Thursday, December 28, 2006

more info for your info
Grab your kunai, practice your hand seals, and put on your forehead protector, it’s time for head to head ninja action! Play as over 16 of your favorite Naruto characters with new characters from season two! Battle up to four people at once, or live out battles from the show in story mode! Use signature attacks and battle your way one-step closer to becoming Hokage, the strongest in the village!

EYE-SPY
THE HOOK: I’ve been a huge fan of Naruto, following it through 105 episodes and counting. I tried this game out at Otakon, thought it looked great, and ordered it off the net shortly thereafter.

HOW IT LOOKS AND FEELS: The graphics in this game are vibrant with color and match the look of the show perfectly. The characters are cell shaded very nicely and have an animated look identical to their anime counterparts. The battle backgrounds are fantastic, boasting a lot of color and detail. It’s the little things like recognizable people cheering for you or nicely rendered frogs bouncing in the background that makes the different areas stand out. My only disappointment with the different areas is their lack of interaction.

The game controls are pretty simple. The B button controls physical attacks while the A button throws a shuriken (throwing knife) or does a slightly stronger attack. The L and R buttons let you side step left and right, the Z button can switch your target in four player mode, the X button performs your special attack, and the Y button performs throws.

Though the controls are simple, the fighting is intense. The game lets you use Kawarimi (or Replacement technique) just like in the show. By pressing L or R while you are stuck in a combo, you can teleport out of the combo and counter attack your foe to catch them off guard. Special attacks and kawarimi are done by using Chakra (or energy) from a bar that collects as you attack and block. The game also has a useful counter-attack system. Pressing A and back will put your character into a stance or position. Once they are attacked in this position, they’ll automatically counter-attack and take miniscule damage. Though very useful, the stance only lasts for a couple seconds and can leave you open while shifting back to fighting mode.

HOW IT SOUNDS: The game’s music is blend of guitar, flute and drums similar to the anime. Though quieter and not as vibrant or original as the music in the show, the music flows nicely with the rest of the game. Strangely, it will cut out at times before playing again in a loop. The sound effects are a tad cartoony, but match the game’s bloodless brawling. The voice acting in the game is identical to the show and captures each character’s personality flawlessly. Fans of the show will appreciate the amusing dialog before/after the fights and the different interactions between characters.

EXTRAS: As the case is with many fighting games, most of the game needs to be unlocked. The game only starts you off with a couple of characters and leaves you to buy the rest at Anko’s shop. You can also unlock game mode, sound tracks, character bios, extra stages, and a lot more. Even after well over twenty hours of play, I still haven’t unlocked one hundred percent of this game!

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: Aside from the intro made up of clips from the show, to game doesn’t really have any. There are the little intros the characters have before they fight and the small cut-scenes for special attacks, but there are no real cinematics here, not even in the game’s Story mode.

BEST PLAYER: Shikamaru and Zabuza were my top choices when it came time to fight. Shikamaru has fast sneaky attacks and a quick special attack while Zabuza has good strength and a difficult to dodge special. The game boasts a good character variety and includes some unique abilities (such as being able to counter special attacks) that only one certain character can do. Though some are quite useful, other characters (Karasu and Akamaru) seem to be more gimmicky.

CHEAT CODE YOU NEED: The game doesn’t have any…but there is one character so cheap you can win almost any fight in seconds by using him. If you’re playing as Rock Lee, you can press down and X twice during battle to power him up. During his second stage of power, his health will decrease rapidly and his Chakra will increase rapidly. Doing his special in this form will not only seek out the opponent in a nearly un-counterable rush (and probably KO them in one hit), but give his meter enough time to charge back up to 100% power by the time he’s done! The catch is that if he takes just one hit, he’s KOed. It’s worth it for the cost if you want a cheap win, but your friends will anger quickly and hurt you if you do it too often…not that I’d know or anything…

CHEAT CODE YOU WANT: It’s not really a cheat code, but something this game could have offered is more characters. It’s true that there are 20 playable characters, but some seem to be only ½ a character (Karasu and Akamaru) while some are just another character with slight changes. Some characters seem to have not been added deliberately so they could appear in the next game.

OH MAN! MOMENT: They don’t call it hard mode for nothing! Turn up the difficulty and the AI can get surprisingly vicious!

GLITCH ITCH: Besides the afore mentioned Rock Lee, the game has other slight problems. Because the characters in the game don’t turn around very fast, characters with the ability to disappear and reappear behind you can get very annoying. Another problem is that the camera in the game sets itself back pretty far in four player mode and rotates around the arena as you fight. This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that the only way to block is to walk backwards, and if the camera spirals you’ll start walking forward and get attacked.

FAN SERVICE: Since most of the characters in this game are twelve, I’m happy to say that this game contains no fan service.

END GAME:
This game is definitely meant for Naruto fans. Taking away the association leaves those who don’t know what’s going on with a fun, but average fighter. The game is mostly a button masher with simple controls and combos. This is fun for those who like picking up a game and not being destroyed for not knowing complicated combos, but may bore fans who are use to memorizing complex sequences of attacks. It’s also disappointing that there is only one special attack per character, while most other games in the genre have several. Besides the fact the navigating the game is hard due to the language barrier, extra expenses and lengths are needed to get a game like this. If you’re not a fan of Naruto, you might want to become one before picking this one up.

Now for those of you who are fans of Naruto, this game is for you. The way the characters look, sound, and fight has been recreated perfectly. Story mode stays pretty true to the show by including battles that happened, and battles that didn’t but could have just as easily. Like in most fighters, the multiplayer is more fun that single player mode, so having a friend or three to beat up doesn’t hurt. The inclusion of kawarimi and the counter-attacks, adds an innovative twist that does an excellent job of simulating Naruto style combat. The special moves though lacking in number, pay homage to each character’s abilities and are very fun to pull off. The game is also full of the same jokes and character interaction from the anime, making confrontation between certain characters interesting or comical.

The game is entirely in Japanese and can only be played on a Japanese Gamecube. More the most part, the language barrier doesn’t take too much away from the game. Once you rotate through the game menu a couple of times, you’ll figure out what everything does. The bulk of the problems I encountered were in knowing what I was buying from the shop and in changing game settings. For the most part, fighting is the same in any language and this Naruto: GNT2 just proves that you don’t have to know what someone’s saying to beat the snot out of them.

If you love Naruto and don’t mind the extra effort needed, you won’t regret picking this one up. Fans of energetic and hectic anime fighting will also enjoy this one, but may not be up for the extra effort and cash. If you’re a fan, you want to know that this game only goes as far as the Chunin exam. Naruto: Gekito Ninja Taisen 3 will include newer characters and is scheduled for a Japanese release on November 20th. If you can overlook this fact or if you just can’t wait that long, Naruto: Gekito Ninja Taisen 2 won’t disappoint you.


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