An actual Naruto game I enjoyed playing?! Believe it! I will admit my skepticism for a good Naruto game after the many Naruto side-scrollers Tomy flung at me. But the pairing with the developer DreamFactory, has begun to heal the wounds stabbed into my gamer soul with their new Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2. Why this sudden charka release of niceness? Cause it’s fighter game on my DS, and it’s a gigantic leap over past Naruto games, but it could still use some tweaking.
For the fans of the Naruto series, Ninja Destiny 2 has done a really amazing job in this fighter visually. Characters are detailed enough and easily recognized from the TV/Manga series. Special attacks are completely over the top, and have added in, fun camera angles, 3D actions, and 3D effects similar to those found in the anime. Also another plus comes from the different arenas and locations you get to fight in. Many locations from the anime are carefully reproduced for you to fight in. In quest/story areas where you must maneuver a top down 3D Map, many of the series primary locations, like Naruto’s village are nicely detailed and mapped out, while places like the Quest modes dungeon crawl-ness left allot to be desired.
The animations are fluid and quick, with only the occasional clipping when explosive actions are being done repeatedly by both characters on the screen. My only other problem with visuals in the game is, once again Tomy went for expansive text and anime stills, and did not to use any videos from the series. With a ton of animation already done, you could easily add to the dungeon craws with some animation similar to that found in the DS version of Chrono Trigger.
In terms of audio work, the game is okay, but still limited. Voiceover work was limited, and gets kind of repetitive after you utilize the special attacks, and some of sound effects from the series were also missing, that would have added to the comedic factor for some of the comic relief-esk characters. But on the plus side they did manage to put in mostly separate audio work for the 30 fighters.
Ninja Destiny 2 has about 34 earnable characters, 3 primary modes Story, Survival, and Versus. Also there is a kind of extra Quest mode after Story mode is completed. For the die hard fighting gamers, you may find the Story and Quest modes a bit boring. For the fans of the series, story mode should be quite enjoyable. Allot of character side stories and characters to play and beat in this mode. Survival is simple: See how many you can defeat before you’re wiped out.
You of course can do arcade style vs. against the CPU, or if your friend has a cart play against them. There is the drawback not being able to play a vs. game without a 2nd cart. I will admit that I had more fun in the VS and then the Story mode, more then the random battle-esk Quest mode. If you’re not a fan of search and destroy dungeon crawls you might not want enjoy the Quest mode as much as the other game modes. I’m in a dungeon, where’s the dragon? Now let’s get fighting. Controls are basic fighter fair, and are easily learned. Each character has their defined fighting style, and jutsu attacks. Its 1 on 1 battles on the top screen, with 6 touch screen powerups below. Basic and hard attacks are the primary actions, with dodge and ninja appear being means of escape of punch juggling.
Jumping and the throwing of Kuni as also been added as a delay or sudden weak attack. You build up your chakra meter with each attack, which can be used to unleash special moves. There are combos which I have seen the computer do, and have accidentally done myself. However, there are no details in the manual on how to do combos which means guessing. There is a slight learning curve or practiced action to activating the touch screen powerups, which can range from extra chakra to full life. Fighting purists or Wii Brawl battlers might want to turn these off, but the cart lacks this option.
Overall I had fun. I enjoyed a quality well put together fighting game that will make many Naruto fans happy. Is it perfect? No. Will it replace Brawl or Jumpstars anytime soon? Not likely. But it does raise the bar for Tomy’s game lineup. As Tomy continues to polish and fine tune this cart series, and perhapse someday escape the textual overload, I can see this game series doing quite well.
