Naruto is a popular Japanese manga comic book and anime cartoon series.  Naruto and his pals are young ninjas in training who rely on their special powers and teamwork to defeat their enemies.  But mostly they just stare and yell at each other.  Now you can join in on their adventures-in the form of a one-on-one 3-D fighting game-with Naruto: Ninja Destiny for the Nintendo DS.

Naruto: Ninja Destiny is similar to other fighters like Tekken, or more accurately, the 3-D Naruto fighting games on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube.  Choose your favorite Naruto character and duke it out, ninja style, one-on-one with an opponent.  Follow the events in Story Mode (though it’s only comprehensible if you are very familiar with the Naruto universe), or just clobber on opponents one by one in Vs. Mode.

Play control is simple to learn.  Use the DS buttons to attack, block, and jump.  Players can also use ninjitsu to teleport behind your opponent for a quick attack.  By landing blows, fighters build up “Chakra” and when the “Chakra meter” is full, unleash a special attack to dish out mega damage on your enemy. Tap the touch screen to use power-ups to refill your energy and boost attack power.

Unfortunately, not all is well is Naruto-land.  The game uses cel-shaded graphics to reflect the cartoony nature of the show, but because of the DS’ limited 3-D capabilities, the effect just comes off looking stilted and barren.  Plus the voices are all muffled.  More importantly, the fighting gameplay mechanics just aren’t that compelling and only die-hard Naruto fans will enjoy Ninja Destiny.

Kid Factor:

Naruto: Ninja Destiny is rated T for Teen for cartoon violence, but they only show toon fighters punching and kicking each other.  No blood or gore.  If you’re OK with your kids watching the Naruto TV show or reading the comic, they’ll be OK playing this game, no matter how old they are.  Reading skill is necessary as the story mode is told with only text.

This isn’t really related to the game, but I have to tell a story about my family and Naruto.  There’s an artsy fartsy theater in town that shows anime movies sometimes.  That’s where I go see Dragon Ball and Miyazaki movies like Howl’s Moving Castle before they hit DVD.  My little brothers LOVE Naruto, so they were all excited to see a movie of it at that theater.  I couldn’t go that day because I had to work late, so my dad took them.  I warned my dad that he may not like Naruto.  I really couldn’t imagine my dad really enjoying any type of anime, so I prepared him for the worst.  But the next day when I called him and asked if he survived the movie, he said that he liked it and it had a good message at the end.  So if my dad can enjoy Naruto, I guess it can’t be ALL bad.

Tags: Game Reviews