Game: Naruto: The Broken Bond

[Marik]

Title: Naruto: The Broken Bond
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Fighting/Action Adventure
Modes: Single Player/Online Vs./Online Co-Op 2 vs. 2/Tournament Mode
Release Date: November 18, 2008
Website: http://narutoxbox360game.us.ubi.com/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Naruto_The_Broken_Bond.jpg

Building on the success of Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, this sequel features Naruto, who has now evolved into a well-respected Ninja, but his new status and abilities trigger the envy of his best friend and Ninja teammate, Sasuke.

Ubisoft's second Naruto action-adventure Xbox 360 game, takes the same basic concepts behind Rise of a Ninja and places them in the timeline right after the first game ends (and according to Ubisoft, within episodes 80-135 of the animated series). Changes this time around include 3D cut-scenes, multiple playable characters in the story campaign, a first-person perspective for the "tree action" moments where you bounce from tree to tree through the air, more playable characters (25) in the versus mode, more combos for each character, and a four-player, 2-on-2 online versus mode where players on each side have to coordinate their attacks.

* Play as a respected and heroic ninja: Enjoy being a hero and benefit from the newly acquired status gained from saving the village.

* Discover the importance of teamwork: An all-new feature to the series, use the abilities of your ninja teammates to overcome bigger obstacles and join forces in tag battles. Players can now team-up with multiple characters from the Naruto universe when in combat and throughout their heroic adventure.

* Explore rich open environments: Following the attack of the Sound and Sand ninja, participate in the reconstruction of the Hidden Leaf Village: enjoy its depth from a new perspective, adding a new level of detail never reached before in a NARUTO game. Outside of the village, discover remote locations and enjoy making your journey through vibrant and imaginatively detailed settings.

* Witness and be a part of the series' most epic battles: Engage in battle with some of the fiercest characters from the NARUTO Universe, and use new techniques and jutsu to defeat your enemies.

* Take your teamwork skills online: With the only NARUTO game to feature online multiplayer, you can now choose among 25 characters and play alongside friends and defeat other teams online via Xbox LIVE. Take your skills a step further and compete in online tournament mode.

Debut Trailer (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38182.html) - Trailer 2 (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40759.html) - Screens @ IGN (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/142/14267183/imgs_1.html) - Videos @ IGN (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/142/14267183/vids_1.html)

Been looking forward to this game, since I loved Rise of a Ninja. Anyone else own a 360 and plan on buying/renting?

[darkshadow]

I dunno, i think im gonna skip this.
Bought rise of a ninja, and it had some great adventuring gameplay, but the combat is downright terrible, and broken bonds seem to have the same combat

[animus]

I never played the 1st much, but my cousin whose 13 did finish it. He liked it, so shrug.

It's an Ubisoft game after all. A lot of the games they put out nowadays are crap. Hopefully the new Prince of Persia is good, it looks pretty jaw dropping.

[darkshadow]

Your reasoning is flawed, UBISOFT montreal hasn't released a crappy game...ever.
Naruto was a pretty nice game, it's just the combat, for those of us who are used to the CC2 naruto games, was just a major step back.

[animus]

I said Ubisoft, not Ubisoft Montreal. But, they did make Assassin's Creed, and imo what a huge disappointment.

Reason why I didn't finish RoTN was probably cause I was frustrated with how repetitive it was. Collecting all those coins for a beginning quest was not fun. There was also really no reason to buy scrolls or kunai, spending money on Ramen was probably the best way to go.

[darkshadow]

Sry, because you said Ubisoft, i thought you meant montreal, seeing as how naruto has been made by montreal, creed was a dissapointment, only cause it was hyped greatly though, still a very solid game.

Anyway, if you felt that way about rotn, you should prolly stay away from bb, its essentially just more of the same.

[Marik]

Some info.

STORY MODE

- Sasuke will have his own Story mode, and the art style will be significantly darker to represent his internal struggle.
- The story mode is named "Journey Mode".
- This mode is single player.
- The story takes place between Episodes 81-135 of the anime.
- You will control a squad of three ninja rather than just Naruto on his own.
- You can pick from up to 7 characters to be in the squad. The confirmed characters are: Neji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Chouji, Sasuke, Jiraiya and Sakura.
- You will need to use the abilities of your entire team to solve puzzles, and fight through missions.
- Naruto will start with all of the abilities he had in Rise of a Ninja and learn new ones which are true to the story.
- The world outside Konoha is bigger, the extent of which has not been confirmed.
- There is a second explorable city known as "Tanzaku Town", which is a festival city.
- This new city allows mini-games such as goldfish scooping, whack-a-mole and gallery shooting.
- Journey Mode will last up to around 15 hours without any sidequests or minigames.
- There are around 70 random enemy character models.

FEATURES

- Both Japanese and English voices will be included on the disc.
- A Training Mode has been added named "Dojo Mode", in which players are able to learn characters' combinations.
- Online fight mode will allow 2 vs 2 tag team matches, allowing 2 friends to team up and fight other people around the world.
- Online fight modes include Custom and Quick matches, available in solo, tag and ranked, also a Tournament mode in which players are students in the Ninja Academy and need to fight in order to pass exams, earn ranks and progress as a ninja.
- Online rankings for 1 vs 1 matches.
- Online matches will have a lobby system.
- Offline 3 vs 3 matches.
- 30 playable characters. 28 completely different characters, and bonus variations of Naruto and Sasuke.
- All 30 characters will be on the disc, not DLC.

