Comic-Con 07: Hands on with Naruto: Path of the Ninja DS
It's less travelled and full of spiky traps anyhow
Anime-licensed games are a dime a dozen these days. It's rare to find one that doesn't just slap characters into a beat-'em-up with cel-shaded graphics, though, so it's good to see that D3 Publisher is looking to go a bit beyond the norm with Naruto: Path of the Ninja. A refreshing 2D role-playing spin, based on the popular animated franchise, we went hands-on with the game at the company's private Comic-Con event.
Although the story in Path of the Ninja is entirely original, the characters and locales are pulled directly from the cartoon series. In total, the game offers six playable characters: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru, Neji, and Rock Lee. We pieced together a three-character party consisting of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.
You wander about the game's environments on the touchscreen, while information relating to your party is shown on the top display. Travelling amongst the various villages and dungeons is done via a world map that enables you to simply tap a location to enter.
We started off in a training field, quickly strolled the streets of Hidden Leaf village, and then made out way to the neighbouring forest.
This being a role-playing game, the main focus is character progression. Each protagonist possesses strengths and weaknesses reflected in their core attributes: stamina (HP), chakra (MP), attack, defence, agility, and ninpo are all given numerical values.
Naturally, you can improve these by levelling up, while you can also boost attributes with equipment. Armour, greaves (leg armour) and a weapon can be loaded up on every character to increase defence, agility, and attack power, respectively.
In addition to the six general attributes, every character has a set of unique jutsu. These are special abilities that are granted when you reach certain levels. They provide a wide range of actions, from healing to status effects to attacks. For instance, we levelled up Naruto during our play and unlocked his shadow clone jutsu that brought up a dark doppelganger to draw away enemy attacks. (Sasuke had a different slate of powers, including fireball jutsu, which obviously chucks a fiery orb at foes.)
Since our party was rather underdeveloped, we didn't get to try out many jutsu, though. Apparently, over 90 can be unlocked through the course of the game. Moreover, you'll have the ability to combine two jutsu to create unique versions.
They're crucial, too, because the jutsu proved particularly useful as the battles got more difficult, helping us to dispatch all manner of feral beasts that inhabit the Hidden Leaf Forest. You explore areas in real-time and randomly engage enemies in battle on a separate screen. Battles are turn-based, with a radial menu popping up on the touchscreen, enabling you to select actions when it's your turn (options include attack, defend, jutsu, items, flee, and move).
The crows and identikit ninjas we battled were no match for our party, giving up a nice chunk of change and some experience for each victorious confrontation – you earn money (ryo), experience, and occasionally items, on completing battles. Exploring the deeper recesses of Hidden Leaf Forest, we came across stronger ninja enforcers and snakes that afforded more of a challenge and yielded more experience and ryo.
So our first look at Path of the Ninja proved to be an enjoyable experience which surprised us with its solid role-playing mechanics and ease of play. We would have liked more time with the game to be able to delve deeper into its core but for now, the promise of elements such as more than 90 unlockable jutsu is particularly appealing (considering the ability to combine them).
Naruto: Path of the Ninja is expected this autumn.
