When Naruto hit America, I really didn’t know what to think. I saw the first two episodes on Toonami when it premered and thought really nothing of it but for some reason they kept spamming the first two episodes fot the longest time. I popped open YouTube and managed to watch every single episode. Yes, I watched most of Naruto on YouTube and oddly enough, you still can too. So when Naruto was just getting on its feet in America, we got the first Naruto game here, Naruto: Clash of Ninja on the GameCube.

This game is really a sort of a taste for what is to come with its sequel, but it was barely even a game in my opinion but still suckered some idiots out of $50. Of course, I was smart enough to rent it and see the game for myself before being an idiot like some people were and buying it.

Presentation (Look & Content)

Nothing like getting the generic Naruto opening with some guy screaming nonsense while ripping clips from the japanese openings, good way to start a bad game. The menus are in a Naruto-ish style, and everything is decent. The story is presented in nicely animated cels which were made just for this game, which was a nice touch.  The game features barely even what i’d consider a handful of characters, but heres the list.

Naruto
Sasuke
Sakura
Iruka
Kakashi
Haku
Zabuza
Lee

Lee is an unlockable, but he isn’t that great anyway and you eventually unlock Sharingan Kakashi and Red Chakra Naruto (or Nine-Tailed Fox Naruto or whatever the hell you want to call it.) When this game came out, people mostly from GameFAQ’s said that Hinata was in the game and some dumbass actually got her on the unlockables section of the Clash of Ninja page which caused an outrage because SHE SUCKS and that she wasn’t acutally in the game. This game has a patheic amount of characters, and the back of the game has the balls to say “Unlock more Characters”, it must of meant “Unlock ONE character” because even though you have to unlock Haku and Zabuza, there unlocked in no time.

Story

Two words, Its short. Its pretty much some basic “training” matches than you go to the Zabuza arc. Thats it.

Graphics

This is what this game does the best - look good. Besides the character models having obvious jagged edges (something commonly seen in last gen games) , the characters are all given nice detail and look just like their Anime counterparts. The stages aren’t to shabby either, at least they get the job done.

Remember, this is when Naruto FIRST came to America - and when the series was more of an annoyance than anything. Naruto simply doesn’t stop saying Believe it! which has a terrible translation to the word Dattebayo which doesn’t even mean anything, similar to another annoyance known as desu. At this time, the voice actors were just decent knowing how this was pretty much the start of the series. This was when Naruto is annoying, Sakuras a bitch, and Sasukes an ass. Though, Kakashi’s and Zabuza’s actors are probably the best from the bunch while Haku’s are Iruka’s are just decent. Oh yeah, then theres Lee but his actor is still bad to this day, of course, I’ve hated Lee since his first appearance in the series yet the man still has a creepy fanbase which consists of retards. Going on… it has some of the sounds from the show, not many, but some, the game includes the generic punching or just “hitting” noises of course theres not a problem of making hits sound louder because every fighting game and every movie still does it to this day.

Gameplay

If you didn’t know, the Clash of Ninja series was developed by the guys who made the old Playstation Bloody Roar series. Remember that game? No? Neither do I. I only played it on an old Playstation demo disc once and it was ok. Well, going on I have to say I have mixed feelings about the fighting system. Its to easy to master, which means theres no button mashing but the fights won’t be very fun either. What you got is a standard combo you do but smashing one button, but you can mix it with other attacks (which doesn’t make it AS bad), a throw, a ground attack (example: Kakashi grabbing you underground and hitting you), and a special attack. You can also throw kunai, and use a kunai but its not that great. The game has some decent counters where if done right, you can “poof” behind your enemies and hit them, you can dodge attacks by sidesteping left and right, and break falls and whatnot.In my opinion, this game is way to easy and its still like this all the way to Clash of Ninja Revoluton. The challenge is nearly nonexistant and even changing the difficulty doesn’t make it much better. Each fight should only take about 20-30 seconds if you do the standard combo twice, then special. Thats it. Sometimes the AI IS smart enough to actually, well, dodge but this doesn’t happen very often except for maybe Zabuza.

Personal comments

This game was only a start for what was to come. The Clash of Ninja series sadly hasn’t had a very good stay in North America due to the Japanese version being several episodes ahead (now there about 1 year ahead since the series is so popular now.) We eventually got Clash of Ninja 2 but it came nearly at the end of the Gamecube’s lifespan and its other two sequels never came. We eventually got Clash of Ninja Revolution, which improved many things I have said here but thats for another time.  This game is probably one of the worst Naruto games around, but only a buy if you can get it for only five dollars.

Buy, Rent, or don’t care: Don’t care, its sequel is much better.

Presenation - 3/10
Story - 3/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 5/10
Gameplay - 5/10

Overall - 5/10