Game #879: Naruto Shippuden Dragon Blade Chronicles

  Naruto, prankster, ninja, jinchuriki and... dragon slayer.

 I don't know who came up with the idea behind Naruto Shippuden: Dragon Blade Chronicles, but this is an idea that could've resulted in something disastrous. Naruto wielding a sword and fighting dragons? First, why? Second, WHY? Well, the truth is that this isn't a very good game. But it does have its charm, believe it or not.

 What is the charm? Despite the story feeling like just more of your dumb filler episodes, every character involved gets redesigned to use armor bits.... and I really like the new designs! Honestly, I think the armor bits make everyone look rather cool, heck, Naruto, Sakura and Sai got full redesigns and not just armor added to their outfits. When Shippuden came out everyone got simplified, boring redesigns, these new designs makes everyone look more interesting, like Neji. Even the Akatsuki and Team Taka got new duds! This also made it disappointing that only Sasuke and Naruto are playable, the rest of the characters barely appearing in the game. Heck, Sai gets sent away to 'spy' on the Akatsuki, not being seen again until the end of the game, even if he gets a few audio bits talking with Kakashi.

 Other bits I liked: You can use the Gamecube controller to play, and the game features a completely unnecessary Naruto VS Sasuke 2 Player mode! I also found it interesting how there's no Normal difficulty, it's either Easy or Hard, no in-between. Why? Same reason this game exists: Nobody knows.

 The game itself is a very linear action game in which you play as Naruto, and a very few times as Sasuke, as you try to defeat the five elemental dragons. The game is 3 hours short, maybe shorter. It took me just shy of five hours to beat the game because.... in order to extend the game's life, the game hides a few upgrades behind gates that can only be broken on your second visit through a level, something you can only do once you get to the final level, and you can't just get the upgrades and turn tail, oh no, you have to finish the stage again and fight the boss again. Pretty lame way to extend the game, and sure, it's optional, but the completionist inside me just had to scratch that itch.

 The second fight against the Lightning Dragon is absolutely insane. In the first fight you can call in Rock Lee to make him approach. But without Rock Lee there was no way to dissipate the fog. GameFaqs has no FAQs, nobody asked about the fight, and nobody recorded the rematch. What you actually have to do is spam Rasengan until the fog clears. This fight took me almost an hour because I just couldn't figure out what to do, and there's absolutely no hint about using the Rasengan.

 I got a bit ahead of myself there! The game is simple to a fault, you mash the A button to repeat the same combo over and over again. Hopefully you explore a bit(Not like there's much to explore) and find Ninja Scrolls that allow you to use Jutsus after the third hit, as well as the scrolls that extend you basic 3 hit combo. That said, even after getting every possible skill the combat remains dull, there isn't much in the way of creativity and the combat never evolves. You can change the nature of the Dragon Blade, but why would you? The benefits it confers you are meaningless. The Lightning blade may paralyze the enemy. The Fire blade might put them on fire. The other three I've no idea. Enemy waves are seemingly endless, and there's no reward for defeating them besides health and chakra restoratives, so eventually I just started avoiding them unless fighting them was an absolute necessity to progress.

 Besides the Ninja scrolls you can also find Health and Chakra upgrades as well as new Jutsu. You can equip four jutsu at a time, each one assigned to a different direction on the D-Pad. Just by telling you that you can realize how uncomfortable that is. With the gamecube controller you attack with the A button, and must now use your movement-thumb to use a Jutsu. It's even worse with the Wiimote. Sure, you can remap the buttons, but no configuration is good enough. The C-Stick would've been a better choice. But here's the thing... there's no depth, no fun to be had. It's not like you can use a Jutsu to pop the enemy into the air and continue your combo, or Jutsu with different properties for different situations, there's nothing here.

 The story is so damn intrusive. You can't go two steps without triggering a game-stopping conversation. The cutscenes are lifeless AND boring, not a good combination. But the worst part about it? You can't skip dialogue. You can skip ENTIRE conversations or cutscenes, which is the bare minimum, but you can't read the dialogue at your own pace, instead you have to wait for the characters to say every single line if you want to know what's going on. By the by, it's not very interesting, feel free to skip it. This isn't the anime, I want to play, not watch. And the script is pure filler, without any real character development or consequences, which means the game's plot DOESN'T MATTER, so don't shove it down my throat.

 Since I'm at it, words can't describe how boring the ending is. Characters go on and on about pointless drivel or take an exceedingly long time to explain things that you already know. Jesus Christ, just get to the point already. And your reward for finishing the game? A Dragon Rasengan Jutsu and a hideous red and yellow recolor for Naruto.

 The final nail in the game's coffin is its performance. The game slows down to a crawl ALL the time. The game isn't particularly good looking, nor does it feel like it should tax the Wii that much, and yet, even having enemies spawn far away from you, not even appearing on the screen, can make the game's framerate drop into the low 10s. I'm not exaggerating, this game runs incredibly poorly.

 So, Naruto Shippuden: Dragon Blade Chronicles is pretty bad. Boring combat, even duller story that interrupts the game all the time and a massive amount of slowdown makes for a poor showing, even for a licensed game. The one thing I'll commend them for is giving every character involved a redesign, but as amusing as it is to see everyone wearing something different, it can't make up for what a terrible game this is.

3.0