Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes

Rating Teen Genre action Publisher Namco Bandai External Links Official Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes

Button-mashers rejoice! If you’re dying for a game to bite into on the PSP, check out Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes. Don’t fret if you are unfamiliar with the franchise; you may not know the names of characters or moves, but once in play you’ll pick up the info you need quickly.

The meat and potatoes of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes is the Heroes Mode, where a team of characters battle through a set of increasingly difficult opponents. You can choose from predetermined teams of characters, such as Team Kurenai, Team Asuma, and Team Kakashi, or you can put together a custom group of your own choosing. Additionally, you can choose which order they fight in. At first this won’t really matter, but your health and chakra carry across each fight so it becomes important to spread the load.

Your other gameplay choices are VS CPU, Promotion Test, Wireless Mode, Naruto’s House, and Parameter Power-Up. Each one is rather self-explanatory, but the Promotion Test ends up being one of the most useful gameplay options available. Promotion Test offers a way to power up your characters and improve your rank, which CPU and Wireless mode provide varied one-on-one and multiplayer match-ups. Parameter power-up is a way to distribute awarded points among characters. And Naruto’s House is a menu for viewing unlocked items, such as movies and character profiles.

One of my favorite elements of Naruto: UNH is the background music. The main menu music is particularly good; it really is the perfect ninja tune for a ninja game. But good lord, is the voice acting bad. The prime example is Naruto, which is sad considering he is the main character. But to be honest, most dubbed voices in anime are pretty terrible. But I feel that the good outweighs the bad for this game. The graphics also have a mix of highs and lows. While set up in a 3D environment, fighting is limited to 2D movement. CyberConnect 2 makes up for it by creating two planes on each one: a foreground and a background. Characters can easily transport between the two by teleporting, but you can’t fight your opponent while on a different plane. You can use projectile weapons in these instances, but they barely do any damage, are easily blocked, and have little accuracy.

While playing I found myself thinking fondly of the Soul Caliber franchise, particularly the first installment for Dreamcast. This makes some sense when you consider that Namco Bandai released both titles. In a nutshell, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes almost feels like an entry-level version of a Soul Caliber styled game. Button mashers can thrive alongside the seasoned combo-master. As such, pretty much anyone can pick up this title and find it appealing.