Hokage's Room

ToribioPrince96 on January 24, 2010

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this is such a cool game one of the best naruto games available on the psp or fighting game if you really wanna brag about how good this game ohh how i wish i hadnt broken my psp i really want this game

rpgprincess8 on December 2, 2009 [Rating: +4]

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Like most Naruto gaming fans out there, I’ve been very interested in Naruto Shippuden: Legend: Akatsuki Rising for a while now. In the weeks before its release I read some pretty disappointing reviews concerning it, and now I find myself having to agree with some of them. Akatsuki Rising is a very fun game and any fan of the Naruto series will enjoy it, but it’s just that it doesn’t stray that far from any other Naruto game (Ultimate Ninja series.)

Okay, this game is an honest to goodness button masher. Nothing is truly hard about this game for that reason. You can defeat all your enemies by pushing one button over and over again. But then again there’s nothing wrong with that either. Most games in the Naruto series are button mashers. But the one thing that drove me nuts time and time again was the CAMERA! While trying to lock-on to an enemy to defeat, it will lock-on to an enemy that was way in front of you, and by doing that leaving you wide open to an attack. The battle system needs some work, but there is enough jutsu to keep it fun.

The graphics for this game is surprisingly good but not the best. The developers did a good job on some things and VERY bad on others. The colors for the characters is very vibrant. Something that has come to be expected though in any Naruto game, I feel. But there is a lot to be desired in this game graphic wise. I think the hardest thing to watch in this game is the cut scenes. They are, in my opinion just horrible. There’s no real detail to them. They show no emotion, what’s the point of zooming in on their faces if nothing changes. Plus the backgrounds are very repetitive.

Scenario Mode was a lot of fun. They kept it very close to the story, no strange little changes. Plus the missions are fun. They are kind of straight forward and once you get the hang of the game, most are easy to complete. The battle mode is fun with the characters you are given. But the best part of this game is the chance to play as one of the Akatsuki. It’s a different element being brought to this system, so that’s what makes it stand out. But the sad thing is that this game gives you the feeling of doing the same thing over and over again. It's very repetitive for that reason.

The music for this game is more of the same. Which isn’t bad, it’s the same music we’ve come to love in the Naruto series. The voice actors did a great job and the choice of either being able to play it in either English or Japanese is just a plus always.

It’s not awful but it’s not the best either. It needs a lot of work. Since I’ve only played the Naruto games on the Playstation systems, I can’t compare it to other games for the other systems. But Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising is a combination of the Ultimate Ninja series and Uzimaki Chronicles. In fact this game plays SO much like Chronicles they might as well just called it that. Like I said before the only thing that sets this game apart is being able to play as one of the akatsuki.

Zelda_Naruto on November 29, 2009 [Rating: +3]

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I like NARUTO Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising it reminded me of Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles series because of how they move and fight. I kind of did not like how they made the characters look and some of the enemies were kind of lame but the Akatsuki characters were cool. Some enemies were really easy to beat but some were hard but still easy. I loved the story it was a little different from the original story but I still good. I wish there were more places to fight. All in all I think this was a good game for the psp.

SHARIGANKAKASHI on November 21, 2009 [Rating: +3]

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The Naruto series is enormously popular worldwide. Given that, it's no surprise that fans of the spiky-haired blonde ninja-in-training would love the chance to actually play him in a video game. Unfortunately the history of Naruto games is one that consists primarily of a string of mediocre-at best titles. Still, hope springs eternal and with each new Naruto game released, there's always the chance that this one will be that ultimate Naruto game that you've been waiting for. Alas, Naruto fans will have to keep waiting because Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatusuki Rising, the latest in the series, is yet another sub-par brawler that seems to re-tread the same ground with similarly pedestrian results.

The "haven't we been here before?" quality begins with the game's storyline. It follows the Kazakage Retrieval story arc in which Naruto returns to his village after a few years absence to meet up with his teacher and some old friends. Of course, it wouldn't be a day in the life of Naruto if something horrible didn't happen so that Naruto and his pals could bust out their cool ninja moves. Sure enough, when a couple of Akatsuki's followers manage to capture Naruto's friend Gaara, it's up to Naruto and his friends to rescue Gaara. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is familiar. It's pretty much the same story arc featured in Ultimate Ninja 4: Naruto Shippuden. Fans of that game who are hoping for a different perspective on the Naruto story based on the title (perhaps delving into the history and rise of the popular Akatsuki villains) will actually get a bit of fan service through the Akatsuki mode. This mode allows you to play as the bad guys capturing Sand Village and is a nice addition to the game. Unfortunately, you'll have to trudge through the same old repetitive story to get to it and the actual mode isn't that long.

The heart of the game takes place in the Scenario mode, which is a linear series of missions that follows the storyline of the show. As you complete missions in this mode, you'll unlock others things to do. These include the Mission mode where you can go on stand-alone missions that are rated in terms of difficulty to help the citizens of Leaf Village and the Survival mode where you'll have to defeat a certain number of enemies. Items, skill scrolls, and money acquired in these missions can also be used in the games store to kit out the many unlockable ninjas you can use. This level of customization and unlockable content is one of the game's biggest strengths. Put simply, there's a lot of game in here, and if you're a completionist looking for the kind of game where there's always another glittering prize on the horizon, Akatsuki Rising has you covered.

Unfortunately, getting there means that you'll have to slog through acres and acres of mindless button-mashing beat-'em-up combat. The key difference between Akatsuki Rising and previous Naruto games is that combat has been made a bit simpler by putting all attacks and counters on one button: the square. Most of the game is spent mashing that single button and repeatedly throwing the same combo on a mindless group of enemies. Counters are performed by pressing any button when being struck by an enemy, which means you'll often counter without realizing it. This can mess up your combo if you are struck by another opponent, and your target lock will switch away from the opponent you were attacking. Given the clunky method for switching between target-locked opponents and the occasionally wacky camera, it can make fighting against groups harder than necessary. That's somewhat ironic considering the simplicity of actual one-on-one fighting. The result is a system that starts out modestly enjoyable but eventually grows weirdly dull and frustrating at the same time.

Artistically, the game is all over the map. The sound is excellent. The music is the licensed soundtrack from the Naruto anime series and is used very effectively to punctuate the action. The character voice-overs are well done, which is an especially impressive feat considering how many untranslated Japanese terms the English voice cast had to incorporate into the dialogue. Graphically, however, the game could use some work. The characters and enemies translate well into 3D-animated models, but the environments they're traipsing through are the kind of blocky, flat, low-poly worlds that wouldn't be acceptable in a PlayStation 2 game. Landscape colors seem oddly muted and the level design apparently draws its inspiration from the square corridors of the original Doom base on Mars.

SasukeFan on November 13, 2009 [Rating: +3]

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I loved it's storyline and features such as; being able to level characters up and getting to mve around the whole area freely, which is a pretty unique feature for a Naruto game on the PSP. Take Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 1 & 2, they were both really great games, don't get me wrong, but you couldn't move around freely, it was a 2-D area, and also you didn't really have a story that actually followed the storyline. But what I didn't like about the game (not a big deal), was that it was really short, it was the type of game you finish (pretty much) the first day you get it. But despite the play time, the game was really good, I would highly recommend it to many people!