If you’re a Naruto fan, you may be a bit disappointed, if you’re a gamer you will be let down, and if you’re a Naruto fan and a gamer, you will be both. Although Cyberconnect2 created a simple and artistic fighter for the PS3, they have failed at creating a true tribute to the popular Naruto series, as fans of the show will easily be able to pick apart where the game obviously fails, and gamers will not have much fun.

You follow the story of a young and headstrong ninja from Konoha, on his quest to become Hokage, the leader and guardian of the village of leaf ninjas. A great many events lead to him to fight against his best friend Sasuke to keep him from running away.
Sadly the game only shows you a glimpse of the anime’s great story and even less from its incredible fight sequences. This is truly heartbreaking as the scenes the game does show you are truly a sight to behold. Vibrant colors and sharp attention to detail make these scenes breathtaking, but there simply aren’t enough of them to truly drive the point home.

You are only given small bits of dialogue from Naruto’s perspective when advancing the story, and with a knucklehead ninja narrating the tale so much gets lost. It really makes you wish there was more movie scenes to really bring you into the experience, instead of lame text that utterly fails to make you care about what’s happening.
Fans will be saddened to know that the stories first villains, giant sword wielding Zabuza, or his deadly sidekick Haku, are not playable in this game, actually they are not even mentioned once. The four sound ninjas are another team of villains vital to the end of the story and will only be usable as support characters after being released as free downloadable content in the future.

The eleven minute mandatory install takes up almost 4 gigabytes, and the game easily loads for up to 30 seconds every couple of minutes which is horrifically long for even the worst next gen titles. Also it makes you save data manually, which will absolutely grate on your nerves. Next generation gaming has taught us how vital a feature autosaving truly is, and when you boot the game up and see New Game and Load Game, it really belittles your intelligence, as if the purchase itself wasn’t enough.
From a technical standpoint, the fighting game is simple so anyone can jump right in, but the lack of depth will leave hardcore gamers wanting to play a better game. The true challenge lies in regulating your Chakra bar usage, the energy gauge you use for special ninjutsu attacks, lightning fast maneuvers, and swiftly dodging attacks.
Sadly, the substitution jutsu you use to break free from enemy combos is very unreliable. Instead of timing the block button when struck like your meant to, your best chance of pulling it off comes when you just mash on the block button repeatedly and get lucky. It really does work best that way, which removes a great deal of skill from the proceeding ninja duels.

You can call in two assist characters to help you during combat several times per battle. However this tool will unbalance the game greatly, as some ninja assists are so vastly superior to others that it can really make or break the match, thus removing even more skill from the fighting and placing it in lucks hands.

Previous entries in this serious on the PS2 have more characters and content than this next gen game. Although it promises at least 30 hours of gameplay, I had completed every bonus mission and finished collecting every trophy and secret easily within 26 hours, most of which felt like homework.

Another testament to the failure of Cyberconnect2 to truly deliver a complete Naruto experience, this game will only have you asking for more. Fans will sorely want more Naruto content, and gamers desperately will want more replay value, fans of both will probably want their money back. You could have more fun with this game if you opened the case to start the fuse on an explosive seal instead…

Overall: 6/10