FIGHTING SYSTEM

- The fighting system has had many significant changes and tweaks.
- Every character has the same amount of health and chakra.
- There is a new bar, referred to by players as the "Rage Bar". The official name for it is "Tension".
- The Tension Bar is charged by landing attacks on enemies.
- There are 3 slots in the Tension Bar.
- The Tension Bar must be charged in order to perform jutsus. Each slot on the bar represents a new level of jutsu.
- If the bar has not been charged, using jutsu will be deactivated.
- The Jutsu handseal will be displayed above the Tension Bar as you unlock it.
- When the bar is full, a character will be able to launch his Rage Mode. He will be invulnerable, but will lose his entire Rage Bar. Thus the player has to make the choice of whether to use the bar for jutsu or use the bar for Rage Mode.
- Air substitutions, Air Blocks, Air Kunai Rushes and Air Throws have been added.
- The opponent who suffers a down Y attack has a chance to flip back on their feet.
- In-Game Jutsu have been added, such as Neji's Rotation.
- In a Tag Team Match, at the end of a knock down combo, the player can tag in a partner to launch a devastating team attack.
- Jutsus themselves have also been improved. Last year's model often transported characters to another area for Jutsus. Now, every Jutsu occurs in the arena, preventing any kind of disconnect with the rest of the action.
- There are more levels to a Jutsu. Instead of three, you'll see about a half dozen, allowing for a wider number of mid-range attacks as opposed to choosing between low, medium or heavy.

TOURNAMENT SYSTEM

- The new Online Tournament system has completely changed in comparison to the Forest of Death in Rise of a Ninja.
- Everyone starts as a Student-ranked ninja and must fight to gain experience.
- By earning experience, the student can level up.
- You can also gain experience points if you lose after taking off at least 50% of the enemies health.
- Once you gain enough experience to rank up, you get an exam match which earns you no experience but grants you the new rank.
- You will fight similar- leveled characters, except for during a fresh-log in, where players must fight a street-level fight.
- If a low-level player fights and beats a high-level player, he gains bonus experience points.
- If a high-level player fights and beats a low-level player, he has an experience penalty (gains less experience).
- Once you reach Genin, you have to make one last match in the street level before moving up to the forest level, where you fight Genins, Chunins and Jonins.
- To become Hokage-level, the player must be among the best Jonin-ranked ninjas on the Leaderboard.

I'm looking forward to this more so than, Ultimate Ninja Storm. Mainly because of the Online component and dual story modes.

[Vegechan]

Personally, after seeing all the information above, I think this game will kick ass. Although I don't like part 2 of Naruto much, I loved the latter half of Part 1. I'm liking the new jutsu system, and the new jutsus that will be added.

I also like how games won't end up being "Damage your opponent as much as possible then go rage for the win." With the new "Either use jutsus, or save tension for rage" it relies more on personal play style instead.

I thought Rise of a Ninja was a great first step into a new Naruto franchise game. I thought out of all the other games, it felt more like Naruto than all the rest. It wasn't perfect but had the potential to be expanded upon in future games.

I wasn't so sure about this game, if they weren't going to add much to the game, but honestly it looks like they are honestly trying hard to make a good game, and not just milk the franchise. I'm definitely going to add this to my queue on GameFly.

[Marik]

Naruto: The Broken Bond Goes Japanese
Original Voice Actors included in upcoming release.

October 22, 2008 - Last year, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja shipped with English voice acting. And while the English VO was fine, many purists wanted the popular series' Japanese voices as an alternate option. Though a later download added Japanese VO, for many the update came too late. That won't be an issue with the follow-up, Naturo: The Broken Bond.

Ubisoft announced today that the talent from the Japanese anime series will be included, along with an English dub. Players can choose from day one which dub to listen to while playing Broken Bond.

The Japanese cast includes:
Naruto Uzumaki - JUNKO TAKEUCHI
Sasuke Uchiha - NORIAKI SUGIYAMA
Sakura Haruno - CHIE NAKAMURA
Kakashi Hatake - KAZUHIKO INOUE
Iruka Umino - TOSHIHIKO SEKI
Shikamaru Nara - SHOWTARO MORIKUBO
Choji Akimichi - KENTARO ITO
Rock Lee - YOICHI MASUKAWA
Neji Hyuga - KOICHI TOCHIKA
Might Guy – MASASHI EHARA
Kiba Inuzuka - KOSUKE TORIUMI
Akamaru - JUNKO TAKEUCHI
Gaara - AKIRA ISHIDA
Temari - ROMI PARK
The Third Hokage - HIDEKATSU SHIBATA
Jiraiya - HOCHU OTSUKA
Tsunade - MASAKO KATSUKI
Orochimaru - KUJIRA
Kabuto Yakushi - NOBUTOSHI KANNA
Kimimaro - TOSHIYUKI MORIKAWA
Tayuya - AKENO WATANABE
Kidomaru - SUSUMU CHIBA
Jirobo - KENTA MIYAKE
Sakon - SYUNSUKE SAKUYA
Itachi Uchiha - HIDEO ISHIKAWA
Kisame - TOMOYUKI DAN
Aoi Rokusho - RYOTARO OKIAYU
Teuchi - EISUKE ASAKURANaruto: The Broken Bond - Japanese VO Trailer (http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14267183/naruto-the-broken-bond/videos/narutotbb_japanese_voices_102208.html)

[animus]

That's good I guess. Hearing the English Naruto keep saying "Believe it!" is probably the most annoying thing ever.

[Marik]

Naruto: The Broken Bond Demo is Up on XBOX LIVE!

Not rock-the-foundations-of-gaming stuff, but Naruto fans might be interested to know that the demo of Naruto: The Broken Bond, is up on Xbox Live. I think Major Nelson forgot to mention this. Anyway, it clocks in at 765 MB and lets you take a peek at the latest installment of the anime action adventure game, which drops Nov. 18 in North America and Nov. 21 in Europe.