Naruto™: Ultimate Ninja™ for PlayStation 2

I went out and rented Naruto Ultimate Ninja for the PS2 a couple of days ago because I wanted to try it out. I liked the cartoon network show so far but anime games can be hit or miss. Well Naruto gets somewhere between. Like Naruto himself the game has a lot of flaws as well has a lot of charm.

Story.
For those who haven't watch the anime show it follows a 12 year old boy named Naruto has he studies to become top ninja in his village. 12 years ago a demon fox attack the village and the last Hogake sealed the fox into an orphan boy named Naruto. Naruto has grown up feared and hated by the villagers to do the fox sprit being in him, Naruto dreams of one day being the Hogake so the villagers will look up to him rather then fear him.

The story's told by character stills with flipping mouths chatting with each other before and after the match. There is plenty that has been cut out from the cartoon so to fully understand the story you have to watch the anime.

Graphics.
The graphics are fairly nice they are done cel-shaded and look pretty much like the animation from the show. The backgrounds are also nice each one representing a fighting area seen in the show. The attack animations that are shown are also colorful and good representations of what you see in the show.

Sound.
You get some background music from the show and every VA from the show does there respectful part in the game. If there is only one downer is that Naruto says is catch phrase "believe it" so much that after hearing it so much it made me one to choke the little bastard "believe it".

Gameplay.
Ok the presentation and the menus of the game reminded me of another Bandai game that was released last year, called Inuyasha Feudal Combat.. The characters of the show stand in the same place and the menus are placed exactly like they where in Inuyasha. Luckily the rest of the game fares a little bit better.

Naruto Ultimate Ninja plays a little bit like Super Smash Bors, minus the fact that it still is a regular fighting game where the goal is to whittle away your opponents stamina meter in till it hits 0 and he collapses. While there cliffs that you can push them off of, they teleport back on screen with a little bit more damage taken off of them.

Still like Smash Bros the arenas are quite large and your free to run around them. And unlike Smash Bros they are fully layered you can jump back and forth between them.

Another thing barrowed from Smash Bros are use of items and they are varied. You have a ninja special weapon which varies from person to person (usually throws out a lot of little dies and one big ninja star across the field), an item that slows them down, and an item that summons an alley to come into the battle and help. There are also items that refill health and increase your Chakra.

Chakra is your special moves meter. And there are 3 type of special moves. There are regular physical moves and combos that require no Chakra but do little damage. Then there are moves that do more but require a bit of Chakra, moves like the sexy jutsu. And then there are finishing moves each character has 3 levels of finishing moves and which one you do depends on how much chakra you have and how many times you hit triangle to charge. To do these you press triangle and then you press the regular attack button while your character is glowing from the charge up. Then it's fully animated attack time, but you don't just sit there and watch. A Simon says button combos come across the screen for both players. If the attacking player gets it right it does more damage and you go onto another attack screen (the maximum amount of attack screens are 3). If the player attacking gets the button press wrong and the defending player gets it right the attack stops on that screen. If they both get it right then the defending player receives less damage from the attack. Now these finishing animations can be brutal if used right, a fully powered up level 3 finishing move can do 60% damage if the opponent doesn't do any damage reducing. They are also fun to watch especially more comic ones coming from Naruto and Sakura.

Now there are a few bad things about Naruto though, while it's no where button mashy has Inuyasha feudal combat a good amount of the combos will be done mainly by mashing on the O button to attack. While there are some use full jutsu to perform that require a little skill on the control pad most fights will heavily be using the O button.

That said Naruto does have enough to keep you entrain for a couple of days Each of the playable characters has a story mode to go through. Also there are mission modes that require you to beat a character while doing another task. It could be to win while carrying an item, to do a certain level finishing move, or to keep your strength and chakra up above a certain limit. Completing these missions unlock harder missions and also gives you money for the gumball machine shop. In the shop you enter money in a gumball machine to unlock secret character posses, animation, and stills from the TV series. There is plenty to unlock in this area.

Final Recommendations.
Nartuo Ultimate Ninja as a lot of potential but it's to button mashey to really appeal to hard core fighters. Fans of the anime will love it though so if you like the anime it's worth picking up. For the rest of the people looking for a good fighter I recommend picking up a better game called Street Fighter Alpha Anthologies , not only is it a better game but it's a few dollars cheaper to Believe it.