Naruto

I don't watch much anime anymore. Don't what it is that turned me off. Maybe it was the fact that all the plots started to be the same. Or maybe it was going to Anime Expo and seeing the guys dressed in Sailor Moon outfits, and wanting to make sure I wasn't ever, EVER associated with those people. Come to think of it, that's probably it right there. In any case, I haven't really gotten into any anime lately, save for three, Witch Hunter Robin (which has finished, and was excellent.), Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, and the anime that this game licensed, Naruto.

There's just something about all the kid ninjas, and their uniquely different powers that intrigues me. It's also interesting that the series focuses on the kids mainly, but in the background there are these adults who have exponentially higher levels of their powers, so you see the kids trying to grow into that level of strength. It's put together rather well, and so I was hoping this game that drew from the series would be able to take advantage the things that made the game enjoyable. After all...it was the #2 game in Japan for a while.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Tomy looked at the cast of characters in this game and decided, "Hey we have a bunch of people here...we should make a fighting game." And so they did. Like every other freaking anime game out there. There's a Dragonball fighting game. There's a Sailor Moon beat 'em up. There's a GUNDAM fighting game. Look you morons, people like the anime for the CHARACTERS! Give us a style of game where we can actually interact with them...you know, like maybe an Action RPG? Maybe a nice strategy RPG? I mean if you're going to just go the beat up route, 2D side scrolling is over...and you can't just make another Street Fighter. At least try and have it be a little newer, a la Mystic Heroes, or Dynasty Warriors.

But seriously, a 2D side scrolling beat 'em up? It worked for River City Ransom, but that had RPG elements, and a story. That was also 1991! Well, Tomy followed the path of least effort, and decided to make Naruto vs. Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja for the Game Boy Advance. The story is THAT involving. How does it play? Like crap...I mean what you'd expect when they managed to put all that effort into the design?

When starting the game, you can choose to either fight as the anime's namesake, Uzumaki Naruto, or his main ally/rival Uchiha Sasuke. If you beat the game with both characters, you'll unlock a mode where you can play as their team leader from the anime, Hatake Kakashi. Controls are simple. Down will crouch, double tap forward or backwards to dash. The A Button will jump. B Button will attack. Holding the button will allow you perform one of your characters jutsus. R throws projectiles, and if you hold it, it uses up a small bit of Chakra to use the scroll ability. Holding R will also gradually refill your Chakra gauge.

I don't know why the characters in the anime are able to jump super high, and yet, Tomy decided that you shouldn't even get the ability to double-jump. You also can't block, which really, really sucks. On top of that, there are lots of little pits and such, but the control on your characters, namely Sasuke, is so loose that you'll end up moving where you don't intend to quite a bit.

There are 7 stages, each with 2 boss characters that you'll have to fight. The story doesn't seem to really match up with the manga or anime as Haku and Zabuza are still around during stages 6 and 7, and they die far before you meet some of the characters you'll fight at the end. Also, you fight Temari and Kankuro, but not Gaara...who is the main character from their team...and he's on the freaking BOX! Anyway, you'll basically romp through some standard generic platformer levels with little minor obstacles and you can collect the little Konoha Leaf symbols in order to unlock a Sound Test mode at the end of the game. Everything in the game is on extreme cake difficulty though.

Throughout the level you'll meet up with side characters like Sakura, Guy, and Hinata who will heal you character or give them extra lives, but not help you actually fight. Apparently, they're just hanging out waiting for you to show up so they can hook you up with rice balls or something. I don't know. This is poor game design at its finest.

The boss fights aren't much harder than the levels. I only got killed by 3 characters. Shikamaru caught me with his Shadow Clone jutsu, which did pretty major damage once his teammates jumped in to pound on me. Akamaru cheaped me while I was pounding on his little dog clone. I was pummeling him in midair, when all of a sudden the jutsu screen displays and the two of them team up attack me. You can't team up on someone when one of your teammates is flying backwards through the air! The only other guy that killed me was the last boss Orochimaru, and that's because he's cheaper than everyone else in the game put together. In any case, for every single boss fight, I just ran up to them, and pounded on them with the B button a bunch. It was sad. I still beat the entire game in less than 2 hours, and I'm pretty sure I could beat the game with Kakashi in less than 45 minutes. I mean, hell, you're only allowed 5 minutes a level/boss fight.

While most Game Boy Advance games look like they are something from the days of the SNES, or sometimes even the Playstation 1, Naruto for the GBA comes off looking like it was made for the original NES. The characters do have interesting animations, but the only time you'll ever see half of their attack animation frames is during the pause when an enemy boss executes one of their jutsus. Nothing impresses me visually at all about this game. Put this side by side with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and Naruto's the one who's going to be feeling all the sadness.

The sound is also nothing exceptional. You have a few digitized voice clips that could be the actual voice actors, but they're all so short and distorted it wouldn't really matter if they were. Music is bland, and the background sounds are straight from the 80s...which is bad when the game is trying to pass itself as a game for the 2000's. (We never did get around to naming this decade, did we?)

The game has no replay value, and doesn't take nearly enough advantage of the license it has. Granted, it does make some use of it, as if you take the Naruto license away from this game, it isn't worth even glancing at. Who do I have to send this review to over at Tomy so they can make a decent game from this license. This is a huge slap in the face to fans of the series. I mean, even the Hamtaro game was better than this. They can claim that they had nothing to work with. How are you going to make a game with a bunch of hamsters? But Naruto has upwards of 20 great characters to use in a game and THIS is how you decide to use them all?! That's just being lazy!

This is one of those games that's just going to stick in my throat for a while. Tomy didn't spend any time at all in trying to make a good game, they just wanted to get something out there while the anime and manga following was at a high. Fans, don't delude yourself into thinking this is actually a good game, or all you're going to get is a really horrible sequel that has all of the apathy that this game had. Write letters to Tomy and the creators of the anime and let them know how much you think this game sucked, and tell them to make a better one. If it comes over to the US, make a stand, and show them how much you hate the game by not buying it. It is not worth your money, it is not worth your time.