Review: Naruto Rise of a Ninja (360)
The Little ninja that could finally finds his way to the Xbox 360, but will the transition be as smooth as it was on the PS2, or the Gamecube?
Story:
You are a young boy, outcast by the people his own village, but whom are forced to live with him by special order of the village's leader, because long ago the greatest ninja in the village imprisoned a 9 tailed demon fox inside of this young boy, sacrificing himself in the process, while many good men also died loosing their lives in the process, which all of the towns folk blame him for indirectly. Follow his life and story and he finds his own way though life and gain the respect of the village that despises you slowly but surly on your way to becoming the greatest ninja your village has ever known.
Graphics:
To be honest we all know what to expect when it comes to anime games now a days, a cell shaded look to capture the look of the anime. But where Rise of a Ninja sets its self apart is using the cell shaded graphics to perfectly capture the look and feel of every location featured in the first full 3 seasons of the anime in full out 3d. While all of this is wonderful and looks great there are some collision detection issues when it comes the leaves on the trees and bushes in certain areas, still this does not detract the experience at all, and the look, feel and authentic character animations will suck you into the experience.
Music:
fans of the show will be ecstatic to find that the anime soundtrack comes completely untouched to this game, and the sounds are spot on as they should be, and also make their way to the game almost flawlessly from the supporting anime, but sad to say that the dubbed voice cast from the American release of the Naruto anime found their way into this game. fortunately there will be a download that will allow a player to change the voice acting cast from English to Japanese, until then we are saddled with the weak American dubbing, that is not to say the American dubbing is entirely bad, but the completely missed 25% of the characters voice wise I would say including key characters like Jiraiya
Control:
well how can I describe whet Naruto Rise of Ninja feels like, it starts like a good GTA copycat and turns it's self into a game that plays much like Spiderman 2 did after Naruto learns more ninja arts to control, including walking up walls, walking on water, making multiple clones of your self, and summoning a giant toad to aid you. Mean while the fighting scenes control much like the Naruto fighting games on the PS2, meaning you have a good base for combat on top of the already interesting game play make this amazingly fun to play, with out the majority of the frustrations that were present in a another game like Spiderman 2
Design:
What I find the most interesting that that for a game that is based on a Japanese anime, that the all Canadian team of Ubisoft Montreal have shown more spirit in this release than all of the previous Naruto games combined and those were made by Japanese companies with the aid of the original creation team. But this game is far from perfect in that there are still clipping issues a plenty in this game, as well as slight spots of collision detection, and the camera can sometimes get in the way even in the occasional fight scene but primarily in close quarters, that said the game it's self is amazingly fun, and serves as a perfect set up for a sequel that will hopefully fix the bugs but improve upon this release..
Naruto fans this game is for you, and will appeal for those gamers looking for a good distraction game, though if you hate the series than this story will not appeal to you
Graphics
8/10
Game play
8/10
Sound
7/10
Fun factor
9/10
Tilt
8/10
Average score
8.0
Naruto Rise of a Ninja (360):
Pros:
Fun game play
Surprisingly large a mount of environments
The type of game Spiderman 3 should have been
Great fighting system
Cons:
Camera angles can be a pain some times
There are a few collision diction issues