Naruto: Ultimate Ninja

As Naruto: Ultimate Ninja took so long to come out here in the West, I remember importing this game for the PlayStation 2 back in the day. It was the start of a long-running series of games and it was a game that treated the source material with some real respect. Look, I will admit right now that the later games in the series pretty much improved on every aspect of the game. However, I still thought that it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and see how this holds up.

Naruto The Early Days

The story that Naruto: Ultimate Ninja tells the story of the early days of the Naruto show and the story mode only actually consists of a handful of fights. These fill in the story in-between the fights and it is decent enough. In comparison to what we have these days, it is very lacking, but back then I was very satisfied with this.

The way that this game fleshes out the story is with the scenario mode. You start with only 6 characters and you can experience story events from their point of view. You can unlock more characters as you progress and I found this to be a fun mode for the time.

Stop The Plane!

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja is kind of like a 2D fighter. You have two different planes that you can fight on and the gameplay is fast, but very simplistic. I mean, there is only actually one attack button! So, while things are limited, I feel that they were trying to emulate the epic fights that happen on the show the best they could, and from a spectacle point of view, they did a decent enough job. Of course, in comparison to later Naruto games, it does not seem that great, but for its time I give it a pass.

More Than Words

While the story and scenario mode that Naruto: Ultimate Ninja has will keep you busy for a short while. You do have a few other game modes to keep you busy. There is a fun mission mode where you have to complete certain objectives and there are a ton of things for you to unlock. In total there are 14 characters that you can play as and you have to unlock many of these so that right there will keep you busy.

Like The VHS

The presentation of the game is not bad. The thing is by the time this came out in the West it was already a few years old! The characters look decent enough, even if they are lacking a few of the finer details and there is a very nice selection of arenas for you to fight in as well so there is a decent amount of variety to the game and it does capture the show well enough. It is more like you are watching Naruto on VHS than DVD, that is probably the best way to describe it.

Pros:

• I liked the character roster
• It tells the story of the early days of the show pretty well
• The American voice actors are in this game!
• It has more content than you would think

Cons:

• The whole game does feel rather dated
• The gameplay is very simplistic