Naruto Online is a free to play MMORPG released in 2016 revolving around, well, Naruto. There are also five new main protagonists that you can choose to play on based on the five chakra releases. Their names are, in the order shown in the image below, Azure Fang (water), Scarlet Blaze (fire), Breeze Dancer (wind), Midnight Blade (lightning), and Crimson Fist (earth).
As with any other MMORPG, you're basically incentivized to go through a gacha to get your favorite characters. This time, though, you have more motivation because all the characters are from your favorite anime.
How did I get introduced? Well, young Fran was once looking at games to play on her favorite site, Newgrounds (probably trying to find something FNAF related). Then, I saw this game (because back then, Flash was still a thing, and you could play lots of MMOs on NG). I actually had no idea what Naruto was, but I decided to try the game because it seemed fun, anyway.
And I was right! Despite not knowing the story (and not really paying attention to most of it), I was really sucked into the game. It was so satisfying to see my team get just a little more powerful day after day, and of course, the gacha was extremely addictive (though I didn't spend any money on the game).
I would say I was pretty good at the game. Well, as good as a ten year old could be...I wish I had screenshots to show here, but oh well. My line up was Breeze Dancer, Naruto, Kakashi, and Shizune. I actually started out as an Azure Fang main, but I remember wanting to try something new.
Like I mentioned before, though, I barely had any idea what Naruto was before this game. Because of that, I made some....pretty funny mistakes while playing, and also thought some cringeworthy stuff. That includes:
- Pronouncing everyone's names WRONG. Like I straight up pronounced Sasuke's name "SAH-SOOK"
- *sigh* Calling Deidara a girl and reading all his lines in super girly voices....
- Mishearing everyone's voice lines and having NO idea what any of the Japanese stuff meant.
Funny enough, I didn't even like Sasori (if you can't tell by the shrines page, he's my fav Naruto character!)! First, I didn't understand why he had two forms (Hiruko and his real body), and I thought his voicelines were annoying (I can still hear him saying Satesu Kaiho in my head). I also thought his laugh was really creepy, which, well, makes sense. Oh, Sasori, I'm so sorry...
After a while, I was interested enough in the actual plot of the game to start watching Naruto. It was really cool to see all the characters I knew from the game star in an anime.
Unfortunately, with the passing of time, I eventually lost access to my account and moved on to other things. Then, Adobe Flash ceased to exist, and from what I know, my account is lost to the sands of time. I really wish I had access so I could still play, but I do plan on making an account sometime in the near future. Naruto Online means so much to me because it was one of my first introductions to anime, and of course, Naruto itself (and the Sasori pipeline!).
What I will say is this, though: I remember the name of the server I played on - it was called Black Ant! Back then, I just knew it as Kankuro's puppet, but now, I obviously know it's one that Sasori created. It all goes back to the puppet man :D