Naruto Shippūden 3D: The New Era
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 A New Era ? We Don't Think So...
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Naruto Shippūden 3D: The New Era (known as Naruto Shippūden: Shinobi Rittai Emaki Saikyō Ninkai Kessen (ナルト- 疾風伝 忍立体絵巻!最強忍界決戦!) in Japan, and Naruto Shippuden: The New Era in Europe) is a video game developed by Tomy and published by 505 Games for Nintendo 3DS. This title is the eighth and final installment of the Ninja Council series of Naruto videogames. The game was never released in North America.
Plot
The story is loosely based on the Five Kage Summit arc, and seems to take place shortly after its beginning. The game starts off with Naruto training on Mount Myōboku, soon after his training he is called back to Konoha by Kakashi Hatake. When he arrives, Naruto finds out that Tsunade has cancelled the pact with Sunagakure and the hidden villages all seem to be about to go to war. Naruto goes to the different villages and fights the Kage, but they turn out to be puppets. Naruto finds out that it was Malice who made the villages go to war, and created the puppets. Naruto finds out that the reason she did all that was because she hates the ninja world because they took her son, Yūto away from her. Naruto teams up with Sasuke, and the Five Kage to stop her. Malice uses the Reflective Spirit Jutsu to revive Yūto, however, since she used it on a puppet, it transformed Yūto into a giant puppet. Malice asks for Naruto, Sasuke and the Kage's help to save her son. They stop him, Malice thanks them for saving him, and she runs away.
Why It's Not A New Era
- The title is incredibly misleading, since not only does this isn't a 3D platformer but rather a 2D platformer, but also "The New Era" tagline make absolutely no senses for this game since there isn't any new era in this game since the story is only about a filler that had nothing new, and it just about a war that occur because of Malice.
- You only start out with a 2-hit combo and you have to buy more hits. You should be able to have more hits from the start. Buying them just makes the game even more tedious.
- Speaking of that, this could cause a lot of difficulty spike since the enemies can still hit you when you attack them, which not only make the game hard but the fact that there is only a 2-hit combo make everything worse, and it even make TMNT 2: Battle Nexus looking like it's had an amazing combat system.
- The graphics are absolutely horrendous, ugly and terrible, even for a 2011 3DS game, since it is extremely blurry, undetailled, had washed out colors and especially had horrible character models that are somehow even worse than even the most ugly looking Naruto games, due to how bad it look, it can even be compared to a 1999 PS1 game, and even some games on the PS1 or GBA look better than this, such as Mega Man Legends, Bomberman Max 2 or even Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku that look way better than this, and one of them even date from 1997, in which in 2011, that Mega Man game graphics we're outdated, though still look good for it's time.
- The main villain, Malice, is very generic, as she kidnaps the Kage just because she hates all the ninja because of what they did to her son. Later on, for some reason, her son comes back and turns evil, and she joins forces with you for some reason.
- Awful controls that are probably some of the absolute worst in a Naruto game, this is even worse than in Naruto: Ninja Council, where in that game it was poor but not to this extend.
- They are horribly slippery, and this is arguably even worse than in the first Ninja Council game, since at times you might stop moving but the characters will stop just after half a second, which is stupid and could cause cheap deaths.
- They are very clunky, as it is proved by the horrible jump controls that is probably the worst part of the controls, due to how hard it is to make your characters move, and because of this, the controls make the game litteraly unplayable in some areas.
- They even are as far as being extremely unresponsive, especially with the jump and the movements that are the worst offender, since when jumping, it is very unresponsive and this isn't helped by how clunky it is, as stated before, not to mention that even the movements themself are unresponsive and really slow, making this game an absolute chore to play, even when compared to Ninja Council 2 on the GBA.
- Laughably bad animations, especially the jumping that feel heavy because of how terrible the animation is in this game overall, this isn't even helped by the horrible graphics that we're talked about before this.
- The entire story is extremely awful and probably one of the worst story you might ever see in the franchise and definitely the worst of a Naruto game, since it is incredibly confusing, had ton of fillers (even for Naruto standards), and is confusing, it is likely the Naruto story with the most plot holes present.
- For one exemple of a confusing moment in the story, at the beginning of the game, Kakashi tells Naruto that he needs to return to Konoha, which makes you think that Naruto has to fight the Akatsuki member Pein like in the anime and manga. However, he doesn't even appear in this game and instead you fight a fake Tsunade.
- Another plot holes would be that how Malice turned evil to good ? Except for the fact that she need help after her son turn evil, and if she already caused damages, why did Naruto and Sasuke accept that she join forces with them?
- Horrible combats that is somehow even worse than both the first Ninja Council and Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles, since not only does it is boring but also tedious because the combos aren't that great, and when you attack the enemies, they aren't stunned and can still attack you, the upgrades can make it a little better but not enough to be fun or decent enough.
