Naruto: Rise of a Ninja Review

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja

Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Platform: Xbox 360 Release: 2007 Players: 1-2 Genre: Adventure / 2D Fighting Rating: 7.8 \ 10.0: Satisfactory

Above is Naruto exploring the outskirts of the Hidden Leaf Village.

Licensed games are well known for typically being half-baked cash grabs, and licensed games based on anime are no different. Of course, there are occasional exceptions, and in an era where most major anime games are middling Bandai Namco-published arena fighters, I was intrigued to learn of an older title that broke the mold. Naruto is far from my favorite anime and manga franchise, but it's one that could suit various game genres and has unfortunately been limited almost exclusively to fighting games. When I discovered that Ubisoft Montreal had developed two action-adventure Naruto games, I was eager to try them.

Naruto is the story of the titular Naruto Uzumaki. When the Hidden Leaf Village was attacked by the Nine-Tailed Fox, the village leader, the Fourth Hokage, sacrificed himself to stop the beast and sealed it within the body of an infant Naruto. Twelve years later, left orphaned by the attack and feared by the villagers due to the fox stored within him, Naruto is a trouble-making ninja who craves even negative attention and dreams of one day earning respect and becoming the village Hokage. This game adapts the first 80 episodes of the anime, which are primarily dedicated to Naruto's training and his first missions with his teammates, Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha.

Rise of Ninja's gameplay is split into three distinct styles: Exploration, combat, and minigames. The main hub is the Hidden Leaf Village, which has been faithfully recreated, but condensed to prevent it from being overwhelming to explore. Here you can accept missions, purchase various upgrades, spar with Naruto's teammates and mentors, and collect the many hidden coins scattered throughout. Each story mission is set in a different area of the Land of Fire, only some of which are taken directly from the source material, and several side quests are set in each of these locations. At the start game, the majority of the villagers you encounter will shoo you away, but as you complete missions and build up your reputation, less and less of them will be repelled by your presence. Garnering the respect of the villagers and being able to navigate the area more swiftly as I progressed was a very gratifying feeling.

Both the main and side missions mainly consist of travelling to a destination, fighting several bandits and hopping between trees along the way, gathering items or racing through rings under a time limit once you arrive, and warping home. The story missions tend to have sequences of exploration in which you can gather coins to spend at the village, a small amount of clunky platforming, and conclude with a plot-related battle. Having to travel to the same places, hop across the same trees, and fight the same enemies wore thin after awhile, and although I did find these missions mostly enjoyable, I am grateful the game ended when it did, as I was fast approaching the point of boredom. There are also a variety of minigames that can be played within the village to earn more experience and money. These include delivering ramen to various customers in the village with a strict time limit on each delivery, racing around the village, and playing hide-and-seek with Naruto's mischievous sidekick Konohamaru. The latter of these games is extraordinarily easy, but the delivery and race minigames got progressively more difficult, and I was impressed with the number of meticulously designed paths that were created within the village to facilitate these activities without making the Hidden Leaf Village feel too much like an obstacle course rather than a town.

Although this game may seem accessible to those who haven't watched or read the series, its plot would be nearly incomprehensible to such people. Only key events from the first 80 episodes are depicted, and any moments that do not considerably advance the story are either skipped or only shown briefly in edited-down clips from the anime. A vital plot point that occurs during the final adapted arc is even saved for a post-credits scene.These changes are understandable, as most of this content either would be difficult to adapt into unique gameplay or would cripple the pacing by filling the game with nonstop fights. The gameplay dedicated to events that are explicitly shown in the series takes up only a couple hours, so original content has been added to make the main quest sufficiently lengthy. Unfortunately, these filler missions feel like borderline side quests, and mainly revolve around travelling to a location and dealing with some bandits or fetching items. These missions are also the only interactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke have outside of a handful of story missions, which is an unfortunate missed opportunity to have interesting original content.

The combat, while far from amazing, is satisfactory enough to remain engaging for the whole duration of the game. The fights have the structure of a traditional 3D fighting game, being exclusively  one-on-one and taking place in a small arena. There is a basic list of combos that expands as you progress. These combos, in addition to dealing significant damage when executed, knock enemies down, and give you a chance to perform your Jutsu. Each playable character has three Jutsu they can use, but Naruto is the only character who is usable in the story mode, so this number can feel quite limiting. Some have immediate effects, such as disorienting your opponent or granting a temporary damage boost, but others deal damage via a brief minigame that usually involves timed button presses. Combat feels limited in the early game due to Naruto only having access to low level combos and Jutsu, but as you level up your abilities and encounter enemies who have access to Jutsu of their own, the dynamic of battle gets much more interesting. Finding the right time to use my abilities and interrupting enemies from using theirs was satisfying, and the appeal only began wearing thin for me once I was far into the game. Another notable touch is that the framerate is increased from 30 FPS to 60 during fights, a greatly appreciated touch that improved the flow of combat.

Rise of Ninja's presentation is great, held up mostly by its excellent cel-shaded visuals. The colors are vibrant, the lighting is excellent, the textures are detailed without clashing with the anime style, and the water is some of the prettiest I have ever seen in a video game. My only gripes with the graphics are with the character models, which for some reason are on par with sixth-gen games in quality, and the generic original enemy designs, which clash with Naruto's art style and look as if they were from another series entirely. The anime has no shortage of original filler characters that, despite often looking generic, fit the look of the series, so this issue perplexes me as well. The soundtrack mostly consists mostly of iconic tracks from the anime that are used to great effect, as well as ambient original tracks that suit style. I'm unsure if this applies to the Japanese audio track, but almost every voice actor from the English dub of the anime reprises their role for this game, sounding as good as ever. The only notable exception I could notice is Jiraiya, whose fill-in actor is rather unfitting, and whose performance is only made worse when contrasted with the anime clips that are often used in place of in-game cutscenes, in which his original actor can be heard. The voice acting is solid overall, and I was especially surprised to find that almost all of the dialogue from the generic villagers was voiced, a detail that even full-fledged triple-A titles sometimes omit.

Rise of a Ninja isn't a must-have title, but it is a commendable effort, especially given the time of its release. Despite its flaws and repetitive nature, its fun gameplay and strong presentation make it worth checking out for fans of the franchise.

Ups

Entertaining minigames
Satisfying progression
Engaging combat
Gorgeous visuals
Mostly solid voice acting

Downs

Highly condensed story
Underwhelming original story content
Activities can become very repetitive

ESRB: T Content: Blood, Suggestive Themes, and Violence Price: Varies by seller*

*Most likely as a result of expired licensing agreements, this game is not available digitally and can only be purchased used from third parties. I was able to acquire my copy for about $20, but prices will vary by seller.

Halo: Reach (PC) Review

Halo: Reach (PC)

Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Bungie (Original) / 343 Industries Platform: PC Release: 2019 Players: 1-16 (Varies by mode) Genre: First-Person Shooter Rating: 9.0 \ 10.0: Excellent

Above is the game running at a high field of view with a centered crosshair, which is only possible in thus port.

NOTE: This review will mostly be comparing the original version of Halo: Reach to this port, rather than evaluating Reach as a whole. For my more detailed but slightly outdated thoughts on the game, check here.

I've been a huge Halo fan for years, but my interest in console gaming, especially when it comes to Xbox, has significantly reduced since getting a gaming PC in 2016. Because of this, I was absolutely thrilled by the announcement that Halo: The Master Chief Collection would be coming to Steam, now including Halo: Reach, my favorite first-person shooter of all time and the only main game in the series to have not yet been added to the compilation. The prospect of being able to play one of my favorite games at a high resolution, framerate, and field of view with my preferred method of input on my current favorite platform was extremely exciting, and I felt more anticipation for this port than I have for most other games. My sky-high expectations were not quite met, but I am definitive satisfied with the end product.

Almost every bit of content from the original release is present, including the great campaign, every multiplayer map (DLC included), and the excellent horde mode, Firefight. The only significant omission as of the time of writing is the map-editor, Forge, which will be added in the future. Other minor features, such as the File Share browser, the campaign co-op and multi-team matchmaking playlists, and the daily challenges have also been left out, but these are by no means deal-breaking changes. The most disappointing exclusion, and one that is not guaranteed to return like Forge mode, is split-screen play. Given the sheer number of indie games available on PC that are intended to be played with friends by your side, it surprises me that PC ports of triple-A games more often than not choose to omit the ability to play in split-screen even when it is available in the console versions, and Reach is sadly the latest victim of this trend. This may not be a necessary feature, but Halo is a series that is much more closely associated with local multiplayer than most others, so I was hoping that it would return in this port.

The most obvious changes in this port are the technical improvements; as mentioned previously, you can play the game at a high resolution and framerate if your PC can handle it, and the game has run without any hitches for me. It even performed smoothly on my fairly weak laptop, which was a present surprise. Although this is a well optimized port, the lack of graphical options is baffling - the only settings that can be tweaked are the resolution and the overall graphical quality, which is ridiculously bare-bones in a day and age in which most PC ports allow to modify every aspect of thee visuals, from anti-aliasing to texture detail to shadow quality. To give the developers some slack, the lack of options may bee a result of how difficult this once Xbox 360-exclusive title was to make compatible with hardware it was never meant to run on, but it is disappointing nonetheless.

One of my favorite additions, and one that applies to all games in The Master Chief Collection, is the ability to search for multiple game types at once. I enjoy most modes in Halo, and being able to search for whichever modes I feel like without searching for only one at a time keeps the gameplay varied and reduces queue times. I was mildly annoyed by the fact that selecting any of the variants of Slayer in my search practically guaranteed that I would be placed in nothing but Slayer matches, but this is simply due to the mode's immense popularity.

For the most part, my online matches were free of noticeable lag, but there has been an issue that has appeared in far more of my matches than I would like - kill trading. Despite the majority of the game's weapons being hitscan (meaning that, rather than simulating a projectile, the bullets are programmed to immediately hit their target when the trigger is pulled), it is possible for two players to kill each other at the same time with these weapons. This has happened to me only a few times, but a much more common issue is melee trading - if two players attempt to land a melee death blow at about the same time, it's more than likely that both of them will die. This has happened to me dozens of times, and despite not seeing many reports of this phenomenon online, all my friends with whom I've played the game have experienced this as well. This isn't a game-breaking issue in my eyes, but is could definitely turn PC players who are less tolerant of technical issues like this away from the game.

Some features have been altered rather than removed, most notably the progression system. Reach has many detractors for a variety of reasons, but one aspect of the original game that was near-universally liked was the credits system. Players earned credits for playing every mode in the game that functioned as both experience points and currency. These credits were spent on new armor pieces for players' customizable Spartans, and more pieces became available to purchase as players' leveled up by earning more credits. The prices of armor pieces were unreasonably high at times, but this is still a functional system. Some major changes have been made to the progression system in this port; you can earn experience points exclusively through matchmade games, and will receive one season token upon leveling up. All the armor pieces from the original release are still present, but they are now unlocked in an entirely linear order reminiscent of the battles passes present in a variety of contemporary titles. One season token can be exchanged for a piece of armor that is unlocked in a set order. You must buy a piece to be able to buy the next, thus rendering the tokens a completely pointless middleman. Although I am grateful that Reach's excellent customization was not compromised for its MCC remaster in the same manner as Halo 3 and 4, I am disappointed by this new unlock system that removes all the player agency that was present in the Xbox 360 version.

Overall, the PC version of Halo: Reach is absolutely worth purchasing. It has its issues, but the already excellent gameplay has been enhanced by the visual upgrade with very few downsides. Whether you've played the game extensively or never touched a Halo game before, this is a port that is definitely worth checking out.

Ups
Keyboard and mouse controls feel fantastic

Support for uncapped framerates, 4K, and high field of view

Almost all gamemodes, maps, and DLC are present
Multiple multiplayer modes can be searched for at once
The gameplay has remained practically untouched

Downs
Minor features from the original release were omitted
Lack of graphical options
Completely linear armor unlock system
Server issues lead to frequent kill trades

ESRB: M Content: Blood, Mild Language, and Violence Price: $9.99 (Digital)