"A great series of fighting games restricted by hand held gameplay."

A great series of fighting games restricted by hand held gameplay.

YO! This is my review of Naruto: Ninja Destiny, on the Nintendo DS system. The game is fun, and is primarily based off of the Naruto Clash of Ninja Series, on the Nintendo Gamecube and Nintendo Wii. However, a great game was held back by the limitations of a hand held console. The overall game was very fun, but at the same time it could have been alot better than it was. Let's talk about the game now. Be warned, as all of my reviews have spoilers for the game being reviewed.

First of all, a little about the story. Twelve years before the events at the focus of the series, the nine-tailed demon fox attacked the VIllage hidden in the Leaves. It raised chaos and slaughtered many people, until the leader of the Leaf Village - the Fourth Hokage (Naruto's father) - stopped the Nine Tailed fox by sacrificing his own life to seal the demon inside of an infant . That child's name was Naruto Uzumaki, the star of the game/series. Together with his other Ninja team members, Sasuke, Sakura, and his Sensei, Kakashi, fight enemy Ninja such as the evil Orochimaru. The current story where the game is takes place during the third round of the Chunin exams, at the fight between Naruto, and his Fellow Leaf Ninja, Neji, are about to begin their fight. The game has a nice story, but it is only a small amount of fights though, with dialouge thrown in between to make the story seem alot longer than it actually is.

The game play is okay as well, the fighting is basically executed with your control pad to move of course, your A, B, X, and Y buttons to fight and use your attacks against the oppenent that you are facing. There are a total of 16 playable characters in the game, and each has a special justu, like Naruto's Rasengan or Sasuke's chidori. The substitution justu, which is basically a teleporting behind your opponent in this game. It can easily be spamed for some high speed combat, until one of you runs out of chakra and has to take the hit. And of course, chakra is your character's energy for the substitution jutsu and your character's special justu. You gain chakra from damaging your opponent, blocking your opponents attacks, or the hard way: getting hit by your opponent.

There are, besides the relatively short story, a mode for facing a single enemy, a mode for facing 10 enemies, and a mode you can play wirelessly with your friends with their copy of Naruto: Ninja Destiny. You can eventually gain new characters (you start out with 8 of them) by defeating your enemies.

The game also has great 3 D graphics, and nice backrounds for your various fights, all based off of actual locations in the series. Your characters and all of their moves are in 3 D, so your can fully move around and more in the game.

And that concludes my review of Naruto: Ninja Destiny. I hope that you have enjoyed it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/08

Game Release: Naruto: Ninja Destiny (US, 02/26/08)