Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution
Author: Andrew Eder
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution is a sequel to the popular GameCube fighting titles that revolve around the Naruto anime universe. The game has been built exclusively for Wii, featuring a new story, more playable characters and additional fighting moves while retaining the accessible gameplay mechanics found in the previous iterations.
Clash of Ninja Revolution utilizes the Wii's motion-sensing abilities, which works surprisingly well. Unlike other games where shaking the Wii Remote in specific directions executes varying attacks, the standard attacks for Naruto can be performed by a simple, rhythmic movement of the controller, which doesn't have to be frantic or quick at all. In fact, it almost seems to work better if the shaking movements are slower; this puts away concerns about becoming fatigued by shaking the controller all day. Other attacks are performed by holding the A or B button, or both at once, while moving the Wii Remote. Defending is done, like in the GameCube games, by not touching anything at all.
The stages in the game are now multi-tiered, meaning that it is possible to kick someone off a ledge only to find yourself suddenly fighting in a different location. During a short interactive cinematic that marks the transition, players can land an additional hit to their enemy with good timing. Stages also include obstacles like tree stumps that can be used for cover, although they can be destroyed by enduring enough hits.
Characters also have special attacks that can be performed after filling up the Chakra meter located at the bottom of the screen. These attacks seem nearly identical to the previous games, executed with quick animations (called up by pressing right on the d-pad in the Wii Remote/Nunchuk setup). These animations don't disrupt the pacing and they can be optionally amplified with correctly timed swings of the Wii Remote, adding just a bit of extra power to the attack.
Clash of Ninja Revolution includes a single-player story mode, along with two-player and four-player versus battles. The game's visual style is nearly identical to the previous titles, using a cel-shaded look to mimic the anime series. Audio was nicely incorporated, with voice acting, crisp attack sounds, and music that all tied into the Naruto theme well.
The framerate was extremely smooth in two-player battles. A four-player match (against two computer opponents) was a different story, with slightly noticeable slowdown at times. Also, the more elevated camera sometimes made it difficult to see what was going on when all of the combatants were spread across the arena.
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