PixlBit

I had a bit of fun playing Naruto Shippuden: Naruto vs. Sasuke. I'd call it an all-around action game. There's a lot of platforming, some fighting, a few hidden passageways, ninja stars and kunais, over-the-top special attacks, and boss fights. I don't know if action games get more “action-y” than that.

Naruto vs. Sasuke takes place early in the “Shippuden” half of the story, beginning with Naruto and Sakura's discovery of their new teammate, Sai. The game's story covers the Sasuke confrontation arc of the manga, but also contains a few hidden stages with content from outside this particular section of the Naruto saga. Considering the ongoing nature of Naruto, the game does a nice job offering a starting point which gives the characters purpose, though the dialog is often a bit trite, and more a vehicle to set up the stages and boss fights.

As I mentioned before, stages are very involved. To begin, every stage encourages full exploration, providing branching pathways with hidden items. A few stages emphasize platforming, one focuses on speed, and more contain heavier amounts of combat mixed in with light maze-style progression. Better, every stage takes on a different theme based on location. Given the concentration on different elements of gameplay and the unique settings, each stage is consistently individual. Furthermore, stages are broken into two parts for simplicity. After a stage's completion, it's possible to jump right into the second half to search out a missing ninja scroll. The worst thing I can say about the stages in Naruto vs. Sasuke is that there's too few of them! The game takes about four hours to beat, and only a few more to complete the bonus levels after that.

Where stages shine brightly, boss fights are Naruto vs. Sasuke's biggest blemish. Hand-to-hand combat is based on brief combos that work well for the many enemies that litter all the stages, but against a boss, basic attacks have too little reach, barely tick off any boss's health, and are prone to devastating counter-attacks. A few bosses can even unleash life-threatening, unblockable special attacks after obscure hair-triggers. As far as I could tell, the only method to easily defeat any boss was to unleash Naruto's team's own special combos. I admit I felt a sense of accomplishment watching the boss get torn up in a flurry of blows after the very first time a special connected, but with each subsequent special attack, I felt more and more dissatisfied at the need to resort to what felt like a cheap tactic to secure victory. If anything, I'd say the bosses just don't feel as though they fit Naruto vs. Sasuke's native design very well, though the characters and their abilities remain emblematic of their counter-parts in the manga.

Naruto is known for its cast of characters, and Naruto vs. Sasuke is certainly no exception to this. While only a handful of story-relevant characters are available at the outset of the game, upon gathering the ninja scrolls mentioned in the stage section, more and more of Naruto's leaf-ninja cast is available to use, though some require completion of a brief mission first. About half of the ninja are playable, and the other half can be summoned to help out a ninja team. As Naruto and Sasuke are in opposition throughout the course of the game, there's actually a “free” mode, allowing the player to choose any stage or boss out of story context, so characters like Sasuke can be played with without contradicting the game's story.

Before each mission, a squad of three ninja are chosen. Throughout stages and boss fights, it's possible to switch out which of the trio is actually in use. Unfortunately, there aren't great differences between the characters. Every ninja has his or her own running speed and jumping height, which, at first seems like a clever idea, but it really means slower, less mobile characters will be a bit less fun to play with. I began to ignore Sakura, for instance, solely for her slight lack in mobility. Beyond that, every ninja does have two unique touch-screen initiated attacks, a few of which can unlock a gate here or there for alternate routes, ninja scrolls, or secret areas. Paired with the disparity in physical ability, requiring a specific character from the cast to open a gate to reach a secret is annoying. As a nice touch, a handful of special team attacks are available through the touch-screen, but most of the time, these attacks disappointingly have the same multi-hit combo animation. Given all this, Naruto vs. Sasuke yields several character choices that don't feel much like a choice matter beyond running speed, jumping height, and gate-locking ability.

In the end, Naruto Shippuden: Naruto vs. Sasuke winds up with a bit of everything one would expect in an action title. Unfortunately, while the stages are a blast, boss fights weigh the rest of the game down a little. There's no lack of playable characters, but because of the simple combo system, aside from running speed and jump height, every character feels the same, different special attack animations don't provide the individuality I would hope for, given the game's cast. There's a fun game in Naruto vs. Sasuke, but its short length, cumbersome boss fights, and monotony in character ability leave me to conclude the game is only slightly above average.