Naruto Naruto is living a Video Game
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
- Start date
This may seem a little counter intuitive, but what of a story using this premise that also says "Saving? Hah! Too easy".
Maybe not immediately, but after a few runs Naruto gets an
"ERROR: Save file corrupted".
Up the difficulty and gives Naruto an "Aww, man, the universe hates me!" moment.
New Game + still functions, so he keeps cycling through and getting better, but he has to plan things better.
And fail more often, but that's a given for a lot of hard games.
Maybe not immediately, but after a few runs Naruto gets an
"ERROR: Save file corrupted".
Up the difficulty and gives Naruto an "Aww, man, the universe hates me!" moment.
New Game + still functions, so he keeps cycling through and getting better, but he has to plan things better.
And fail more often, but that's a given for a lot of hard games.
daniel_gudman said:
Ashaman said:
There's also been Skill Checks introduced,which so far has only been a (You need so many Charisma points to succeed).
Personally, were I to write a Naruto: the Videogame, it would be a demented combination of Dark Souls, Shin Megami Tensei, Disgaea, Dwarf Fortress and TESIII: Morrowind.
As for my contribution to the ideas in this thread:
Make the world a dynasty game. Every time someone follows in another's footsteps, whether that is as a member of their family, a disciple of their teachings, a direct genetic descendant, or some stranger way, they inherit a part of their skill - and more importantly, their limits change.
For example, a new tabula rasa character starts with a big, fat zero in every skill, and a mere one hundred point cap on both attributes and abilities. Let's say that he lives an unremarkable life, only managing to max out the skill of his livelihood, Woodcutting.
His son is born to a family of Woodcutters with a single skill point in Woodcutting, and a cap of one hundred and ten points, in that skill.
When their many times removed descendant, with natural, inborn talent for woodcraft that would make him equal to a journeyman carpenter with a little polishing, decides to change professions and joins a monastery, he does not lose these benefits.
Instead, as he grows closer to the ideals of the founder of his order, he starts getting similar benefits from his new, 'spiritual' line of inheritance.
And so, as he advances in rank, both his lackluster maximum and minimum values for 'monkly skills' increase, until becomes the new head of the order, and starts maxing out his own skill to improve his descendants.
Eventually, we'd arrive at essentially the canon Naruto situation - most human are unremarkable, neither them nor their ancestors possessing the drive needed to reach the limits of their skills past diminishing returns on their effort.
But every so often, you get someone with frankly unfair levels of natural advantages, as every single one of their precedessors dutifully grinded their way to the top.
Perhaps even trading their ludicrous, increasingly higher and harder to reach stat caps for other things - inborn advantages, bloodlines, special techniques, etc.
Naturally, these would be the player characters.
* * *
This is where the Dark Souls, Dwarf Fortress and Morrowind come in.
Every major organization? Used to be someone's pet project. And those legendary names, such as Itachi, Hiruzen and Kakashi are the endpoint of these projects - the results of carefully guiding multiple lines of people for generations, and then converging them to a single point, which is then maxed with extreme prejudice.
The real reason why Naruto sucks from the start is simple - he's denied his family (as he's part of the Uzumaki Clan in name only), he lacks the teachings of an established school (eventually, he gets the 'Konoha-nin' and Team 7 boosts), he isn't a zealot to leverage the Will of Fire, the only teacher interested in apprenticing him directly is Jiraiya years later, and his genetic advantages are mostly restricted to stuff he'd never use, anyway - ridiculous levels of Luck (Gambling), inborn passable levels of basic skills, such as Finance (Household), and unfair physical Vitality, Stamina and Endurance, further boosted by being a Jinchuuriki.
But when he starts discovering these facts, and starts to actively participate in the game (meaning roughly the Timeskip in canon), the world switches from the 'sandbox' mode, where things are relatively tame, to 'competition' mode, where connections are randomly made, and other players get control over the copies of their characters in Naruto's world.
Then, they all attempt to lie, cheat and exploit their way to the top, in order to obtain some unknowable prize.
Edo Tensei abuse? Kabuto spent decades grinding his skills, just so he could exploit that single loophole.
Sharingan bullshit? With the clan dead in this world, the player behind Uchiha decided that he can just as well burn the points from everything unrelated to combat, and throw them into the bloodline for a grand finish.
