Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles

Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles Simply put, the Dark Souls of the Naruto franchise, and not in the way anyone wanted to. Genre(s): Action Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Release: JP: August 18, 2005 NA: August 22, 2006 EU: May 25, 2007 AU: June 15, 2007 Developer(s): Cavia Publisher(s): Bandai Namco Country: Japan Series: Naruto Successor: Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2

Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles, known as Naruto: Uzumaki Ninden (ナルト-うずまき忍伝, Naruto: Uzumaki Ninden, literally meaning: Naruto: Whirlpool Chronicles) in Japan, is a video game by Bandai Namco and is for the PlayStation 2.

Gameplay

Unlike the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (with the exception of the fourth game) titles on the PS2, which were fighting games, Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles is an action/adventure game. It is also the first 3D Naruto game that does not use cel-shaded graphics. A sequel titled Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 was later released in 2006. The game is fully translated.

Due to the game's early release for English audiences, content present in the game has been changed or removed. The presence of Itachi , Kisame and Tsunade have been completely erased from the original in all FMV sequences and in-game phases, while Gaara and Shikamaru 's outfits have been changed to become the current outfits of the anime. Oddly, Chōji 's ability to enlarge his arm was retained in the game despite being a spoiler for Sasuke's Recovery Mission . Naruto 's Rasengan was also present in the game, but was renamed Power Attack.

Plot

Ever since the death of the Third Hokage, the Leaf Village has been experiencing shortage of shinobi to send out on missions. The Genin of the Leaf Village are now required to do missions that are B-rank or higher. This game chronicles the life of Naruto as a ninja going on daily missions such as transporting items to another town, escorting prisoners, collecting dolls, protecting treasure, advertising for a store etc. While Naruto is on his missions, he runs into familiar friends and foes such as Gaara, Kisame, Jiraiya, and Kabuto. Along the way, Naruto learns that Orochimaru has a plan where he will use a deadly green mist that will kill shinobi and resurrect them in order for him to create a massive army of zombie ninja that will help him take over Konoha.

