Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 Review

The very first GameCube game I imported, back in 2005, was Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3. I was a pretty big Naruto fan at the time and it seemed a good test for how well imports would work with my chosen method of beating region protection, despite worries that an anime-based game would be crap. (I do occasionally learn from past experience, you know.) But – hooray! -  it didn’t just work perfectly. It turned out to be an entertaining fighting game that was sufficiently easy to pick up that it and its sequel became staples of game nights with Naruto-loathing friends for years to come.
Fast forward to 2010, and I’m now playing Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, part of a completely different gaming series with a completely different developer on a completely different console, but enjoyable for fairly similar reasons.
Y’see, Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is the latest in the previously PlayStation-centric Ultimate Hero series of Naruto games, and the first to go cross-platform with the 360. Fittingly, it’s also an excellent point for those unfamiliar with the series to jump in, spanning the entire animated plot of the most recent series – from the titular Naruto’s return to Konohagakure right up to his climactic battle with the obviously-evil-from-the-name Pain. I’m going to assume that means precisely sod all to any of you, so as a brief summary, the Naruto series focuses on the trials and tribulations of a ninja village in a vaguely anachronistic world as characters vie for power, get involved in age-old plots, and – in the case of most of the teenaged cast – mature. Life lessons mixed in with over-the-top action and the odd dash of murder, basically, which is a pretty teen-friendly combination when it’s done this well.
Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 skips most of this, choosing to cover the salient plot points rather than developing every single character that’s appeared in the show. As such, while players won’t get an education in all things Naruto, those unfamiliar with the show will quickly grasp who’s who and why this ninja is battling that ninja, and they’ll certainly get a rough sense for what’s going on – possibly even to the extent of caring about one or two of the characters by the end – while fans will get to see take part in their favourite battles and play through their favourite scenes.
This is all helped in no small part by the included scenes being rendered in utterly gorgeous cel-shaded 3D by developers who most definitely have an eye for art direction, and a few cutscenes – particularly near the game’s climax – almost rival an episode of the show in length. I can’t overstate how jaw-droppingly beautiful this game is, either: stop reading this and go look at the screenshots. Really. Go look, now.
Did you look? Right. Every character is uniquely animated, every special move is flashy and beautiful, and every location and character looks like a 3D version of their anime counterpart, with the only real issue being that the shading occasionally makes everyone look like they have orange stubble. A tad problematic, assuming “comedy” wasn’t on the checklist of emotions to feature in harrowing death scenes.
{PAGE TITLE=Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 Review Page 2}
The main thrust of the game lies in the Ultimate Adventure mode, which has you swap between the upbeat Naruto and his emo rival Sasuke as they wander a pseudo-RPG world. As you proceed through the game’s story the world expands further and further, and you can travel around freely, accepting side-quests and collecting components to unlock new items in the game’s shops. Good as this sounds, this comes with the disadvantage that walking from one village to another makes the world seem small, and more prominently, there’s a hell of a lot of walking and talking and not a huge amount of fighting. Unsurprising, given the game’s focus on following the actual plot rather than veering into the dangerous territory of filler, but a tad disappointing.
When you do get into a battle, you’re likely to enjoy it. You have full 3D movement, and the control setup is simple – one button for jumping, one for blocking, one for ranged attacks, one for melee attacks, and one for chakra, which acts as a modifier to activate special and supermoves. Combos rely on holding a direction on the analogue stick as you attack, so there aren’t any lengthy button combinations to memorise here. Things are spiced up by the use of weapons and items, mapped to the D-pad, and support characters can be dropped in to help out with a special move or two with R1 and R2.
Most people will pick it up within a few bouts. Control is slick and responsive, and characters play out similarly, the major differences being in the special moves, so there’s no getting hammered while you try to work out a new character’s basic attacks. It’s pleasingly simple to get to grips with, but not so simple that there’s no smug satisfaction in teleporting out of the way of your impending doom and then retaliating with a supermove of your own.
The spectacles of the Ultimate Adventure mode are the boss fights, which tend to pit you against gigantic foes that have unique attacks and usually require you to use your own character in slightly unorthodox ways. Occasionally, these will drop into cutscenes with the odd quick-time button press to maintain a sense of interactivity, although as the penalty for failing one of these is simply repeating that same quick-time button press, aggravation is kept to a minimum.
It’s a hard game to dislike, and there’s certainly plenty there – my Ultimate Adventure timer claims I’ve been playing for 20-odd hours and there are still a few side-quests to finish up, which will add more titles and character pictures for online play. Beating the adventure unlocks most of the characters for use in multiplayer and free play against the computer, with the last few found through repeated play of either of these modes, although it’s a tad disappointing to find that there’s no arcade mode or survival mode to pit your skills against AI of ever-increasing difficulty. Equally problematic is the online lag; of the games I’ve played, three or four have ended in disconnects, while the others had serious issues in response time.
Online play aside, we’re left with a simple and enjoyable arena fighter with utterly top-notch production values. The huge helping of fanservice makes it a must for Naruto fans, and anyone who has a few friends and fancies a brawler that’s not going to take years to get good at should certainly consider picking this up.