Feels like playing the anime; with some imperfection but overall a great game
****************UPDATE************
After playing a while, i have decided to take out half a point, so my final vote will be 8.
The main reason is related to the loading times...it takes a lot of patience to go trough various areas and see that loading counter going up; I would expect a better memory management so you would not have to go trough this hassle.
I've installed the game, and the loading times are not even close to a 50% improvement; but is better than nothing.
Some minor bugs and annoyances: while running around the characters will decide to shout stupid and repetitive sentences; sometimes the bubble of text will overlap; not a good sign and hopefully cyber connect will release a patch for the game that will shut up the character reducing the frequency of the chit chat, and avoid overlapping of text baloons.
Another minor issue, but noticeable only by hard core fans: some fight has been removed from the story mode, not sure if is a way to change the story, or if they will appear after (i am checking the anime episodes as reference, plus naruto shippuuden game for the ps2 and psp, and in both cases the fights are consistent with the anime; here i am missing the fight between Kankuro and Sasori, before that team Gai fight against Kisame); anyway is a minor issue that does not change the value of this amazing game.
******************End of update, enjoy the review******************
I've waited for this game since when i heard the announcement; and I can say that the wait was worth it.
Let's start from the beginning thou; the game is based on the shippuuden saga; which is divided in different arcs that covers the episodes of the anime from the return of the hero at his village of the hidden leaf (konohagakure in Japanese, if i am not mistaken, but everyone calls it konoha in short), until the final confrontation with Pain, that is actually one of the latest episodes aired in Japan at the moment .
The pivotal mode is the story mode, that has an episode-based structure, like the previous Naruto games. You will start with an introduction where Naruto comes back after his training with Jiraya, and get the first assignment, where you have to confront Naruto's old teacher Kakashi; once passed this intro, you will have access to the various mission going to the palace of the Hokage.
The game is divided in 2 different sections: free roaming and fight mode.
In the free roaming you can run around the village and explore it, plus collect the various items and ingredients that you can exchange at various shops (will describe this later on), talk with many characters that has the "talk" icon and save your progress using birds houses available all over the village.
The second mode is the fight one, where you will be guiding Naruto in an area with an adversary that has to be beaten to win the fight; various conditions can apply so sometimes you will have to win without using special moves, or without being hit, or fight against enemies that has pumped up stats and so on; this adds some spice to the otherwise pretty standard 1-1 fight
Another interesting aspect of the fighting mode is the support character; which will join the fight and help you with just the flick of teh shoulder button, giving you a great advantage in a fight if used well.
Each character can be used to support offensively (they attack your target, giving you time to counter their attack, or to end a devastating combo that you were not able to stop), support defensively (they will basically try to distract the enemy while you load up chakra or will take a hit of a super move in your place), or balanced, that is a mix of the previous 2.
While in free roaming,you can accept missions, which are based on different tasks, that brings you to explore the amazing environments taken directly from the series, so you will find yourself wandering in well known places in Konoha, and will meet a lot of the most common characters of the series, mixed with nameless people; the missions are nice and somehow not similar to each other, so you will get a lot of fun before getting the pattern and feel like they are starting to look a lot similar to each other (after all the missions are usually the same in every game, so nothing new here).
Following the missions you will also proceed trough the main storyline, so you will go trough the entire shippuuden series exactly as depicted in the anime; recreating the same moments, the same battles and living the same incredible moments, but this time you are at the helm, living the story as the protagonist.
While working on your missions or just roaming the areas, you will collect various items, that can be exchanged in the stores for new recipes and items; these items are in various categories: some are ingredients required to unlock better items, others are consumables that you can sell at the store or use while not in combat, other then are special items that you can use to unlock parts of the story before the events in Shippuuden; so be aware of these items on the road and try to interact with the environment to find them all!
An interesting aspect is the fighting equipment, where you can slot up to 4 items and assign them to each of the directional button on the pad; these items can be used while fighting, but just once, so they will not be available until your next fight.
They range from ramen to replenish energy, to attack and defense bonuses, to offensive items like explosive tags or super kunai; you can buy the items in the various shops around Konoha; but the best items are the ones that you unlock exchanging the items that you find on your way, so better items means better or prolonged effect, and they can make a difference in a fight.
Other than that, you have the classic battle mode, where you just select a character and fight against others, the option mode and the online battle.
The latter is a nice add on, since you can fight with other human people online on xbox live; honestly i didn't tested this feature too much, due the lack of players (either everyone is waiting to buy this game or nobody plays online at beginner level); in the few battles that i had I experienced moderate lag, so in the end the experience was not that bad.
