Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era

Now that the 3DS has been available for three months, we were hoping we'd seen the last of the launch shovelware and rushed releases.

How wrong we were.

Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era, the first stereoscopic 3D title based on the hit Japanese manga series, is hopelessly mangled together with no appreciation for what constitutes a good platformer.

Controls are shoddy, the story and dialogue is even shoddier, and the action is flawed at every turn. Whether you're a fan of the series or not, Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era isn't fit to grace your 3DS.

Nah-ruto

As you follow protagonist Naturo on his quest to stop a war from escalating, you'll encounter dialogue so hilariously misguided and wooden, the game's world is rendered completely unbelievable.

A decent narrative can sometimes pull a bad game out of the mire, but there's no chance of Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era enjoying such a reprieve. From the first cutscene onwards, it's all downhill.

Naruto is required to pelt himself through level after level, each as poorly designed as the next, with your hammering the Y button whenever he comes across an enemy.

Platforms are oddly shaped at times, meaning that when you leap onto them, Naruto will go into a constant jump animation and then slide off the edge.

It's also notable that, technically, there isn't much point in stopping to kill the enemies. You can simply bolt your way through each level and the assorted bad guys won't be able to stop you.

No thought. Ship and done

Boss battles are hideously crude: all you need to do is run at them and attack, as with any other enemy.

The special moves, which are assigned to the L shoulder button, are also poorly implemented. These moves need charging up, and will then kill pretty much anything in one hit.

But you won't be using them often: once you press the L button, you're forced to watch an unskippable attack cutscene that's around 20 seconds long. Every. Single. Time.

And don't even get us started on the console-tilting QTEs. Every now and again, the game will say 'Ready?', and shout 'Tilt your console to the left!' to dodge an enemy. To be fair, sometimes the game asks you to tilt to the right instead.

Give us our era back

To top it all off, Naruto Shippuden 3D is an incredibly brief experience, clocking in at around three hours.

Elements such as collecting coins and spending points on new abilities attempt to prolong the game's life, but fall short. Even when ideas such as character-switching and unlockable items come into consideration, there's not enough to keep us playing beyond the end credits.

Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era is exactly the kind of release that the Nintendo 3DS could do without. It adds nothing to the console's roster of titles, and fails to utilise the handheld's unique stereoscopic 3D capabilities miserably.