This Is the game I've been waiting for. A naruto game that actually has the story in it. A full 3d free roaming game. A fully animated, cell shaded naruto game on the ps3. First impression, awesome. but just because its a naruto game and it looks good doesn't mean its going to be a great game itself. here I am going to tell you about how this game works and how great it is.
This Game creates the line for cartoon graphics. I have to say, this game has the best graphics of any game I have ever played or seen. It looks so perfect, I can't find one thing wrong. And the faces of the characters are to perfection.(Unlike ROAN) They looks so much like the anime, that if I didn't know it was a game, I would of thought it was a clip from a new naruto movie or episode. Also the gameplay is incredibly smooth. Everything moves fast is is great. But What I want to talk about first is the boss battles. SO far we have only seen The sannin and shikaku vs naruto battles, but they look like so much fun. They are interactive and different from the regular naruto UNS matches. The involve dodging giant attacks, and pressing corresponding buttons for some short ingame movie action. Also when your oponent is dazed, that is when you attack. During the Tsunade boss battle, you can actually summon gamapunta or Katsuyu to help cause so damage on your opponent or stop them from hurting you. I can't describe exactly how the boss battles work since they are so insane and fun and completely different from anything before.
And the boss battles include the coolest ingame movie sequence button pressing videos ever!. Like in this trailer where Jiraiya sets manda on fire. Thats part of the boss battle and it blends in perfectly. The ingame graphics are as good as the ingame movie graphics, and I gotta say, I've never seen that done before in a game. Not even close.
Click this for the video to see the awesomeness.
I just can't wait to play the boss battles. Now back to the regular fighting. The fighting is intense, it can be close range or far range, the choice is yours. (Naruto:Close Range, Kankuro: Long Range) Or you can play offensively or defensively, the choice is yours. But either way, using jutsu's such as naruto's rasengan. Or sasuke's chidori, are quick jutsus that you can use to damage your opponent as much as a couple of combos. and there are amazing looking clashes between 2 jutsus. Like chidori and rasengan, they just look really cool, and whoever mashes circle the fastest has their jutsu go through and hit the opponent. But now I want to quickly talk about the secret techniques, or finishers, THEY ARE AWESOME!! These finishers are fully animated ingame movies based on button pressing with the corresponding buttons that come up. They are intense and unbelievable. And they are so fun to watch, even if you are the one being killed by it.
Lastly the fighting is simple. You keep pressing circle with up, down, left and right or just circle by itself to do combos. They are very fun to watch, and you can dodge them by pressing r2 or l2 at the right moment. You can walk on water and battle on walls. You can also summon support characters to help you build up your chrakra or just have time to recover from a bunch of blows.Support characters attack the enemy until their attack is finshed, or they are attacked themselves.When your health eventually starts getting lower, you can activate a thing called your awakened state. Where you are stronger and faster, and better all around. Some Characters transform completely in this awakening mode.(naruto turns into Kyuubi.) Lastly you carry a bunch of ninja tools that can either lower your opponents attack or explode in a fiery ball of death, you can set them up as a trap or just try to hit your opponent head on with them. And the level designs are beautifully designed. I want to play on all of them at once. And there are 25 playable characters in the game so it'll never go old, and that's a good thing because there's no online. But on the bright side, there will be new down loadable stages and characters such as the sound 4 that you can download and play with. If you preorder the game from a gamestop, they come included. Not in the game, but the card you download them with.
Now onto the story mode. The story mode comes along full with complete ingame movies explaining the whole idea so new people actually have an idea of whats going on. And the graphics are still unbeatable. You are able to free roam the entire, huge, hidden leaf village. Exploring secrets or hidden items. You can use your rasengan to break through walls, or your naruto cannon to launch yourself to high places. And at any time you can choose missions to go on that correspond with the story. There are 101 missions in the game. 50 missions that are based on the naruto story, and 51 missions that you complete in order to play those naruto story missions. According to the creator, it will take about 30 hours to complete this game, so there should be a pretty good amount of gameplay time. You can find hidden materials and make special ramen to get new skills. And you collect money hidden in the village to buy things you may need.
And lastly about the soundtrack and voice overs in this game. This game has both Japanese and English language for those of you who hate the English version. The music is completely new and never been heard before, we haven't heard too much of it, but it should be promising, hopefully they might include a couple naruto anime songs. So anyone who wants to play a good game should get this, whether your a naruto fan or not. Its just a great game, and it being naruto makes it all the better. That was my review is you want to see more naruto videos or learn some new stuff I didn't cover, go to these links.
Gametrailers IGN Gamespot