Bad Qualities

1. To start with, this game had a great potential to be one of the best games in the entire franchise and being a very fun game, but the problem is that it's had a very wasted potential, with downright awful missions to beat and some controls problems. All of the problems will be explained below and there's a lot to list here.
2. The controls are poor, especially the jump, which takes a while to get used to since it's so floaty that it can make some of the enemies a nightmare to beat, and some of the levels will be even worse due to the very poor controls, especially at the last levels where this problem is at it's absolute worst, in fact the poor controls are the main reason of why this game wasted a massive potential.
   • Not to mention that the jump is unresponsive too, as you will everytimes take almost 1 entire second to jump and no we aren't kidding, despite the game being playable and mostly average, fortunately, the sequel, Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 will be improved in every way, such as the said jump.
   • Not to mention that they also ruin the combats that is downright awful and will be the main reason why you will fail some of the missions, it so bad that it's ruin the entire game. Not to mention that when you get aa lot of ennemies in your way, the combats is so awful that you might lose the ennemy that you trying to take down and after that you will get some hits from the other ennemies, this is especially true with the last levels that are some of the worst in the entire game.
3. The camera is dreadful and can cause the game to be even harder than it already is, as even when turning it, it's making this situation even worse than you can ever imagine. Due to that, it's making the game extremely tedious to play at times.
   • This can also be an horrible problem when you're in a timed level, as it's sometimes impossible to even retry unless you load the save to retry again (see BQ#4 for more details).
   • This also makes the enemies harder to kill since, when you do a special move, you could easily go in another direction where the enemy isn't there, and they can easily dodge you due to that.
4. For some reasons, when you fail your missions, sometimes they even don't let you restart again, and you will either have to do the other missions or even load your previous save files. This is an absolutely terrible system, and it's comparable to the Mega Man Zero save system, which was at least not as bad as in this game since you could get your save files much faster than in this game, and there were at least some continues, unlike this game.
   • This is an absolute nightmare if you want to beat all the missions since you will had to restart a save file again until you beat the mission, in fact it so bad that you might even rage quit this game if that happen a lot.
   • This was likely done so the game is harder or had artificial length but it is a very bad mechanics that make it near impossible to beat some missions at times, and it's would also make some levels taking more than 30 minutes if they are horribly hard or confusing, thankfully the sequel would never include this horrible mechanic that make the game an absolute nightmare to beat and especially to doing 100% on it.
5. You can't even skip cutscenes in this game, which is just unacceptable considering that most games in this era let you skip cutscenes. This was probably done just to make the game more cinematic, but the problem is that sometimes the cutscenes are long and the story is filled with many fillers and plot holes, even for Naruto standards (see BQ#6 for more details about the story).
   • Not only that but they can sometime be very long and due to the fact that you had to restart an entire mission again if you fail, you will had to watch them again, even if it's not the first time that you play this game.
   • The cutscenes are also much weaker than the Japanese version since they are mostly dialogues and not a CGI cutscenes, the onky thing close to skip these are to accelerate the dialogues speed and that it, kinda like Astro Boy: The Video Game (although that game doesn't had differences beetwen the Japanese and overseas versions and doesn't even had cut contents in the international releases, and you can also skip the cutscenes in that game).
6. The story is absolutely confusing, filled with many fillers and plot holes, even by Naruto standards, as here it's go all over the place, and it's can sometimes feel like it came from a completely different game; this is especially true in the English version, which had even more plot holes due to the cut contents, this show how far it can go to cut a huge amount of contents for an international version of a game.
   • The english version had an even worst story than the Japanese version since that one was still somewhat decent due to the amazing cutscenes made in CGI and having more developped story than the NA version, it's even to the point that the english version can't even be in the canon timeline due to how confusing it is, this is what happen when you do way too much changes and too much cut contents when you release a game outside a region.
7. You can't even block the ennemies attacks for some reasons, which is a huge problem considering that the ennemies can and they are extremely annoying to beat for some of them. In fact, this makes the game way too hard and can ruin the game or even ruin your progress in a level if you die because you can't block their attacks. This can make you go mad and even make you want to not play this game in a while if you die because you can't block ennemies attacks.
   • This is especially a problem with the boss fights where some of them are horribly overpowered and can kill you easily due to the fact that they had ability to block your attacks and you doesn't had it, this is also horrible when fighting bosses that are very frustrating and almost impossible to beat at times, such as Sasuke that is even harder due to that and it doesn't even help if you doesn't had items to fill up your energy bar, fortunately the sequel would had a block attack to protect you from the ennemies attacks.
8. It's had one of the absolute worst difficulty spikes in any of the Naruto games, as here it's pretty much because of how bad the combat system can be, and it's even because of the fact that you can barely even protect you from the enemies due to the fact that you can't block their attacks, in fact it's even comparable to the difficulty spike of The Incredibles on consoles.
   • This awful difficulty spike even begins as soon as you go to The Missing Tamasaburo level, as here when you go into the mountain, the second part of it is massively hard, and you can easily get a game over and have to restart the whole level again if you haven't saved the game before. Due to how atrocious the difficulty spike of that level is, you had to buy plenty of health items just so you don't die, but even with that, it might also be difficult to beat the mission.
     • The fight with Chouji in that level might also be a really hard time for beating the level since his boss fight is also very hard, and considering the awful camera, it's made this fight even worse. As a result, you had to try not to get hit and dodge his attacks as much as possible.
   • The fight with Sasuke is also one of the worst exemple of difficulty spike of a game and especially in this game, since his attacks are very hard to dodge and considering the awful controls, his fight is probably one of the hardest and maybe one of the worst of the entire game.
   • Another exemple is where you had to transport something such as a prisoner with a char, these missions are often extremely frustrating, at least not all of them but you might clearly lose these missions sometime and due to the fact that most of these missions can't be replayed if you fails, then you had to load your save file and it's can happen a lot of times.
     • Another problem in these kind of missions are the combats, which are often really atrocious since you had to beat ennemies and doesn't going slow in order to beat the ennemies and that the char is not destroyed, this is where the annoying ennemies interruptions are in their absolute worst and also where the game start to be extremely tedious in some of the levels.
