➤ Young ninjas in three dimensions 🎮

A few years ago we would have started this article with a phrase like "for the uninitiated" but the truth is that nowadays everyone knows who Naruto is: the media bombardment of cartoons and comics, combined with the inexhaustible flow of products commercial related to the franchise, videogame and not, has made the character of Masashi Kishimoto very popular, making him in effect the spiritual heir of Dragon Ball also in Spain. Since we are traditionalists, we say the same: for the uninitiated, Naruto Uzumaki is a teenage ninja from the Leaf Village, one of the many that populate the mystical world of Kishimoto.

However Naruto is also the body that imprisons the demon of the nine-tailed fox but above all he is a tenacious and idealistic boy surrounded by many allies and adversaries. As the comic moves towards its natural conclusion, Takara Tomy intends to squeeze this goose that lays golden eggs as much as possible: sometimes the results are good, sometimes only fair, in other cases they are a real disaster. This first foray of Naruto into the Nintendo 3DS software definitely belongs to the latter category.

Super Naruto Bros ?!

Naruto is an action and adventure manga that has the merit of proposing situations and characters that are decidedly in-depth, as opposed to many series where two-dimensional characters, in every sense, give them a good reason without valid reasons. The same care for the narrative aspect is also found in this Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era, set during the second part of the manga, when Naruto has already grown up and his friend and rival Sasuke has abandoned the protagonist and his companions. The history of the game was written specifically and although it does not offer who knows what complexity or twist, it still manages to be satisfying and provide a valid pretext that connects the various levels of the game.

However, the series revolves around many fights between ninja who use increasingly exaggerated and spectacular techniques, but instead of proposing the most appropriate and winning formula of a fighting game, Takara Tomy has well thought of following in the tragic footsteps of the Ninja Council series for Nintendo DS , proposing a questionable hybrid between a traditional platformer and a scrolling fighting game. The result is a truly identityless product in which the player is forced to go through the horizontal scrolling stages by jumping from one platform to another and eliminating the enemies that come in front of him, equipped with an artificial intelligence at the limit of the suicidal instinct, with a single combo that can be performed by repeatedly pressing the same button. In short, variety is not something of which Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era can boast, despite our protagonist is able to hurl kunai at the furthest enemies or activate the infamous "hermit mode" which amplifies its power: the gameplay is therefore reduced to a repetitive pressing of a couple of keys, alternating to a feature designed specifically for the Nintendo 3DS which we will talk about shortly.

The 3D effect

Not received: so briefly we could define the 3D effect of Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era. The illusion of depth is barely perceptible and, despite the platforming soul of the game, it is absolutely negligible and irrelevant for the gameplay. In general, the effect is decidedly weak and makes the bombastic title of the cartridge rather ironic.

The Ninja who tried

Perhaps with a nod to the games of the LEGO series, Takara Tomy has included a rather particular mechanic designed especially for players who love to collect every object and complete the games one hundred percent. Naruto can in fact make use of the help of some adventure companions: after having acquired them, it will be possible to "summon them" to take advantage of their special abilities and access previously precluded level portions that contain extras and bonuses of various kinds. Of the two most interesting innovations, this is certainly the best: now comes the worst. Each level of Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era proposes bosses that comic and cartoon fans will surely recognize, inserted to make a bit of a scene thanks to interactive cutscenes featuring their special techniques. Similar cutscenes are also triggered during the levels and are basically a kind of "quick time event" that the player must face successfully if he wants to continue the game.

In practice, these QTEs exploit the gyroscopic technology of the Nintendo 3DS and require precise movements from the player to be overcome, the problem is that their implementation is nothing short of disastrous: the game hardly recognizes the movements of the player holding the console. and sometimes misinterprets otherwise correct inputs, remaining impassive and forcing one to repeat the cutscene until an almost entirely random positive result. It can happen to literally get stuck in a point of the game without being able to overcome it despite performing the correct movements, needless to say that this feature that should be the backbone of the game is a source of frustration and annoyance. Fortunately, the actual cutscenes are very pleasant and follow the animated series very faithfully, unfortunately they are the only prominent element of a mediocre and superficial technical realization. The polygonal models of Naruto and his companions are made well, even if a little woody in the movements, but the various stages and the enemies are really anonymous and poor in details and this makes the frequent drops in the frame rate even more inexplicable; the absence of any form of speech is also even more evident in the face of the numerous lines of textual dialogue and a dull and repetitive soundtrack.

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Most of the games based on the Kishimoto series certainly don't shine for quality, however with this one Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era it feels like a game originally conceived for the previous Nintendo laptop and then hastily ferried to the new handheld. Despite the problems encountered, a step forward from a technical point of view has actually been made, but everything else leaves us really embittered, especially the buggy use of the gyroscope which can only get in the way, instead of at least arousing curiosity. If we can be sure that Naruto will return to Nintendo 3DS, it is equally true that this "new era" of gaming has not started well for the little blond ninja.