendary fighting game man-muffin, and self-proclaimed internet-celebrity Tragic actually wrote a brilliant FAQ for this game on GameFAQs!? Not only that, but he even tiered the game on their highly exclusive forums, which have long been reknowned for their intelligent posters and excellent moderation.

Another of the many positive things about this game is the music. A lot of the tracks in the game are fantastic remixes of original music from the series, and many of them are completely new songs that maintain the spirit of the show and create the perfect atmosphere for a great ninja battle. While many of the game’s backgrounds are just different versions of other backgrounds in the games, they all posess completely different songs, giving the game a total of 29 excellent tracks. Most of the music is composed of a mixture of the usual guitar riffs and cliche rock rock beats, combined with a uniquely enjoyable taste of japanese drums, flutes, and even that cool shouting thing that asian cultures are into!

The voices in this game were recorded exclusively for the game and a summarized script was acted out as well. In fight voices are emphatic and well-acted. The sound effects are good too. Hearing the echo of two opposing sets of shuriken hitting each other mid-fight is just awesome. Attention has clearly been paid to detail as even the sounds of leaves rustling,birds chirping, and objects that move in the background are present.

This game has no shortage of extras. Aside from the freedom to stare longingly at the busty Anko for hours, there are literally hundreds of items to unlock and it will cost you countless hours and earned coinage to unlock them. The first thing that you’re probably going to want to unlock are the secret characters, all of which become increasingly more expensive as you buy them. There are also a couple of super-secret characters. Other extras to buy are hidden stages, which are generally just a second version of existing stages, with a different atmosphere surrounding them and new music. There are new story episodes, a hard version of story mode, a BGM gallery which is spectacular, and even in depth character profiles for each character. The character profiles are awesome because they show the character’s powers and types of chakra, they show their storyline, physical statistics, and even have a little 3D avatar for your character that you can manipulate with the controller. You can also get complete voice samples for each character.

As you can see, the majority of the stuff to unlock in this game is worthless fanboy crap. So you don’t even have to be bothered with most of it after you’re done collecting the characters. But if you play the game often, at least you have a lot to do with all of that extra cash that you earn in the various gameplay modes.

Naruto is a great game for the demographic that it’s aimed at and it’s an excellent buy for fans of anime-based games, but by no means is it a serious fighter. There isn’t much there in terms of balance and depth once you get past the initial illusion created by the excellent way in which it is presented. The best thing about it is that you can actually tell that the creator of the series played a major role in its production. It’s beautiful, it’s true to the show, it’s Naruto! You can’t beat it with a battle-axe.

I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the show, as it will definitely give you 100% satisfaction. But I can’t really take it any further than that. If you don’t know much about the show, you’ll definitely have fun with it and say, “MAN, THIS GAME LOOKS COOL!” But you won’t be enamoured with it for long, as there just isn’t much there.

I truly hope that companies who continue to create anime-based fighting games take a cue from the example put forth by this game. This is how you do it. A fighting game should be a credit to a program, and whether it’s a marketing ploy or not, it shouldn’t feel like one when you play the game. This game is REMARKABLE in that sense. It feels like complete and utter fan-pleasing appreciation, and nothing less.

Budokai 2? MORE LIKE BUDOKAI WHO!!!! … Okay, I’ll stop.

• Developer: 8ing
• Publisher: TOMY
• Score: 81%