An in-depth two in one review of one the best anime-base game series ever made.
Naruto Shippuuden(NS for short) and Narutimate Accel 2 (NS2 for short) are the two I played the most. And I'm happy to say that it's the best Naruto series ever made and Namco Bandai has done an amazing job with the fighting system. This game is the kind of game that you can play versus with a friend for a whole afternoon, and it never gets old.
I don't have much to say about the graphics so this is going to be short. The manga inspiredgraphics fits perfectly with the game. The characters have very smooth and detailed animations, the ninpos are very stylish, and the ougi attacks are downright awesome to watch. The graphics in NS didn't change a lot compared to its predecessors, but if you played NS2, you'll know everything got a whole lot prettier. The chakara gathering effect is much more detailed, the background has plenty of new added 3D effects, and the new characters are great as well.
When it comes to the plot of the Ultimate Ninja series, I usually ignore them. Because the game is not a story driven game by any means, the single player story mode is usually tedious, shallow and boring (and very annoying in Japanese). But please I beg of you all, don't judge the series by its single player and storyline, because the developers are just sticking this mode in so the games don't seem so unfinished(no offence). What you should do is play through the singleplayer ASAP, unlock the characters in versus, and NEVER EVER touch the single player again. Hell I didn't even play the single player of NS2, I just put in a code to unlock the characters. So I have absolutely nothing to comment on the plot itself, because I play the Japanese version so even if I wanted to understand the story I couldn't.
The core fighting mechanics of the ultimate ninja series hasn't changed through time. One button+D Pad direction combination, ougi, projectiles and air dash, for defensive manoeuvre you have block, Kawarimi no jutsu, backdash, and recovery. To master these techniques require pin point timing, fast reflex, and lots of practice. Backdash and recovery are two techniques that are very essential to surviving a battle, but recovery can be very hard to pull off and beginners may not even realized its existence at first. These seemingly shallow controls will make many people see this game as a mindless button-masher at first. But in fact, the mechanic's sophistication is no less impressive than the most famous of fighting games. The offensive techniques have a nice rock-paper-scissors nature to it, where combo>air dash>projectiles>combo, then adding air combo, shuriken cancel, air back dash cancel, back dash cancel, ougi combo etc adds a whole new dimension of gameplay to the mix. When the series reached Shippuuden, the combat became much more combo heavy, combos can easily smack enemies to walls, leaving them wide open for more combos or ougi attacks. That is when the defensive techniques come into play, when you're under attack by a combo streak, you must do all you can to minimise damage, block the incoming blows, if that fails try using Kawarimi no jutsu to get out, and if that still fails, execute a recovery to end the opponents combo streak. All of these require quick thinking, agile fingers, and very swift reflexes. When two skilled players meet, one wrong move may drain a huge chunk from your life bar, which makes the game breath-taking and satisfying.
Now that the fighting mechanic is covered, let's talk about the intensity of the battles themselves. The maps are big, with items hidden in different places and some even have cliffs. Players may choose to simply take the opponent out there and there, but when things go wrong, ninjas rely on tactics. Wall run, turtle, hunt for items, these activities are sometimes suicidal, but when used by a skilled player, they can change the course of battle. And of course one can always switch off items if they think the battle gets too luck oriented.
Now let's talk about the characters, and there are a lot of them. They are generous enough to include all the Naruto characters from the old series as well as new grown up versions of them. At first, they may seem to be just the same character with different sprites and moves, but in fact every character has hidden stats that may hugely affect the outcome of the battle. For example, Guy and Lee has very fast recovery time when they are blocking enemy attacks, which makes them less easy to pin down and more capable of counterattack. Naruto has evidently more chakara and fasters chakara gathering speed, which implies a whole different strategy. And with so many moves for a single character, there're always great combinations and tactics that will ensure victory.
However, with its battalion of characters, balancing problem comes along as well. There are quite a few poorly balanced characters that have over-powered moves, godly stats, or just down right cheap tactics. Some can be countered by understanding the character or superior skill, but a few are just impossible to beat if the tactics are right. In response to this, local tournaments usually ban these characters. And I already have quite a few of these cheap characters in my mind. And NS2 included this new support character system, which every skilled player in my country abandoned 1 week after the game's release, the support characters are horribly balanced, they can dish out huge amount of damage with absolutely no penalties, and they generally ruins the entire match. Some people still argue that support characters are balanced and having 2 characters on screen quickens the pace of the battle. If you guys ever hear somebody say this, use Orochimaru with his healing-ninja sidekick as support character, and you'll be having that noob begging for mercy in minutes. It's a failed attempt to add a twist to the game, and to be honest, we don't need it. All in all, balancing is the biggest flaw within the series' gameplay, but it's rather understandable considering the number of characters involved. Once you get past this flaw, the gameplay is almost perfect.
The sound in the game is also something I failed to notice, the original voice acting is excellent, the sound effects are loud and satisfying with multiple sound for explosions, shuriken, and ninpos. And I have said this in all of my Japanese game reviews, please for the love of god, DON'T JUDGE BY ENGLISH VOICE ACTING!!! The English dub for the naruto anime was bad enough, it wouldn't be much different if the guys performed for the game either. The background music, like I said before, was one thing I failed to acknowledge for a long time. But in fact, there're quite a few good music pieces.
So what else can I say about this series. It's by far the best anime-related game I have ever played, I don't know if the developers were going for such an interesting and unique fighting mechanics but they sure did it. It's a very fun, fast paced game with a very deep fighting system, and if you can find a player who knows what he's doing, you can play this game for a whole afternoon without even realizing it. My thanks to this series, it granted me more than of 400 hours of exhilarating experience during my toughest time, and I hope this wonderful series will go on and on.