With a brand new edition of the game aiming to fix the wrongs of the Japanese version, will Naruto: Ninja Destiny please fans of the series or have them wishing the game never left Japan?
By nestlekwikWith the ninja craze escalating stateside, it's no surprise companies are putting more bank in the muscle of the orange-suited escapades of Naruto Uzamaki in the U.S. While many of the series' games entered into the region with simple beginnings and content, the progress of the translated anime on Cartoon Network has allowed U.S. gamers to make more sense of the content held in the beefier sequels, which harness more and more content as the anime progresses. After a year of re-tooling from its original Japanese release,
Naruto: Ninja Destiny strikes the Nintendo DS and brings the game up to speed with the progress of the anime series. While the game is hardly perfect, the result is one that trounces all other Nintendo handheld efforts thus far and results in an overall enjoyable 3-D fighter debut on the hardware.
The content bump immediately improves the value of the title as the U.S. version gets the benefit of extra characters, refined story segments and a significantly juiced frame rate, which creates a much more fluid and responsive product. Any gamer who has even touched the
Clash of the Ninja home console series will be able to jump into this one-on-one fighter with immediate familiarity and even so, the simplistic basics of action will allow anyone who has played any fighter to start bashing skulls. The main hook of the action in Ninja Destiny revolves around its touch screen support, which allows players to buffer characters on the fly with more attack or defense or provide extra health or chakara energy required to execute jutsu techniques. While it may seem tacked on, the touch feature works well in the vein of the Japanese Jump series and does add extra dimensions to the fight by providing back-and-forth battles to ideally set it apart from any other Naruto offering.
Ninja Destiny surprisingly packs a total of 16 characters, putting players to task to unlock nine of them to boost the game's single-player replayability. While the story mode only features static scenes and text and is hardly in-depth, it does feature all of the key story points in the series up to episode 100 all Naruto fans should recognize. The arcade mode operates similar to the story mode but quickens up the pace by omitting story segments.
While the U.S. additions make the game more playable and valuable, the untouched core mechanics of the game serve as an appropriate entry point at best. As the origin of a franchise
Ninja Destiny accomplishes a lot, but in the field of fighting games and other Naruto titles, the game play is hardly original and could be much more robust.
The frame rate boost (while there are still a few extremely minor instances of hiccups) makes
Ninja Destiny a really attractive title, featuring fluid, cell-shaded characters that bring the characters to life. Sound effects and voicing (while absent from the story scenes) are placed straight into the action, absorbing gamers more into the Naruto universe. The game controls well thanks to a balance of the new frame rate and simple commands, resulting in fast-paced chains, super moves and item usage that won't frustrate even a rookie fighter.
Ultimately, however, the game is brought down a bit by its overall substance and play mechanics. Overall, the game plays identical to most anything Nartuo fans have experienced on the consoles, which, is a treat in portable form for fans, but would probably fail to pull in seasoned fighting game vets who don't follow the license. The simplistic schemes come as a double-edge sword as it is most beneficial to repeat a chain of attacks instead of experimenting and utilizing a character's full range of attacks. Furthermore, the game still heavily relies on the nefarious replacement jutsu, which computer opponents will use quite often, sometimes making the unlocks an experience of pain.
On the technical fighter side, the fights are a simple race to see who can use super moves first, however, thanks to the new item system, the power struggle can turn its tide easily, and, ultimately, the mantra of ridiculously powerful attacks understandably sticks true to any anime series. While the item system does add an extra dimension to the brawling, the items are oddly predetermined with no customization offered, which also diminishes the technicality of the game and sometimes leaves the edge of the fight to a luck of the draw.
While more than half the roster is unlockable, unless players really enjoy punishing AI fighters, there is little left to do in single-player mode when the dust has settled. Even simplistic modes such as team battles and survival could have bolstered the replayability a good amount. Even though the title does make a huge push to encourage multiplayer, the need for two copies of the game is a crutch for the feature. Even a single-card feature that restricted character usage would have thrust the mode an extra mile. The fact
Ninja Destiny lacks Wi-Fi competition also damages the reach of the multiplayer feature.
Noting
Naruto: Ninja Destiny has a good chunk of holes in its mechanics and features, however, doesn't mean the title is without its merits. The game runs great as the DS's first full-3-D fighter and fans of the series finally have a Nintendo portable title worthy of the license. Just as the console series grew through numerous installments, given some time, tweaks and additions,
Ninja Destiny could prove to be a heavy-hitting franchise with no rival on the system. The frantically paced battles are great grounds for quick sessions of game time and no Naruto fan with a DS should pass up a chance to jump in on the action.
GemuBaka Score: 3 out of 5
