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Naruto: Ninja Council 3 Review
Written by Ryan Morgan on Wednesday, June 13, 2007
User Score
Huge cast of characters from a show that many adore; Cool Jutsu attacks.
Pretty much everything else is either bland or frustrating.
Licensed games are historically weak compared to their original brethren, often little more than cash-ins marketed towards fans of a given series. Anime licenses have been among the worst offenders and despite a recent trend toward improvement (see the Treasure-developed Bleach games for an example), Naruto: Ninja Council 3 for DS is a throwback to those not-so good old days of releases with style and no substance.
At first glance, Ninja Council 3 is an old-school, side-scrolling fighter featuring a huge cast from the Shonen Jump anime. That makes it all the more disappointing to discover that the single-player content is actually a mission "bingo" board of mini-levels that have no storyline and little variation in design. The most entertaining are the goals that hint at what this game could have been, placing you in a boss battle with no time limit and nothing to worry about except kicking some ass. Even with somewhat screwy controls (which I'll get to in a bit), these manage to be entertaining diversions from the pain of finishing the timed missions. Working against the clock, whether collecting random items or fighting a certain number of nondescript enemies, exposes layers of cheap design that can escalate quickly from frustrating to downright anger-inducing.
As an example, one of the early levels is in a lava-filled cave where the objective is to kill 20 bats in 300 seconds. This sounds simple, but the bats are all hanging on the ceiling, can only be attacked when they are swooping at you, and only swoop when you leap near them. Due to somewhat awkward jumping mechanics, it is common for you to run into the enemy instead of landing a clean hit. This flinches the character, knocking you back and often to your death in the lava below. If you manage to catch a wall you can theoretically wall-jump back up to safety, but the mechanic for that is so awkward that this often ends up making things worse and killing you in the attempt. The hint given on failure says to use the projectile weapons available in the level, but they are extremely hard to aim at flying targets and feel weak against most enemies.
In the areas where ground-based enemies (or breakable objects) are the targets, the still-weak projectiles combine with the inability to run and attack simultaneously to create situations where you seem guaranteed to fail by running out of time. The button layout also starts to work against you as the jump and attack buttons are mapped to "A" and "Y," a combination that requires quite a bit of dexterity to use and really hurts against the bats I mentioned earlier. Compounding matters, unclear objectives often become an issue, such as another early level where you are supposed to beat Sakura in a footrace. Not only was it impossible to figure out where you were supposed to go, but Sakura seemed more interested in fighting than winning a race. Perhaps a better objective would have been "run away from the angry ninja."
Having said all of that, there are a few positive aspects to Ninja Council 3 that should be mentioned. The sound is pretty solid; a few sound effects are overused but the overall experience is worth having the volume on. The graphics also please as each character is well animated even if the enemies tend to be very nondescript. Each character also has a customizable set of "Jutsu" supermoves from the anime that are activated by tapping one of four squares on the touchscreen. This launches you into a set of mini-game tasks like entering a set of Japanese characters, blowing into the mic, spinning icons, and more. The resulting moves are stylized and impressive, leading to some disappointment when the result of your awesome attack is lackluster or downright impossible to determine.
Ninja Council 3 is a frustrating and bland affair that has little to recommend it besides the extensive character roster from a recognizable license. It's not technically broken in any way, but there is no reason to purchase a game like this when there are so many other options available that are more enjoyable. If you are a die-hard fan of the series, I'd say wait a few weeks for used copies to appear and then pick it up if you must. In all fairness, it's quite possible you may find something to enjoy buried deeper than most of us were willing to dig.
posted June 15, 2007