Status kensho Jan 2, 2025
What a unique game this was.
The anime game but made by a western team from Ubisoft, giving it the full "licensed movie game" treatment.
Now this is full of issues of course. It feels very cheap, 60% of the story is told via literal barely cut episodes from the anime, progression gets pretty repetitive...
But it's also unique! It …
What a unique game this was.
The anime game but made by a western team from Ubisoft, giving it the full "licensed movie game" treatment.
Now this is full of issues of course. It feels very cheap, 60% of the story is told via literal barely cut episodes from the anime, progression gets pretty repetitive...
But it's also unique! It makes great use of a very well realized explorable Konoha village and all of the music from the show.
It has a very funny mechanic where everyone in the village has an opinion of you that you can improve via sidiequesting, making them go from "fuck off fox" to "hi buddy!" In 5 minutes.
Admittedly , what grabbed me back in the day and what made me come back is the jutsu system, having you perform seals from the show with the 2 analogue sticks during combat, a really tactile mechanic that never gets old.
I used to like anime games, but it's become impossible to enjoy them. Bandai will appeal to the lowest common denominator to make the most bang for their buck, and they know fans will buy the same fighting game 60 times over, for each of the shows they adapt.
Cyberconnect2 had 2 good Naruto games and they've been reusing them for almost 20 years now, so while this game and its sequel are full of issues... At least they are different issues, and they try weird stuff that sometimes lands.
In a world where they aren't adapted by Bandai, anime games would be a gold mine of cool mechanics and ideas to play with...