Viz
Entertainment is well known for its anime series Naruto, which has been
a huge success and fans keep on flocking back to the series'
action-packed, humorous storyline. Naruto himself is a great
character, having the "fox demon" within him and the ability to unleash
this power. Ubisoft obviously saw this as an awesome gameplay idea and
now is feeding Naruto to the masses as a videogame.
Called Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, we had the opportunity to check out one
of the trailers shown at E3. It showed some pretty impressive visuals
and the art style is absolutely vivid and well-realized. Gorgeous
graphics represent the Village Hidden in the Leaves, as it is called,
and the character models themselves are cell-shaded. Some people may
not understand why they did this, but considering it is based off a
cartoon, it actually suits the game quite well. However, the entire
game is not cell-shaded, as the environments are incredibly impressive.
Throughout the trailer we got to see diverse scenery, including Naruto
jumping from tree to tree and fighting against such known opponents as
Gaara. This will definitely excite the anime masses, knowing how
popular Nartuo has become. Now we cannot wait to see what Ubisoft does
with such content. Grass is an actual moveable object, showcased
throughout the video, and of course it looks great.
We
got a chance to look at another mission of Naruto's, given by Kakashi
Sensei himself. Most fans will immediately recognize this character.
And while we mention characters, it's good to note that each of their
personalities has stayed true throughout the development of the game.
Sasuke is loved by Sakura while Naruto and Sasuke don't seem to get
along, even though they are on the same squad. Now back to the mission
that was given; Naruto was to navigate a raging river (that looked
stunning by the way) and had to handle certain obstacles in different
ways. For instance, he used his "jutsu," or ninja ability, to allow
him to walk on the water at one point during this fast pace "race"
through the river. When dealing with ledges and other obstacles, his
jutsu did come into play to help him complete the mission. He was
greeted by his squad, who congratulated him more or less, because
Sasuke and Naruto (like always) didn't see eye-to-eye.
An interesting side-quest mission had Naruto playing the role of
delivery boy in Konoha's ramen shop. First, Naruto was given two
options, before the mission began, to either eat the ramen noodles for
himself or, on the other hand, deliver them to customers. Of course,
which one sounds the most fun? The latter definitely! By using your
Ninja skills and watching out for the highlighted customers, Naruto ran
throughout the crowds guided by an arrow atop the screen. This made it
easier to navigate the huge area and also lead Naruto to the customers,
who were glowing green by the way. Interesting enough, however, was
that Naruto was unable to find all customers; the only way to them was
by climbing up the various buildings scattered throughout the lands.
What's
really interesting about the game, however, is the crowd's opinion of
Naruto; various emoticons above their heads indicate their mood towards
you, whether they dislike you or not. Well, we found out how much of a
role this played. As Naruto reached an unhappy customer quicker than
expected, his emoticon turned from sad to happy, showing that he was
pleased with the effort. Not only this, but we were told that people
that like Naruto can also help by giving out important clues so it is
important to get people to like you in the game. So gaining trust is
very important in the game and it seems to work well here. Since
Naruto struggled when growing up in the Anime series, it's great to see
an emphasis on this.
What's really neat is the size of the village; it is eight times larger
now than before hand and really showcases the brilliant magnitude of
the village. The art team worked especially hard to really make it
look as authentic as possible. Fans of the series will immediately
recognize key parts of the village. What's interesting is the way in
which you progress through the singleplayer and the village alike, in
that there are no invisible barriers to stop your progress. Instead,
Naruto can't access certain areas unless his Ninja skills are much
better than previous. The same could be said about Crackdown when
scaling buildings, so it's great to see this implemented into the game
world.
We
also got to see the versus mode, which allows two players to be pitted
against each other. Here, in this mode, you can choose your character
and as diverse the world is in Naruto, so are the characters and their
individual moves. However, the control scheme is kept pretty simple to
avoid any major difficulties, although you can block, have two modified
attacks, and also counter-attack. By doing a successful block, you can
instantly appear at the backside of you enemy, while in front of him
appears a log or "replacement jutsu." It's great to see this in the
game, as it really keeps to the Naruto tradition.
What's a nice feature in the game is what is called the "rage meter,"
which starts filling up after you have taken a considerable beating.
Once this meter is filled all the way, you are given the opportunity to
become invulnerable for a certain amount of time and take the action
away from your opponent. It's really nice to see a feature like this,
as the underdog gets a fighting chance, which we love to see in such
games. As Naruto fought, there were brief pauses when making contact
to place further thought on the action. It reminded us so much of the
anime series and it seems like the game is shaping up nicely.
During a fight, your can hold down the left trigger to go into a jutsu
stance, thus moving the analog sticks to initiate a certain jutsu. The
longer you are able to do this, the more powerful your attack will be,
but the risk is in the fact you are vulnerable to attack while trying
to "power up," as we'd call it. Each character will have their own
unique jutsu's, such as Kakash's lighting bolt jutsu, which forces the
players to tap on the A button like maniacs in order to either
successfully overpower your foe or to suppress the oncoming slaughter.
It's a real hoot and offers some great fun, but these jutsus are really
powerful and it will be interesting to see their balance when the full
retail version hits store shelves.
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is looking sharper than ever, with some hot
graphics and gameplay to match. Look forward to its release this
October.
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