izigame.me

SCORE 3 / 7
a typical anime fullhouse shtick with limited value. 'filler' and 'serviceable' are the best words to describe that brawler
⠀✅⠀RATING

⌛ time to beat:⠀ 10-20h⠀⠀🔥 difficulty:⠀ 3 / 7
✨ presentation:⠀ 4 / 7⠀⠀⠀📙 narrative:⠀ 2 / 7
💵 money value:⠀ 3 / 7⠀⠀⠀🍫 fun-factor:⠀ 5 / 7

⠀🏆⠀ACHIEVEMENTS

💯 time to 100%:⠀⠀ 20-30h⠀⠀🔥 difficulty: 4 / 7
📈 diff-specific:⠀ - ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 💨 missable:⠀⠀-
🌎 multiplayer:⠀ - ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⛔ broken:⠀ -
🔐 DLC:⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 📅 date/time:⠀-
💎 collectathon: ⠀- ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⚙️ grindy:⠀ -


⠀► no achievements for collectibles; all those cards, music, clips and junk are only for your self-esteem
⠀► for 'You Beat 30 Opponents!' you need to beat them IN A ROW. use any good zoner for it, for example Deidara with his clay birds or Temari with her fan
⠀► for 'Super Combo!' use Hinata. her 64 Palms attack hits enemies ~60 times at once

⠀↗️⠀MY PLAYTHROUGH

⠀► finished singleplayer mode and free battles, S rank everywhere
⠀► finished all Jobs, Ally events, Friendships, Cups
⠀► collected/purchased 98% of junk. missing online content only

⠀⚠️⠀NOTES

⠀► 🧱 number of crashes: x0
⠀► game has hardcoded 30fps lock; deal with it
⠀► there is a fix for stutters
⠀► DLC2 can be activated for free (even tho it isn't available in Store)


me + Naruto = wtf
I never watched a single Naruto episode and knew nothing about the snow; I was so unaware, that honestly believed Naruto and Sakura were a couple
why the past simple?
because while playing the game I read the entire naruto-pedia, and learned the whole story up until Boruto fighting Frieza. that is how I got 80h of playtime - I kept alt+tabbing back-n-forth to learn more about those weirdos - and when I saw Akatsuki's wardrobe I told to myself, "jesus, those guys wearing the gayest cloaks ever since Kingdom Hearts' XIII"
how do I manage to get NSUNSR in first place if I am not a fan then? it was dirt cheap on sale and I thought, "they say you must try everything in life" - and since I already did drugs, sodomy and wrote the best selling novel under penname 'J. R. Martin' - I thought that Naruto fighting game is worth for a bucket list
and 'dirt cheap' is a good description for that title; not because it is horrible but because it is fan-serviceable, toothless and plain
brawler > fighting
when I started playing and opened my character's movelist I saw combos like this:

-> father's sock: B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B
-> tired butt crack: B-B-B-B-B-DOWN-B-B-B-B-B
-> one-eyed snake strike: B-B-B-B-B-UP-B-B-B-B-B

'hm, so the button-masher it is', said I
the fighting mechanism goes like that. each character has one button for melee, one button for ranged, one button for dash/block/counter, one button for all types of limiters/meterburns/finishers, and four buttons for worthless items. clearly, control is convoluted. in fact, the layout is suited more for a brawler or some action JRPG, like Ni no Kuni or Genshin Impact rather than a fighting game
another hindering thing is the drunk camera that always shows the combat from the worst angle possible. it isn’t fun to be a little speck somewhere far away while the camera shows enemy's back on a good 40% of the screen. also all those animations, particles, visual effects, and other graphical noise make combat incomprehensible - especially when both fighters spam support
what is support? opponents pick two extra characters whom they may call during the battle for extra protection or extra hit. it sorta Capcom vs Marvel thingy only less complicated. now imaging that both fighters called all their supports at the same time, with all that flashy graphics around and moronic camera - and you may image what I think about that fighting system
character roster
NSUNSR features ~70 characters with some of them having 2-4 different outlooks or moveset. quite a lot, and, obviously, when you introduce such a rich roster you get on yourself one huge problem: balance. and that game is as balanced as MUGEN in the hands of 10yo. characters are delightfully broken in various ways (not as broken as Sailor Moon S tho). some bloke have ridiculous AoE attacks, short cooldown, zero-break combos, and lenient iframes - but most characters just eat dirt
and it isn't an issue! because for me NSUNSR isn't a competitive fighting game but a flashy button-mashing paradise with anime finishers that take 30 seconds (or as I call them, 'cigarette-breaks'). clearly, developers were enforced to include all those super-saiyan moves first, and built the game around them later - and I don't mind
what I mind tho - is the zoners. the game was designed around them; it is their Promised Land. player can beat 80% of singleplayer by staying away and throwing kunais at AI's stupid face
singleplayer?
saying that NSUNSR has a singleplayer is being generous. there is no campaign or story, and the deal isn't based on anything from anime/manga
what do we have then?
the characters from Naruto participate in a huge tournament to find who is the greatest™. in my case it was Tenten: she annihilated all Tailed Beasts, Nagato, Madara, SasuNaru’s daughter, Superman, Galactus and Satan - all with her kunais
player is set on a semi-open semi-world where he competes against other characters, does one-dimensional fetch quests, finds collectibles, and enjoys the blurry textures straight from early-era PS2 games (play The Bouncer from 2001 - same texture quality). the characters look great and cel-shading is a real eye-candy - but textures of rocks, grass, trees are awful
it just shows how much developers didn't care. and the whole premise doubles that down. seriously, the tournament as a backdrop to bring all characters together? take few lessons from Warriors Orochi - that game did the singleplayer fullhouse campaign right
Super Smash Naruto Brothers
another singleplayer innovation is an extra battle mode called 'Battle Orbs'. it is a free-for-all 4-player battle royal where opponents hit each other and gain orbs. whoever has the most orbs at the end wins. participants cannot use supports and have only half of their movelists
now I pose the question - why the hell do we need that? developers took the best part of their game - a flashy brawler - removed half of its potential, added two more players for extra confusion, made it as messy as possible, and called it a mandatory part of singleplayer. camera here is even less literate than before and locking-on/off enemies is confusing and illbred
maybe Smash Bros Melee/Brawl fanatics will love it - but for me it is tacticless, annoying, and obnoxious. I especially love when the game tells me ’hold Y for 10sec without hit to cast True Awakening’ while being attacked by three zoners from the opposite sides of arenas
more shenanigans
game also has a 'Mecha Naruto' ministory, which is cringe and basically a Metal Sonic rip-off with Invasion of the Body Snatchers flavor - ain't worth mentioning
another stuff to poke is Ninja Escapades thingy which is three stories that mix together OVA and in-game combat. good idea but very short, and the last story has no battles whatsoever (just 7min of anime)
what I enjoyed the most is those slice of life anecdotes that you unlock for completing singleplayer quests. like when the female cast is trying to find who is the most feminine of them. or when Jiraiya got scolded for being a pervert. those little cutscenese were amusing and easily the best part