Game Naruto Simpuden

Little of This, Little of That

Over 12 Naruto mainstays will be playable, including Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Rock Lee, and Sakura. Characters have both melee and projectile attacks, and can pick up weapons and other power-ups in the environment to augment their abilities. The game makes use of an unusual two-tier gameplay system which lets you jump between foreground and background tiers at will, just like in Fatal Fury. And if all of these options aren't enough, you can call in support characters to assist you in your assault or just to drop off a helpful item. The game has a quick, madcap feel to it that draws comparisons to Capcom's Power Stone, as well as the aforementioned Super Smash Bros.

Each character has multiple-level super attacks which can eat up varying amounts of their super met... sorry, chakra meters. In an unusual twist, the player being hit by one of these massive attacks can try to counter it by timing button presses to a scrolling DDR-like display. The attacker does the same, and each player's success or failure in this little test of skill will factor into whether or not the attacker can continue into another, more devastating level of the chakra attack. If the attacker successfully reaches the third level of the super attack, their victim is in for a world of hurt.

Another interesting feature is the ability to literally knock your opponent into another stage. Unlike many fighting games, the levels in Naruto have distinctive geography and hazards, with some stages being more dangerous than others. If you prefer one of these stages to the current, you can use a certain power-up to take the fight to your preferred turf. It's not clear how much this will actually affect the gameplay, but it's certainly odd.

Ninjitsu Nonstop

You can expect the usual complement of gameplay modes, with Scenario offering up the usual story-based goodies (play through a storyline as one of various characters) and Mission letting you rank-up your character of choice through extended battling. Faithful players will be rewarded with unlockable characters, movies, music, virtual cards, and some sort of scrolls or the like. That is what is commonly referred to as "replay value," though hopefully the wacky fighting action will have enough legs so that such enticements will merely be icing on a sweet cake.