Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress
Can we please draw the line at one subtitle please?
Tags: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress Categories: PSP Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Jul 8th, 2008
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (title page) | 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Fighting | No | ||
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The Naruto games have been coming at a pace that would overwhelm the fanbase of most shows. With several genres, systems, and development teams, these games range from forgettable to passable. The newest PSP installment, Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress manages to take the PS2 series, Ultimate Ninja and scale it down for the PSP. That seems to work perfectly, albeit for a short time. Essentially this game suffers from what every game in the series does, once you’ve played it long enough that the new sheen has worn off, you are left with a pretty similar game to the last one, and a monotonous experience.
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Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress seems to suffer more because players are forced to play through mini games hundreds of times to the point where the meager amount of fun the simple games have to offer is leeched dry half way through the story mode. The free roaming that had been integrated into the PS2 titles has also been removed, replaced with a map system.
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Since you spend so much time not fighting, that aspect of the game retains it charms long after the story and mini games have lost their luster. For this there is an additional mode that allows for a traditional fighting games experience. I played through this mode and it has customizable teams and decent difficulty levels.
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What really works here is that the controls of the PS2 have been slimmed down, allowing for a much sleeker and intense fighting. This brings the series closer to it’s console cousin, Clash of Ninja. Considering how much these titles rely on cut scene moves, they have expanded the moves that trigger these attacks, allowing for a few pleasant surprises as you learn the controls.
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This is by far the best portion of the game, however the story mode is going to be the face of the game for most players. That design fell far short of even my meager expectations. Initially it seems like there is going to be a full on experience akin to the console series, and then we are delivered talking heads with scrolling text. These motionless scenes could be at least used to create very Manga like scenes, but instead the lack even that rudimentary set up. This was a huge let down, as the story is actually quite good. The story here in this game has the various characters fighting doppelgangers or confused allies who think that they are yet another illusion. However the sparse presentation doesn’t allow any real tension to develop.
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The navigation around a map has you place scrolls to determine whether you will have a mini-game or battle to face. Usually the story is advanced by an event, then a battle with the next character to join your party. It doesn’t always do this, but it still has a pretty predictable pattern. This mode is hampered by the mini game, I had a stretch in there where I went close to an hour without actually fighting. There is no reason why I should spend more time playing Simon or on a slot machine than I do fighting in a fighting game. This really ends up being an albatross around the game’s neck.
Heroes 2 could have been a great game, it improves on the controls of the PS2 Ultimate Ninja series, and has gome good stuff in there. Unfortunately what merits the game has are buried under a sea of unneccessary distractions.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great Controls + Improvement over PS2 version |
6.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Story mode is crippled by over amount of mini-games - Presentation of story needs work, simple cut-out and text display doesn't allow any of the story to grab the player |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This would have been a great title, but it's hampered to many missteps in execution. | |
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Tags: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Jul 8th, 2008 and is filed under PSP Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
