A look at Narutimate Accel 1 and 2

Narutimate Accel Series

It took almost forever for a successor to NH3 to arrive, partly due to the extremely long time it took for the first part of the Naruto anime to end. The long wait finally ended with the release of Narutimate Accel, the first Narutimate game to feature characters from the timeskip era. This entry is about my perceptions about Accel and its successor, Narutimate Accel 2, which is currently the most popular and playable of the series.

Narutimate Accel 1

Accel 1 was pretty much a work in progress. Adding to the difficulties in topping whatever advances NH3 had was the fact that the programmers had to add 16 new characters. That's a lot of characters to balance and fit to the new system. With Accel, the games began to stray from the conventions of NH3. That makes for a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff.

First off, the teching system was made less streamlined. Some attacks didn't connect as reliably as they used to after a hit. This made gamers seek different attack options in battle. Jutsu could still be used but you couldn't just append a jutsu at the end of a hit anymore. This led to more tech traps, untechable combos and combos straight into jutsu without finishers involved.

Second, the new characters introduced were still suffering from imbalance issues. This either made some characters completely overpowered or extremely weak. Take TS Shikamaru. His awakening special status goes up so fast, deals tons of damage on hit, was hard to knj and was a definite advantage against any other character. Shikamaru dominated tournaments here and abroad, leading to his eventual ban (or at least the ban of his awakening status.) On the other hand we go to Kisame. Kisame was a monster in NH2 and NH3. He could drain chakra extremely easily and did tons of damage even on block lock (leading to the first "block lock infinite.") In NA1, he was barely playable. He was slow as hell, his chakra drain status was nerfed so much as to become negligible and, even when his moves hit, they did lesser damage.

Third, speaking of awakening statuses, these special statuses were no longer activated solely by hitting an ougi. In previous games, at a high enough level of play, hitting an ougi became exceedingly rare. That would translate to less opportunities to get into a special status. Now, awakenings could be activated by doing certain things, tailored to the individual character. This was a huge and beneficial leap forward in the series, as it made awakenings a more integral part of game strategy. On the other hand, some awakenings were much too powerful, or gave the character a steeper curve to learn to beat. One case in hand is TS Naruto. By himself, TS Naruto by himslef was a powerhouse with his many tools. But when he reached low life, he would activate his special awakening status, which constituted a buff to all stats (attack, damage and speed.) It often happened that when playing against an experienced Naruto Player, people had to get their own character at least 75% life by the time the attack hits. This wan't the worst of the awakening statuses, but I'm citing this one as the best example.

Fourth, they revamped the ougi system. They took out the customizable ougi system, which never really worked, and replaced it with a situational ougi system. This added another dimension of tactics to the game. Reversal ougis are pretty powerful, but they take up a lot of chakra, and they can only be used at half life or less. Players could get beaten to lower than half life, then do the ougi and catch up. Their opponents would then do everything they can to drain chakra, which is used for the reversal ougi. Some players would do an ougi-based playstyle on their normal level 1 ougis (available at above half life and without special statuses) and continue to do ougis. Some would work towards getting an awakening to be able to perform an awakening ougi and hit the enemy for massive damage. (hihi)

In the end, NA1 ended up feeling like an NH3.5 - it really wasn't a complete game, and there were certain aspects to the game that did not translate well or were not fully refined. Moving on...

Narutimate Accel 2

Accel 2 was a true sequel to NH3. It included a lot of new characters, made fixes to the NH3 characters that made them still viable contenders to the new roster, and made various changes to the system that improved the overall gameplay.

There was one thing, however, that would potentially have brought it all down - the Assist System.

In theory, the assist system was a good thing. It was semi-implemented in NH2, and it gave assists a limit based on the number of assist items in the inventory. If balanced correctly, it offered another means of escape to the player, in a game that emphasized escape.

The problem was that the finished product emphasized escape way too much.

Like I said before, the Narutimate series always made a fine balance between attack, defense, and escape. In attack the NH/NA player proceeds to disrupt enemy flow, pin them in a state of continuous defense (for example, pinning them via block lock) and cause as much damage to the enemy as possible, both to the chakra and life bar. The endpoint is either a KO or an infinite combo. In defense, one tries to minimize the damage by blocking or backing off. In escape, one tries to break enemy momentum via attack (through KnJ or techs,) counterattack, and basically avoid getting hit (as opposed to simply reducing damage.)

The new assist system destroyed this very delicate balance. It was spammable, it destroyed the game mechanic and some combinations brought imbalance to relatively balanced characters. It interferes with attack (making infinites impossibly hard to perform, defeating block lock in some cases.) It also interferes with escape, making escape too prominent, straying into the "get out of jail free card" status. It was too much of a good thing. There was no penalty with using it, as opposed to KnJ, which ate up the chakra bar. Chakra management necessitated judicious use of KnJ and jutsu. But with assists, it could be spammable all day long. If it were up to me, I would always choose the best combination and use assists over and over again. No flow or rhythm would be materialized within a match: if played as is, NA2 would devolve into a button mashing fest.

Thankfully, the scene for NA2 unilaterally banned this system in competitive play.

Some of the imbalances in NA1 characters were removed in NA2. But some characters were still hard to play. If anything, the imbalances between some NA2 characters were more pronounced than those with NH3 characters. My NH3 Itachi and Lee have both lost to an insanely skilled Kurenai, but rarely could any Kisame beat a high tiered character in NA2.

Then there's the issue of Gai. I'm going to devote two whole entries on this subject, so watch out for that.

NA2 was a good game, a fun game even up to now. More than three years after its release, the scene is alive and a lot people still play it today. It's easy to pick up and doesn't have NH3's high learning curve for fighting against certain characters.

Again, it took a long time for the next, and probably last Accel game to be released. The community as a whole waited on it with baited breath. But was Narutimate Accel 3 worth it? That's for the next entry.