N-Philes

Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3

Posted by Victor Chaves.

From the Land of the Rising Sun comes Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3, a beat-and-brawl fighter based on the world of a popular anime. Of course, we're talking about an import here, but one that you may want to give some consideration. Naruto 3 is easy to play, easy to master, and all around fun. And if you have never seen the anime, it doesn't mean that you'll be out of the loop when playing. The gameplay and cool special moves of each of the characters should keep any person into the game.

Naruto 3 has been repeatedly compared to Super Smash Bros. in gameplay, in that the controls are simple enough to dive right in, and yet surprisingly deep when learning the special intricacies of each character. The game also boasts a wide arrange of characters (40!), and exploring each person is as fun in itself as fighting. Basically, if you like Super Smash Bros, but tired of it and want something a bit different, Naruto 3 is definetly for you.

The basic fighting premise is alternating between B and A to come up with combos, B as a main attack and A dedicated to special moves. This is all mixed up with combo interrupts and super assaults that require filling your "Chakra Meter". The basic premise is when you attack or get or block a hit, you chakra raises (quicker when attacking), and when it hits 75% you can escape a combo with L or R, which makes you disapear and reappear behind your opponent for a counter attack. When the meter hits 100%, doing a super attack on an enemy will take out a nice chunk of their health (about 30-40%). Mix in some sidestepping, throwing, and guard-breaking, and you have yourself a great fighting scheme where playability and skillful mastery meet each other and shake hands. Although these controls may sound a bit complicated, picking up the controller and trying it out makes for the controls being a lot more simpler.

Each character is special, some character's super attacks take away chakra, some seal the chakra, and some take away both characters health! And although people who never saw the show will not understand, the loyalty that TOMY had put in to the game to each character is delicious. I can't tell you how many times I was happy to see familiar characters fighting with the same exact abilities faithfully represented from the show. For instance, Rock Lee unlocks his own potential "gates", which allow him to become more powerful with even better super attacks. However, like in the show, this process causes him to lose health to the point that if a character is skillful with dodging and attacking, they can wear him down to a loss even while he's blocking! Of course, because the gates keep his chakra level rising constantly, he can counter with several super attacks. It's these touches that show the faithfullness to the anime series that make this game even better than what it would otherwise have been.

Money is earned by fighting and making huge combos, which it turn can be used to unlock more characters and other freebies in the game's market. The game doesn't work you like a mule for it though, so if you and your friends play against each other for awhile, you will have enough money to unlock at least three characters in one sitting. Besides characters, there are levels, little special sound effects, bios, and much more. The sad thing is that it's all in Japanese, so unless you read Japanese, or find a menu translation, it's all trivial other than the characters and levels.

Naturo 3's 1-Player mode has four sub-modes, Multiplayer has five sub-modes, and there are another two modes that just keep adding on the greatness of this game. Probably the mode you will spend the most time in is four player fighting, which in terms of fun is about on par with Mario Kart 64. Needless to say, you will spend more than 50 hours playing Naruto 3, just working out kinks and strategies to give you the edge over other opponents. Fighting in this game is damn satisfying, and people will be hard pressed to find anything wrong with its balance.

There are a few things wrong in this game, but they are so nit-picky, I hesitate in calling them faults. As I mentioned before, the whole game is in Japanese, but navigating through the menus isn't hard, as Gamefaqs has great translations of all the menus in the game, and all story developments. So if you don't mind trying to memorize menus, then you don't have to worry. I have had many comments from friends saying that being on the receiving end of combos is so escape from that executing a combo is almost unfair, but I say nay to this, because there are plenty of ways to get out of attack strings. You just need to find the techniques for yourself, which makes this game that much deeper! My personal biggest problem would be that people will not know all the special moves of each character unless they do heavy experimentation, but that's a trait nearly every fighter ever made has in common. Another problem is that since its an anime-license, not knowing the series takes away from being comfortable in this game's world, not knowing the story, or what the heck is happening in Mission Mode. But the fighting makes up for that lacking ten-fold.

This game gets an N-Philes score of A.

Naruto 3 is a great game, and probably the only thing you should be sad about is the expense of actually being able to play it. It requires the freeloader to even play this Japan-only title, but luckily the freeloader is very easy to use, and certainly worth it for such a satisfying fighter.

Posted in: Reviews

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