Tiberian
11-02-2007, 11:14 AM
This game is fantastic - ignore the nay sayers. The great thing about this game is you don't have to even know what Naruto is to enjoy it, all thanks to the story mode. I can't for the life of me understand why no developer has not done this before as Ubisoft Montreal has pulled it off quite well and the platform/adventure/fighter mix really goes well with it.
So for those of you that don't know what it is. Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is an Xbox 360-exclusive video game based on the actual story line of Naruto. The game covers the first 80 episodes of the anime. The game itself consists of two major gameplay modes: one-on-one fighting and RPG , where Konoha serves as a main hub to access various missions players can go on. You can actually fully explore Konoha for the very first time and Ubisoft have done a fantastic job in recreating it. The main story mode alternates between these two modes,with sidequests along the way. It features elements from jumping acrobatically from rooftop to rooftop, as well as having one-on-one brawls much like the Naruto: Clash of Ninja series. Like with most Naruto games, it features cel-shaded graphics.
The graphics are really beautiful, which is evident when your walking around the village or in combat. It looks very much like the anime but i would say much better. The lighting is particularly good in some areas. Lighting in cel shading you say? Yup its true and looks amazing.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/302/932520_20071030_screen005.jpg
Being able to run around the village is something you will be doing a lot in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja but it doesn't just stop there. You can climb up walls with your jutisu or smash down walls with shadow clone using both to get to new areas you previously couldn't get too. In fact, you won't be able to get on top of the very highest buildings without improving your Jutsu. Its all very fun and nicely implemented.
Mini-games. Mini games is something that features quite a lot in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja ranging from ramen delivery which we've already seen in trailers, to hide and seek games with Konohamaru. They all fit very well within the Naruto-verse and aren't out of place. Though theres only roughly 3 or 4 mini-games to be had in the village of Konoha, more could have been implemented. It might be also worth mentioning here theres rare coin collecting. Similar to how you collect orbs in Crackdown.
Just like Crackdown there are two types of Rare coins, gold and bronze. You need about 582 bronze coins and 117 gold coins for the achievement, which seems slight hard to me especially when you consider theres no "sound" like there was in crackdown.
The combat is quite fast paced but not complex and the Jutsu becomes easy after a few practises. Jutsu in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is more about the correct timing, if for example you try and use it right away, your opponent will hit you and you'll be interrupted and it won't work.You will need to knock your opponent down in combat (by using a combo or two) in order to do the hand seals. If you suck at combos like me, it'll be harder to use Jutsu, not because Jutsu is hard to do but purely because your opponent will never give you the chance to cast it. Its also tougher to beat some of the harder opponents without using combos and online will be a lot harder as well.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/791/791026/naruto-rise-of-a-ninja--20070523013217627.jpg
Naruto performing Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (shadow replication)
Of course the game isn't perfect, the villagers could have a little more personality (apart from helping you with quests or giving you side quests you can't really interact with them), not to mention have more variety of skins. I'm a little disappointed i can't "chat" with some of the main characters like Sakura (chatting her up would be funny, for those of you that have read the manga or anime would know her reaction to Naruto). This would have added so much more awesome to the game.
Music stays true to anime however can get repetitive if you've been playing over an hour. The village of Konoha has just 1 constant theme playing in the background, unless you are doing ramen delivers, doing races, then it changes.
http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1751/1191979727.jpg
A lot of fans of the anime were worried about the dub english voices but all i can say is, its no reason not to buy/or rent this game. If i ever read another forum comment saying "won't buy it with Japanese voices" i'll be very annoyed. It something i wanted a lot as well but the english voices do not ruin the game at all. In fact for those that haven't even played Naruto before, probably won't even complain about it.
Edit: 21 November: The Japanese voices were released today and its for the entire game(its free). To download them, simply.
* Sign-in into Xbox Live (Gold or Silver account required)
* Start the game
* In the main menu, go to ‘Xbox Live Marketplace’
* Download Japanese voices package from Marketplace (its free)
* Go to options – Play Japanese Voices – select ‘Yes’
* Have fun!
I've yet to really get anywhere with the online mode but from the few games i've had over Xbox Live its very fast paced and almost everyone knows what they are doing (so most of my matches were about even in skill level apart from one) and of course you can invite friends to play with you. The only real downer about the online mode is there are quite a few characters missing, such as Choji, Hinata,Temari,Tenten, Ino and shino. Shikamaru is free DLC off the XBL market place. My guess is they hadn't finished "balancing" his moves before the game was being manufactured but he should also be going up in a month or so.
Theres also an interesting tournament system called the forest of death (its very much like the anime) where you work your way to the top and winner stays on kind of thing. Slightly unforgiving in that if you lose you have to start at the beginning.