Rinnegan? The original Sage of Six Paths was one of the first characters, and with all Ninja technically at least tangetially following his teachings, he burned all benefits that they would have received from it, and put them into his eyes - eyes that only his direct successors receive.
And worst of all - the reason for the looping. Naruto hasn't left a legacy.
If he has a child and dies? Oblivion. If he trains a successor and dies? Game over. If he inspires someone to be *just like him*, and carry on all of his ideas and teachings? The End.
Something would carry on in his stead, but the person known as Uzumaki Naruto would be erased, overwritten completely.
Becoming Hokage, the spiritual leader of an entire village, suddenly, does not look quite so prudent.
The reason why Naruto receives XP from bunshins, and can use them to grind skills is similar: they are, technically speaking, wholly independent. They also share his ninja beliefs, methods and ideals perfectly.
When they dispel, Naruto is suddenly the endpoint of that particular line, and receives corresponding benefits. The fractions of points eventually add up.
I imagine that a lot of this game wouldn't be nearly about traditional videogame shenanigans, but rather, looking for forgotten heroes, complimentary sets of ideals and teachings, and heading for the top of various organizations, when not desperately searching for game-breaking exploits. Just like Morrowind.
To make it less frustrating, Naruto could propably keep some progress between incarnations - perhaps a sum 'point total' of his skills and attributes, modified by some factor, which he could use to unlock more options and abilities.
For example, unlocking his Uzumaki heritage would mean that he would have to allocate its buy-in value in points from the pool, with possible upgrades either ingame (by looking for lost techniques, inventing new ones etc.), or for more points, which would refresh with his next playthrough.
PvP aspects would be brutal - once the game proper is started, and players are selected, you never know who to watch out for.
Every unassuming background character could be the next Kabuto, and fortune be with you if someone like Nagato gets hijacked.
I expect that there would be a lot of dead ends, where Naruto watches somebody previously unremarkable turn into an overpowered sociopath and take over the world.
I think that a nice way to introduce Naruto to this would be Mizuki - Naruto, fresh from the future, rashly swears himself to the Will of Fire. Only when he later expects to do a canon rehash, he ends up choking on blood as Iruka absconds with Mizuki and the scroll. The last thing he sees as his vision fades to black is a smile.
Cue credits:
"A hundred years after the Shodaime Yamikage stole the secrets of the Bringer of Darkness Technique, ending your dynasty, the world lies in eternal twilight. People starve in the streets as sickened crops rot in darkened fields.
"In this world, only one place still has light: Yamigakure no Sato. And their legacy is the last left in this new world.
"Yamayami-chan has won a Conquest victory!
"Game Over. Would you like to review world history? N
"Would you like to restart in sandbox mode? Y"
As for my contribution to the ideas in this thread:
Make the world a dynasty game. Every time someone follows in another's footsteps, whether that is as a member of their family, a disciple of their teachings, a direct genetic descendant, or some stranger way, they inherit a part of their skill - and more importantly, their limits change.
For example, a new tabula rasa character starts with a big, fat zero in every skill, and a mere one hundred point cap on both attributes and abilities. Let's say that he lives an unremarkable life, only managing to max out the skill of his livelihood, Woodcutting.
His son is born to a family of Woodcutters with a single skill point in Woodcutting, and a cap of one hundred and ten points, in that skill.
When their many times removed descendant, with natural, inborn talent for woodcraft that would make him equal to a journeyman carpenter with a little polishing, decides to change professions and joins a monastery, he does not lose these benefits.
Instead, as he grows closer to the ideals of the founder of his order, he starts getting similar benefits from his new, 'spiritual' line of inheritance.
And so, as he advances in rank, both his lackluster maximum and minimum values for 'monkly skills' increase, until becomes the new head of the order, and starts maxing out his own skill to improve his descendants.
Eventually, we'd arrive at essentially the canon Naruto situation - most human are unremarkable, neither them nor their ancestors possessing the drive needed to reach the limits of their skills past diminishing returns on their effort.
But every so often, you get someone with frankly unfair levels of natural advantages, as every single one of their precedessors dutifully grinded their way to the top.
Perhaps even trading their ludicrous, increasingly higher and harder to reach stat caps for other things - inborn advantages, bloodlines, special techniques, etc.
Naturally, these would be the player characters.
