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The Lowdown
Pros: Innovative fighting, anime inspired graphics, lots of gameplay
modes, loads of secrets
Cons: Shallow fighting system, unbalanced characters, seeing the same
animations over and over again
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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Naruto: Narutimett Hero is a fighting game based upon to popular Naruto
series in Japan. The series stars a hyperactive, show off ninja Naruto
on his path to become a Shinobi (a master ninja). 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 Broken 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 with way
too much power 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 is one just 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). As you can see there aren't
very many moves in the game. Different attacks are achieved by pressing
a direction in combination with the attack button. There are a few
combos you can do, but none 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 looks cool, but gives little
damage. The fighting system is further thrown out of balance due to the
number of items in the stage. Similar to Super Smash Brothers, stages
are littered with items that include: health kits (for recovery), super
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. Fighting games depend on a
balanced system, which Naruto doesn't have.
However, even though Naruto doesn't have the best system in the world, it
has innovation, style and a high fun factor that makes 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, turning into wood 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 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, but its well done
and sets the tone for the game. The tone is 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 in 3D. 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 Fist 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.
Besides 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 falls flat. Luckily,
the game is innovative enough and entertaining enough for people to look
past the shallow fighting system.
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.
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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