Massive thread of LF2 version reviews

[rewlf2]

57.5 Naruto: The Settling Dawn II v2.0 (Click to View)

NTSD II is a product of NTSD team, which is a continued product of NTSD (okay I know this description is lame)
The NTSD team is surprisingly abundant of developers and testers compared to most other versions and mods.

This version is aimed to entertain Naruto fans by replicating the environment of ninja fighting, techniques of ninjas and some funny stage mode.

I didn't bother to find a proper newest version of NTSD2, because the newest versions are mostly hosted on unstable sites, which by now should have all taken down the archive of NTSD2.
As such the v2.0 I am reviewing can be downloaded in this post, and is not the newest version of the game.

Despite a lot of efforts put into systems and sprites in this version, I find this unsatisfying:

Battle mechanics are unreliable, especially withdrawal
Combo is generally nonexistent, and any character who has prescribed combo can overpower other players easily
The overall color theme tries to smash too much detail into unnecessarily little spaces
The effects although with beautiful graphics, fails at execution
Hitboxes are improper, speed of moves are unreasonable
Some gimmicks are very frustrating

87.5 Originality

Most of graphical content of this version are either ripped from other sourced or hand-drawn.
While the new mechanics, sprites and effects are highly different from original LF2 style, unfortunately it rarely escapes the shadow of the Naruto series.

From some view it might look like ripoff of other Naruto games, I will explain further.

85 Marco Graphics

While the interface, character and effect sprites are original and highly detailed, there exists some repetition of sprites and some moves are using oversized sprites which may hinder sight (even if the game is slowed down)

55 Micro Graphics

There are lots of bugs swarming across this game:

Many of character and effect sprites have not yet fixed positions
Execution is confusing and poor:
1. Some moves are difficult to distinguish, like Sasuke's D>A and a weapon that sprays water
2. Withdrawal system is very confusing and requires too much concentration, because sight is hindered badly
3. Character sprites are too small to distinguish moves
4. Lack of transition frames

I don't like how the selection screen tries to put undersized character strength descriptor and makes the character portrait too small
Not to forget you select characters by pressing Left and Right, not Up and Down, yet the character portrait prompts you to scroll vertically.
(It is more apparent in another version iirc)

37.5 Macro systems

I reckon it to be generally unfavorable to play in versus and some stages.

I gave up after playing 4 versus matches because control is highly confusing, and the readme adds much unnecessary complexity.
But tbh, there are a number of critical factors that urges me to stay away from this version:

There is generally no balanced combo to be used:
I did expect I could at least throw a weapon and do a running punch, just to deal some extra damage, or perform a simple combo.
I failed miserably, a few AI characters do know to do simple combos, but very rarely over 4 hits and very rarely actually uses different related moves together.
Weapon throwing is painful, you do not even have a Blastpush move that bashes a weapon to daze a nearby enemy.
Jumping is highly inconsistent
The feature of clinging to buildings can interrupt combos, even basic punch attack chains
Buildings hinder movement and sight in nasty ways
Hitboxes of melee attacks are very inconsistent
Withdrawal is very inconsistent and annoying
Health bar is using olive green which doesn't stand out well when surrounded by decorated bar borders
Backgrounds although I see much efforts are put into them.... they look like pathetic ripoffs of Arcade game BGs. What a waste of BG potential.

For stage mode:
I don't understand why pawns in Stage 1-1 are yelling in voice of Naruto, nevertheless because I have low control in character, it quickly becomes very messy.
Stage 2 features survival mode which is actually a spamfest, including Kakashi that repeatedly teleports behind you to slash you EVERY 0.8 SECONDS, Naruto that spams his copies while being invulnerable, Sasuke who calls teleporting thunder regularly, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
Stage 3 urges you to throw black balls at pawns to kill them, but throwing is pathetic because eveyone is jumping too low and running too fast...

I crashed when loading Stage 4, I feel it is not worthy to try loading it again.

40 Micro systems

I appreciate how much efforts are put into dialogs, placement of objects and prescribed combos, but there is not much to give apart of these.
Again, the execution is poor.

40 Balance

Because I cannot properly find any un-prescribed combo, I assume characters should have similar strength.... initially.
However some characters do have significantly powerful moves that chain into themselves.
Even basic attacks seem to differ greatly between characters despite they all use melee and punch range is similar.

There are also some unsettling burst damage (up to 220% of original damage) regarding wall combos

65 Intuitiveness

I remember a version featuring "catching prescribed attacks" not existing in this version. Other systems are collection of using hit_d,j,a in falling or lying situations. The weapon system although good-looking, has not been properly rectified. AI users generally have difficulty using weapons.

The move list is a long list of branched moves. It can be quite difficult to memorize and use moves properly. I suggest largely reducing number of moves as not to blindly replicate some standards to imitate strength levels in Naruto.

60 Replay value

While it has quite large volume of original sprite and mechanic content, its performance is lackluster for poorly performed movement and combos, unsuitable and unfair stages and scenarios, and lack of new value apart from being derived from the Naruto series.

57.5 Overall Score