When I was a kid cartoons only had one game at a time. These days if you like Naruto you get a whole Toys R Us shelf worth of choices: handheld RPG-lites, full-fledged action games on current-gen consoles, or four-player fight-a-thons on the Wii like (deep breath) Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution 2, which drops this coming week.

How spoiled are Naruto fans nowadays anyway? Well, with Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution 2, they’re getting an original storyline, waggle-tastic ninjutsu controls, a huge cast of characters and more.
While Naruto games have been more or less rehashes of the manga/anime storyline thus far, CotNR 2 breaks new ground with an original story with all new art. Otaku are a hard bunch to please – so it remains to be seen how the built-from-scratch plot will fare with hardcore fans, but we can at least take the new plot as evidence that the CotnR2 team isn’t set to rest on the laurels of their property.

A new story of course means new characters, and CotNR 2’s got ‘em in spades: Baki, Kurenai, Anko, Komachi and Towa who are Anbu (Naruto universe Black Ops), and Kisame and Bando, who are original villains for the game, as well as series first appearances for Awakened Hinata, 9-Tails Naruto (woot), and Second State Sasuke.

Gameplay-wise, CotNR 2’s got new Wii-specific motion-based controls. You can do hand-signs with the Wiimote (kinda like this dude) to power up Chakra, or use the Wiimote to launch Paper Bombs, which are like proximity mines and new to the series. Meanwhile, to do a basic attack you shake the Wiimote, to do a heavy attack you press A, matching different analog stick directions for different variations.

Another new series feature is tag-team matches, a feature that’s near default in fighting games nowadays – expect matches to get pretty hairy with tag-team combos and special moves, especially when you’ve got four people duking it out at the same time.

And if you’ve got four friends who want to get their hands on a Naruto fighter, CotNR2’s going to be the only game in town for you anyhow – it’s the only Naruto game out there with room for four. With a pretty robust feature list and fighting mechanics now tried and true through a good amount of Clash of the Ninja games, Revolution 2 could be another solid and substantial purchase for Naruto fans when it drops next week on October 21. Freakin kids. When I was your age…

Tags: Anime, clash of the ninja revolution 2, naruto

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2 Comments » Brandon R. Miles on October 20, 2008 7:01 am eh, i wouldn’t buy this even if i had a Wii, i’m just gonna get Naruto” The Broken Bond and Naruto Ultimate Ninja: STORM on the PS3. ‘i wanna write for ripten!” Jenny on December 23, 2008 3:34 am If you click the second one down at sourcearticle.info there’s some more information RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.