Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress

"Here we go, another Naruto game..."

I don't have a pleasant experience playing a Naruto game in the past; please take note of my previous review for Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles to understand why. Recently, I bought a PSP and I needed some games for it. I saw Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 on the store shelf and realized that it was a fighting type game. I know and heard that these types of games were ok and decent so I decided to buy the game to see what it was about.

Story:

A floating castle, with a name that I cannot spell or pronounce, has appeared over the Hidden Leaf Village. This thing is notorious for sucking the life out of people and destroying the lands that had appeared on. So, it is up to Naruto and his friends to save the day. It also has melodramatic moments and bits of humor to keep the story going and intriguing. From what I can judge, this story line takes place before Part II and is basically filler. Compare to most filler from previous games and the TV series, this has a decent story that has just enough to keep me and most Naruto fans of the series happy. Anyone else will probably be turned off since you are required to actually watch or read the series to understand most everything.

8 out of 10!

Graphics:

The game looks nice. The battle fields look great and the characters design are impressive for PSP standards. There is no slow down and the action moves right along smoothly. The action sequences where the characters pull off special moves are also done quite well. Heck, the game looks and reminds me of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja for PS2. Which reminds me; some of the stages seem to be taken right from that game! It couldn't have hurt them to redo some of those areas.

As for cut scenes, there aren't many things that seem to be animated. Most of the time, the cut scenes just have character stills with 4 different stills for each separate character to represent his or her emotions. It isn't really that impressive or mind blowing, but the stills are drawn decently enough.

8 out of 10!

Sound:

There isn't much to say in the whole sound department. All the voice actors for the English dub are here, so you can enjoy or hate (Depends on the individual) when the characters are talking. As a bonus, all the original voice actors for the Japanese original are also include, so people who prefer the characters to speak in their original form will get kick out of this inclusion to the game.

As for when the character speak during battles, it just sounds goofy and downright silly. It seems like new actors were hired to voice the characters during battle. It just sounds that bad. About the soundtrack, there are some old tunes from the show and some new ones as well, but I just don't feel like the soundtrack is all that great.

7 out of 10!



Controls & Game Play:

The game controls work very well and the game play is enjoyable. You pretty much hit combos, smash through your enemies' defense, and land finishers with ease after you get a good understanding of how the game works. Secret Technique moves are quite good as well and can end a battle in a heartbeat sometimes. There are a couple of things to complain about though. In some moments, it seems like you cannot defend against your opponent's barrage of attacks which sets you up for getting butt smashed to the ground. Also, in some certain moments, it seems like you cannot even select certain weapons you obtain while playing the game. While secret techniques are great moves, sometimes hitting your opponent with one can be tricky if they are blocking your attacks and some just don't even work even if you land a direct hit on your adversary. On a last note, in some combos, you can't turn around to defend yourself. So, if you are in the middle of a big combo and your opponent gets out of it, you just can't turn around until the combo is over to fight back.

8 out of 10!

Game Modes:

There are six game modes in the game and a point system too. For tasks you complete, you get points depending on the difficultly, how quick you did it, if you ended the battle with a Secret Technique, and many other things as well depending on the task.

In the story mode, you climb a 100 story castle. There are many types of rooms you'll enter as you climb for the top, from quizzes to battle rooms. Occasionally you'll reach drama rooms which provide more details for the plot such as the castle's back story or when you'll run into characters. Other rooms include treasure rooms, where you can obtain new equipment, and healing rooms which heal and change your party. You can also unlock characters to battle in CPU mode depending on how you complete the story. There isn't much else to say about the story mode.

Heroes mode is where you build teams to fight against other teams in matches for points and unlock characters. There are four main levels for this mode; they are easy, normal, hard, and insane. They pretty much speak for themselves. Each team also has special abilities and skills that can push you in the right or wrong direction in battles depending on the team you face. It is an interesting mode, but I find it kind of difficult.

VS CPU mode is your basic match set up. You pick you character, your opponent, and your stage to fight in. You can also change the character's clothing; charka (If you don't know what that is nonfans of the series, think of it as your power bar that gives you strength to pull off special moves), how often items appear the game, change the time for how long a match lasts, or change the handicap to make your opponent stronger or weaker. There is also random select so in case your lazy and don't feel like picking out your own character and CPU challenger. This is great mode to play right away if you haven't play a game like this before since it can help you train and practice for the story mode and heroes mode.

Wireless Mode allows you to battle against the people online for regular matches or team fights. A good feature is game sharing which allows a friend to play against you, even if they don't own the game. I haven't dived much into this feature since I can't find anyone to play.

Ninja Road is where all those points you earn come into play. For every 100 points you earn, you walk 10 meters along this path in the Hidden Leaf Village, earning videos, pictures, sound clips, and stuff like that you can enjoy. Naruto's House is the last mode. This is where you can view everything you collected on the Ninja Road. There is 127 items that you collect that you'll be able to view here, so there is a lot of work to do.

With all of this said and done, there are plenty of modes and options here to keep you occupied for quite some time.

9 out of 10!

Replay Value:

Like I mention, there is 127 items to collect in the game and you'll need a lot of points to collect all of that stuff. This will require you to fight a lot of people and replay a lot of the modes in the game. There are also settings in the option menu that allow you to change the settings on the opponents you fight in the game, which can be fun to do if you want a replay the story mode on a harder setting, giving you more chances to earn points towards all of those items. However, the items aren't really required and serve more as bonuses for your hard work. It would have been nicer if you got things such as new modes, characters, or different features that can change the battle in CPU mode.

8 out of 10!

That's pretty much the entire game. There is a lot of things here to enjoy and spend you free time on. Naruto fans, like me, will enjoy this game and some people looking for an average fighter with some interesting features might want to look into this game. Though, there aren't many things people will want to check out if they aren't fans of Naruto or fighters.

I say buy it, but you may want to rent it first to see if you'll like this. If you like the first game, you'll probably like this one as well. Now I'll crunch all the numbers up and see what the official score is… divide this by this… add that… scratch that… round that…. Alright! Here's the score:

8 out of 10!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/08

Game Release: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (US, 06/24/08)