Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Prerelease Hands-On

It must be saying something that a PlayStation 2 game we originally saw at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show could still impress us in any fashion, especially now that the next generation of consoles is beginning in earnest. So we were pleased to sit down with an English build of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja and find that the game's colorfully outlandish, over-the-top presentation is still eye-catching in this day of high-def resolutions and higher polygon counts. What's more, the flashy visuals seem to be wrapped around a pretty entertaining fighting engine with a number of interesting elements.

Of course, Naruto fans would probably just be happy to see all of their favorite familiar faces in a new PS2 game, and as you'd expect, they're all here. Naruto, Kakashi, Shikamaru, Sakura, and the rest of the gang all round out the list of initially selectable characters, and you'll be able to unlock a lot more of them--such as Haku, Zabuza, and Orochimaru--by playing through the story mode with each of the main characters. Namco Bandai has even added two new special unlockable characters to the mix, though you'll have to wait until the game is released to find out who they are or how to access them.

As we've mentioned before, the core of the fighting in Ultimate Ninja is somewhat similar to the madcap action you've seen in games like Super Smash Bros. and the PowerStone series, though there's a reasonable amount of depth here, as well. Each character has a basic attack button you can use to string melee combos together. You'll also have a default projectile attack, such as throwing stars or knives, and you'll be able to pick up a number of other items that you can use with the same button, such as a projectile that reduces your opponent's speed temporarily.

The action occurs far off the ground, as well, since your combatants can leap way up in the air and continue combos there, and you can even jump between the fore- and background of each stage to continue the fight on different terrain. In fact, when you're really getting beat up on, you can sometimes opt to actually jump to a different background entirely. You'll have a support character in each battle that will hang out on the level of the background you're not currently fighting on, and you can occasionally call him or her in to help you out with an extra-special attack. Finally, you've got a special meter that charges up as you fight, and you can use this to perform some of the more powerful special moves, as well as launch into an extremely outlandish special-attack animation that stops the fight and uses cinematic camera angles, requiring you to simply input several quick sequences of button presses (the impact of which your enemy can lessen by nailing their own button sequence).

In addition to the core story mode, which lets you play through a full plotline for each of the main characters, you've got the self-explanatory practice and free battle modes (the latter of which contains a two-player versus option). Then there's mission mode, which we figure will occupy a lot of the more dedicated players' time, since it offers you battles with specific objectives such as "defeat this character in less than three minutes" or "finish with more than 50 percent health." The more objectives you can satisfy when you emerge victorious, the more cash you'll make, and you can then use this cash to purchase items such as ninja info cards from a gumball machine. These items will then be on display in Naruto's house, which is accessible from the main menu.

As we mentioned, the wild presentation of Ultimate Ninja is what really grabbed us during the time we spent with the game. The look of all the characters is consistent with the series, of course, and with the combatants throwing special moves that take up most of the screen or leaping way up in the air to deliver a punishing combo, the action generally has a satisfying feel to it. There are some other neat little touches, such as the way a stage background turns into a manga page and then flips over to the next background page when you opt to switch stages midbattle. The most impressive part of the presentation, though, is those canned attack cinematics, where you simply hit the right buttons in order. These are animated extremely well and feature the most outrageous moves in the game, such as flailing your opponent with a thousand fists or delivering an uppercut launching him into outer space. We could see these sequences getting old after you've seen them dozens of times, but each character seems to have three or four of them, so there ought to be a decent amount of variety.

Overall, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja has been entertaining so far and features enough visual flair to pull in even the uninitiated. We imagine fans of the series will be thrilled just to get to play the game in English, but it doesn't hurt that the core combat is fun enough in its own right. Ultimate Ninja is due out at the end of June, so look for a full review around that time.