Technically the game is stunning; the graphic is awesome with backgrounds that looks hand made and painted with oil, mixed with the 3d characters and interactive objects (you will recognize items that are interactive because they have very hard edges and dark outline, so they stand out from the rest of the background, you will also see the B button icon and the text that says "investigate", so is hard to miss them once you know what to look for).
The animations are really good; with no strange skip effects when running or fighting, and in general they look very similar to the anime counterpart; you will just notice some inconsistency in the lip sync (i have tried with Japanese audio and with English, and the first looks much better, but is still not perfectly in sync; this is something that push me to think that the game had to be pushed out for release even if was not totally polished); other than that the graphic is solid.
You could argue about the fact that the cell shading is not really consistent either, munching details sometimes due the black outline that is not present all the times or in the right areas; but honestly this is a minor detail and do not affect either the look and feel or the playability.
The audio is great, with both the English and Japanese cast perfectly integrated; so if you are a fan of the original voices you can play with the original cast voiceover, plus the subtitles so you get what are they talking about. The music is also well done, with all the anime tunes replicated perfectly; the loops does not make you feel like you need to mute the volume, since they are well assembled and not intrusive; so you can enjoy them while playing.
The sound effects are in the norm; nowadays is expected to have the effects like in the anime, and the expectation is met.
The game mechanic in the fights is very good; lots to do and many different tactics can be implemented, leaving you the choice of how to fight, instead of forcing you to fight in a specific way; and also each character has to be played in a different way, due the fact that some are long range, some close, some middle, giving you enough variety and a lot to experiment.
The exceptions are the boss battles; where you will have to fight these battles in a specific way (if you played the demo you get exactly what i mean just looking at the dynamic of the fight with Kakashi, where you can just win in one way); for some this could be bad, while for others is more or less like playing on rails, giving you something to follow once that you understand what you have to do to win the battle.
While fighting the boss, you will often get into these "god of war" moments, where the action will slow down and buttons appears on the screen; while you have to quickly press them to get stars; these stars increases with the accuracy and speed in which you press them, so the quicker means more stars. These stars will unlock special scenes while fighting, or replenish some of your energy, so is good thing to hit as many buttons at the right time as you can, to get some advantages.
In case you miss some buttons the scene will fail, and you will get "rewinded" to few seconds before, so you can try again; while this is good the first time, it gets annoying since is kinda like not having too much of a penalty if you miss them; my expectations would be that if i risk for the bonus, i should just get one chance; but for some this will be something that will make them feel less frustrated.
The controls are very good; with just one button to interact while in free roaming mode, and the jump button; while when fighting you will use one button to attack, combined with the direction of the analog stick will result in various combos; being accessible to skilled fighing game lovers and also to newcomers; you will be amazed about the havoc that you can cause with just few minutes to learn the moves.
Another button is used to mold chakra (you need to be still thou), and the same button is used to activate the awakening (special mode where you get faster or more powerful, but you loose the capability to call in the support character or to use items); or in conjuction with the attack button, to launch jutsu and special moves.
The third button is used for jumping, and while tapped twice will make you dash towards or further away from your enemy.
The 4th is used to launch shuriken/kunai; is a good way to interrupt a jutsu or to disrupt the adversary while he is molding chakra (if you press the chakra button and then the weapon button you will launch a chakra embedded weapon, that will cause more damage)
then you have the block button, that is as important as the attack button, since it can save you in more than one occasion if pressed at the right time. If you are able to time your block in the right way, you will end up replacing yourself with a log and appear behind your opponent; giving you the chance to counter attack (beware, the enemy can do the same leaving you open to his counter attack).
The last button is the one to call your support character; remember that you cannot use it continuously, so it takes time to fill the gauge once that you call for support; keep in mind this while planning the fight and use it in the right moment for the best results/
if the support bar is full, you can start a devastating super combo attack, here you and the support character will unleash pain and suffering to your opponent; but the attack is easily avoidable, so you have to stun the opponent first, and the use it (like all the final super attacks it is hard to perform and it takes quite a bit to make it right, but when it happens is a joy).
The difficulty is well balanced, giving you a good amount of choices between the super easy mode and the impossible extra hard; the AI is pretty good and the fight are really spectacular with a lot of eye candy; giving you the feeling of being in the anime when the cast of dragon ball decided to join in for a party (super explosions in the boss battles are ordinary things)
In conclusion the game Looks awesome, plays very well and is a great fighting game; but if you are a Naruto fan, it will shine, especially with all the minor touches and details that every fan of the series will recognize