Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2

"One thousand years of pain!"

Naruto: Narutimate Hero 2, the sequel to last year's fighting/brawler game and now established franchise is back for one another bite, But did it turn out to be better or worse than its prequel? As you may know now based on the score I gave it it's a resounding ‘yes', but read on to find out why.
Based on the popular anime, NH2 is all about fan service. But don't get the wrong impression, behind its pretty face lies a surprisingly deep gameplay.

The gameplay is all about fast paced fighting just like the show, with simple and easy to pull but effective combo attacks, grabs, blocking, aerial weapons and counter attacking, But there's much more than that. You can go to 2 different parts or levels in every stage to expand the simple and much repeated concept, climb walls, walk on water, destroy surroundings, special attacks, etc
Two of the best moves in the game are the ‘Kawarimi no jutsu' (Replacement technique), which is basically blocking right before an attack hits you to reappear behind the enemy for an counter attack, But he/she can do the exact same thing to you at absolutely any moment, so a simple skirmish can turn into a fierce battle lasting several minutes without taking a break. Imagine something a bit like one intense round of any great fighting game lasting that long.
The other move are the Super attacks, Which are about entering an animated video sequence while pressing certain given button as many times as you can to deal as much damage as possible, the opponent does the same thing to achieve the complete opposite. This move is the one that can easily deal the biggest amount of damage, a complete win in a video sequence can even take half of the entire life gauge. All these special abilities consume ‘chakra', which is basically the special gauge that can be recovered through items or concentration (down, down)

During a fight you can get a wide number of items from the surroundings or your support character that can help you turn things around or reassure your victory, items like scrolls, explosives, stat enhancers or downers, multiple weapon attacks and even an attack from the support characters themselves. Speaking of support characters, There was only one per fighter in the previous game, now every single fighter can have around 30 to 40 supports by fighting in vs mode against anyone at least 3 times and some non playable ones.
While we are on the subject you can unlock up to 33 playable characters opposite from the poor amount of 12 that were in the first game, And they were all slightly and/or significantly altered to be more individual instead of playing too alike. Don't be surprised about the amount of characters, for an anime as massive as this one it's a rather easy task, there were many left out.
NH2 features the so called “RPG Mode”, in which you follow some of the events in the manga/anime. You can walk around Konoha and some other familiar locations, talk to residents, play 6 minigames, do very tough missions, upgrade character stats, Earn money, Acquiring jutsus (techniques), etc.
The shop has been completely changed for the best, instead of wasting your hard earned money in a lottery machine; you buy what you want directly: videos, statues, pictures, sounds, music and menu characters. One thing vets from the first game will be trilled about is that the game AI difficulty has been greatly improved; the old AI was too weak even on the hardest setting.

However the gameplay is still far from being perfect: the RPG mode itself is not that great for an RPG, you pretty much walk around battle levels and there aren't any real sidequests, hidden rewards and such. There are 18 stages in VS mode, the old 12 with improved graphics and 6 brand new ones. Even though the old stages have improved, they still feel old for people that have played the original NH. Some characters have ‘super' animations from other characters of the same team, Making up moves would have been much better. The one-button mashing is a debatable improvement over the combination way in the original NH, however, this is a love it or hate it change.
It's not that much about what went wrong; it's more about what could have been better, like having different costumes for the characters instead of colors for example, or adding a 4 player mode, more things to unlock and extras, etc

On the Sound and graphics side, the game delivers; using all the original voices actors from the anime, solid sound effects and music remixed and brand new. The graphics are cell shaded, which are perfect for the manga style, the animations are well done, very colorful and fitting for each character, the game starts with the sound ‘Go' from the fourth intro of the anime while showing many scenes from the entire series. As for negatives, some sound tracks are quickly forgettable and many super animations were not even remade from the first game.

The replay value of Narutimate Hero 2 is huge, finishing the story to get all the characters, doing many difficult set missions and the mission generator, getting all the jutsus, buying all the items and getting all the support relationships in VS mode will take you at the very least around 30 hours, and I'm not even talking about playing with friends, by far the best way to enjoy this game.

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10
Buy or Rent: Buy

If you like brawlers, Naruto, the first game or just want to try something different, you must at least give Naruto: Narutimate Hero 2 a try. You may not get hooked from the very beginning because of its button-masher nature, but I guarantee you that if you dig a little deeper than just pressing the Circle button repeatedly you'll find out how deep this game can actually be; a newcomer won't have a chance of connecting a hit to a veteran, but two experts will have really intense and long duels. Remember that this is not just a fighting game, if you're looking for that alone you might end up disappointed. Without a doubt, NH2 beats its predecessor with honors in every single way. Let's hope for an even better sequel.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/04