Naruto: Ninja Council
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Naruto: Ninja Council is the first installment in the Ninja Council series. The story mode very loosely follows the Prologue — Land of Waves arc to the Chūnin Exams arc.
Plot
The game loosely follows the episodes 1-52 of the anime series.
Gameplay
The game is a platformer game based off the Naruto anime and manga series.
There are scrolls that the playable character can obtain to perform abilities at the cost of chakra, which can be used to break down walls or create whirlwinds. Players also get to have an opportunity to fight Orochimaru and Gaara.
The playable characters are Naruto and Sasuke, with the possibility to unlock Kakashi.
Bad Qualities
- Very loose controls. Your character will be sliding all over the place all the time.
- Awful music that sounds like it came from an NES game rather than a GBA game.
- Bad level design. Some of the levels are cluttered with enemies and hazards as well.
- There are some very cheap deaths in some levels. One example is the final level, where there is a bottomless pit that you can't see.
- There are also some annoying enemy placements. One of them is during the Ninja Academy level, where there is a female ninja placed near a gap. If she hits you, you will fall down the gap.
- Only 3 playable characters, not to mention, one of them (Kakashi) is unlockable. Other platformer games on the GBA like Super Mario Advance and Sonic Advance 3 had more characters and they came out before this game. They could have added in more characters like Sakura, Iruka, Neji, Rock Lee or Shikamaru to make things fair.
- The scroll mechanic, while neat, can get very tiresome and repetitive. What is worse is that in some levels, you can only hold one at a time.
- Random difficulty spikes. Most of the game is easy, but then you get to Orochimaru, who is very hard. Temari in the hard levels is also extremely difficult to fight while Kankuro and Gaara are much easier.
- Some unfair boss fights, such as Neji (he can block most attacks), Temari (Her wind attacks are pretty fast moving and deal a ton of damage) and Orochimaru.
- Sasuke is the worst character in the game, as his jutsu takes longer to charge up, his attacks don't deal much damage and his jump is the lowest.
- The character sprites look very awful. They look more like bootleg dolls' bad drawings rather than the characters from the anime and manga series. The worst offender is Neji, who looks similar to his anime self, but with the headband, shoes, and shorts recolored to purple, which appears to be nonsense, since many characters had their headband blue and they look like their anime/manga counterpart.
- Confusing story. Instead of following the manga storyline, it is some weird test where leaf ninja challenge you. Some of those "leaf ninja" aren't even from the Leaf Village, like Zabuza, Haku, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro.
- There are multiple things make no sense in this game, such as fighting Zabuza and Haku in the Leaf Village, and fighting Konohamaru in the Land of Waves. As far as we know, Zabuza and Haku never even visited the Leaf Village (apart from a small cameo in a filler episode if that counts, although that episode came out years after this game was released) and Konohamaru never even went to the Land Of Waves.
- Tenten isn't even featured in the game at all. Instead, she is replaced with a second Rock Lee fight. She doesn't even appear as a assist in the game. She doesn't even appear in the gallery. This is not excusable because by the time this game came out, she was a major character in the series. This made many Tenten fans upset.
- Some other major villains don't appear as well, such as Kabuto, Zaku, Dosu, Kin and Gato.
- The voice clips, while great, are very muffled and don’t sound right.
- Only 5 characters are voiced. Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi and Iruka. This is not excusable since some other GBA games had full voice acting. They could have voiced other characters, like Rock Lee, Gaara, Neji, Orochimaru, Hinata or Zabuza.
- Some of the enemies make no sense, such as a Konoha Jounin (why would they be attacking a character from their own village?), bats and the snakes.
- The camera can be very jarring at times, due to it turning whenever you turn around.
- Every time you lose during a boss battle, you lose all your chakra, making the fights even harder.
- Kakashi is very overpowered in this game, as he has the highest jump, he uses the lowest chakra and his moves deal tons of damage. He can also heal himself.
- After you play through a level, you have to play through the same level again, just with a different layout and a different boss battle. The graphics and music are unchanged.
- Rock Lee can fully heal himself during the middle of his battle, which is extremely unfair unless you are playing as Kakashi (Naruto too after you get the Nine Tailed chakra), who can also heal himself.
- Completing the hard levels as all 3 characters is very unsatisfying, since all you get is a different picture of Sakura.
- The game is extremely short, as there are only 7 levels (not counting the replay levels). The game can be beaten in a couple hours, maybe even less than that.
Good Qualities
- Great voice acting. The voice actors from the anime series (Maile Flannagan, Yuri Lowenthal, Kate Higgins, Dave Wittenburg, Quinton Flynn) reprise their roles in this game.
- All of the specials look pretty cool. The best one has to be Naruto's Nine Tail Fox Chakra, as it shows an awesome sprite of Kurama that looks pretty impressive.
- You can replay each level in Free Mode and it can help you find leaf symbols you missed faster.
- Each character does play uniquely. Naruto is a well balanced character, Kakashi is extremely fast, and Sasuke is slower but easier to control.
- The game can be fun at times, especially during the boss battles.
- Lots of contents.
- This adds replay value. After you beat the game with both Naruto and Sasuke, you can unlock Kakashi and play through the harder version of the story. This harder story takes place at night and Gaara is now the final boss instead of Orochimaru. Temari and Kankuro also replace Zabuza and Haku during the Hokage Rock levels.
- Collecting all the Konoha symbols unlocks the sound test.
- Each level does have a incentive to explore it, as you can find many secrets, collectibles and hidden support characters like Sakura, Iruka, Hinata and Gai.
- In the Hidden Leaf Village school level, before you fight Temari, there is a secret room that contains a scroll which gives you a extra life and unlocks a extremely powerful move. Naruto gains the Nine-Tailed Fox Chakra, Sasuke gains the Shishi Rendan and Kakashi gains the Chidori.
- After you beat the game, you unlock the gallery.
- The sequel, while not a great game, was definitely a huge improvement, with it having a better story, better controls, a better soundtrack, More detailed graphics, more playable characters and nicer sprites that actually resemble the characters rather than bad drawings.
- The 3rd, 4th and 5th games, as well as Shinobi Rumble, were also huge improvements.
- Some people may enjoy the game, though that depends on the player.
- Some of the songs are alright, like the main menu theme and the Orochimaru fight theme.
- You do get free continues after you lose all your lives during a level, making this game perfect for beginners.
- The scroll mechanic, while poorly executed, is interesting.
- The box art is cool in both the American and Japanese versions.
- This game was Gaara's first appearance in a Naruto video game.
- Great easter eggs for fans of the anime and manga, such as using the Sexy Jutsu on Ebisu, Iruka and the Third Hokage, failing to use Shadow Clone Jutsu on Kiba and using Lightning Blade on Zabuza. Each of those will OHKO the opponent and trigger a special cutscene.
- Rock Lee, Gaara, Kurama chakra form, Ebisu and Zabuza’s sprites are alright.
- The game over screen is pretty funny.
- The Mandarin Chinese version of the game came bundled in a special edition Naruto VCD (video CD) set that was only released in Mainland China. The bundle contained the 4-disc VCD set (consisting of Naruto episodes 1-114), this game, and a Naruto plush doll. The bundle was $20 when it first came out. This makes it essentially a free game if you bought the set.
- This game is surprisingly decent compared to some other crappy platformers on the GBA.
- Decent graphics that look colorful and some of the backgrounds are really detailled for a 2003 GBA game.
- Some of the sprites are okay, such as Rock Lee, Kurama chakra form and Zabuza.
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