Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 (PlayStation 2)

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The game makes a few ineffective gestures to differentiate itself from its predecessor, all of them flawed. In addition to playing as Naruto, there's a rotating cast of other ninjas that you can tag in and play as on the fly, but it's a totally inessential feature, considering that it's rare to find a situation that you can't easily handle with Naruto alone. Pouring all of your virtue orbs and cash into Naruto is simply more effective than spreading it out across multiple ninjas, especially because you don't always have access to the same support characters from mission to mission. There are side missions you can take on for various rewards, but their actual content isn't different enough from what you'll be doing in the main missions, and the rewards are unnecessary. There's two-player co-op support in the story mode, as well as some self-contained, one-on-one brawling, but both are sabotaged by the game's inherently disengaging combat.

You'll sleep through the cutscenes, and sleepwalk through the actual combat.

If Uzumaki Chronicles 2 offered some flashy visuals, it might've made the low-impact combat more fun to watch. What you get instead are stiff and blocky characters in small, repetitive environments, and an occasionally squirrelly camera. The sound is boilerplate Naruto, with some phoned-in voice acting and background music riddled with Japanese woodwinds.

With less than a year between the release of Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 and its predecessor, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the game hasn't changed very radically. At the same time, the proximity of the releases, and the consistently middling level of quality, make this sequel feel that much more superfluous.

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4.5 stars

"the greatest game ever"

by sauske14 on July 8, 2006

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