This game is a high level fighting game. 5 page in Word review right here. Know the truth.
For the record, Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 2 is Naruto: Clash of Ninja! 2.
From that point, I bought 2 in August of 2004, where I played the game religiously. In total, I easily achieved over 80 hours on Naruto 2. Mastering of combos was key, as was learning to sidesteps Kawarimi's, roll, tech roll, and basically learning the mindset of the various opponents at Game Junkie, my local store located in West Chester, Ohio and at www.gamejunkie.com
Amazing how the only best selling series over Naruto at that store is Madden. Madden has sold over 500 games at last count. Naruto has sold over 270.
270 for an import series. Nuts.
Anyway, I continued to play Naruto when Naruto 3 came out. 21 hours straight unlocking everything to find that Itachi is the most broken character in the games history, well above Sharingan Sasuke and Orochimaru from Naruto 2.
I played Naruto 3 in circuit at Game Junkie's FNL, winning 16 doubles tournaments and 4 singles tournaments. I placed at Ikasucon 2005 with second in singles and third in doubles (my teammate doesn't know what an airthrow is).
In total, 4 hours every Friday, around 30 Fridays attended, plus 80 saved hours on my account, 40 on my friends, I easily played Naruto 3 for 240 hours.
Yeah... I have no life. I admit it.
Anyway, Naruto 4 came out. I accumulated 36 hours straight. I easily played the game for about 20 hours at FNL's, and my team won the doubles tournament at Game Junkie. I won 45 bucks and a sweet trophy. I got 4th in singles, and a Crunch bar.
Anyway, so as you can clearly see, I am an expert on this game.
Alright, now, the gameplay.
Some Soul Calibur will say that Soul Calibur is better than Naruto. Some Melee people will say that Melee is better than Naruto. And it is vice versa all the way.
Let me tell you that Naruto has had many people convert over from Soul Calibur and Melee.
Melee fans love the speed of the gameplay and how it is another real tag team doubles game. Soul Calibur fans are more a fan of complexity in Soul Calibur, but find Naruto to be complex enough due to the reactions to the many situations.
Naruto's combo system is more complex than Melee's, but less complex than Soul Calibur's.
Some people say you can B mash in this game with characters like One Tail Kyuubi Naruto, Naruto, Lee, and Sasuke. If you do that, I will easily Back-B counter or sidestep out of it. You will be punished for such unsafe combos.
This is how the game is similar to Dead or Alive: counters. Almost every character has a Back-A counter that results in either a stun or a counter-attack. Every character except for Curse Seal 2 Sasuke has a Back-B counter which results in a combo beginning in the middle of an opponents combo to break through an opponents combo to start your own combo or small counter-attack. Notice that there are only a few points when a back-b will succeed. One cannot use a Back-B whilst in the air. Some Back-B's will cause you to literally fly over the opponent at points of a combo. And some Back-B's will fail at safe points of a combo.
There are also multiple times when you can sidestep around parts of a combo to avoid hits. I do this a lot. I am famous for sidestepping around a whole combo of Zabuza's.
Air-A at parts of a combo for characters with air shanks end in you shanking out of an opponents combo. Though you cannot start a combo off of that, the momentum can be switched to your favor.
Some characters have counters that are low attacks. Kiba's Down-A results in a momentary status that if he gets hit, his dog flies and hits the opponent. Kiba's Down-B results in him spinning at a ridiculously low level, and an A after that has his dog spin behind him.
Amazingly enough, that Down-BA can often start into a string of combos. That is a major part of Naruto. Although there is a combo list with at least 15 combos for almost all characters (some combo lists go up to 40), most major combos are strings of strings.
For instance, the basic fundamental safe combo for Regular Sasuke is BBBB. From BBBB, he can either press Y for a cancel (which I will go into in a minute), continue with three more B's, use Up-B to use a piledriver manuever, press X for a special if only three of the B's connected, stop the combo and start over another combo with more attacks, or go BBX. BBBB, BBX easily does 65% damage, at least.
That is the basic fundemental combo system of Naruto. It isn't about button mashing a major combo. Button mashers are weak. Don't listen to these Gamespot reviewers. Complex combo users easily defeat large combo users.
