Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2

Rating Teen Genre adventure Publisher Namco Bandai Games External Links Official Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 Website

Everywhere you look, something else is coming out for the Naruto franchise lately and here we have yet another game for the Playstation 2. I can understand cashing in as hard as you can while the brand is hot, but you have to wonder if things are starting to get a little diluted. Uzumaki Chronicles 2 is a sequel, but it progresses differently from the first title.

The best way to describe Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 is as an action/adventure game with quite a few RPG style elements. The story begins as Naruto’s Hidden Leaf Village appears to be under attack from a swarm of puppets. Yes, I said puppets. It turns out that the Shirogane Clan, thought to be long lost, is back and they are using their mastery of controlling puppets to regain power. They are seeking the five Spirit Orbs and they already have four of them. With the fifth orb they can revive the Master Puppet and become all-powerful. As fate would have it, the fifth orb was hidden in the lands surrounding Hidden Leaf Village. It’s up to Naruto and the rest of the Hidden Leaf ninjas to prevent the final orb falling into the Shirogane’s hands.

Admittedly, the idea of fighting puppets is pretty silly, but they serve the same purpose as the drones, robots, or other minions found in such games. Essentially they’re cannon fodder to interrupt your progress. There are a few tougher enemies thrown in on occasion and you generally get a boss battle on most of the levels. As you dispatch your enemies, they leave behind a variety of boosts that you can use to power up your characters. Virtue orbs can be collected and used to power up your stats such as attack power, health, etc. The game’s money, ryo, can be used to purchase items such as healing potions or boosts for your skill plate.

The skill plate is kind of an interesting concept. Each character has a shaped skill plate, such as a throwing star shape for Naruto. As you find or purchase skill plate tokens you have to place them where they fit best. Each token varies in shape and size and as you get more of them it can become a trick to fit them in. If you are able to fill in the skill plate completely, you get yet another boost in addition to the powers that all of the tokens give you. In general, all of this skill plate configuring and level boosting is done in the village between missions.

The game plays out almost as a cross between Final Fantasy and X-Men Legends. In the village you find out the details of your next mission. After any leveling up or item shopping is complete, you head out to the map. It’s vastly simplified as you must stick to the path laid out and new paths don’t appear until those missions are unlocked. As you head to the destination, there’s a chance you will be intercepted and drawn into a fight, similar to how it happens in Final Fantasy. Once in the fight, you have to dispatch the handful of puppets or bandits or whatever they throw at you. The fights are generally pretty easy and it’s a way to collect some easy character boosting points. As you get to the destination, the true mission begins. Sometimes it’s just another battle against more enemies and sometimes there’s a little more to it, such as solving a puzzle or manipulating the environment in the correct way. Generally, it’s pretty easy with plenty of hints along the way if you get stuck.

The game’s lack of difficulty is one of my biggest knocks on it. There’s a decent game trying to get out of this title, but it just never manages to do so. None of the fights are very difficult, even when you occasionally get swarmed by numerous enemies. It’s almost like the kung fu movies where they try to take you on 1 or 2 at a time instead of using their numbers to inflict some damage. Even from the very beginning it’s a piece of cake to dispatch enemy after enemy. Once you get powered up and get the skill plate boosted to help avoid some of your more vulnerable moments it gets even easier.

You have the ability to control any of the 3 characters you take into battle, but there never seems to be a need unless you just want to see some different fighting styles. It’s not like X-Men Legends where all of your team is on screen at once. It’s one at a time with the ability to magically swap out during a battle. The only time to do this is if you somehow manage to get beat up pretty badly and you want to bring in a character with a full health bar. Otherwise, you’re much better off sticking with Naruto, or whoever your favorite is, and hoarding all of the power ups and boosts for that one character.

As easy and simplistic as most of the gameplay is, there is some level of fun. You can try out different combos and moves and just have a good time beating stuff up. Unfortunately, you usually have to sit through a ton of dialogue and cutscenes to get to the battles. The dialogue is just this side of dreadful. I felt compelled as a reviewer to watch all of this material, but you shouldn’t have to repeat my mistake. Skipping the cutscenes will cost you absolutely nothing as far as lost information or tips.

As I said, there is a decent game trying to get out of Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2, it just doesn’t make it. As happens so often, it mostly feels like it was rushed out to be sure to capitalize as much as possible on the Naruto name. The fighting/RPG aspects are a great time killer, but there’s so much more that could have been done. If you’re big on the Naruto world, you’ll probably enjoy it more than I did, but if you don’t know your Shirogane from your Hokage, I would stay away.