Naruto: Ninja Destiny

Crap Style: Crappy Anime Game Jutsu!

Naruto: Ninja Destiny is the first 3D Naruto game to come to the Nintendo DS. It has sixteen characters ranging from Gaara and Rock Lee to one-tailed Naruto and Level 2 Cursed Seal form Sasuke. The player can battle against the computer, play against your friends wirelessly, enjoy a single player story mode, or single player mode where you fight several computer-controlled opponents. The story mode goes from the Neji/Naruto fight in the Chūnin Exams until the dispute between the three Sannin. It was released on December 14, 2006 in Japan and March 20, 2008 in the USA.

## Bad Qualities

1. Terrible graphics for it's time. Other games released before it such as Super Mario 64 DS and Metroid Prime Hunters had much better graphics.
2. Most of the backgrounds have repeating textures, most notably in the Leaf Village stage, where there is clearly multiple Hokage Rocks and the Final Valley stage, where there are clearly multiple Hashirama and Madara statues.
3. Very loose controls.
4. Wonky and mashi combat. You can just mash buttons and win every time.
5. Your chakra meter fills up way too fast.
6. Very little content. The only things there are in the game is Story mode, VS Mode, single player mode and online battle. It would have been better if they included a training mode, a mission mode or maybe a minigame mode.
7. Only 16 playable characters. To top it off, 2 of them are alternate versions of Naruto and Sasuke. They could have added in a couple more characters, like Kiba Inuzuka, Choji Akimichi, the Sound Five (Jirobo, Kidomaru, Sakon/Ukon, Tayuya and Kimimaro Kaguya), Hiruzen Sarutobi and Kisame Hoshigaki so they could have more characters, and have a longer story and include the Sasuke Retrieval arc.
	* The second game has Kisame, and the third game and the European version of the second game has Hiruzen (along with Kisame).
8. False Advertising: The box art shows Gaara in his 2nd outfit when in the game, he is wearing his first outfit. The box art also shows Sasuke in his first outfit without gloves when in the game, he is wearing his outfit from the Chunin Exams Finals.
9. The gameplay is just a poor mans version of Tekken, the Naruto: Clash of Ninja games and the Ultimate Ninja Storm games to some extent.
10. Sasuke on the Japanese version's box art is missing his Uchiha crest, which is a very important part of his design. Thankfully, the American box art hides that detail
11. Some characters, such as Curse Mark Sasuke and Itachi are very overpowered.
12. Very short story that will only take you an hour to complete.
13. Very little replay value. Other Naruto games on the Nintendo DS had way more replay value.
14. Unlocking characters is a real chore. The Sannin are very confusing to unlock as well.
15. Poor character hitboxes.
16. The voices sound muffled and are hard to make out sometimes.
17. For some reason, Nine-Tailed Naruto randomly says the F-Word, something Naruto would never say in the anime and manga. The worst part about this is that in this game, he is only 12 years old.
18. The specials are very broken, most notably Itachi's, who takes out almost all of your health bar.
19. The single player mode sometimes features characters you haven't unlocked yet, essentially spoiling the surprise.
20. Despite the stage 2 forms of Naruto and Sasuke and the Final Valley stage being in the game, they aren't implemented into the story at all, making them very pointless additions. Like what BQ #7 says, they could have added Kimimaro, the Sound Four, Kiba and Choji so they could have a longer story and implement them into the story
21. Shikamaru is wearing his Chunin vest in the game, however, the story takes place during the Chunin Exams to the end of the Tsunade Search arc, therefore, he shouldn't even be wearing it even if the game was released after he started wearing it 1 year before the launch of this game, as he was a Genin at that point during the story.

## Good Qualities

1. Great music. Most notably the Hidden Leaf Village theme.
2. The European version removes the stage 2 forms of Naruto and Sasuke and the final valley stage to prevent things from being confusing, even though removing them means less characters.
3. Good story even if it is a bit short, as it follows the Chunin Exam Finals/Destroy Konoha arc up to the Tsunade arc.
4. Good voice acting despite Naruto saying the F-Word and the voices sounding muffled.
5. The touch screen items are cool and provide unique moves.
6. Each character has their own unique style. Naruto is a well balanced character, Itachi is overpowered, Kakashi is hard to use and Temari uses long range attacks.
7. While most of the backgrounds have repeating textures, there are a few that look alright, such as the Forest of Death stage.
8. Decent looking character models for 2007.
9. At times, the game can be pretty fun.
10. The specials look pretty cool, even if they are a bit overpowered.
11. For a while, it was the closest thing to a decent 3D anime fighting game on the DS, until the second game came out.
12. The sequel, Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 is a huge improvement over the first game. The sequel has a longer story, a RPG dungeon-crawler element, better controls, improves on the combat system, has better gameplay, more replay value, nicer graphics, more content and 34 playable characters. The third game improves on the second game even more.

## Reception

Naruto: Ninja Destiny received mixed reviews from critics.

## Reference

This was due to the fact that the game was released after when he helped Rock Lee during his fight against Kimimaro.