Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (PS2) - Tiers, Gameplay, etc

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Has anyone picked up this game yet? i thought we could get some tiers/gameplay discussion going amongst those that have it for PS2. its pretty fun imo. not “deep” per say, but fun. i was talking with someone-i think it was ShinAkumax-and he mentioned that it was a great (if not the best) anime to videogame translation in terms of capturing the “feel” of the manga, and i tend to agree.

Tiers

these tiers are just my opinion, of course…

Top tier:
Orochimaru
Sasuke/Curse Mark Sasuke
*

2nd tier:
kakashi
naruto
gaara **

3rd tier:
neji
zabuza

Shit tier:
shikamaru
hinata
sakura
lee
haku

  • i haven’t unlocked Nine-Tails Naruto yet, but he is probably in the same tier as Curse Mark Sasuke
    ** i almost put Gaara in the top tier simply because of his ridiculous level one super. it hits super fast and has sick range - probably the best level one super in the game, imo.

Gameplay

the way this game plays reminds me of a number of other games, but the first thing i thought was that it felt a lot like Smash Bros. (mostly because of all the wacky items and helper characters that fly on screen)

combo system is very basic. i’m talking ‘circle, circle, circle, back + circle’ simple. the hits feel very Tekkenish, only much slower.

1-3 level supers. supers are dirt easy. all you do is press triangle once (red), twice (purple), or three (blue) times to level up, then press circle to make your character lunge forward. the hit has to connect. T, O. thats it. you can build meter (chakara) by holding down (like in the old DBZ fighters), picking up a chakara item, or by collecting charaka balls from knocking your opponent down or into a wall. if your super connects the game goes into a weird Parappa the Rapper/DDR mode where you have to input a series of buttons within a certain time limit to do more damage and continue the super animation.

you can pull of what i call “parries”, but its really a substitution jutsu. press block at the moment you’re about to get hit to appear behind your opponent. this is usually a free super if they were mashing. you can “parry” out of a lot of things, even grabs and air attacks.

Orochimaru just seems all around broken: sick grab range with the snakes, best/fastest sweep in the game imo, kabuto assist puts opponent to sleep - AFAIK, if Orochi gets a knock down and he has a helper scroll in stock, he can just call kabuto on wake up, opponent wakes up into kabuto’s sleep jutsu and its a free super for Orochi.

i’ll post up more thoughts if there is enough interest or if other people post up.

Discuss?

2

I enjoy this game a lot. It’s very simple and fun. X play bashed it for being too simple but I don’t think every single game I play has to involve lots of complex study and very difficult button combinations.

Don’t get me wrong though, I love just about every fighting game I’ve ever played.

3

Although it’s completely inferior to the GC version, it’s fun for a few matches. I would have shot myself if I had to unlock everything, so I just downloaded a save from GameFaqs and used some USB stick transfer program I have.

I think what makes a character top tier would be their assists, and yes Oro has possibly the best assist. Everyone plays too similar to eachother, with very minor differences (Gaara can’t run, etc). It pretty much doesn’t matter who you pick, just press triangle a few times then circle, try to land a super.

Ways to land a super->
Hundred Knife item -> super
Big Ninja Star Item -> Super
Assist -> Super
Substitution Jutsu -> Super

and that pretty much covers it, for all characters. I dunno if Rock is really low tier, as he’s my fav, but who knows. I like opening his 6th gate (yeah, opens his 6th on this one wtf?) then going crazy on the opponent.

4

Is there any point playing this when theres Narutimate Hero 3 and even 2?

5

Actually, its a bit more basic than you can think, haha.

Circle, Circle, Square <repeat> = global infinate for all 3 parts of the game.
(Punch, Punch, Item)

Sure you can Justu out of almost anything, but if you have 0% bar and u were at full health… INF HIS ASS!!

English dubbing?

The game is well… just crap.
All people do is watch the Supers and nothing more (thats actually all this game is good for really). In the end, the game is nothing more than fanboy services.

6

GC Naruto has english voices and they’ll likely release the sequel to it (if its not the sequel). i played the GC version at best buy and it was pretty fun to dick around with, which is a lot better than most fighters i dabble in.

7

i think people are playing part 3 atm.

8

Pozer pretty much wins the thread.

9

Exactly. Get the Jap version of 2 or 3 and have more fun. Or better yet, don’t get the PS2 games at all and play The GC game (4th installment)

10

If you found part 1 interesting, might wanna check up on Part 4.

That shit is 4 player action ;p

11

I actually heard the next Cube Naruto here in America was gonna have the 4 player multiplayer…

12

Sakura is God Tier. Her chakra attack (the rush punch) takes off more damage than most combos even when blocked and she has free heals. Just rush punch all day and run away to build meter when you get bored.

cough There’s a pretty solid guide in this month’s Tips & Tricks about a lot of random stuff you can do in the game, you guys should pick it up.

N - Gaara, Kakashi and Shikamaru can juggle into super. Yup.

13

okay, i’ve only played Narutimate 3
besides roster and stages, have there been any significant changes throughout the series?
should i go back and get the previous ones?

i don’t remember calling assist characters, did they remove assists from part 3?

God-Tier: 4th Hokage (blond haired looks like naruto one, super fast/useful supers)
Top-Tier: 2nd Hokage (water one, fast dash attack, uses 0 chakra)
Mid-Tier: Naruto/Sasuke (good range and really powerful when transformed)
Low-Tier: Kiba (good for his drill move to add pressure, that’s about it)
Shit-Tier: Ino (besides the poison, she seemed generic)

ps: i didn’t find orochimaru too useful, and the summoning super move with the snake was useless unless you know what you’re doing, same for Jiraiya and Tsunade’s ultimate supers

14

IIRC, the 4th Hokage was possibly one of the worst characters in NH3 (not that bad, but was rather shitty character).

15

nh3 is something like…

top:

rock lee, itachi, jiraiya, sasuke

shit:

anko, anbu kakashi, konohamaru, kurenai

those come from a really good player, rockman from nyc, and he gives good reasons. basically things like damage, stamina, combos (how easy is it to tech/kawarimi out of combos, how useful are the jutsus/ougis in the combos, etc.) determine where characters are ranked. if you want more detail, there’s a ton of stuff at www.shishi-rendan.com.

edit: just remembered, green beast naruto was the best character in the game before shishi-rendan banned his narutimate entry jutsu. now he’s somewhere in the middle.

16

^ Thongboy said what? how?

do they have the juggle into super combos in Tip & Tricks 138? They have a .pdf preview of the strategy guide on their site, but i don’t think its the complete version.

damn, based on the responses here, looks like i’ll have to start importing the other naruto games - in addition to picking up up the GC versions.

17

so back to one of my questions
the whole calling assists thing

i only played my part 3 for a day and am not able to right now, gotta mess with my ps2 again, i’m assuming all of them have assists in them, can you choose your assists? or are they standard per character, also how are they done?

sorry i know i could probably search online for a while or go buy the current version to find out but i’d rather keep this thread alive and see how much useful knowledge i can get from ppl who’ve played the game vs a crappy store guide

18

there are no assists in nh3, and the match vids at www.shishi-rendan.com will probably answer a lot of your questions.

19

Which is better this or the GC naruto?

20

Yeah, there’s a bunch of stuff in there, it’s a pretty solid guide. The guy who wrote it plays fighting games a lot, so he wasn’t just randomly spouting nonsense. He’s also very attractive and plays Twel(e)ve like a mofo.

N - cough