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2007/191/932520_20070711_screen007.jpg
All in all this is a great game that everyone should enjoy if they give it a chance. Its not perfect but heck, what games are? I'm about halfway through and still theres so much left to do. Anyway, i've rambled on. I hope this helps anyone who was interested in the game.
So for those of you that don't know what it is. Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is an Xbox 360-exclusive video game based on the actual story line of Naruto. The game covers the first 80 episodes of the anime. The game itself consists of two major gameplay modes: one-on-one fighting and RPG , where Konoha serves as a main hub to access various missions players can go on. You can actually fully explore Konoha for the very first time and Ubisoft have done a fantastic job in recreating it. The main story mode alternates between these two modes,with sidequests along the way. It features elements from jumping acrobatically from rooftop to rooftop, as well as having one-on-one brawls much like the Naruto: Clash of Ninja series. Like with most Naruto games, it features cel-shaded graphics.
The graphics are really beautiful, which is evident when your walking around the village or in combat. It looks very much like the anime but i would say much better. The lighting is particularly good in some areas. Lighting in cel shading you say? Yup its true and looks amazing.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/302/932520_20071030_screen005.jpg
Being able to run around the village is something you will be doing a lot in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja but it doesn't just stop there. You can climb up walls with your jutisu or smash down walls with shadow clone using both to get to new areas you previously couldn't get too. In fact, you won't be able to get on top of the very highest buildings without improving your Jutsu. Its all very fun and nicely implemented.
Mini-games. Mini games is something that features quite a lot in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja ranging from ramen delivery which we've already seen in trailers, to hide and seek games with Konohamaru. They all fit very well within the Naruto-verse and aren't out of place. Though theres only roughly 3 or 4 mini-games to be had in the village of Konoha, more could have been implemented. It might be also worth mentioning here theres rare coin collecting. Similar to how you collect orbs in Crackdown.
Just like Crackdown there are two types of Rare coins, gold and bronze. You need about 582 bronze coins and 117 gold coins for the achievement, which seems slight hard to me especially when you consider theres no "sound" like there was in crackdown.
The combat is quite fast paced but not complex and the Jutsu becomes easy after a few practises. Jutsu in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is more about the correct timing, if for example you try and use it right away, your opponent will hit you and you'll be interrupted and it won't work.You will need to knock your opponent down in combat (by using a combo or two) in order to do the hand seals. If you suck at combos like me, it'll be harder to use Jutsu, not because Jutsu is hard to do but purely because your opponent will never give you the chance to cast it. Its also tougher to beat some of the harder opponents without using combos and online will be a lot harder as well.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/791/791026/naruto-rise-of-a-ninja--20070523013217627.jpg
Naruto performing Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (shadow replication)
Of course the game isn't perfect, the villagers could have a little more personality (apart from helping you with quests or giving you side quests you can't really interact with them), not to mention have more variety of skins. I'm a little disappointed i can't "chat" with some of the main characters like Sakura (chatting her up would be funny, for those of you that have read the manga or anime would know her reaction to Naruto). This would have added so much more awesome to the game.
Music stays true to anime however can get repetitive if you've been playing over an hour. The village of Konoha has just 1 constant theme playing in the background, unless you are doing ramen delivers, doing races, then it changes.
http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1751/1191979727.jpg
A lot of fans of the anime were worried about the dub english voices but all i can say is, its no reason not to buy/or rent this game. If i ever read another forum comment saying "won't buy it with Japanese voices" i'll be very annoyed. It something i wanted a lot as well but the english voices do not ruin the game at all. In fact for those that haven't even played Naruto before, probably won't even complain about it.
Edit: 21 November: The Japanese voices were released today and its for the entire game(its free). To download them, simply.
* Sign-in into Xbox Live (Gold or Silver account required)
* Start the game
* In the main menu, go to ‘Xbox Live Marketplace’
* Download Japanese voices package from Marketplace (its free)
* Go to options – Play Japanese Voices – select ‘Yes’
* Have fun!
I've yet to really get anywhere with the online mode but from the few games i've had over Xbox Live its very fast paced and almost everyone knows what they are doing (so most of my matches were about even in skill level apart from one) and of course you can invite friends to play with you. The only real downer about the online mode is there are quite a few characters missing, such as Choji, Hinata,Temari,Tenten, Ino and shino. Shikamaru is free DLC off the XBL market place. My guess is they hadn't finished "balancing" his moves before the game was being manufactured but he should also be going up in a month or so.
Theres also an interesting tournament system called the forest of death (its very much like the anime) where you work your way to the top and winner stays on kind of thing. Slightly unforgiving in that if you lose you have to start at the beginning.
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2007/191/932520_20070711_screen007.jpg
All in all this is a great game that everyone should enjoy if they give it a chance. Its not perfect but heck, what games are? I'm about halfway through and still theres so much left to do. Anyway, i've rambled on. I hope this helps anyone who was interested in the game.