     • The horrible problem about this start when you are in the prisoner escort 1 mission that feel like it's will be not unbalanced and being a pretty decent level, howewer it is filled with horribly hard and unbalanced sections of combats where there are a lot of ennemies to beat and most of them would destroy your char quickly if you isn't careful but even if you are careful, that will not even help because there's sometime four ennemies to beat and they are quite annoying to beat too, this is a notable exemple of how not doing artificial difficulty in a game.
   • Some of the ennemies kill you extremely fast and you can die very easily and due to the fact that if you are attacked by ennemies and the menu would not open, it's make this even more of a problem than it's already is.
9. Due to the developers not wanting to spoil the anime at the time due to the English dub being aired much later than the original Japanese dub, the overseas version of this game removed some contents and even downgraded the story just to not spoil the players about the series, such as removing Itachi, Kisame, and Tsunade from the story and renaming Rasengan to Power Strike. Even if it's done for not spoiling the show, it's still a stupid, an absolute drug ship and a terrible move to do because it's downgraded the game with less contents, not to mention that the game was already mediocre so it's didn't need to be downgraded, howewer there's not really any levels that are removed from the overseas versions.
10. Some of the story lines doesn't make senses, even by Naruto standards, an exemple is when Chouji fight Naruto over food because Naruto didn't want to give it to him, which is very stupid since who fight someone over foods ? Not to mention that it's might be one of the most stupid story line of any Naruto media ever.
11. For some reason, despite the game taking place after the Chunin Exams, Gaara is a villain in this game when, in reality, he should be a good guy because in the show he turned good after that arc, this is mostly the reason of why the story is extremely confusing and poor.
12. The combat is downright awful, as it's very hard to pull off and it's extremely unresponsive, which might cause you to actually target in the wrong place and not an enemy since Naruto will continue doing his combos and you can't stop him doing so. This is especially a problem with the boss fights.
    • The problem of the unresponsive combat system is even more of a problem in the boss fights, where some of them beat you easily because you haven't targeted them and they attack you after. This is especially true with the Sasuke boss.
    • Also, the controls even ruin the combat a bit due to how poor they are; this is even worse when you consider that the difficulty of this game is very unfair, even when compared to other Naruto games that had unbalanced difficulty, such as the first Ninja Council game on the Game Boy Advance (although that game was easier than this but still).
    • The unresponsive combats system is also an absolute problem in the char missions, since sometime there's a lot of ennemies that you had to kill and they can destroy the char extremely easily, this is mostly the reason why these kind of missions are extremely frustrating, horrible and overral tedious.
    • This also make some of the levels and even some of the bosses being nearly impossible to beat due to how ridiculously high the difficulty spike is and also because of the fact that some levels have a large amount of ennemies to beat.
13. There aren't any checkpoints, so if you die in a mission, you have to restart the whole mission since after you die it's going back to the title screen. Another problem is that you can't really save the game in a mission due to the enemies interrupting you.
    • This is really a huge problem considering the awful difficulty spike that made the game completely frustrating to the point of being a tedious game and overral not really fun at the end of the game, where the difficulty spike is even worst than the beginning.
    • This also make the game very frustrating and it's pretty much one of the worst way possible to do artificial length for making a game seem longer, not to mention that the game is also pretty short.
14. The missions can sometimes drag on for too long, some of them even last 30 minutes. This makes the game even harder considering that if you don't save before a combat and you die in a combat, then you have to start the game all over again, which is considered to be padding.
15. Enemies will also sometimes interrupt you while you are doing missions, which can become very annoying, especially if you are trying to do a speedrun of the game, which is luck-based for it. As a result, you sometimes take more time than you should in a mission, although this problem might not be bad if you want to grind for more health bars.
16. The gameplay, while fun at times, is very repetitive, mostly due to the fact that enemies can interrupt you when you are doing missions.
17. Only one real playable character, Naruto. The other characters are mostly support-only characters, or they are playable but with a limited time, and you have to wait until they can be playable again.
18. For most of the game, you can just spam Rasengan over and over, which gets old really fast, and add to the repetitive gameplay due to the missions feeling like they are the same sometimes.
19. You can't freely explore stages as they are mostly linear, and there is almost no point in exploring them for the most part.
20. Most of the mechanics are outdated and haven't aged very well; this is probably because of how poorly executed the combat mode is, or it's possible that due to the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, we're made with a similar system to this game but much better executed than this game overall, it's make the game being outdated in comparison.
21. Extremely short length; the whole game lasts only 5 to 8 hours (the reason why it might possibly be 8 hours is due to you trying to grind a lot for the game being easier to complete), though at least there's no content lacking and there are some replay values, so at least it's not really a problem, but still.
22. If you choose the tutorial in the very beginning of the game, then you will get bored very easily of the game, since it's so unnecessary long and most of the techs are easy to make without even use the tutorial.
    • Fortunately, in the title screen you can choose a training mode that at least is better and more interesting than doing it in the story mode.
23. Annoying ennemies AL that are one of the reasons of why this game is frustrating and overral one of the most tedious and even stressful game of the Naruto franchise.
24. This game is a very good exemple of why you should never cut contents out of a game when releasing it in the international releases since that downgrade a game a lot for most of them and this game prove it, not to mention that due to this, the game became quite unfinished in the states and a lot worst than it's already is and is even more mediocre than the Japanese version that at least while still mediocre, had better cutscenes and some that contain explaination before a mission and more importantly, more contents than the overseas versions, even the PAL version suffered from this.
    • This is to the point that some boss fights and even some levels are removed from the international releases and this make the game even shorter than it's already is, and also make the game feel rushed and being unfinished despite being finished and just having cut a lot of contents, they could at least add some new bosses or levels to make it seem to not had a massive contents loss.
    • Not to mention that some changes are extremely stupid and could have easily being avoided such as the removal of the Dark Naruto fight or even the second fight with Orochimaru, not to mention that some of the levels have been completely removed as said before for almost no reasons or even some cutscenes that was cut, and no this is not a joke.

