Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes Hands-On

Earlier this week, while attending a Namco Bandai press event in San Francisco, we had our first opportunity to spend some time with Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes. Currently scheduled for release on the PSP in "late summer," the game is a team-based fighter that features no fewer than 20 popular Naruto characters--most of which we got to see in action. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes will boast a handful of different gameplay modes, including ad hoc multiplayer battles that can be contested with only one copy of the game. But for the duration of our session with it, we were playing the single-player heroes mode.

Only about 10 of the 20 playable characters in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes will be available the first time you play, but you'll be able to unlock the remaining fighters for your roster in the heroes mode. You can choose to play as a preformed team or create your own team using up to three characters and then unlock the other fighters by defeating them. Initially, you'll likely be tempted to simply opt for your three favorite characters, but you'll find that the prefight special abilities to which you have access will be determined by you choices. Those choices will certainly be a consideration as you learn what the character combinations afford you. After arranging our three characters in the order that we wanted them to fight (there's no tagging in or out of combat), we took it in turns with our opponent to bring our special abilities into play, depleting his first fighter's health by a third and affecting his entire team's speed rating in the process.

When a fight gets underway, it's hard not to be impressed by the visuals in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes. The varied, interactive locales you'll battle in use muted colors that really help the brightly colored and black-outlined characters to stand out. We had no problems getting to grips with the uncomplicated controls during our first fight. We're also pleased to report that even the over-the-top special moves that the Naruto series is known for--and which often trigger spectacular, game-stopping animations--aren't difficult to perform (you simply press triangle and circle simultaneously) once you've charged up your chakra gauge. Every character has jump, melee attack, projectile attack, and block buttons; more advanced moves are performed simply by pressing these in conjunction with various directions and double-taps on the D pad. Interestingly, each of the locales in the game has a foreground and a background for you to fight in (as well as underground areas, rooftops, and the like in some cases); moving between these areas is achieved simply by double-tapping up or down on the D pad and hitting the jump button. While all of the eight locales in the game play differently, we've no intention of trying to talk in detail about their individual features. But for those who are interested, here's a list of the locale names:

Chunin Exam Stadium
Hidden Leaf Forest
Hidden Leaf Hot Spring
Hokage Great Stone Faces
Ichiraku Ramen Shop
Kikyo Castle keep
Survival Exercise Ground
44th Battle Training Zone: The Fortress of Death

At the end of each battle, you'll be awarded experience points based on the result and on any special conditions that you might have met, such as finishing a fight with a full chakra bar. These points can be spent on upgrading your favorite fighter's attributes, and our understanding is that you'll have the option to use your enhanced characters in subsequent ad hoc battles with friends. Which characters are featured in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes? We don't have the complete roster just yet, but here's a list of those that we saw in action:

Choji Akimichi
Hinata Hyuga
Ino Yamanaka
Itachi Uchiha
Kakashi Hatake
Kiba Inuzuka
Kisame Hoshigaki
Might Guy
Naruto Uzumaki
Orochimaru
Sakura Haruno
Shino Aburame

We came away from our time with Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes feeling impressed with what we'd seen and played, which frankly isn't always the case where Naruto-inspired games are concerned. We look forward to bringing you more information as soon as it becomes available.