Game: Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 2
Platform: Gamecube
Game available through import only (unless you live in Japan)
Yes, finally Lister hops on the bandwagon with his own review!
First things first, this game is probably only for Naruto fanboys (like me) and for people that like fighting games, but are discouraged by Tekken's 21-button combo's.
This fighting game is most easy to pick up, with a learning curve of about 5 minutes after picking up the controller and selecting "arcade mode" for the first time. This is a double-edged sword... On one end you're heavily kicking ass in no time, but on the other end you can still be beaten by a n00b after playing for over a year (not a complete n00b; the n00b must have some skill with fighting games in general).
If you're a big fighting game fan but never heard of Naruto, then either start downloading Naruto anime or get soul calibur... There are better 1 on 1 fighters out there.
Naruto fanboys unite!
This game looks like Naruto (with nice cell-shaded graphics), sounds like naruto (recognizing japanese voices is not my strong point, but I think they're all the original voice actors) although the music has a more "dynasty warriors" edge to it, and has about 75% of the cool stuff about the anime in it.
Most of the characters up till episode 80 are in it , with but a few exceptions... (Won't name exceptions)
Gaara is one of the initial playable characters, which I didn't expect at all.
2 versions of kakashi (with and without sharingan)
2 versions of Sasuke (w/ and w/out sharingan)
2 versions of naruto (normal and enraged mode with claws and demon eyes)
Kiba and his dog Akamaru (with Akamaru also playable as a stand-alone novelty character)
Kankuro and the wardoll Karasu (with karasu also as stand-alone)
Zabuza (the one with the huge sword)
Orochimaru (the main evil guy with the snakes)
Sakura (does she even fight in the anime? I mean really fight.)
Rock Lee (including his special "power-up"-thingie)
Shikamaru (the one with the shadow tricks)
and so on and so on... about 26 in total.
Loading time is near-nonexistant. I don't think it's more than 2 seconds... (in between levels, you hardly get time to look at the "Vs" screen to see who you're up against)
And every character plays different (unlike DBZ budokai with 20 different skins for the same fighter).
Kakashi has his "1000 years of pain" counter-move, Kankuro has to control both his doll and himself (and mainly has to keep away from the enemy while his doll is kicking ass, which is very hard), Naruto uses his clones in his base combo's, Neji can do his chakra-spinning thing,...
The only thing bugging me at times is the camera... It tends to zoom out to an impossible level at times when it tries to keep track of multiple characters (up to 4 players at once), but that can be helped by just playing 1 on 1.
It also tends to rotade around the fighters at times for a few seconds, which leaves everyone confused of where they are for a second or 2.
The camera doesn't freak out that often (or maybe I stopped noticing), but I just thought I'd mention it.
All in all (assuming you don't mind importing games from japan):
*If you're a Naruto fanboy and you've got a GC: highly recommended. It delivers, but still leaves room to look out for in a sequel.
*If you like fighting games, but can't be arsed to learn the gazillion-button combo's other fighting games require of you: Fairly recommended, although the possibility exists that most of the special moves make absolutely no sense whatsoever (none I tell you!)
*If you're a Tekken maniac: don't bother. The fighting system has enough depth to be a challenge, but it's too accessible to the casual gamer to make you feel ?ºber in mastering it.
I can also recommend checking the game out on //www.gamefaqs.com if you're planning on buying it. No screenshots, but it does have a handy game menu translation (since I'm not part of the world population that can read japanese katakanas)
rpgs need no translation.
Rpgs have a 3-option game menu (new game, load game, options. In that order.), but when the game menu has eight-ish main options and a 20-ish submenu's, then I need a translation...
But to play most games, indeed no real translation in-game is needed... I can't think of one game on top of my hat where you really needed to be able to read stuff to be able to finish the game in a way (except for those oldskool text-based dungeons of course...)
Meh...RPGs are ok...they're over-glorified though