Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 4

"An awesome fighting game."

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 4 is the latest installment of the Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen (Clash of Ninja) series, and is definitely the best of them all. Why, you ask? Well...

Story: 9/10
The story follows the anime almost exactly, from Jirobou getting pwn'd by Choji to Kyuubi Naruto and Curse Seal Sasuke fighting. There are four "episodes" of the story, which you'll unlock in progression. The only bad thing is that it's all in Japanese...so it'll be a bit fuzzy unless you saw the anime episodes that the story is based off of or can speak Japanese.

Gameplay: 10/10
Love it. It's easy to pick up, and it's always fun beating on some poor defenseless computer or your friend. All the actual fighting is done by pressing A and B. The other buttons have different functions, such as L and R (both to sidestep or use body replacement technique), Y (to throw the enemy), control stick (if it wasn't completely obvious already, moving; and also jumping), and X for specials.

Speaking of specials, every character has AT LEAST 2. There are many varieties, such as midair special, alternate (usually down + X) activating a special power (opposite direction + X), and good ol' regular specials (X). Some characters even have 4 or 5 specials. New to the game are team specials, where, in 3-Man Cell (formerly Team Battle), if all 3 characters on a team have full chakra (and are alive, of course), you can initiate it by pressing X + the direction you are facing. The 3 characters combine their abilities to do MASSIVE damage. If the three characters have some relation, the special will be quite unique, such as Team Sharingan using their Sharingan-powered abilities.

Now for the bars in the fight. There are two bars for each character: health and chakra. The classic health bar shows how long you can stay alive, and the chakra bar shows your energy. You gain chakra by hitting an enemy or enduring an enemy's hit. If your endurance breaks, however, your chakra bar will fully deplete. Some characters have chakra-lowering attacks, too. Chakra is used for two main things: Executing specials and using body replacement technique. The former can use up all chakra or 3 or 2 bar segments, and the latter will always use 3 bar segments.

Now onto mission mode. After beating episode 1 of story mode, you'll unlock mission mode. There are four different ranks of missions (C, B, A, and S, all increasing in difficulty). Some missions are extremely easy (getting a certain number of hits in a combo) and some can be really hard (3-on-1 match without the health ratio changing, and, yep, you guessed it, you're alone). Completing missions gets you a new character, always unlocking them in intervals of five. There are 120 missions to complete (I think...) and completing all will take out a BIG chunk of your life. There are many types of missions, such as defeating your strongest rival, getting a certain score before beating 10 people, beating 10 people in a certain time limit, or defeating 5 enemies by using specials to finish them off.

All that being said, the game is extremely fun alone or with a friend, and it'll take a looong time to get the most out of the game.

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are cel-shaded, and done so extremely well (except for the very rare occasion that someone's hair will go through their shoulder, but like I said, you won't see much of that). There are really nice special effects, too, like a notifying sparkle to symbolize full chakra, or the screen being distorted with a purple flash when Zabuza slices someone with his huge guillotine sword. The stages are well done too, and can really set the image for a fight. No problems here.

Sound / Music: 10/10
The songs are great, and, like the stages can set the mood of a fight. It's very catchy, and fast-paced to enhance the action. Most songs are taken from the anime, but there are a few original compositions.

The sound effects are all very fitting, too. When you punch, kick, etc. someone, it makes the appropriate "whack" sound. Kunai, shurikens, and other weapons make loud "slash" noises when they hit someone, too. There are tons of other great sound effects I haven't mentioned. And also, the voice acting is great; the voices sound the same as the Seiyus' voices from the anime.

Replayability: 10/10
With tons of characters to unlock, the single player lives quite a long time; it took me 2 weeks just to unlock every character! And, of course, multiplayer can easily last more than a year, with 39 total characters to play as. Invite a few friends over and beat them up on this game!

Import?: Yes
Believe me, the game is worth the $60-some you need to pay to import. Fan of Naruto or not, you won't be able to resist the awesomeness of this game. You'll have to wait 3-10 days depending on the type of shipping, but believe me, it'll be completely worth it.

Story: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound / Music: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10

Final score: 9.6 (rounded up to 10)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/24/07