some screenshots:
http://www.lik-sang.com/image.php?category=79&products_id=7387&img=ngc-naruto4-jap
I must say overall I am totally drooling over it. There are many ups and downs comparing with the 3rd. But overall the pros outweigh the cons
Pros:
New Characters! You got:
-Kimimaro
-Jirobu
-Tayuya
-Kidomaru
-Sakon (With Ukon's head popping out)
(All 5 of them are in their level 2 curse seal)
-Level 2 curse seal Sasuke (with those big hand wings and totally ugly face)
-One tailed Naruto (the one you see when he's fighting sasuke. Where he gets really red and... foxy)
-Kabuto
-Kisame. Now Kisame ROCKS! I expected him to be a Zabuza clone. Certaintly not! He has totally different moves and is fun to play with.
Some new outfits:
Besides their old outfits. Gaara has his Kazekage outfit, Temari with her new one. And Shikamaru with his Chuunin vest. Sasuke also looses the forehead protector and his arm warmers things. (Wether you can get his old skin back later by unlocking it us unknown)
New gameplay mechanics:
You can sidestep while running, charge some attacks (like rock lee's and gai's back + b) and stuff
A few new attacks:
Back A for naruto does Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Where he will summon a clone to fight for him. (Dissapears when his chakra goes away or is hit). Other stuff too but I don't really know at this time.
Upgraded 3 man cell battles:
In the 3rd installment, they introduced 3 man cell battles. And you could do certain 3 man specials that incorporated all 3 of your guys. Depending who you picked to be on your team, you would do more or less damage. (Example: If you picked Rock Lee, Tenten, and Neji, you would do massive damage. If you picked Orochimaru, Chouji, and the 3rd Hokage. You wouldn't do as much). However it was the same animation for every single 3 man special.
In this version, if you pick certain 3 characters (generally people that work well together, like Naruto/Sasuke/Sakura) They will have their own animation! Sasuke will do his goukeuy-whatever jutsu (the fireball), and sakura will throw some shurikens, and naruto will finish with a rasengan. With Neji/Tenten/Rock Lee. Tenten will throw random weapons at the enemy, rock lee will go up and do some sweet looking kicks. And kick him towards neji. Where Neji will finish with a daikaiten. What is different is that instead of attacking when there was a button on the screen that appeared (like in 3rd one). You could do the special any time you wanted to granted every 3 people on your team had full chakra)
However if you pick people that do not work well (Chouji/Orochimaru/3rd Hokage for example) They will just do the normal 3 man cell special that was used in the 3rd game.
Another thing they upgraded was the tag battle sort of thing. In the 3rd game, you couldn't tag characters in 3 man cells untill he died. In this one, you press Z and you tag your character with another guy. Who will come in and do an initial attack on your enemy. It makes the game way more suprising and interesting.
Removal of despareration specials:
In the 3rd installment, you had generally 2 specials (some characters, like sasuke, had 3). Some of them only executed them if their health was at 40% or lower. Example. Naruto's special is Naruto Rendan (the one he uses against Kiba in the Chuunin Preliminaries). But if his health is 40% or lower. He will use Rasengan. They changed this in the 4th. You could use any special. X = Naruto Rendan. Back X = Naruto Kyuubi Mode. Down X = Rasengan.
Now the Cons:
No Money
The biggest thing I don't like about this game is that they took out the Money. In the previous ones, youd get money for battling and buy characters at Anko's store. In this one you unlock characters by playing missions. This gets annoying sometimes especially when I can't read Japanese on how to beat a certain mission. However it could end up taking less time to unlock every characters.
The lag.
It is probably just my gamecube or game. But when I play I got a few disc read errors while loading. However I am confident it is just my gamecube.
If you plan to get a naruto game. This is it dude. Get it, it's sweet and totally worth it.
