Back in the 80s to mid 90s, if you had a popular license and weren’t sure what kind of game to make with it... the usual default choice was a 2D side-scrolling platformer. While this practice has dropped off in recent years, Naruto vs. Sasuke proves it hasn’t stopped. Yet in contrast to many of its peers, this is actually a decent game. Set in a world full of ninjas with fantastic anime-themed techniques, Naruto vs. Sasuke lets players control a team of several characters from the series and run them through a competent, old-school platformer/brawler.
While its obvious genre peers are the likes of Mega Man, Metal Slug, and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, Naruto vs. Sasuke places most of its emphasis on close-range fighting. You can run, jump, and throw shuriken to attack distant enemies on your way to the end of the level, but most of the time you’ll be getting up close to punch and kick enemies; simply tap the attack button a lot to do a combo to them when you’re in range. Each character has the same basic mechanics, but different special techniques make them stand out; some can open up hidden paths, others can conjure attacks that cover most of the screen, and there are even some who can make tricky jumps easier to deal with in various ways. While you only control one at a time, you can swap between them at-will and figuring out which one is best for the situation at hand is part of the fun.
The stages offer decent variety as well. Some are simple matters of "go right until you reach the exit", others require deeper exploring to find the right way to go, boss fights come up reasonably often, and a few stages test your speed by requiring you to get to the exit within a time limit. Most of these levels are well made and fun, with the only real problems being that some bosses have very easily exploited AI flaws and some stages use a milder form of ’Ninja Gaiden difficulty.’ You’ll be running along, make a long jump, and a bird/spider/etc. will appear out of nowhere with almost no time to react, hitting you out of the jump. Fortunately, most of the time this happens you only fall further down the level rather than being knocked into an instant-death pit... so it’s usually a case of having to spend a minute or so climbing back up rather than losing a character. This is still annoying, but not a crippling problem by any means.
As this is based on a long-running anime and manga series, it’s not too surprising that Naruto vs. Sasuke has plenty of story cutscenes. I was only able to follow the basics of the plot, but this is due to not knowing much about the series. Regardless, what was there was reasonable; the overall story was understandable, and the cutscenes were not so frequent as to disrupt the flow of game play. A competent platformer/brawler being mixed with a competent story is a good thing, and Naruto vs. Sasuke pulls it off well.
The only other concern is that stages are several minutes long on a ’blind run’; they’re pretty large and you won’t always know where to go right away. While not an issue with a console game, this is on a portable system and it means knowing how much battery life you have left (if not hooked up to a charger) and how long you’ll be playing before you need to stop for whatever reason. The game does save after you complete a full stage, but most of them have several parts and if you find yourself interrupted you may have to replay part of an area you had already cleared. Still, this is more a problem to keep in mind than anything that ruins the game.
Naruto vs. Sasuke is a competent 2D platformer/brawler and a fair buy at $30. It has problems, but they’re irritants more than anything and the rest of the experience is genuinely fun. If you’re a fan of the genre then this is a decent choice, and if you’re a fan of the Naruto franchise then you’ll probably enjoy this even more. Just go in expecting a solid platformer rather than any deep innovation in the genre and you’ll find much to like with this game.
