Naruto is back on the PSP this fall with Naruto Shippuden Legends: Akatsuki Rising. The game packs a new cast of characters and takes a leap into the manga storyline. Coming in fresh on the Shippuden arc surrounding Gaara and the sand, players get to take on new missions and fight some of the key members of Akatsuki to save Gaara. The game offers a twist to the story to pull in fans of the series; those who complete the story can also take on missions as Akatsuki. The optional missions give players a reason to dive into the game and experience the story again from a new side and with new techniques exclusive to the "bad guys."
Akatsuki Rising delivers the manga plotline with extra missions to give a sense of depth to the game for fans. Those familiar with the story will know well enough how the story arc pans out, but the path to get there is a bit different. Players can pick from a large selection of fighters to take on side missions with and key storyline sections as well; someone on the Naruto story, for example, may use someone like Rock Lee to fight with instead. The change of character selection has no impact on the cutscenes -- the choice is there to ease challenges that come up or allow players to use the ninjas that they prefer.
Akatsuki Rising includes other modes to play during the story or after, such as Battle Mode, which allows players to pick up the characters unlocked through the game and put them into boss style battles in large areas. It works as an extended story mode, but loses much potential in the overall execution. Unfortunately, this loses some appeal unless Ad Hoc comes into play to find a human player with some different fighting styles; the AI often uses the same patterns or is stationary in battle. It feels like more could have been done with Battle Mode, like a greater variety in special attacks, or attacks better suited for the PSP control pad.
For Naruto fans, the game offers various Ninjitsu techniques for each character, and as players gain experience, they can also combine techniques to try to form new attacks. With so few signature moves in the series the choice often feels dangerous as gamers can risk losing their strongest techniques in a mash-up. In our play, we combined a few techniques for Naruto and Kakashi, but it never stood up to their signatures and often limited attacks in heavy combat because the game will send three to five A.I. to fight in each location.
As players progress in the game they’ll need to preserve their inventory, and the shop acts as the sanctuary of the game, offering healing and attack items that allowing players to build a strong inventory for an extra kick in battle. Food, Duplex and Nutrition pills all play a huge part in completing missions, and some battles call for extra supplies when the mission reward inventory runs low. Attack items like kunai and shurikens help pick off distant enemies or set up a defensive line when an opponent teleports often or rushes the player.
Akatsuki Rising tries to make a leap for the Naruto franchise on the PSP. It pushes new choices onto players and offers various story lines to act through. But the game falls short in achieving these items and eventually smothers any replay value that could have come from it. The Naruto franchise is generally successful with with its line of console fighting games, so a decent engine for the PSP game would have done wonders for it. Akatsuki Risingdoesn't need much to present an enjoyable experience; it has a decent stage size and the basic moves that could have made it work, but the ultimate execution is clumsy. We hope down the road they can take a page out of the Playstation or even Nintendo versions of the game and bring those popular solutions of handling the battle system to the PSP.
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