* * *
This is where the Dark Souls, Dwarf Fortress and Morrowind come in.
Every major organization? Used to be someone's pet project. And those legendary names, such as Itachi, Hiruzen and Kakashi are the endpoint of these projects - the results of carefully guiding multiple lines of people for generations, and then converging them to a single point, which is then maxed with extreme prejudice.
The real reason why Naruto sucks from the start is simple - he's denied his family (as he's part of the Uzumaki Clan in name only), he lacks the teachings of an established school (eventually, he gets the 'Konoha-nin' and Team 7 boosts), he isn't a zealot to leverage the Will of Fire, the only teacher interested in apprenticing him directly is Jiraiya years later, and his genetic advantages are mostly restricted to stuff he'd never use, anyway - ridiculous levels of Luck (Gambling), inborn passable levels of basic skills, such as Finance (Household), and unfair physical Vitality, Stamina and Endurance, further boosted by being a Jinchuuriki.
But when he starts discovering these facts, and starts to actively participate in the game (meaning roughly the Timeskip in canon), the world switches from the 'sandbox' mode, where things are relatively tame, to 'competition' mode, where connections are randomly made, and other players get control over the copies of their characters in Naruto's world.
Then, they all attempt to lie, cheat and exploit their way to the top, in order to obtain some unknowable prize.
Edo Tensei abuse? Kabuto spent decades grinding his skills, just so he could exploit that single loophole.
Sharingan bullshit? With the clan dead in this world, the player behind Uchiha decided that he can just as well burn the points from everything unrelated to combat, and throw them into the bloodline for a grand finish.
Rinnegan? The original Sage of Six Paths was one of the first characters, and with all Ninja technically at least tangetially following his teachings, he burned all benefits that they would have received from it, and put them into his eyes - eyes that only his direct successors receive.
And worst of all - the reason for the looping. Naruto hasn't left a legacy.
If he has a child and dies? Oblivion. If he trains a successor and dies? Game over. If he inspires someone to be *just like him*, and carry on all of his ideas and teachings? The End.
Something would carry on in his stead, but the person known as Uzumaki Naruto would be erased, overwritten completely.
Becoming Hokage, the spiritual leader of an entire village, suddenly, does not look quite so prudent.
The reason why Naruto receives XP from bunshins, and can use them to grind skills is similar: they are, technically speaking, wholly independent. They also share his ninja beliefs, methods and ideals perfectly.
When they dispel, Naruto is suddenly the endpoint of that particular line, and receives corresponding benefits. The fractions of points eventually add up.
I imagine that a lot of this game wouldn't be nearly about traditional videogame shenanigans, but rather, looking for forgotten heroes, complimentary sets of ideals and teachings, and heading for the top of various organizations, when not desperately searching for game-breaking exploits. Just like Morrowind.
To make it less frustrating, Naruto could propably keep some progress between incarnations - perhaps a sum 'point total' of his skills and attributes, modified by some factor, which he could use to unlock more options and abilities.
For example, unlocking his Uzumaki heritage would mean that he would have to allocate its buy-in value in points from the pool, with possible upgrades either ingame (by looking for lost techniques, inventing new ones etc.), or for more points, which would refresh with his next playthrough.
PvP aspects would be brutal - once the game proper is started, and players are selected, you never know who to watch out for.
Every unassuming background character could be the next Kabuto, and fortune be with you if someone like Nagato gets hijacked.
I expect that there would be a lot of dead ends, where Naruto watches somebody previously unremarkable turn into an overpowered sociopath and take over the world.
I think that a nice way to introduce Naruto to this would be Mizuki - Naruto, fresh from the future, rashly swears himself to the Will of Fire. Only when he later expects to do a canon rehash, he ends up choking on blood as Iruka absconds with Mizuki and the scroll. The last thing he sees as his vision fades to black is a smile.
Cue credits:
"A hundred years after the Shodaime Yamikage stole the secrets of the Bringer of Darkness Technique, ending your dynasty, the world lies in eternal twilight. People starve in the streets as sickened crops rot in darkened fields.
"In this world, only one place still has light: Yamigakure no Sato. And their legacy is the last left in this new world.
"Yamayami-chan has won a Conquest victory!
"Game Over. Would you like to review world history? N
"Would you like to restart in sandbox mode? Y"