-
CNET editors' rating:
2.0 stars
Mediocre
Detailed editors' rating -
Average user rating:
Write your own review
Product summary
The Phantom Fortress is full of lame minigames, occasional fights, and tons of repetition. Enter at your own risk.
Specifications: ESRB: Teen; Genre: Action; Number of players: 1-2 Players See full specs
Price range: $38.99 - $39.99
Gamespot editors' review
- Reviewed on: 07/07/2008
- Released on: 06/24/2008
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress is a mostly recycled fighting game placed within a hollow adventure. To lay its basic contents bare, this game contains a lengthy single-player campaign called The Mugenjo, a series of team battles called Heroes mode, a head-to-head battle, a bonus content area called Ninja Road, and finally, Naruto's House, where you can view purchased bonus items. It's a ton of content, and it would take you well over 10 hours to explore all of it. It will take you only about two hours, though, to get tired of it.
The single-player campaign, The Mugenjo, takes place in the Phantom Fortress. This floating palace of doom is 99 stories tall, and each story contains several rooms and stairs. For instance, when you take the stairs up from the third floor, you'll find that there are two or three rooms between you and the stairs up to the fifth floor. In all likelihood, the two or three rooms in front of you will be blank. This means you need to "summon" a room through which to travel. To do this, you need to use a room-summoning scroll. At any given time, you have four of these, and when you use one, it's replaced by another at random.
Here are the types of rooms you will be able to summon: battle (a single match against a CPU opponent), pop quiz (a three-question quiz on Naruto lore), clone room (three-card monte), shadow possession (button-press mimicking), tree climbing (branch-dodging test of speed), and amusement room (slot machines). It's not exactly what you would hope for in a floating palace of wonder and excitement. Here's the worst part: The castle has 99 floors, and you generally have to play through two or three summoned rooms on each one. Even worse, winning or losing in a summoned room has no bearing on the plot. The only thing your performance in a summoned room affects is the number of ninja points you get, and these are used to buy screenshots, audio tracks and the like from the bonus area. This makes the mini-games seem frustratingly pointless.
The only rooms you need to make sure you complete successfully are battle rooms. You aren't playing as just one person; you're a whole four-person team of ninjas. So if you lose a match, the next ninja steps in and resumes the fight. If you intentionally lose four fights in a row, the game asks you if you want to choose a new difficulty and then restarts you at the beginning of the match you just lost, with all of your ninjas completely recovered.
There are three types of rooms in the floating castle that you don't summon. These are healing rooms, treasure rooms, and drama rooms. Healing rooms heal all your ninjas and refresh your ninja skills; treasure rooms contain items you can use in battle; and drama rooms are where the plot happens. Most treasure rooms are behind some kind of barrier, like a pile of rocks, and you can use a special technique to clear the way and get your treasure. But wait! You have a limited number of these techniques (until you find a healing room and refresh them), and they can also be used to open up shortcuts. This creates a dilemma: Do you want to go straight to the next floor or play a game of three-card monte and take a pop quiz to get your hands on two healing medicines in the treasure room? Unless you're a huge three-card monte fan, the choice should be pretty simple.
The only remotely interesting rooms are the drama rooms. You'll find one of these every several floors, and each relays a small tidbit of the overarching plot. There is one big problem here: It's a 15-minute story stretched over a six-hour trek up 99 floors of pop quizzes and repetitive fights. You'll get to the point where you don't care what the deal is with the Princess of Dusk if it means fighting Gaara again or, even worse, taking another quiz.
Continue readingUser reviews
Write your own review Be the first one to review Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (PSP) and share your experience with the CNET community!
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (PSP):
%20PSP%20Game%20reviews%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/psp-games/naruto-ultimate-ninja-heroes/4505-10078_7-32864940.html){kind=small}