"A Great Tactics Game...Believe it!!!"

Naruto: Konoha Senki is a tactics game for the GBA. For those of you who have played FF tactics or similar games this will be easy for you to pick up but still fun to play. Even if you are a beginner to tactics games, you will still be fine. The game takes the first few missions to explain the basic ideas. Now onto the review.

Story: 10/10
The story stays true to the anime, which will delight all those Naruto fanatics out there. The characters all use moves from the manga/show (Naruto uses Shadow Clones, Sasuke uses the Sharingan, etc.).

Gameplay: 8/10
For a tactics game, Naruto: Konoha Senki brings out a lot of good ideas. It stays faithful to the anime/manga in terms of character techniques and missions, which can be fun for Naruto fans.

The first few missions start out slowly (Learning to move, attack, use items, etc.). After about 4-5 of these intro missions, the real game begins. Most missions involve defeating opponents, but others have you rescuing cats or protecting a boy from an attack of bees. The variety in the missions makes the game more enjoyable than other tactics games.

The level up system is good also. After you complete a mission, all characters get experience for completion, for defeating enemies, and for finishing the mission within a certain number of turns. After you level up, your stats increase, and you get a skill point, which you can use to learn new moves, improve old ones, or learn a new skill. The skills tend to be passive, like improving stats, or being able to walk over water.

However, the battle system is much like other tactics games (Battle is turn based, movement and attack range is done on a grid, etc.). The battle animations are nice, and make the game more interesting to play. Also, the game allows your characters to equip ninja weapons and tools before the mission, and you are allowed to use them each once a battle. These include the basic hp/mp recovery items, along with weapons you can use to attack with. The ninja weapons are typical of the show, including Kunai, Shebon, the Fuuma Shuriken, and even traps. Lastly, even the jutsus (spells) are different from other tactics games. The jutsus have a lot of variety, and easily break away from the basic Tactics game spell standard (Healing, Damage, Stat Ups).

Graphics: 9/10
Great graphics for a GBA game. However, the animations for some of the jutsus are a bit crude, especially the generic jutsus that anyone can use. Still, the overall graphics are good.

Sound: 7/10
The sound never annoyed me over the course of the game. This is a good thing :). However, they aren't going to win any awards either.

Replay:
I can't really judge a replay value of a game, because there are very few games I have played more than once. I can say that this game is very linear, but there are many different characters/skills to develop, so it is up to you.

Buy Or Rent:
I would go with buying. I don't think you can beat this game in just a few days, unless you spend a lot of time on it. Buying gives you more time to enjoy anyway :).

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/06