Naruto: Ultimate Ninja

"Narutimett? Naltimate? Close enough for me!"

Introduction

Naruto: Narutimett Hero developed by CyberConnect2 is based on the popular anime which is currently airing in its second season in Japan; Naruto itself is the work of Masashi Kishimoto who first penned the manga (of which the anime is based off) in 1999. Now I know that most people reading this review will probably have watched the anime and perhaps read all of the manga, but for those who haven't I will provide a quick rundown of the series.

The story of Naruto revolves around a boy named Naruto (who would have guessed?) who aspires to be the best ninja in his village, Konoha. Unbeknownst to him, he had a terrible monster known as Kyubi (in Japanese mythology Kyubi is a nine tails fox) sealed inside of him shortly after his birth, because of this Naruto has been reviled by the village. Naruto's main goal is to have his existence acknowledged. He does this with the help of his two rookie teammates Sasuke and Sakura as well as various other characters in the anime. For the most part, the anime and manga details their adventures and the conflicts that they have to resolve. This short synopsis could never do Naruto any justice and I would suggest that those who have not watched the anime, do so, as it has a good mix of comedy, action and drama as well as making the game far more enjoyable.

Gameplay: 9/10

Naruto: Narutimett Hero can best be compared to the likes of PowerStone or Smash Brothers in terms of gameplay, controls are very simplified mostly consisting of the circle button which you repeatedly hit to throw out punches and kicks, which in turn can be stringed into 4 hit combos. The triangle button allows your chosen character to ''power up'' to an appropriate level with which to launch their respective specialty attack. The Square button launches projectile attacks which do relatively little damage to an opponent and are mainly for chipping away at your opponent if you like playing keep away. Finally there is the X button which allows your character to jump and double jump. Yes indeed this control scheme will be hauntingly familiar to those who have played either Power Stone or Smash Brothers, but to be fair both of those games were very good and CyberConnect2 could not have picked a better fighting system for Narutimett Hero, it offers the simplicity of use and yet still possesses a certain depth of strategy.

Narutimett Hero offers 12 characters in total, 6 of which you start off with and 6 which must be unlocked. Of the characters available in Narutimett Hero CyberConnect2 couldn't have picked a better lot, many of the most popular characters in the show end up in the game and those that did not make the cut, still make cameos in either the background of some of the stages or more importantly in some of the special attack animations. Speaking of special attacks, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Narutimett Hero is the fact that it stays very close to the source material in terms of what kind of special attacks and fighting styles the characters possess. I have never seen Gaara punch someone in the anime or manga and true to form Gaara possess' no such bodily attacks, instead he attacks with his signature sand moves. All the special moves are there, from Rock Lee's Konoha Whirlwind Kick to Naruto's specialty technique Sexy no Jutsu (amusingly enough both Sasuke and Kakashi can use this move if they utilize their Sharingan - a technique which can copy other techniques using a specialized eye -)

In terms of game modes Narutimett Hero is pretty standard fare, there is an adventure mode in which a character fights a series of story driven battles, there is a practice mode which as the name implies allows you to practice your moves, there is a vs. mode and finally there is a mission mode which allows you to take on a series of battles that all have certain conditions that you must meet in order to win the battle. These conditions range from the easy, such as beat Rock Lee in 30 seconds, to the incredibly hard, collect 999 bad item tickets (did I mention that some of these tasks are incredibly tedious?). So why do these missions? To earn coins of course! Coins can be redeemed for character animations, pictures from the anime, music from the game and so on. Again shades of PowerStone and Smash Brothers with this system and again I have no problem with it.

So while I fully enjoyed Narutimett Hero's fighting system it just doesn't have the depth that games such as Soul Calibur 2 or Virtua Fighter 4 possess and for that reason I docked gameplay one point and gave it a 9 out of 10

Graphics: 8/10

Narutimett Hero perfectly conveys the animation of the anime and manga. CyberConnect2 really nailed the look of each individual character. The game uses cel shaded graphics to great effect. In addition the backgrounds of each individual stage is done very nicely, each of them being taken from an actual locale in the anime, I also thought the various animations going on in these stages were a very nice touch, such as the Konohamaru hiding behind his horrible camouflage or Hayate struggling with Baki atop one of Konoha's buildings. All of these touches add to your immersion in the Naruto universe. One knock that I have against the graphics is the cartoon look; I realize that this is inherent to the animation in the anime and manga, but after having played Soul Calibur 2 I feel that the graphical bar for fighting games has been set much higher.

Sound and Music: 7/10

In terms of sound, Narutimett Hero has been done beautifully, the sounds of shurikens flying through the air; characters walking on water etc. have been done very well. I was also very pleased with the character voices, of which every character in the game is voiced by their anime voice actor.

The music in Narutimett Hero is the kind of music you would expect from Naruto, a kind of kiddy far eastern themed music. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad or anything, but it is not really something that I would remember so well, if I were to look back on the game in 3 months or so. A big exception to this is the seminal Haruka Kanata, which also serves as one of the opening themes to the anime and now also Narutimett Hero.

Replayability: 6/10

Now replayability is where Narutimett Hero falters somewhat. As I mentioned before the game modes are pretty standard fare, a typical gamer will probably be able to unlock the 6 additional characters and complete adventure mode with every single character within a day or so. This only leaves mission mode left to complete and let me tell you, completing very single mission in mission mode is far from fun, I would think that only completeionist would do it, beating all the missions in Narutimett hero is analogous to collecting all of the trophies in Super Smash Brother's Melee. After a while, it just gets plain boring. I suppose the only reason to even attempt the missions is the get all of the bonus material the game has to offer but you don't need to complete EVERY mission to do that, so I guess it is a choice best left up to the player.

Final Recommendation:

Throughout this entire review I forgot to mention that this game is entirely in Japanese, but that doesn't make it to hard to navigate since it is a fighting game. Besides the issue of replayability, Narutimett Hero remains faithful to the anime and I would whole heartedly recommend that this game be imported (which is currently the only way you can get Narutimett Hero).

Final Score 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/04