Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2 offers several different game modes such as Arcade mode, VS mode, and Story mode. You can unlock new features such as new characters, stages, and modes by accomplishing certain tasks in the game.
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Babby's first fighting game
After the disappointment of a sequel Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 was, I needed something to cleanse the palette, so I went with something I had prior experience with and knew was good - Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2. I grew up playing the first two Clash of Ninja games, at first as frequent rentals, and then I later owned one of them (I think it was the first one but I don’t remember for sure), so I already knew I was going to be into this one, especially because I already enjoyed the first one in my recent replay despite its brevity and lack of general content.
Clash of Ninja 2 is an improvement in almost every way. A story mode that’s over double the length and lets you play as different characters than just Naruto, a new kind of battle, more stages, and many more characters.
Before hopping into the positives, I wanna mention the only thing that got worse between games, even if it’s not a big deal: cutscene presentations. The first game had cutscenes where portraits of the characters would be talking to each other, turning, moving around, and making dynamic facial expression while the story progressed. It’s still mostly the same, but instead of the characters’ entire upper halves being shown, instead it’s just headshots. It’s a small change that doesn’t really matter (especially if you’re familiar with the series - just skip the cutscenes), but it oversimplified the already simple cutscenes of the first game, and I’m not really sure why.
Speaking of the story, it simply goes from the Land of Waves arc through the Chunin Exams arc, so basically the only first two arcs, though the Chunin Exams is a pretty long one. There’s no frills - if anything, it leaves things out, so there’s not much point talking about it. If you’ve not watched or read Naruto, this likely won’t impress you, but if you’re familiar, it’s a fun review. Because the Chunin Exams arc is so much longer than Land of Waves, this story mode is easily the meatier experience of the two games, it would have been twice the length only doing the latter story.
The gameplay here is pretty exactly the same as last time. In fact, I really don’t think anything has changed, just that more characters were added. You won’t hear me complaining about that, though, because I felt the first game’s gameplay was great as it was. It’s not gonna be as deep as actual fighting games, and I’ve heard other people refer to this as a “button masher” in fact, but I kind of resent that notion. There are legitimate combos and strategies at play here. You can get away with mashing in some cases, but if you actually take some time to learn the game and characters, you’ll have a much better time.
This game includes quite a few more characters, and most of them I found to be quite fun. The first game had 9 unique characters with one unlockable clone. This game has 20 unique fighters, two unlockable forms, and what’s pretty much an Echo fighter; two characters are pretty much just joke characters, but they’re treated just the same as the main cast. A whole lot more to work with, and with the variety of playable characters and opponents, I felt much more compelled to do as much as possible. I played the one player arcade mode with every character I unlocked, and even gave a whack at the Time Attack and Survival modes. Hell, I wanted to continue until I had unlocked everything because there really is so much more to unlock. The problem is that it just becomes really grindy. To unlock everything, you need in game money. To get in game money, you need to grind out battles. Obviously they don’t expect you to sit there all day and raise up money, but that’s my only real option. I decided to throw in the towel when the next character I needed to unlock cost $15,000 and I knew there were still two others that cost way way more - $50,000 and $100,000. Geez! - and you just simply do not raise money fast enough for me to want to do that. On top of that, I still had seven stages to buy, and more story mode chapters! And a bunch of less-important stuff.
Speaking of, you’re able to buy extra chapters for the story mode after beating the main mode. I only bought one of them. It was pretty basic, and they don’t seem all too crazy, but it’s neat that it’s there.
Man, I wish I kept track of memory cards as a kid. Maybe one day I would have unlocked everything, but as an adult now, there’s simply too much without a fast enough way to unlock it all. Yeah, I could probably cheat it, but I also don’t care enough.
In the end, I highly recommend this game to Naruto fans, or to people who like simple fighting games. I like this one a lot.
I didn’t really give too much time to each character besides Naruto himself, but I’d probably say my main is Shikamaru. Oh, and I don’t really know where to put these, so I’ll toss them here, here are some small details I really liked:
-You can play as Kankuro’s puppet, Karasu (or “Crow” as the game titles him), by itself in this game. But Kankuro is still controlling him, you can see the chakra connective lines the whole time, and Kankuro hangs out in the backgrounds of stages.
-All characters simply block attacks when holding away with the exception of Shikamaru. He’s unique in that he’ll do dodging animations; though it’s functionally the same as a block.
-Akamaru is one of the two joke characters of the game, being just a puppy. When you use the substitution jutsu with him to get out of a combo, instead of a log appearing in his place, a bone will show up, it’s a cute detail.
Clash of Ninja 2 is an improvement in almost every way. A story mode that’s over double the length and lets you play as different characters than just Naruto, a new kind of battle, more stages, and many more characters.
