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AtomNaruto: Narutimett Hero
aka Naruto: Narultimate Hero.
Naruto: Narutimett Hero is a fighting game based upon the popular Naruto series in Japan. The series stars a hyperactive, show off ninja Naruto on his path to become the Hokage (leader of the Leaf Village). He is accompanied by Sakura, the smartest girl in his village, who Naruto has a crush on and the top student Sasuke. Their instructor Kakashi takes them out of the Leaf Village, their home, to complete mercenary style missions. The series has a lot more depth than that, but there’s a little introduction for those of you out there that aren’t familiar with the series.
For those of you that are familiar to the series you’ll notice many similarities in the game that come from the series. For instance, in one of the first episodes Kakashi changes into a log of wood to get away from an attack. All characters have this move in the game, which is used as an evasion and parry attack. Another aspect from the game is using jutsu (ninja powers). All characters have different jutsu, many of which are seen in the anime series. Each character has three different jutsus, which can be used by charging different amounts of chakra. Every time you use a jutsu the game changes from battle mode to a Final Fantasy 8 style summoning sequence, which shows your characters attack. The jutsu can be continued by pressing a combination of buttons, which are on the left hand side of the screen (if you’re first player, on the right if you’re second). If you can complete the sequence in a short period of time the jutsu continues and gives more damage. If your opponent completes the sequence before you the animation stops and the player takes less damage. Some of the jutsus included are: Kakashi’s Sharingan, Rock Lee’s Open Gates and Naruto’s Kage no Bushin Jutsu. One problem with the jutsus is some characters have extremely powerful jutsus. For instance Naruto can use his level three jutsu, nine tails power, which not only causes a lot of damage, but allows Naruto to deal extra damage after the jutsu is over. This leads to some characters being way too powerful over other characters. All of the jutsu animations are cool to watch for the first few times, but after seeing them battle after battle they get a little redundant. There’s also no way to skip through the animations. You could end them early by not doing the correct button sequence, but you’ll give less damage.
The redundant jutsus are one one of the problems with the fighting system. There are six basic moves in the game: attack (circle), jump (x), charge chakra for jutsu (triangle), throw weapon (square), block (R1) and jutsu (after charge hit circle). Different attacks are achieved by pressing a direction in combination with the attack button. There are a few combos you can do, but most of the combos do as much damage as a well timed jutsu. Some of the combos allow you to launch an enemy in the air and slam them back to the ground, which is stylish and gives a fair amount of damage. Having in game items gives battles a sense of randomness. Similar to Super Smash Brothers, stages are littered with items that include: health kits (for recovery), windmill shuirkens to throw and chakra recovering items. The problem with the items is its pure luck if the right item comes up at the right time and more luck if you’re the one to grab the item.
Even though Naruto: Narutimett Hero seems simplistic, it has innovation, style and a high fun factor to make up for it. Battles in Naruto capture the spirit of the anime, which fans will love. Even people who have never seen Naruto before will enjoy the fresh style of the game. Like in the anime, characters can walk on water, run up trees and even teleport to different locations on screen. Each arena is really two separate 2D fields. You can teleport to a different field by pressing up and x or down and x. If you and your opponent are on different fields you can still attack them by throwing kunai or shurikiens. You could charge up your chakra or even snag some recovery items. The two different fields adds a level of strategy to the game. If you’re getting beaten really bad you’ll have the opportunity to move to an all new battlefield and recover some life, while doing this. Besides the style, players will find a lot of intensity during the battles. There is an emphasis of placing well timed attacks, rather than button mashing. If you’re a button masher playing against an experienced player, you wont survive for long. There are a lot of opportunities to counter such as, using the replacement jutsu to teleport behind an enemy or calling in a partner to knock your opponent back. Naruto also contains a lot of playable characters, each with their own separate story modes. The characters you start out with are: Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, Shikimaru and Rock Lee. There are six more hidden characters also with their own story. I don’t want to ruin all of the surprises, but I will say that Zabuza and Haku are playable characters.
Besides an in depth story mode the game also has a number of missions to accomplish. One of the main components of the anime is that ninjas go out and do missions for the village. There are many missions that go from "Ninja in Training" to the elite S-Rank to complete. The missions are one of three basic missions: beat an enemy in a certain amount of time, beat an enemy without using a certain attack or beat an enemy and grab an item. Completing missions gives you money, which can be used in the prize vending machine. The vending machine is just like the Smash Brothers’ trophy vending machine. Putting cash in the machine will net you treasures, more cash leads to a higher probability of getting a different item. There are a lot of items to collect in the game, which range from animation videos to virtual action figures. In Japan there are Naruto trading cards, which contain passwords to unlock items or give you extra cash to get more items. If you don’t want to engage in the collection part of the game there is always the ever faithful two player fighting mode to extend game longevity. Just like in all fighting games you can duke out your favorite characters with a buddy.
The visuals in the game are simply amazing. The game starts out with an anime sequence that has clips from various episodes, it is well done and sets the tone for the game. Everything in the game feels like the series. When you enter a battle there are pages that look like a comic book (or manga) where the two characters talk before battling. Each of the characters look pretty much like they do in the series, except they’re cel shaded. The game makes good use of cel shaded graphics to stylize the game. The jutsu sequences look like they’re taken straight out of the anime, but they’re fully rendered. When you see Naruto pull off his famous Kage no Bushin Jutsu attack or you watch Kakashi use the Lightning Edge you feel like you’re watching that exact scene from the series. Another cool part about the graphical system, is that its fluid really fluid. There’s not a trace of slowdown on screen even though projectiles are flying, random characters are running around in the background and you have a glowing aura following you. Naruto for the PS2 has raised the bar for graphics for anime based games.
On top of the amazing graphics Naruto features some good sound effects. There are a lot of voices in the game. Before story battles the characters talk, during battles the characters have quick one liners, even the menus have character voices. Thankfully, they’re all well done. All of the characters sound just like they do in the series. The music in the game isn’t the same from the series, but it has a familiar feel to it. The background music has a blend of traditional Japanese music mixed in with a tribal feel to it. It’s upbeat and keeps the rhythm of the game going.
Naruto: Narutimett Hero is a game that fans of the series will love. It’s also a game that casual gamers can jump in and enjoy. However, fighting game enthusiasts will find that the fighting system doesn’t compare to hardcore games like Guilty Gear or Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Luckily, the game is innovative enough and entertaining enough for people to look past the shallow fighting system.
Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 2
All of the menus, stories, voices and mission descriptions are in Japanese. This can make it pretty tough to beat the mission mode without understanding any Japanese. However, you can still beat the story mode for all 12 characters without understanding any Japanese.
US Bound?
Since the anime series hasn’t even reached US shores, a US release of this game is highly unlikely. If you’re a fan of the series your best bet is to import this one.
Update: Namco Bandai announced that they will localize this game under the name Naruto: Ultimate Ninja and add in a few extra features to the North American release.
+ Pros: Innovative fighting, anime inspired graphics, lots of gameplay modes, loads of secrets
- Cons: Unbalanced characters and no automatic skip for the super animations.
Overall: If you like the Naruto series, do yourself a favor and import this game. If you’re looking for a solid fighter or aren’t familiar with the series I suggest you try it out first to see if this game is your style.
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