Joseph Luster
May 12, 2013 
I’m so torn on Namco Bandai’s Naruto Powerful Shippuden, which brings the super-deformed style of Naruto spin-off anime Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals to Nintendo 3DS. On one hand, it’s a great-looking game with crystal clear 2D art and backgrounds that don’t throw the 3D gimmick at your face (literally). It’s visually subtle and the SD art works great for a side-scroller, but the whole thing is unfortunately bogged down with a slow start, plenty of grinding, and a healthy dose of dull and repetitive mission objectives.
That might sound kind of harsh right out the gate, but there’s so much potential here that it’s a shame to see it squandered with lackluster, unimaginative design. Maybe the fact that the spine of the 3DS case misspells the title as Nartuo should have been a warning flare, but I’m not above forgiving even the most egregious of typos.
Players can choose between playing as Naruto or Rock Lee right from the beginning, with each path offering a variety of training prior to increasingly challenging missions. Most of the training stages—of which there are many, leading me to wonder why we couldn’t just get most of these lessons done in one fell swoop—teach basics such as offense, defense, and managing Chakra while unleashing more powerful attacks and dashing. It doesn’t take long for things to get a little bit difficult, but most of this sharp curve can be attributed to unintuitive menus and poor explanation of the basics.
Yes, the controls themselves are outlined well, but you’ll quickly realize that much of your progress will hinge on how much you’re wiling to revisit stages for a little more experience. Thankfully leveling up basic stats goes by fairly quickly, with more arduous point-earning going toward building a higher max Chakra. It’s all basic RPG-style leveling, but it never felt like the reward of progress was quite worth the time put into achieving it.
That brings me to what bums me out most about Naruto Powerful Shippuden. Everything is in place for a solid beat ’em up platformer! The controls work wonderfully, the combat is fun and has its moments of depth and strategy, and everything is generally fluid and speedy throughout each stage. Sadly, we’re stuck with an abundance of missions that hinge on an ever-dwindling timer, so there’s no real sense of a sprawling adventure, despite the fact that boss fights and other story aspects cover a decent chunk of the source material.
Naruto Powerful Shippuden is a mixed bag of a game that I sometimes come back to, but can’t recommend wholeheartedly. Obviously fans will get more out of this than your average 3DS owner, and while that may make it a decent Naruto game, it doesn’t quite add up to a good game overall. Still, if you fancy yourself a super fan, there’s plenty of extra stuff and fan-service—from a bunch of support characters to unlocks and more—to tide you over for a while. For my money, though, I’d stick to CyberConnect2’s console efforts, like Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 (reviewed in the new issue of Otaku USA). At least those fully deliver in their particular realm of expertise.
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Developer: Inti Creates, CyberConnect2
System: Nintendo 3DS
Available: Now
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