When it comes to combos and juggling, the juggle game was revolutionized with the additions of cancels. Basically, any combo you are performing in which your player is on the ground, and your opponent is in the air, you can press Y and go into another combo, a counter position such as Back-A (popular with Neji and his 360 degree Kaiten), or sidestep. It also makes a pretty cool little flash of blue light around your character.
Now, onto character movement. Movement is done with the analog stick only in Naruto 4. This is a major drawback for many players, but I used the analog stick to begin with. You move the analog stick up to jump, backwards to move backwards, and forwards to move forwards. You can double tap and hold the analog stick forward to run forward (many characters go into a ninja run stance). You can double tap and hold the analog stick to backflip. To slowly walk backward, move the analog stick backwards slowly. To slowly move forward, move the analog stick forwards slowly. The controls are very intuitive for movement.
For the record, by slowly moving backwards and by just standing still, a character blocks.
Now, onto sidesteps. A player can perform a sidestep with the L and R trigger buttons. The L button cause you to sidestep to the left. The R button causes you to sidestep to the right. When you are running, you can sidestep with the L and R buttons. This is a recent addition to the Naruto: GNT series.
Specials are what people enjoy watching the most when they first start. Specials are performed with X when you are at maximum chakra. A basic universal combo for a special is BBX. Every character can use BBX, except for a few minor exceptions (like with everything in this game). There is an entrance hit that goes into the special. The special is unblockable. The special goes into a minor 10-15 second cinematic cutscene. Specials can do as low as around 25% to as high as 70% (the 70% one has an interesting story to it, I will get to that). The average for special strength is around 35%.
Now, the 70% special is Rock Lee's Ura Renge. By using Back-X transformation twice, he transforms into 3rd gate Rock Lee (Kyu Mon Kai is 3rd Gate Activate in Japanese, it is 3rd). With 3rd gate Rock Lee, his chakra bar goes up infinitely and his life goes down slowly. His special teleports him to the opponent for the Shadow Dance kick entrance, like in the series.
For the record, I did not say specials were not capable of being dodged. If they were, I would not be playing this game. To put it simply, many specials can be jumped, sidestepped, or even interrupted with normal hits. If you stand there and do nothing, are hit at wakeup (Wakeup specials can be dodged, contrary to popular belief. It just takes a little practice to get the hang of a quick sidestep, jump, or low attack), or are put into the special through a combo chain such as BBX or something complicated like Naruto's BBBB, BAABX, they can be dodged.
Now, alternate specials. Many characters have an air special. You guessed it. You perform the air special by pressing X whilst in the air. Air specials are like Temari's Twin Kamaitachi, Sasuke's Housenka blast, and Tenten's scrolls. Alternate ground specials are performed with Down-X. For instance, Naruto's Rasengan is done with Down-X, while his Naruto Rendan is performed with X.
For the record, Down-X specials generally do more, but can not be entered into a combo as easily.
Sharingan, regular Kyuubi Naruto, and The Gates of Hachimontoku are activated via Back-X with their various chakra costs.
Now, Kawarimi. Kawarimi, or Replace Technique, is performed by using L or R whilst being hit by an opponent. It costs 75% chakra. By using L Kawarimi, you appear behind your opponent. By using R Kawarimi, you use an attack against your opponent with the Kawarimi.
Each character can throw using Y. Most throws hurl your opponent into the air. With proper positioning, one can combo off of a throw. Some characters have an air throw performed with the Y button.
The A button generally a more heavy or jutsu attack button. A is shuriken or kunai for most characters.
Directional buttons change up combos. Combos, in many cases, are started with B, Back-B, Forward-B, Down-B, Up-B, A, and Down-A
Characters can attack whilst in the air or while running. Air-A usually throws shuriken. Air-B is usually a melee attack. Running-A is a charging melee attack, as is Running-B. For many characters, Air-A is a melee attack, and Running-A is a running teleport.
In multiplayer, 1 player starts off fighting 2 player, and 3 player starts off fighting 4 player. To switch targets, you press the Z button. In tag team, 1 player would face the highest numbered player left that is not on his team. For example, if the team is 1 and 2, 1 would face 3, 2 would face 4.
