An idea, the likes of which, creates revolutions.

[Shoubushi]

So I was sitting in my closet. (I work in what used to be a closet here in Iraq. :) ) I was absolutely, completely bored out of my mind. I was also reading a gaming magazine. I've noticed recently that gaming magazines are becoming more and more nice in their reviews of Naruto games. Mainly because Naruto games suck much less these days than they used to. (Admit it, Ultimate Ninja was crap. Ultimate Ninja 3? Awesomesauce) To me it appears to be because the Naruto games out now allow you to better explore the Naruto world. This was when my idea hit me. And it is an idea that if it was utilized, could give Masashi Kishimoto the same chance that Akira Toriyama has every single day. That is, to tragically drown in his own money.
What is the most popular thing about Naruto? Many Narutards would spout something about how awesome the emo characters are or the cool looking jutsus like chidori and rasengan. More intelligent people would say something about the compelling storyline in the first series and wanting to wade through the Uchihagasm that is Shippuden so as to be able to see the final resolution. To me though, the most popular thing about Naruto is quite simply the fanfiction. Everyone and their mother wants to as the Evil Authorlord put it "play in the sandbox".
Gaming technology of today has already shown that it is capable of allowing deep immersion into the Narutoverse. And if games like Fable 2 and Fallout 3 are to be any indication, this will only get better. Kishimoto could easily use these two things to his advantage. Create an epic rpg....about Naruto. One where your different choices as Naruto, affects the world around him. Basically, give the fans the chance to basically play out their fanfictions. Like pairing Naruto with off the wall characters? You can do it! Like seeing him wield Kubikiri Houcho? You can do that too! Like Super!Naruto? Well, that's what cheat codes are for. With a company like Bethesda or Bioware behind it, not only could fans get the chance to play out their fantasies in this way, but also be able to do it in an enjoyable manner with innovative control schemes for combat and other activites such as handseals or drawing up seals. It could easily be one of the most popular games of all time. The one that every single anime fan in a non third world country MUST own.

Thoughts?

[Chao Yang]

So something like a dating-sim/RPG game like Azure Dreams you mean? I'll play that, it'll give us a lot of freedom to utilize 'Naruto' to our wants.

[Bontrey]

Sounds impossible. Even if you had enough customization, the dynamics required to change the universe and the story (if there is to be one) in accordance to your customizations would be too grand a project. Games like Fallout and Mass Effect takes your stats into consideration and changes your dialogs and allows you to do different things in different ways, but that's still nowhere as diverse as fanfiction. Those games follow a set story, but realistically a change to Naruto's character can change his entire life.

[Shoubushi]

I think it's not quite impossible. Impossible to encompass the entire range of fanfiction yes but not impossible to hit upon the most popular forms. For example. Taking a page from Fallout 3, you take control of Naruto after he learns how to walk. You choose his stats and do a few very minor quests. Depending on how you choose your stats and compete your quests, your graduation at the academy is different. Play it a certain way and you end up like in canon on team 7. Play it another way and you end up on team 8 or team 10 or maybe even team gai. Attempt to powerplay from the beginning and you get turned into an anbu human weapon. the trick is to find common elements in the story and use those to propel it along and make the baselines for how your particular story goes. its the same thing that mass effect, fallout 3, probably fable 2, and definitely neverwinter nights does. the overall story stays the same, but how you play out that story is up to you.

[bandaid]

I think it's not quite impossible. Impossible to encompass the entire range of fanfiction yes but not impossible to hit upon the most popular forms. For example. Taking a page from Fallout 3, you take control of Naruto after he learns how to walk. You choose his stats and do a few very minor quests. Depending on how you choose your stats and compete your quests, your graduation at the academy is different. Play it a certain way and you end up like in canon on team 7. Play it another way and you end up on team 8 or team 10 or maybe even team gai. Attempt to powerplay from the beginning and you get turned into an anbu human weapon. the trick is to find common elements in the story and use those to propel it along and make the baselines for how your particular story goes. its the same thing that mass effect, fallout 3, probably fable 2, and definitely neverwinter nights does. the overall story stays the same, but how you play out that story is up to you.

or have all the greatest fanfic authors wright alternate story lines......wait!!!

get blizzard to turn naruto into diablo II that would be awesome!

[Shoubushi]

While not a bad idea. A Naruto version of Diablo II isn't really along the same lines as what I'm talking about. Diablo II is a game where you kill monsters, to get better gear, to kill stronger monsters. That is the entire point of the game. I personally never even paid attention to the story of the game, I just zipped through those parts so that I could go back to the fun part....killing monsters. The type of Naruto game that I'd describing would be more along the lines of Baldur's Gate II. Anyone in here ever play that? It's primarily story driven. There's tons of combat and dungeon crawling yes (it is a d&d game after all) but there is story hidden in almost every nook and cranny in that game. Even just walking around, your npc characters will randomly start conversations with each other. (the best by far in my opinion are between minsc and jan).

hmmmm, i just realized that this conversation would probably be better off in the gaming section. could one of the admins move it there?

[bibliophile20]

hmmmm, i just realized that this conversation would probably be better off in the gaming section. could one of the admins move it there?

Done.

[Shoubushi]

*bows to the genius at work that is bibliophile*

As an additional answer to the earlier statement that such a game would be impossible, I point to the games Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2. Both games focus heavily on story in such a way that the story plays itself out according to how you play the game. And, here is the real kicker. Both of them come packaged along with the same software that the game creators used to create the games. A persistent Naruto world has already been created and played on extensively for the original NWN. It allows for many of the same feats that one sees in the the anime. With something like this in place, anyone familiar with the Aurora toolset could create a less refined version of the kind of game that I've been talking about. I say less refined because as anyone who has ever played NWN or NWN2 can tell you, the combat can get repetitive.