Project Shinobi is quite popping off into everyone’s recommendations and feed and this fan-made Naruto game is looking very promising. If you are unaware, Project Shinobi is a fan-made Open-world Role-playing game based on one of the greatest and popular anime franchises Naruto. The game is still in a very primary stage of alpha development but is now accessible to players for a self-trial. The game is being developed by Osiris and you can connect with them via their official discord server.
If you are a fan of Naruto and its video games, you will love Project Shinobi. There are a number of official Naruto games out there but there isn’t a single one that is truly open-world in the actual sense. Project Shinobi is not associated with the official franchise but we hope they don’t shut it down under copyright infringement and quite possibly partner with the developers. The game looks very good and the features that you can find in the version 0.1 demo is supporting the statement.
We will talk about the demo and its content in brief so you can get a more in-depth idea and try the game for yourselves.
The Game’s Settings and Theme
The game is currently set around the Konoha (Leaf village) and the surrounded forest area. It should expand in size and include the other villages which should take some time. The surrounded area of the hidden leaf village is covered with textures which the village itself is currently missing. The village however has been constructed identical to the actual village, as much as possible.
The stone face mountain of the village currently has the first, second, third, and fourth Hokage’s face engraved in it, missing on Lady Tsunade. This first made us think that the game sets in a world prior to Naruto Shippuden but that is not the case. We think that the world will be updated along with the surrounding villages with more development time.
Controller Support
The game has both keyboard & Mouse and Controller support. However, sometimes the controls may feel irresponsive but that could be expected from the first stage of the alpha version. Players can also customize their choice of key binding from the menu as per their liking.
Main Menu and Multiplayer
The main menu has been kept very simple yet interesting. As of starting a game, there are three choices, i) Continue Game, ii) New Game, and iii) Multiplayer mode. This third one is what made every Naruto fan excited as playing a Vast open-world Naruto Role-playing game with friends would be a dream come true. This option is however unavailable at the moment as being in the development process.
The UI
The UI and Hud are simple, there are two main bars at the top left corner, the red one indicates ‘Health Bar‘ and the blue one indicates ‘Chakra’. The orange bar at the bottom of the screen indicates XP and the empty slots under it should be filled with available weapons or Jutsus. The top right corner has the minimap which with a foot marker beside it, that indicates the target or mission’s distance.
Tutorial
There is a short tutorial that you will get into on starting a new game. This area will guide players through the controls and options of the game. This includes basic movements, use of abilities with Chakra and even flying!
Characters
The only character that is currently playable in the game is, of course, Naruto. However new characters can be expected to be included with further development. Apart from Naruto, the world features;
- Some Sand village ragdolls as training dummies
- Kakashi Sensei as your first mission instructor in the demo
- Gamakichi accessible with Naruto’s summoning Jutsu
- Kurama, aka the nine-tailed fox, which Naruto can transform into.
- Sasuke’s Susano
- Itachi Uchiha, as the target of your first mission.
The Movement
The movement in Project Shinobi is being developed to be suited as complementary to the open-world RPG. There are quite a number of set movements that you can currently perform in the demo, they will be polished as the development process goes.
Basic Movements
The Basic movements in Project Shinobi are accompanied by forward, left, backward and Right, defaulted to WASD on a keyboard. The character is defaulted to a running motion and is currently missing a Walk and Sprint action.
You can Jump with the Space button and double-tap it for a boosted Jump.
(i) Wall Run
In the tutorial, you will be able to perform a wall run that looks pretty slick. It would be nice to wall run around the leaf village while combat.
(ii) Tree Jump
You can run at a fast pace by jumping on the tree branches just like in the series, it is honestly a great addition.
(iii) Flying
You can fly across the map by pressing the default button set to which doesn’t extract any Chakra for now.
Combat
The combat is another sick part of this game as it gives you an open-map of the arena and various skill sets that you can apply to defeat your enemies.
Basic light attacks and Combos
There are basic light attacks and Combo buttons to perform light or heavy combos.
Dodge
You can press ‘E’ to guard enemy attacks and dodge oncoming Jutus’ with Shift or substitution Jutsu by ‘F’. For a little more damage, you can press 2 for a Kunai knife attack.
Jutsus
For significant damage, there are various abilities that use the character’s Chakra bar.
- Shadow Clone Jutsu
- Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu
- Summoning Jutsu (Gamakichi)
Rasengan
There are three types of Rasengan that you can currently perform,
- Normal Wind-Style Rasengan
- Aerial Rasengan
- Aerial Massive Rasengan
Rasenshuriken
There are three types of Rasenshuriken you can perform in the demo, they are:
- Normal Rasenshuriken
- Aerial Rasenshuriken
- Tailed-Beast Rasenshuriken
Concept of Destructible building
The concept of the destructible building is still in beta but it included in the game will be a great upside. Imagine missing an Aerial Massive Rasengan on an enemy and hitting the side of a building causing it to collapse! I mean, that would be bad for the owners but would look sick for the fight!
The game is very promising and you should try it for yourselves once, we are sure you will love it. It sure has some bugs and missing textures but keep in mind that it still is in an early stage of Alpha development. There should be more playable characters, missions, enlarged map area, enemies, story, multiplayer, etc added to the game through development.
Do not forget to check out our last article on Horizon Forbidden West | Release Date on PS4, PS5| & More Announcements.
What do you think of Project Shinobi? Are you excited as well to experience an open world Naruto RPG where you can travel to any of the great four shinobi nations according to your will? Well, let us know in the comments below.
