Title: Naruto: Ramen Days
Author: Rathanel
Rating: T
Genre: Humor/Adventure
Status: WIP (110k)
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings:
Summary: After dying at the end of the Sand-Sound Invasion, Naruto finds that his life is governed by a strange set of rules that he is still trying to figure out. VideoGame!Naruto
Link

The first video game fic I have ever liked, and probably the last one, too. Premise is that Naruto's life is a video game (obviously) and it comes with all the special abilities, level ups, and combat sequences that you might expect. Half the fun is learning more about the game through Naruto's eyes, as this is a 1st person POV, which another plus for me.

Rathanel isn't afraid to alter canon, and already there have been a few key changes from it as a result of the game. This is one of the better iterations of Naruto I've seen, staying faithful to canon without grating on you, and the other core characters have been just as enjoyable to read about.

All in all I give it a 4.5/5, only because nothing has jumped out at me as being worth the perfect score yet. Only a matter of time, though!

 

Been following this one for a while, and it's really good. The way that Naruto starts to figure out the rules of the game he is trapped in is well done, and the changes that sprout from that are both fun and believable. One of it's best points imo is that Naruto is not getting OP the moment he figures out the basics of what is going on like in most groundhog and video-game day fics.

4/5 from me.

 

I dislike the way it tries to make more than just Naruto self-aware. I personally don't see how this can ever evolve beyond Crack, despite the author's admirable attempts to do so here.

I'm expecting to read a story that's somewhat Deadpool-esque in its hilarity, but end up getting something that's trying to be meta around chapter 6.

Despite that, the writing quality is excellent and the story is enjoyable. It's a good time-waster. I don't know if its truly library-material, however.

3.5/5

 

Eh, I used to be a big fan of this fic, but then it started going downhill once Hanabi joined, firstly because I hate it when an author decides to base important plot decisions on a poll, secondly because she brings nothing to the plot at all. I also didn't like the fact that all of a sudden he now gets instructions and shit because lololol Kyuubi was hiding shit from him (which really does raise the question of why did he get power over shit). And then there's the fact that now he's recruiting as many people as he can, and well, it's starting to get boring to be honest.

What sucks is that it actually started out interesting, Naruto had no idea what was going on, he was actually using multiple lives to do shit, and well, it was just him in the game.

Something that I find dissapointing, is that almost all video game fics are the exact same thing. Naruto (or Harry, or whoever) dies, they get the game over screen where they get told how terrible they are. This is normally followed by the main menu and them finding a shitton of avatars that they can use (but never do) and then he goes back to living. Cue them finding all this video game shit that for some reason he never noticed ever before, but well, that's just a small detail.

What would actually be far easier to do, and actaully pretty fun to read, would be to have a video game fic in the style of Scott Pilgrim, where all of the video game shit is what Naruto (or Harry, or whatever) consider to be normal in life. Having random villagers or bullies attack them for no reason, to then explode into money after being beaten up, is how they make money to buy lunch. Naruto eats ramen all the time because it heals him, and because it's awesome (really, healing %50 hp is just broken but he's not complaining) I would explain more but this isn't the thread for it

tl;dr fic is 3/5 for me, and only that high because I liked the start.

 

What mishie said, basically. I also used to be a big fan of this fic, but it got boring as soon as he started recruiting random dumb people and adding them to his 'party'.

Chouji and Hanabi, really? Way to pick two of the most boring characters available.

3.5/5, rounded down for voting purposes because quality is going down, not up, with this fic.

 

Mostly agree and dropped for the same reason. I always love a sassy, chibi hanabi though.

 

At first I was 'wtf', and then I enjoyed it, but now it's become 'meh'.

I'm still following it. It has the potential to become Library worthy in the future, but I need to see more of the plot first. I'm ambivalent about the extra characters joining the party, but I'll wait and see if the author will do something worthwhile with it.

3/5

 

T'was a fun read but, like yak said, I'd like to see more of the plot to judge its real worth.

Edit: Actually, no. It has flaws but I found myself enjoying the fic all the way through. It's something worth recommending (and I'm glad Menace did) so 4/5 for me.