Naruto: The Broken Bond

For those of you who have read my Naruto review, you know how much I’ve become a fan of the anime. There’s a character for everyone, action packed, and heartfelt at parts (impressive for a kid’s cartoon, no?). Imagine my luck when I found Naruto: The Broken Bond video game at a convention. (Found being the operative word.) I was overjoyed after finishing the entire first series (all fillers included, mind you) and I wanted to play this game so badly. Not much of a focus on Gaara of the Sand

Clean and crisp fight system, right up my alley.

(bummer), and no Shino to speak of. But the game did focus on my favorite part of the series. Retrieving Sasuke from the evil clutches of Orochimaru. Let’s get it on.

So this game, in all its 3-D glory, takes place from around episode 80 to 140. You find Itachi, recruit Tsunade, and fight for Sasuke. Some of the most legit parts of the entire series. And it all kicks off with the death of the Third Hokage. You get a detrimentally redonk fight right before the whole game kicks off. It’s dope.

An expansive world of the Leaf Village and surrounding area.

What’s the only downside of that? You have to fight with Naruto as the main character you customize and level up throughout the rest of the game. He’s lame, and he’s voice by Maile Flanagan. That robustly rotund woman has ruined Naruto for me, other than the fact he’s an annoying character to begin with. I watched Naruto dubbed, played the game dubbbed, and now it’s time for a different change of pace. Japanese loyalists rejoice, I’m switching to subbed for Naruto: Shippuden.

So in this new change apparently (never played the other game) from Rise of a Ninja, there’s a whole new fighting system where you can tag

Tag teams for ultimate destruction.

in a teammate. The world is more expansive and colorful than the last, and you really feel like you jumped into the world of Naruto. You’re flying through the trees, throwing Kunai, and rousing up some Ryo to pay for all your customizable ninjutsu. It’s pretty dope and there’s even some carnival games in there for the kids. All the side missions and length of the plot allow this to be a 40 hour game easy. And worth replay value and tournament play with friends. Even online, but it’s probably not worth it.

Where’s Shino?

Some surprises to me came in the gameplay as well. There’s no Shino as I said before. That loveable bug kid I wanted to cosplay someday isn’t in the anime much at this point, so they felt they didn’t need to put him in the game as a playable character. Lame. I loved being able to use Shikamaru (he’s dope as balls), and I created a love for Neji’s 8 Trigram, 64 Palm through playing as him extensively in the game. Little hint to anyone? If you wanna be cheap and win, use Kiba and his XXXY attack. Never misses, and it’s quick. Just a thought.

The plot towards the end is ruined when Choji, Neji, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Rock Lee come in to fight the Sound Ninja. The battles are too easy on easy and even just as simple on normal (labeled Ganin,

You create the ultimate battles.

Chunin, and Jonin). It was anticlimactic and I was looking for a lot more ninjutsu to utilize throughout the game. Only 2 for Shikamaru and most of the characters? Come on… But, all the same, there are so many character to love and choose from.

Get some of that dopeness.

So plug in and get hooked for a couple of days with Naruto: The Broken Bond. I’m planning on playing more of these and honing my skills with Rock Lee. The gameplay is the best part and it’s nostalgic for anyone who has watched Naruto to relive the events. Just don’t expect me to go exploring all that often without being able to navigate waterways and avoid sharp spike fences. Take away life, my ass.

Gotta say the overall game experience wasn’t too hard, and well worth all the fighting. So train well my young Ganin, for you will be a Hokage one day. (And please add Shino next time…) 8.4 out of 10.

Darksiders: Puzzles and Death… and the Apocalypse

Ever since I saw the trailer for this video game, I had wanted it. I had no idea what to expect. Would it just be a hack and slash game with complete and utter destruction? Would it be a game of skill or button mashing? What it turned out to be was not what I expected.

Okay, look. I didn’t have the traditional childhood. I didn’t have a Nintendo and have a chance to play all the amazing Mario and Zelda that was out there. So big surprise to me when an Xbox 360/PS3 game comes out that is identical in its gameplay to Zelda.

Link?

It’s really a mixture of the fighting style of God of War and the puzzles of Zelda, but I was thrown off in the first place by the puzzles. Basic day in the life of Darksiders for me? Hey, here’s a block you have to move/portal you have to create. Find a way across without dying. Go. Needless to say I invested a lot of time viewing the walkthroughs online to figure this game out. Scoff if you will, it doesn’t detract from the satisfaction and action of this game.

Basic plot: You are War, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. You come to Earth because the seals have been broken and all out war has begun to take place on the planet. There are angels fighting demons, zombies, creatures, you name it. What War gets sucked into doing is representing the Scarred Council on Earth in what I would call restorative justice.

Quite big. Sure you can swing that?

So you start out the game with a bit of firepower. You have your gigantic sword, Chaoseater and a bit of hellish power, Chaos. This stuff can summons pikes from the ground, turn your skin to stone, summon hellfire, all sorts of cool trick War picked up off the street. As the game progresses, you gain access to other various items and weapons that kick even more ass. This gives you access to various areas you didn’t before and also contributes to an arsenal that mixes it up when beating the baddies.

Speaking of baddies, I love the characters in this game. Seeing as this game goes all biblical all over everyone’s asses, It’s a fun and easy way to learn a little bit of Old Testament. And then toss around those characters like rag dolls. I mean, come on, you are War, the most severely destructive of the Apocalypse Bros. The only characters you really don’t see are God and Satan. Even though they may be pulling the strings, all the demons and angels suffer for it.

I would also like to mention that this game reminds me of a game I played for XBox a while ago that focused on Spawn killin’ some angels and demons. It was great.

Weapon moves and combos in this game are great. The game has the “item store” quality to it where you go and collect upgrades based on the amount of carnage you incur. You gain health, armor, and Chaos as you find hidden chests throughout and that always makes for a great replay value when you didn’t find them all. (One reason I want to play again is to find all the Abyssmal Armor pieces, giving War an all new look.)

Only drawback. I took months, spread out, to play this game. I picked it up from Gamestop and took an inordinate amount of time beating it. Why? Some of those puzzles are so vague, there’s no definite way without the help of a game guide to beat them. If there wasn’t the internet, I would have never finished this game. And I don’t think it’s a intellectual issue. It was all about going with the 5 second cutscenes that tried to reveal everything at once for you to utilize to move forward. Not helpful.

War = Complete Badass

But hey, you get a badass steed and frolic through the blood and gore of the battlefield that was our home. I guess if you truly loved Darksiders, wait another year and you might find you can be an active participant in it when 2012 rolls around. Maybe you’ll even get a little glimpse of war.

Oh, and another thing. The voice actors in this film were great. Liam O’Brien (done an amazing amount of work in both anime and video games), Mark Hamill (amazing what he can do with his voice, he’s the Watcher), Phil LaMarr (always great, MadTV prepared him well), Moon Bloodgood (interesting voice actor choice), Troy Baker (RIDICULOUSLY GOOD), J.B. Blanc (great accent as Ulthane), and Fred Tatasciore (his list of video games and anime is so extensive. He’s everywhere.).

So definitely check this game out. It’s worth a play and who knows, maybe you’ll learn how to survive the apocalypse. Or maybe you’ll have a great time running train as War. 8.6 out of 10.