By Jason Van Horn

The latest game in the Clash of Ninja Revolution series is what every good licensed manga/anime game should be – a game that focuses on mechanics, playability, and overall fun rather than putting a coat of fanboy paint over some cruddy programming and calling it a day. Move over Mario, because there's a new fighting game in town, and it's the definitive fighting game title on the Wii.

First up, Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 features a ton of characters, ranging close to the 40-character mark. You'll find many of the usual regulars (Naruto, Sakura, Gaara, Kakashi), but there's a lot you wouldn't expect or are new to the series. For those who never played Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 for the Wii, you'll get to experience a handful of new characters that were created just for that game, but show-up here for repeat appearances. You'll also get to play as a handful of new Shippuden characters, such as Sasori and Chiyo.



One thing nice about the roster is that no two characters play the same, as each has their own specialty and talents, which will help gear them more towards specific players. Kankuro, for example, uses his puppets, which gives the playing field a whole new perspective since both he and his puppets are treated like other players. While Kankuro does attack with his own hands some of the time, a lot of his fighting is done at a distance with his main puppet Crow. Tenten is a character that uses a bunch of different weapons – thus mixing up her style – but she has to summon them into play before using them. There are a lot of nuances when it comes to the characters, making it so that everyone of them is a joy to play and discover. The characters are also very balanced too, making it so that it's possible to win with any character as long as you know how to use them. Sure, some characters are used more than others because some of their moves are more powerful or easier to string together, but ultimately the game is solid on the balance front.

Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 comes with four different control schemes: Wii remote and nunchuk, Wii remote held sideways, classic controller, or Gamecube controller. While it's easier to pull off more precise combos with the standard Gamecube controller (I have a dickens of a time trying to perform only one weak attack by itself), the Wii remote and nunchuk control style is the only one that allows you to use every move and mechanic available (the hand sign stance being the sole exclusive). So for review purposes, we're going to stick with the default nunchuk style.

The core mechanics of the game are based around the chaining of strong and weak moves together into a string of different combos – flicking the Wii remote performs weak attacks and pressing the A-button performs the strong attacks. You can further press up, down, left, or right on the nunchuk's control stick in conjunction to perform other moves, which are also used in the various combo strings. After you've built up enough chakra by inflicting damage and taking it yourself, you're able to perform a special jutsu, which you can improve the strength of by performing specific motions as they appear on the screen.



Defense and strategy plays an important role too, as you can use chakra to perform a substitution jutsu to disappear from a combo attack and appear somewhere else on the screen, perform wakeup attacks and teleports, hide behind environmental objects, and even unleash paper bombs, which you can throw at an enemy or place around the stage in hopes of cornering your opponent into one. Furthermore, when on a tiered stage, you can knock an opponent off with a strong attack, and then choose to either attack while flying at them, teleport to hit them when the land, or either do nothing. Of course, you're not completely helpless if you're the one being launched, as you can perform substitutions of your own and stop them from landing the attack. Also new are character specific latent ninja powers, which activate when a character is close to defeat, and which have the potential to turn the tide of battle around if utilized properly.

Besides one-on-on fights, players can also play tag matches, which let you switch players in and out on the fly, pulling off some even wickeder combos, and giving characters rest in order to recover some health. If both characters on a team have their chakra levels fully maxed out, you can even perform team jutsus, some of which are even character specific (for example, Hinata and Neji as a team will perform a move different than say Hinata and Sakura). You can also have four players playing at once in various team combos or in a free-for-all, but it's a hectic mode and more of a party mode I found.

As with most fighting games, the game is simple enough for button mashers (or Wii remote wagglers as the case is with Clash of Ninja Revolution III), but yet complex enough for people to really sink their teeth into, learn the ropes, and really become fanatical about being the best player there is. With that said, the game is perhaps a bit too forgiving when it comes to button mashers, as simply flailing around will often let you perform some really devastating combos and attacks. Otherwise, the only real complaint I have about the game's fighting mechanics, is it's still too easy to get turned around and be unable to properly spin back to meet your opponent face-to-face; this will usually lead to you being wide open for an attack and being punished for it severely.



The story of NARUTO Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution III takes place in the post-time jump world of Naruto – a young ninja with the power of the nine-tailed fox demon imprisoned inside of him, who dreams of becoming Hokage one day. After leaving for a few years to train with Jiraiya, Naruto has come back home to the Hidden Leaf Village, only to be called away on a mission when the Sand Village's new Hokage – Gaara (a one-time foe but now friend of Naruto) is captured by the Akatsuki (a group of ninja set on extracting the tailed demons from their hosts). Will Naruto and company be able to save the day?

The Story Mode of the game is the default mode all players will have to play through to completion if even just once, so that they can unlock all the characters in the store; some of them don't open up until after beating the story. The game does a solid job at telling the story, which is done through in-game cinematics and fully voiced dialogue featuring the original American dubbed actors. You'll play as Naruto a bunch, but switch out to other characters depending on the story at that point in time. While I'd say the majority of the missions in story mode are completed by simply beating an opponent, others are more complex and have special conditions, such as beating someone with a certain jutsu.

My biggest complaint with the Story Mode is that even on normal difficulty, I found the mode extremely challenging, but mainly because of the unfair circumstances; it always seems like someone is powered up more than when playing them in a regular battle, plus having to fight and beat two characters with only one is a really trying process. I often found myself getting frustrated when playing the story mode and often winning matches out of blind luck more than anything else. Plus, the game doesn't like saving after every battle, so sometimes I'd beat a rather challenging fight, only to quit, restart the game later, and then find out I have to play them all over again.

Besides the Story Mode, there's also a handful of other single-player driven modes for players to engage in. There's the Survival Mode (try to survive against an onslaught of enemies for as long as you can), Time Attack (see how many people you can beat before time runs out), Score Attack (go through ten battles and see how many points you can get), Kumite Mode (fight rogue ninja and gather powerups to last as long as you can), and Mission Mode (complete character specific missions under certain circumstances). There are a lot of single-player modes, but sadly most of them have to be unlocked and bought through the store before you can play them.



As with most games, however, the big draw of Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 will be the two multiplayer modes. For local play, you can play Versus Mode and compete to see whether you're better than your buddy, but the real headline grabber is online multiplayer. Yes, you heard that correct. For the first time ever, a Naruto fighting game is going online, and doing it on the Wii (a double shocker). I don't usually think of the Wii when it comes to online multiplayer, but I was pleasantly surprised by the work TOMY put into the game and how relatively smooth going a game really is. I've run into a little lag, but nothing that was too severe, made the game unplayable, or lasted more than a few quick seconds. The speed of the gameplay seems slightly slower online, but it's not very noticeable. The game doesn't feature too many options for online play, but you can randomly get matched up for either ranked or player match games, play those either as single matches or tag teams, and see who tops the leaderboards and what your own player data is. You can even challenge friends and save rival data for those players you really like fighting against and beating to a pulp time and time again. It's not too robust in terms of modes or features, but it's got all the basics people need to stay happy. The only complaint I have is that it takes forever to ask for a match and finally get one - the average time for me ranged between two and three minutes.

Despite a handful of otherwise miniscule problems, NARUTO Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 is a fantastic fighting game for both fans and non-fans of the series. If you enjoy Naruto you'll be in heaven when it comes to this game, but you'll get just as much from the game if all you're looking for is an excellent online fighting game for Nintendo's system. As of this writing, Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 stands tall above the competition as the best fighting game on the Wii.

4 out of 5

Link: http://www.tomy-usa.com/products.php?c=17&p=99&bb=all