Let me just say that yes, I am a fan of the naruto series and as far as games go this one does a much better job about delivering the story line then most. Let me also say that the graphics are very pretty, the effects are neat and the fighting is competent if shallow. However now let me say this: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
Why, you might ask, am I spouting curses about a game I just declared decent if not great? Well, I would respond, the reason is simple: 8 hours of fetch quests.
Allow me to paint the picture. Here you are, having just completed several story missions and finally returned to the sprawling village hidden in the leaves. You rest up and awake the next day, ready to take on the strongest, fastest and most cunning shinobi the world can through at you. So what is the next mindblowingly hazardous mission you have to undertake? Finding and delivering various crap to annoying, immobile dicks. Goody gum drops.
Now I'm not one cry foul at a little innocent game lengthening. I mean, if they stuck sheerly with the story the game would only be a few hours long. Thats not what I'm getting so miffed about. However, when this game lengthening takes the form of 8 straight hours of nigh identical fetch quests is when I start to throw small children at the tv. You will quite literally spend an ungodly amount of time collecting bits of wood, potato chips, flowers and every other completely un-ninja-like object you can think of. This is compounded by the fact that the story pays more like a platforming game then a fighting game. This wouldn't be so bad if the controls were good and the environments interesting but...they just fucking aren't.
Every area is some remake of the same pleasant little forest thing teeming with people who just sit there and saw logs or pick ax at rocks endlessly. What they are also teeming with is traps and danger. I swear, not sense the 16 bit era have I seen so many mundane things trying to kill me. Water hurts you, there are traps set up every 2 feet and random encounters seem to spring up at exactly the worst moments. The latter of these annoyances is tolerable because, like I said, the fighting is acceptable, but the others, be it spike traps, water, falling platforms, or even indiana jones style dart guns from the wall, are just insufferable. Naruto controls like he's constantly running on banana peels, jumps are fiddly at best and the game seems to love respawning you on the very edge of another deadly fall so that even the slightest nudge forward will send you hurtling back down.
I think the worst part about all this is that after these seemingly endless hours of fetching and drowning, the final climatic end to the game, culminating in one of the most epic battles in memory, is severally truncated. It was almost like they spent all their time making fetch quests that they completely forgot about the ending and squeezed it into the last hour or so. I'm completely serious. The grand ending is less then a 8th the length of all the pointless filler.
So, in the end what is it we get?
A adequate fighting game with some unique twists that has its few interesting sections crushed beneath slog and repetition.
Recommendation: Rent
Why, you might ask, am I spouting curses about a game I just declared decent if not great? Well, I would respond, the reason is simple: 8 hours of fetch quests.
Allow me to paint the picture. Here you are, having just completed several story missions and finally returned to the sprawling village hidden in the leaves. You rest up and awake the next day, ready to take on the strongest, fastest and most cunning shinobi the world can through at you. So what is the next mindblowingly hazardous mission you have to undertake? Finding and delivering various crap to annoying, immobile dicks. Goody gum drops.
Now I'm not one cry foul at a little innocent game lengthening. I mean, if they stuck sheerly with the story the game would only be a few hours long. Thats not what I'm getting so miffed about. However, when this game lengthening takes the form of 8 straight hours of nigh identical fetch quests is when I start to throw small children at the tv. You will quite literally spend an ungodly amount of time collecting bits of wood, potato chips, flowers and every other completely un-ninja-like object you can think of. This is compounded by the fact that the story pays more like a platforming game then a fighting game. This wouldn't be so bad if the controls were good and the environments interesting but...they just fucking aren't.
Every area is some remake of the same pleasant little forest thing teeming with people who just sit there and saw logs or pick ax at rocks endlessly. What they are also teeming with is traps and danger. I swear, not sense the 16 bit era have I seen so many mundane things trying to kill me. Water hurts you, there are traps set up every 2 feet and random encounters seem to spring up at exactly the worst moments. The latter of these annoyances is tolerable because, like I said, the fighting is acceptable, but the others, be it spike traps, water, falling platforms, or even indiana jones style dart guns from the wall, are just insufferable. Naruto controls like he's constantly running on banana peels, jumps are fiddly at best and the game seems to love respawning you on the very edge of another deadly fall so that even the slightest nudge forward will send you hurtling back down.
I think the worst part about all this is that after these seemingly endless hours of fetching and drowning, the final climatic end to the game, culminating in one of the most epic battles in memory, is severally truncated. It was almost like they spent all their time making fetch quests that they completely forgot about the ending and squeezed it into the last hour or so. I'm completely serious. The grand ending is less then a 8th the length of all the pointless filler.
So, in the end what is it we get?
A adequate fighting game with some unique twists that has its few interesting sections crushed beneath slog and repetition.
Recommendation: Rent
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