Game:

Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 (2009)

Duration: 11:17

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5

So as if the sheer variety of forty characters of entirely unique moves and distinct styles isn't enough to satisfy you, these two alternate modes ought to help keep you further engaged.

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First off, there's the "Two-Man Squad" option, which means that the battle will be conducted between two pairs of characters engaging in a tag-team style combat. As if the game didn't already move fast enough as it is, you can find yourself playing on a battlefield with inactive combatants jumping in and swapping out and all that good stuff.

As far as I know, this is the first game in the series to feature this style of battle.

In addition to everything else that goes on in singles battles, there are five primary added features:

Tag, switching out the active character and bringing in the inactive one. When a character is on standby, they will regenerate chakra at a steady rate and also recover the red HP they had before they switched out.

Offensive tag, switching characters with the one entering into battle launching an attack.

Defensive tag, switching characters at any time when you could have used the Substitution Jutsu.

Assist attack, calling your inactive character to perform an attack.

Tag attack, using both characters' chakra meters at 100% to launch a powerful two-person attack.

Each of these actions will cost you different amounts of chakra, except for the regular tag when you're hiding behind a stage obstacle.

When I manage to figure out a good way to keep Jiraiya's explanations from getting cut off, I'll have him explain in greater detail the little nuances of these maneuvers...because that's at least the part he's good at. He won't really give you good information about them in application, but the description of what you can do is quite a bit more complete than what I could tell you.

Plus, as you can see here, you can even have a team composed of two different players...which if anything is a load off the shoulders of the active battler. They will be more able to focus on when to perform an assist attack and will certainly keep a closer eye on their own chakra than you would be able to by yourself.

Just make sure you let your partner know when they're going to be tagged in, because that much is under the control of the active player. Oh, and even though you're technically involved with a tag attack, only the player who activates it will be able to perform the motions...well, you *could* follow along if you wanted to, but the game won't recognize your inputs for the purposes of the attack in progress.

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Three- and four-player battles without the tag team rules are also in full effect...and of course the players themselves can be on any combination of teams.

I'm not completely sure, but I believe these kinds of battles made their debut in Clash of Ninja 2.

This game type can quickly become especially hectic, but just keep in mind your basics and try to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Easier said than done, sometimes, particularly since the view will adjust to fit the positions of all characters at the same time...and especially after a stage transition, it's easy to lose track of the other uninvolved players as they show up afterwards.

Oh, and as with any battle with characters that present multiple key moving player elements, like Kankuro, Chiyo, or Kiba, you'll find that the camera won't always be situated such that your axis of movement is orthogonal with the plane of viewport.

This isn't generally a problem, and the controls always remain true regardless of the precise vantage point variation. It can get tricky if you're required to fight in a vertical direction...because obviously up will make you jump, and "left" and "right" will be a little less than obvious. Actually, come to think of it, you could probably just solve that little quandary by performing a sidestep dodge or two.

We only did a three-way match style here, but you'll see more four-way multi-battle than you can shake a kunai at in the upcoming segments.

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