Singles and Doubles are generally the areas that are played the most. While singles allows for extreme technical play, doubles allows for mass double teaming and team playing. I enjoy chaining combinations with my partner in doubles, and doing my own thing in singles.
Keep in mind, however, it balances out, since your opponent has a partner, and you can always Kawarimi to get out of a jam.
Three on three is different. You switch using the Z button for a 25% chakra cost. When all your characters are at maximum chakra, you can perform a team special using the Forward-X button.
That is it for gameplay. Obviously, there are many things you can discover that I have not told you in this review. But why would I spoil all the fun?
I realize that the gameplay is not as complex as other games, but it is pretty darn complex on its own in its own way. To be high level against many players, you must know how to use your character and how to defeat your opponents character. You need to know where to Back-B, when to Kawarimi, when to sidestep, etc.
For the reason that there are other games with more complex fighting systems, such as Soul Calibur, I am going to rate the gameplay at a 9. It easily has more complex gameplay than many other games, and the speed will catch some people off guard.
Now, onto the graphics. Naruto: Clash of Ninja is a 3 year old game. It was released in April 2003 in Japan, and then March 2006 in America. Of course the graphics are going to be considered “bad” on a 3 year old game. In reality, Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! Was the first cell-shaded fighting game in Japan.
Now take that, and put it 3 years later. That is the product you get with Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 4. The environments are amazing. The Valley of the End is portrayed perfectly. Kunai and Shuriken glow when you throw them. The character models are modified between each game to increase the appearance, and the character models are at a high level from the fact that this is a refined product. The real time specials are colorful and entertaining. Kyuubi Naruto glows with Kyuubi Chakra when in that form and it is simply beautiful. Sharingan users glow with electricity when in that particular form. Gated Lee and Gai have glowing red wrists when they strike the opponent. 3rd gate Lee completely changes appearance when in that form. Cutscene specials are entertaining to watch, though Naruto: Narutimett Hero 3 has better cutscene specials.
Oh yeah, and there are about 30 stages.
Overall, in todays world, this is easily an 8 in my opinion.
The sound is amazing. The music is very catchy, unlike its counterpart on the Playstation 2. The Valley of the End theme is epic, like the night time rooftop theme. The characters are voiced by their counterparts from the anime. This is a good thing for the Japanese game, since the voice actors are actually good in that version. Sounds are heard for connected hits for the most part.
Sound is definitely a 9. I have to say that with such excellent music, it doesn't matter if the characters are voiced in Japanese. And the Japanese voice actors now how to convey emotion, unlike their American counterparts.
Also, if you are turned off by the fact the game is in Japanese, don't worry. The menus are very intuitive with pictures. It is easy to memorize the menus after usage.
The value of this game is high for me. I play this game a lot as you probably already know. If you get someone to play with who wants to play this game a lot, you will play it a lot. Four is the best for amount of players to play with. When you go to a Friday Night tourney place with 20 people every Friday, trust me, you will enjoy the mass amount of players in an awesome community.
Now, if you aren't in that sort of community, like a lot of you unfortunately are, make one. We made a community from almost scratch here in Southern Ohio. Communities have popped up in Chicago, Iowa, California, Texas, OSU, Toledo, Rutgers, Louisiana, etc. It is becoming big, despite being an import.
However, if you are alone, the value does drop.
So, make friends (a little easier for me since I have moved 3 times), be somewhat social with other kids who are interested, and have fun. 9 out of 10 since it does get boring alone.
As you can probably guess of as to why, reviewers tilt is a 10.
Now, if you wish to play Naruto, I highly encourage you go onto WiLLvolution.com. WiLLvolution has multiple match videos, combo videos, video tutorials, character FAQs, etc. You can get expert help on that website. You can also shout out to people to see if anyone is available to play in your area.
Then, you are set.
Also, GameJunkie.com is also a good place for Naruto. That is where I am for Naruto, and it is an amazing community. I will go out on the limb and say we have the best doubles environment, and possibly one of the top singles areas.
You can easily order the game from Game Junkie, Play-Asia.com, or Lik-Sang.com. You will need a freeloader, which is 20 bucks.
So, it is a costly game, but it is worth it.