Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution Review - Wii

7

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 7
Audio: 8
Multiplayer: 7
Innovation: 6

Introduction

Fans of the anime have been disappointed by the lack of Naruto games on the Wii, but the wait is over. Ninja Revolution is the first Naruto game to be released outside of Japan for the Wii, and it carries on the tradition of the Gamecube’s Clash of Ninja series. Up to four characters can be fighting simultaneously on the one screen, and the game makes use of the Wii Remote’s motion sensing capabilities. The Wii hasn’t been home to many fighting games so far, so Clash of Ninja Revolution is a welcome addition to the roster.

Gameplay

Clash of Ninja Revolution, as you would expect, has a strong focus on fighting. After watching through the game’s rather entertaining opening cinematic (a mish-mash of actual video taken from the anime), you’re taken to the menu where you have a variety options, Single Player, Multiplayer, Mission Mode, Training, Mini-Game and Extras. Single player allows you to fight matches against CPU opponents in a standard fight, time attack, or survival mode.  Mission Mode allows you to play through part of the anime’s storyline, a series of battles that illustrate the main conflicts. You move through these in a linear fashion, you have no control over which battles you play through. One of the best things about this mode is that not all of your objectives involve simply defeating your opponent, which helps to mix things up a bit and keep players interested. The Training mode is simply a chance to practice your fighting against a computer controller opponent. The Mini-Game mode lets you play a few different minigames, such as shuriken throwing and rasengan training, which make a nice distraction from the rest of the game, and can be quite challenging. The Extras mode is where you can watch the game’s opening and ending clips and listen to the music and sound effects. Now that the menu is explained, let’s move onto the actual fighting.

The fighting system, while reasonably straight forward, still has a fair bit of depth to it. There are 20 different playable characters in the game, though some of them are unlockable. No two characters play quite the same, which is great, they all feel unique and fresh. The game offers five different ways to play, using the Wii Remote by itself, using the Wii Remote and a Nunchuk in “movement mode”, using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in “button mode”, using the classic controller, or using a Gamecube controller. Each of these is unique, and it’s great to see that Tomy have put the effort into making the game as easy to play as possible. I found the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo the easiest, all you have do to attack is waggle the remote which is a bit of fun. Fighting is generally fast and challenging, with characters having both a light and heavy attack that can be combined into a couple of different combos, a basic throwing move, as well as an ultimate move which they (continued next page)