All of these stories are pretty shitty. Except for my rec, of course. I'm going to re-read Howdy's stuff. Nothing good will come of this now.

 

The newest chapter of Iron Soul puts the story well into new territory. If it wasn't worth reading before this, it's certainly worth reading now.

 

An interesting twist though now I'm wondering where the conflict will be in the immediate future.

This is the lazy man's Library. We can recommend stories without going through the effort of giving a proper review.

 

That is it. Will put Iron Soul up for review.


Edit: Done. Go to the thread and vote. The Library needs new stuff. It's a ghost town.

 

I think it is more like "in the library, when you recommend a story, you put your chops on the line." Because if you always rec bad stories, no one even clicks your link anymore. Here is more casual, and saying "YMMV" is an acceptable response. Not so in the library.

 

Iron Soul isn't too bad and I've been keeping up with it since chapter 4. The update speed is pretty insane and there's an interesting plot and a new twist. The backstory with the 'ancient cities' and such has lots of potential.

Yet, there's something...lacking, I suppose. I don't know what it is but the further and further it gets the less I find myself engaged in the story. There's actually been a couple of updates recently and I suddenly recalled I had no idea what had happened previously, so I had to go back and re-read them. Nothing has really stuck out since the start of the story. As I type this, I think it's the characterization. I'm somebody who needs memorable characters and who loves good character interaction and so far everybody seems pretty bland.

Don't get me wrong. One of the best stories to pop up this year for sure, but in my opinion it's not very immersive.

 

I personally dropped it after the author abandoned ship on what could have been a good apprenticeship story and shoved Naruto onto the old tried and true (read: boring) Genin team.

 

The character interaction is exactly what's missing in Iron Soul. The premise is interesting; a new way to power up the main character is always good, though I'd prefer a little bit more clearly defined drawback than "There's only so much of this metal available" to keep it out of super!territory.

But there's no mention of slowly coaxing Neji out of his hatred-filled and fate-obsessed existence; there's no gradual build up to Tenten realizing that she doesn't need to strive to be as strong or as skilled as Tsunade, because she already is, in her own way; there's not going to be a point where Naruto realizes he doesn't need to try so hard to find people to acknowledge him because there were right there the whole time. It all seems so superficial. "Hey, I've got this awesome metal staff that can decapitate jinchuuriki from 400 yards out. Cool!" and while it's well-written and novel, it's just not captivating.

That said, it's a bit of a letdown that there's not much floating around that is better. It's part of what's made me want to put my own work out there.

 

The above three posts are in the wrong thread -_-
Copy pasta those on the review thread, then maybe more people will read it.

Edit: Btw, I personally don't see it. While the fic doesn't focus on character interaction, there is plenty of it to go around, and both Naruto and his teammates have obvious development as time goes by, which becomes obvious through their interactions.
It could use some more of it, maybe, but I don't see what you guys see.

 

The Leaf's Naruto » reviews Naruto's come back to his past, and he doesn't intend to mess around. He wields the night and his ninja skills like deadly weapons, in the service of his village and the people in it. Enemies of the Leaf had better beware. The unwary might just end up dead. Stealth!Naruto, Fūinjutsu!Naruto.Naruto - Rated: T - English - Adventure - Chapters: 5 - Words: 22,368 - Reviews: 168 - Updated: 7-4-12 - Published: 6-28-12 - Naruto U.

 

How is that even a thing?

 

Because he wears orange.

 

So? People wear whatever they like in the Narutoverse and no-one looks twice. If Naruto wanted to blend in, all he'd have to do is walk in a crowd of civilians and perhaps take off his headband. For everything else there's the Transformation Technique.

Saying Stealth!Naruto would be like saying Ninja!Naruto. Going by the summary, Assassin!Naruto would probably be the most accurate description.

 

Well it's story by DLP member, so you can tell him about any of your objections

 

Hardly an objection; just a peeve. And only with a story summary at that.

 

No, no it wouldn't. Nearly every character in Naruto is supposedly a ninja, and off the top of my head I cannot recall a single character that uses stealth as their primary focus.

Ninja!Naruto would be similar if Ninjas in the series acted like ninjas...Unfortunately they're Super Saiyans that are called ninjas.

Assassination in canon Naruto doesn't exactly seem to be stealthy either, judging by Kakashi's loud, glowing, lightning fist assassination move.

I think it's more than fine as is, personally.

 

Stealth and infiltration are not exactly the kind of thing that ninjas in Naruto are known for, so I figured it would be good to note it. As for Kakashi - as I understand it it's an assassination move because it's very fast so it can be used to instantly kill someone. -shrug-

Also, I count as quality? Spiffing.

Lastly, orange isn't stealthy. Everyone knows that the colour of stealth is purple.

 

I agree.

And technicallly Kakashi did assassinate Kakuzu without any forewarning, so it does seem like a thing. However, the fact that what we might consider assassination in the real world doesn't really ever happen in the ninja world leads me to believe that in the ninja world getting enough of a drop on someone to quickly and quietly kill them, assuming the target is sufficiently strong, is all but impossible.

Stating that your story features a stealth!Naruto makes me believe he's going to be really overpowered simply because he's able to sneak up on people that in canon he would not be able to, despite whatever skill he may possess.

Keep in mind though that "fodder" ninja get sneaked up on and one-shot all the time.

On the topic of Naruto's clothing, it seems to me that the only clothing in the Naruto world that really stands out is anything that resembles a uniform. The standard flak vests and the red and black clouds of the Akatsuki cloaks seem to give the ninja away quite easily. Naruto would be fine blending in with his orange clothes, except for his entirely too conspicuous Uzushio symbols.

 

Purple is Green. Green is best.