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IGN Review of Naruto: Ninja Destiny
Nintendo handhelds have had a long-running tradition of mediocre Naruto Experiences. Looking back over the last few years, each iteration of Naruto has sat among that "passable" level of quality, not really doing much to blow us away in any fashion, but getting the job done just enough to justify a purchase for the most hardcore of anime fans out there. With every improvement of the GCN/Wii Clash of Ninja series, GBA and DS got yet another grab bag of 2D assets, choppy VO, and extremely simple interface and presentation. It took nearly half a dozen games here in the US to get it right, but Naruto: Ninja Destiny has turned a new leaf for the series.
When it comes to specific content and the actual depth of the product, Ninja Destiny is basically DS's first Clash of Ninja experience. Like the original GCN game, Ninja Destiny is less a full-featured fighter, and more of a first pass at the fighting engine, animations, options, and modes. We'll undoubtedly see more Ninja Destiny games in the future, each using the same core design that you'll find in this first effort, adding in more fleshed out features along the way. So while Ninja Destiny is still one heck of a good fighter (especially when ranked amongst the rest of DS's offerings), we know the best is yet to come. Consider this an impressive first step in a very long line of DS fighters.
With that being the case, you'll find that Ninja Destiny is extremely fun in its core design, but still lacks all the bells and whistles you might expect from a 3D fighter on DS. You've got the main arcade mode, a pretty brief story mode that covers over 100 Naruto episodes of content in key battles and storyboards, a simple two player multiplayer mode, and not much else. The core game is (for the first time in the franchise's life) a 3D pocket fighter, complete with cel-shading on the characters, animation that looks and feels like Clash of Ninja, and a pretty slick 30 frames per second on DS. Just like its console brethren, Ninja Destiny is all about kicking the crap out of opponents, building up your chakra meter, and then unleashing huge finishing attacks which, by the way, are nearly identical to the Clash of Ninja finishers. It's got the same overall feel, but it's also pocket-sized in terms of content, with only a few modes to pair with its otherwise impressive 16-fighter cast.
To give the DS design a bit of a unique feel, a touch upgrade system was included on the bottom screen. Basically the idea here is to play the game conventionally with the d-pad and button set, and then tap the screen in a Jump Stars fashion to give your player a boost of defense, offense, chakra, health, and the like. The items you get when entering battle are random though, so you won't know exactly what you're working with until you're actually standing face to face with opponents. These upgrades also tend to make matches last a lot longer (as long as they're used right), so players will need to adapt to pouring multiple finishers and power-ups into a single fight in order to win a round. It's a decent system, but it'd be great to see developer Dream Factory incorporate a more in-depth RPG-like system to it all, allowing you to chose specific power-ups that suit your style.
With that being said, Ninja Destiny is still an impressive first effort on DS, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. Combos are extremely fast and brutal, the fighting is as slick and responsive on DS as it is on consoles (a huge win for the dev team), and the overall gameplay is perfect for quick bouts on the go. In fact, the US version of Ninja Destiny is a much better package than the Japan release was, as the team took extra time to go back and nearly double the frame-rate, improve the graphics, and give the game a much-needed overhaul. This also translates over to the game's multiplayer, which runs flawlessly, but requires two copies of the game. We'd love to see full Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support in the future, as well as more options for local multiplayer (both single card and multi), but that will have to wait.
©2008-02-26, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
When it comes to specific content and the actual depth of the product, Ninja Destiny is basically DS's first Clash of Ninja experience. Like the original GCN game, Ninja Destiny is less a full-featured fighter, and more of a first pass at the fighting engine, animations, options, and modes. We'll undoubtedly see more Ninja Destiny games in the future, each using the same core design that you'll find in this first effort, adding in more fleshed out features along the way. So while Ninja Destiny is still one heck of a good fighter (especially when ranked amongst the rest of DS's offerings), we know the best is yet to come. Consider this an impressive first step in a very long line of DS fighters.
With that being the case, you'll find that Ninja Destiny is extremely fun in its core design, but still lacks all the bells and whistles you might expect from a 3D fighter on DS. You've got the main arcade mode, a pretty brief story mode that covers over 100 Naruto episodes of content in key battles and storyboards, a simple two player multiplayer mode, and not much else. The core game is (for the first time in the franchise's life) a 3D pocket fighter, complete with cel-shading on the characters, animation that looks and feels like Clash of Ninja, and a pretty slick 30 frames per second on DS. Just like its console brethren, Ninja Destiny is all about kicking the crap out of opponents, building up your chakra meter, and then unleashing huge finishing attacks which, by the way, are nearly identical to the Clash of Ninja finishers. It's got the same overall feel, but it's also pocket-sized in terms of content, with only a few modes to pair with its otherwise impressive 16-fighter cast.
To give the DS design a bit of a unique feel, a touch upgrade system was included on the bottom screen. Basically the idea here is to play the game conventionally with the d-pad and button set, and then tap the screen in a Jump Stars fashion to give your player a boost of defense, offense, chakra, health, and the like. The items you get when entering battle are random though, so you won't know exactly what you're working with until you're actually standing face to face with opponents. These upgrades also tend to make matches last a lot longer (as long as they're used right), so players will need to adapt to pouring multiple finishers and power-ups into a single fight in order to win a round. It's a decent system, but it'd be great to see developer Dream Factory incorporate a more in-depth RPG-like system to it all, allowing you to chose specific power-ups that suit your style.
With that being said, Ninja Destiny is still an impressive first effort on DS, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. Combos are extremely fast and brutal, the fighting is as slick and responsive on DS as it is on consoles (a huge win for the dev team), and the overall gameplay is perfect for quick bouts on the go. In fact, the US version of Ninja Destiny is a much better package than the Japan release was, as the team took extra time to go back and nearly double the frame-rate, improve the graphics, and give the game a much-needed overhaul. This also translates over to the game's multiplayer, which runs flawlessly, but requires two copies of the game. We'd love to see full Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support in the future, as well as more options for local multiplayer (both single card and multi), but that will have to wait.
©2008-02-26, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved