'Naruto' does little, does it poorly

• By JOSHUA WASCOM
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Nov 5, 2009

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When a new game comes out in an underserved niche – like, say, fighting games for the DS – it’s tempting to overlook their flaws. So I’m going to cut “Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2” some slack, and just say nice things about it.

Let’s see … well, the fighting in “Ninja Destiny 2” is more approachable than that of most fighting games. Once you’ve mastered one character, you can easily switch to any other. There are items, which are an interesting if unreliable game mechanic. Oh, and, unlike most fighting games, there is an extensive quest mode that tries to present a story.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. It’s a fighting game on the DS, and those are rare, so we need to encourage them, even if they have a few tiny problems. Or some large ones. Or -- ah, you know what? Who am I kidding? “Ninja Destiny 2” is a terrible game.

Let’s start with the basic fighting. The lack of any sort of tutorial, training mode, or even a move list in the manual means that we’re all button-mashers here, at least until you figure out a few strings that seem to reliably produce combos. It doesn’t even really matter, though, since computer opponents are incapable of dealing with the handy, one-button “Appear Behind Your Opponent” move that all characters have. It saps all need for tactical considerations.

Well, what about the story mode, maybe we can just suffer through the fights to partake of an interesting narrative? No, we can’t. Story mode consists of two parts besides the aforementioned broken fights. You’ve got the world map, which has your character running around – always with his arms straight out behind him like he’s trying to reach lift-off speed – hitting the same random encounter every so often until you get to the next checkpoint.

Story mode’s other bit is the actual story itself, which is just delivered in little textboxes in an excited, confused sort of ramble, sort of like if your chubby friend ran half a block to come tell you the plot of a movie he really liked, but he doesn’t remember all of it and doesn’t realize that you don’t know any of the characters’ names.

Enemies will be introduced, beaten and then revealed to be imposters all in the space of a few sentences; as if it should be important that this person you’ve never heard of is in fact someone else you’ve never heard of playing dress-up. I suspect that the names would have more meaning to someone familiar with the anime, but I doubt even a devout follower of the series would care for the incoherent way the story is presented.

Alright, sure, there are problems when playing against the computer and with the story, but those aren’t what we play fighting games for anyway. We play to beat and be beaten by our friends. So how is the head-to-head mode? I don’t know. There’s no global multiplayer, and the local play requires two carts, which means you have to know someone else who made the same mistake you did. The lack of depth in the movesets and the absence of real character variety clearly forecast the multiplayer mode’s quality, and I couldn’t, in good conscience, ask any of my friends to buy it.

Sure, it may be one of the few fighting games on the DS, but it’s a poor interpretation of the genre. It’ll probably be best for everyone if we just hunker down and wait for a “Smash Brothers DS” or a mobile “Street Fighter.”