Before hopping into the positives, I wanna mention the only thing that got worse between games, even if it’s not a big deal: cutscene presentations. The first game had cutscenes where portraits of the characters would be talking to each other, turning, moving around, and making dynamic facial expression while the story progressed. It’s still mostly the same, but instead of the characters’ entire upper halves being shown, instead it’s just headshots. It’s a small change that doesn’t really matter (especially if you’re familiar with the series - just skip the cutscenes), but it oversimplified the already simple cutscenes of the first game, and I’m not really sure why.
Speaking of the story, it simply goes from the Land of Waves arc through the Chunin Exams arc, so basically the only first two arcs, though the Chunin Exams is a pretty long one. There’s no frills - if anything, it leaves things out, so there’s not much point talking about it. If you’ve not watched or read Naruto, this likely won’t impress you, but if you’re familiar, it’s a fun review. Because the Chunin Exams arc is so much longer than Land of Waves, this story mode is easily the meatier experience of the two games, it would have been twice the length only doing the latter story.
The gameplay here is pretty exactly the same as last time. In fact, I really don’t think anything has changed, just that more characters were added. You won’t hear me complaining about that, though, because I felt the first game’s gameplay was great as it was. It’s not gonna be as deep as actual fighting games, and I’ve heard other people refer to this as a “button masher” in fact, but I kind of resent that notion. There are legitimate combos and strategies at play here. You can get away with mashing in some cases, but if you actually take some time to learn the game and characters, you’ll have a much better time.
This game includes quite a few more characters, and most of them I found to be quite fun. The first game had 9 unique characters with one unlockable clone. This game has 20 unique fighters, two unlockable forms, and what’s pretty much an Echo fighter; two characters are pretty much just joke characters, but they’re treated just the same as the main cast. A whole lot more to work with, and with the variety of playable characters and opponents, I felt much more compelled to do as much as possible. I played the one player arcade mode with every character I unlocked, and even gave a whack at the Time Attack and Survival modes. Hell, I wanted to continue until I had unlocked everything because there really is so much more to unlock. The problem is that it just becomes really grindy. To unlock everything, you need in game money. To get in game money, you need to grind out battles. Obviously they don’t expect you to sit there all day and raise up money, but that’s my only real option. I decided to throw in the towel when the next character I needed to unlock cost $15,000 and I knew there were still two others that cost way way more - $50,000 and $100,000. Geez! - and you just simply do not raise money fast enough for me to want to do that. On top of that, I still had seven stages to buy, and more story mode chapters! And a bunch of less-important stuff.
Speaking of, you’re able to buy extra chapters for the story mode after beating the main mode. I only bought one of them. It was pretty basic, and they don’t seem all too crazy, but it’s neat that it’s there.
Man, I wish I kept track of memory cards as a kid. Maybe one day I would have unlocked everything, but as an adult now, there’s simply too much without a fast enough way to unlock it all. Yeah, I could probably cheat it, but I also don’t care enough.
In the end, I highly recommend this game to Naruto fans, or to people who like simple fighting games. I like this one a lot.
I didn’t really give too much time to each character besides Naruto himself, but I’d probably say my main is Shikamaru. Oh, and I don’t really know where to put these, so I’ll toss them here, here are some small details I really liked:
-You can play as Kankuro’s puppet, Karasu (or “Crow” as the game titles him), by itself in this game. But Kankuro is still controlling him, you can see the chakra connective lines the whole time, and Kankuro hangs out in the backgrounds of stages.
-All characters simply block attacks when holding away with the exception of Shikamaru. He’s unique in that he’ll do dodging animations; though it’s functionally the same as a block.
-Akamaru is one of the two joke characters of the game, being just a puppy. When you use the substitution jutsu with him to get out of a combo, instead of a log appearing in his place, a bone will show up, it’s a cute detail.
I was jealous of my friend because he had Clash of Ninja, but then I got Clash of Ninja 2 so who's laughing now asshole
we played this so much cause it was a 4 player fighting game that wasnt smash
this game is bad but I had a lot of fun playing against friends when i was younger
Clash of Ninja 2 is one that I remember fondly as one of the many games I played with my father and my cousin on my cousin's GameCube. I still return to it on occasion to play it. It was fun unlocking all of the characters. While I have played the first game years ago, I no longer have it and remember virtually nothing about it, so no comparisons here. It was really enjoyable, but some may find the other Naruto fighting games such as Ninja Storm and the like more enjoyable as, from my understanding, they are more mechanically interesting. The only one I played, you guessed it, I cannot remember. My memory is bad, guys. It gets problematic.