[Categories: Mid-Game Impressions, PC, xbox360]
[Tags: Mass Effect, Naruto, Naruto Rise of a Ninja]
Ok, so maybe they’re not really ‘prequels’, but they are both games that came out before the game that I really wanted to play in the series that I hadn’t, so I hopped into the way back machine for a little, ‘this came first’ action… I haven’t decided if I’m going to do a full on throw-back review yet since the game is several years old at this point, but I will share some of my thoughts.
Naruto Rise of a Ninja
I am a closet fan of the anime, haven’t missed an episode… and it’s been so good lately that I considered going back to the beginning and watching again, in fact I started and then realized that there were a couple games that I passed on the xbox due to those same confidence issues that I skipped all those other 360 games for. On top of that, it’s available via games on demand so I didn’t even have to try to hunt down a copy (the same can’t be said for the sequel, which I have also acquired…).
This game is fan-service… relentless fan-service… the game takes you through the end of approximately episode 80 of the original series. The story is told mostly through cut scenes from the actual episodes which sadly, looks grainy and dated at this point. They (thankfully) trimmed a lot of the filler and added some of there own to make more of a game out of it. There are a few different mission types that have you gathering collectibles, races, and retrieving items which inevitable has you fighting some bandits. Which makes sense considering that Naruto is facing weaker opponents since this is all supposed to be taking place before the ‘Chunin Exam’.
The plot missions usually has Naruto in combat, mostly with his peers, keeping with the story line of the show at the time (there are obvious exceptions that fans will already know). The combat itself is fairly simple, mostly 2 attack buttons with a handful of combos and aerial attacks, throw in a kunai attack every now and then. The idea is to use one of your combos to knock the opponent down and buy time so that you can perform a jutsu. I think the implementation here was brilliant; to perform a jutsu you hold down the left trigger, then use both analog sticks in pre-determined directions to emulate forming hand seals as they do in the show, afterwards it takes a second or two to charge the attack, during the time the jutsu can be interupted, when fully leveled you can ‘charge’ them longer for more harmful attacks. It’s not the most amazing fighting system in a video game or anything, but it was fun enough, and felt believable if not authentic to the experience. I’ve got to say, if you’re a fan of the franchise it’s pretty hard to not get $20 worth out of it.
Mass Effect
I also finished off Mass Effect (PC), I tried this one a while back and really didn’t care for it at first. I had heard Mass Effect 2 corrected a lot of the problems I had with the original, and when it came up during the steam sales I figured I’d give that one a try. The reviews were right, Mass Effect 2 is a much better game, but the further I got the more it felt like I was missing by not playing the first one. It was motivation enough for me to try this one again. I’m pretty glad I did, I had a much better time with it this go around, despite the game not running well on my machine at all (oddly ME2 runs far better than ME1… very strange). The story was great, and it really did give me the impression that was making a difference in this huge galaxy, most of which was unexplored by me. I’m half tempted to go back and continue exploring just to see what I missed.
It was a really really satisfying experience, and I need to give all sorts of kudos to everyone involved in the sound in this game, everything from weapons sounds, to the score, to the voice acting, all very very well done, and had my computer behaved a little better, or I had picked this up for console, I’m certain I would have been totally consumed by this experience.
So much so that I almost immediately loaded up Mass Effect 2, imported my Shepard and was ready to continue my adventure. Anyone late to the game on this one would be wise to play this one before playing 2. I’m sure you could play 2 all the way through without all the background but I liken the experience to jumping into say the 3rd season of some TV show, where all the big exciting moments were people who were supposed to be gone from the previous seasons come back, and you are just sort of left with a “who’s this supposed to be” feeling ostracized.
Actually, to add to that, I also put in Naruto Broken Bond almost immediately too, so it’s safe to say that these games were good enough that I didn’t want to stop playing them when I finished.