Good Qualities

1. The graphics are pretty decent for the time, with many detailled locations and decent looking characters models, despite not having cel chading, they also are even better than in Ultimate Ninja 2, which was released in the same year as this game. However, this game is not the best-looking Naruto game on the system, due to having Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja 5 being extremely good graphically and blow this game out the water.
   • It's also had very well made characters model that are very detailled and look accurate to the anime, even if some of them didn't really aged well compared to some of the other Naruto games on the PS2.
2. The game, despite being very tedious at times, can still be fun, and the combat system, despite being poor, is actually very fun if you make combos out of it, which might be a reason to play this game. Some fans also may enjoy it because of this since the game is not completely bad at all but it was so ruined due to the awful difficulty spike and the clunky combats that it's became a very tedious game.
3. The sequel of this game, Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2, is a massive improvement over this game, with more characters, better graphics (despite the graphics of the first being good too), more contents, a longer story, the level design being better, and overall a better combat system than this game; in fact, it's even considered to be one of the best Naruto games ever made.
4. The Japanese version of the game, while still a bit mediocre, is better than the overseas version since it contains contents that weren't in the overseas version.
5. There are some funny moments here and there, as usual with the Naruto media.
6. There are a decent number of replay values, despite the game being mediocre at best.
7. The voice acting is excellent in both the Japanese and English versions, as it sounds like it came straight from the show.
8. The upgrade system is pretty good, fun, and even unique; it's also even better than the upgrade system from the sequel.
9. The soundtrack is awesome, as it sounds like it came straight from the show, and the music is so great that it might make you want to listen to it for so long or even listen to it when you do something in real life.
10. At the time of its release, it did stand out from the crowd from the other Naruto games, as most of them were mostly fighting games, such as the Ultimate Ninja series.
11. To be fair, despite the game being flawed, it's not really a bad game, and a lot of people can enjoy it. The problem is that the game had potential that wasn't properly executed, sound familiar?
12. Amazing box art for all regions, especially the Japanese version.
13. The game is still very faithful to both the anime and the manga, due to having a some moments that feel like the show, howewer the story is so confusing that it isn't really as faithful as the other Naruto games, although not as unfaithful to Naruto: Ninja Council.
14. The CGI cutscenes in the Japanese version are absolutely amazing and one of the best point of the game, due to having superb animation that still look good in these very days, and also for having more story than just the characters that talk to each other that are very boring to watch in comparison, the characters design are also great and translate extremely well to the 3D.

Reception

Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles received mixed reviews by critics, with a score of 62/100 on Metacritic, the game received mixed to negative reviews by Naruto fans with them considering the game to be one of the worst Naruto game ever, some even claim that it's the worst Naruto game of all times and it was considered to be the worst Naruto game on the PS2 so far.

The game had a score of 3.16/5.00 on Gamefaqs.