- Unlike the other Ninja Council games, there's only 2 playable characters, which are Naruto and Sasuke. The rest of the characters are support-only, this is unnaceptable considering that even the first Naruto: Ninja Council had 3 playable characters (although Kakashi was unlockable, not playable from the start), and that game was released in 2003, this doesn't help that this game had the lowest amount of playable characters in a Ninja Council game ever.
- They could have added other playable characters, such as Sakura, Chouji, Neji or even Kakashi but no, they instead are support friendly or not even in the game at all.
- The level design is very poor, even when compared to other Naruto games released in the 2010s, as there's so many repetitive areas, and the levels themself are either bland or horribly designed, due to either the awful enemies placements or the platforming sections that are very awful and those are even worse than Ninja Council 2 on the GBA.
- Very unresponsive and poor quick time events.
- Despite it being advertised on the box, Naruto's Sage Mode form is just a special move.
- Very generic enemies like wolves and spiders. They could have made more enemies that fit the Naruto story, like generic rogue ninjas.
- Believe it or not, the PAL version of the game doesn't even had any voice acting, which is completely unnaceptable even for an early 3DS game, games such as Super Mario 3D Land (even if it's mostly noise that the characters does instead of actual voice acting/ had voice acting and that game out in the sale year as this game.
- The thing that make this worse is that the Japanese version had voice acting, making it even more unnaceptable and make you wonder if the game was even finished.
- The game at launch costed $40, which felt like a big ripoff compared to other and cheaper games that came out around the same time, such as when compared to other better platformer on the console such as Super Mario 3D Land.
- The game is extremely short, as it is beatable around 4 hours, though this was always a problem with the Ninja Council games subseries.
- Horrible hit-detection that is one of the worst in a Naruto game ever, since it doesn't register your attacks sometime, and this isn't helped by the small collision of your attacks, which is probably where the hit-detection problem came from, the hit-detection is so bad that it can make the game harder than it already is, especially with the combats, as already stated earlier.
- Awful enemies placements that are so poorly placed that they can make some stages being completely annoying, especially at the later half of the game that is ridiculously filled with those horrible enemies placements that managed to be worse than before.
- Repetitive gameplay that quickly became boring, due to having absolutely zero variary that could have helped making this game more fun to play, this is mostly because of the awful combos system that quickly became repetitive, the gameplay itself, and even the level design contribute to the repetitive gameplay, much like Ninja Council 4.
- Overall, this ended up making Tomy lose their license after this game release, as stated earlier, but it also became one of, if not the worst Naruto game ever made and is even the main cause of why the Ninja Council games had a bad reputation, not only that, but it doesn't help that this is an extremely boring game, a game made with low efforts and could almost be considered a shovelware, thanks to how bad it is.
- This show how much damages this game had caused to not only Tomy, but especially the Naruto games since after that, most of them will never try to do something unique and it probably will be impossible to get a new Ninja Council or a Clash of Ninja game, and some might even want a new Ninja Destiny, but as stated before, due to Tomy losing the license that will probably never going to happen.
- This can even show that sometime, doing 2.5D platformer screw up despite that it is mostly 2D gameplay, and this game definitely show, since the other Ninja Council games we're great (except the first two games on the GBA that we're mediocre), and a transition to 2.5D was a good idea, but unfortunately, this game execution is terrible.
- This show how much damages this game had caused to not only Tomy, but especially the Naruto games since after that, most of them will never try to do something unique and it probably will be impossible to get a new Ninja Council or a Clash of Ninja game, and some might even want a new Ninja Destiny, but as stated before, due to Tomy losing the license that will probably never going to happen.
Redeeming Qualities
- The second Naruto 3DS game, Naruto: Powerful Shippuden was a massive improvement over this game. While it still only has 2 playable characters (Naruto and Rock Lee), the game does have a better story, better controls and graphics, better gameplay and more replay value. The 2 playable characters also have their own unique story mode.
- Awesome soundtrack that sound like it's came straight from the show, much like most Naruto games.
- The game is somewhat interesting, despite being terrible and that the cutscenes having no voice acting.
- Great voice acting for the Japanese version, as usual with the Naruto games.
- The boss fights are pretty decent and all are different, especially the final boss that is quite epic.
- Malice, despite being a generic villain, has a pretty cool design.
- The box art is very awesome to look at and is so good to the point of looking like a Naruto movie poster, and it could definitely pass as a Naruto movie poster.
Reception
Unlike most Ninja Council games, this game received mixed to negative reviews by critics, and received even more negative reviews by gamers and Naruto fans, and is even considered to be one of the worst Naruto game ever made, if not the worst one, it had a score of 50/100 on Metacritic.
Critics mostly criticized the bad graphics, the poor level design and the terrible gameplay, and even considered this game to be a cash grab for some of them.
WatchMojo ranked this game the 4th WORST in the Top 10 BEST & WORST Naruto games.[1]
Trivia
- The game was planned to be released in America under the title of Naruto Shippūden Action, but it was cancelled.
- It is the first Naruto game on the Nintendo 3DS.
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