Trivia

• There is a character in this game named Karin and her last name is Kagura. In the future, a character was introduced to the Naruto manga and anime and her name is Karin. She also has a sensory jutsu called "Mind's Eye of the Kagura".
• In the English version, after the Boss fight with Orochimaru, he is seen with his Kusanagi sword, even though he never summoned it nor used it in battle.
• The Japanese version of this game marks the second appearance of Dark Naruto. He first appeared in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 albeit under different circumstances. He first appeared as a byproduct of the Gedo Mark Jutsu. He appears in this game as a result of Itachi's Genjutsu Trap.
• It is unknown whether Kisame or Itachi was the one who planted the Genjutsu on Hakuten Inari.
• This is the longest article related to the Naruto franchise, with more than 29,366 bytes.

Regional differences

• The English version of this game has many differences compared to the Japanese version.
  • The characters' headshots are not seen with their dialogue.
  • Cutscenes involving Tsunade giving more details about missions to Naruto and talking about the aftermath of missions were removed.
  • Dark Naruto Boss Fight was removed.
  • Gaara is an antagonist like his pre-Search for Tsunade arc personality.
  • Rasengan is renamed Power Strike
  • Gaara's clothes were changed to his pre-Sasuke Retrieval arc appearance.
  • Shikamaru is wearing his original jacket instead of his Chunin flak jacket.
  • Shikamaru is a Genin, not a Chunin.
  • The mission involving Jiraiya and his Manuscript was removed completely. Possibly because of the mature undertones of that mission (Naruto and Jiraiya being in a fuzoku (pink town), a type of town in Japan that is dedicated to sexual activities).
  • The first Kisame boss fight is replaced with a boss fight with Kabuto Yakushi.
  • The second Kisame boss fight is replaced with a boss fight with Gaara.
  • The second boss fight with Orochimaru is removed completely.
  • Players do not have the option of gambling against Tsunade in the Monkey Dice Minigame.
  • The Hokage Dolls were changed to the Third Hokage's likeness.
  • The save icon for the game is in the form of the Third Hokage doll instead of the Fifth Hokage doll just like in the Japanese version of the game.
  • CGI/FMV cutscenes involving Kisame, Itachi, Tsunade, and post-Sasuke Retrieval arc Gaara were removed.
  • Half-Shukaku Gaara boss fight was replaced with a boss fight with Gaara in his normal form.
  • The CGI/FMV Cutscenes involving Gamabunta and Manda were removed.
  • Instead of Gaara being a playable character during the final boss fight with Orochimaru, he is replaced with Kakashi.
  • A majority of the aftermath of the missions were replaced with paragraphs detailing what happened instead of actual cutscenes. Some, such as the escort missions, were replaced with Naruto arriving to the Leaf Village with the escorted prisoner.
  • The whole scene where the Gambler gambles with Tsunade after Naruto recovers his Lucky Dice from the Grey Monkey was removed.
  • Instead of Kisame causing trouble in the Sand Village, it was Gaara. However, it is unknown what Gaara's motives were.
  • Instead of Tsunade visiting Naruto in the hospital after his fight with Gaara (Kisame in the Japanese version), she was replaced with Shikamaru.
  • Whenever Naruto is in the Hokage's office to look through and select a mission, Tsunade is replaced with an empty chair.
  • In the Punishment mission, Naruto actually gets a reward. In the Japanese version, he gets no reward.
  • The Nine-Tailed Fox was not seen at all.
  • The opening intro was edited and did not have any shots of Tsunade, Itachi, Kisame, Shikamaru with Chunin Flak Jacket, nor post-Sasuke Retrieval arc Gaara
  • Some of the shots seen in the intro was not seen in the game.
  • The ending cutscene of the game was replaced with Kakashi and Team 7 going on another mission.
  • The whole story event where Naruto had to chase after Gaara to get back Tsunade's Lottery ticket was removed.
  • During the ending credits, the song that played in the original Japanese version was replaced with an instrumental version of the song in the English version.
  • Apparently, this takes place after the Konoha Crush arc but before the Search for Tsunade arc since the Third Hokage is not seen and Neji mentioned his last fight with Naruto. However, Kakashi mentions Hiruzen no longer living and Gaara is an antagonist, thus making it impossible to place the english version in a canon timeline.

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