From the Top: Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm

I was surfing around YouTube looking for something to listen to while I worked, as you do, when I ran across a trailer for something called “Road to Naruto”, which apparently was a condensed version of both Naruto and its continuation, Naruto Shippuden, but with new animation. Something like Dragon Ball Z Kai. While I’d missed this celebration, it did get me thinking about the franchise I finished up some years ago (we do not talk about Boruto in this household), which led me to the question “Were the old Naruto games any good?“ I had heard a lot about the Ultimate Ninja Storm series and how it does a great job of telling the series story in the form of a 1v1 fighting game.

So what the heck, let’s dive in to see how this now iconic series started off and where it goes! In this short series, I will look at the four numbered games in the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series, discussing how the game felt when compared to modern values and how well the Naruto experience was brought forth. Get those headbands out of the closet and strap in, we’re starting things From the Top.

The first title in the series, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, was released back in the distant future-past of the seventh console generation (PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Xbox 360) for the PS3. Interestingly, this franchise debut consisted of the whole of the original Naruto series, minus the mostly god-awful filler after Sasuke does a runner (as my colleague eloquently stated) all the way to the fateful duel between main leads Naruto and Sasuke. This was concerning, to say the least, as I know the series has plenty of games to go through. However, considering the original series was about 220 long and the continuation was 500, maybe that makes sense?

Regardless, the game sets off some way into the series. The game begins with the formation of Team 7, consisting of the petulant but hardworking Naruto, the talented but flighty Sakura, and the broody genius Sasuke. I was expecting some kind of rigid mission structure, where we’d simply go from plot point to plot point, experiencing the key moments in the young ninja's career, and while that is partially true, in reality, it’s much more relaxed. Fascinatingly, the game has a hub area of sorts, which is basically a fully rendered Konoha! You can explore Naruto’s neighbourhood, climb the Hokage’s mansion, or simply run around being the Japanese Dennis the Menace you were born to be!

While in the hub area, you can also find hidden items used for crafting and collection quests and collect ninja scrolls which you can trade in for new moves for the characters you’ve unlocked. As you progress in the stories themselves, new NPCs will also appear for you to interact with, in addition to new side quests being unlocked. While I was dubious about this at first, I did find it very charming. Seeing only glimpses of the village in the series, it was fun identifying some key buildings. Sure, it’s probably not canonically correct and would only house a handful of people at its current size, but I appreciate the idea! Considering the age of the game, it also doesn’t look half bad. Most of the characters seem more or less faithful to the source.

Now, about those missions. When you’re finally bored with running around the city, you can pick a mission to attempt from the pause menu (complete with fittingly over-the-top sound effects that will grate after a while). In addition to story missions which follow the exploits of the ninja trio, you can also take on ranked missions. Starting from the easiest D-rank and going up to S-rank, these missions reward you with resources and money and are often either fun little asides or intercharacter banter. They’re fun enough and there is variety, but they also vary in difficulty a lot! Especially if you go for the extra challenges for further rewards.

The missions themselves can be divided into three types: races, fights, and special missions. The fighting missions are pretty explanatory: you fight a dude or a bunch of dudes in succession. Simple enough. Race missions can take a few forms: you can either be chasing someone on treetops, jumping from branch to branch avoiding trunks and other obstacles or you may be running up a tree while doing the same. Both instances have a time limit and often feature powerups to make you go faster or avoid being hit by a sudden branch that was totally not there I promise. Both forms of race also have variations where you are running by yourself, racing with your fellow shinobi, or trying to catch someone. These add some variety but are mostly the same basic experience.

The special missions are a bit different, as they usually involve hide-and-seek. Konohamaru, being the biggest fan of our main man Naruto, is constantly trying to show off his skills and challenges you to find him as he hides in the village. Your job is then to talk to locals and gain info on the hiders in the form of arrows pointing in the direction they were seen. Scattered throughout the village are boxes, under which one or more kids have hidden, meaning you’ll have to use both deduction and the helpful arrows to pin down the right one. That or get lucky and pick them out at random. A fun aside, though possibly a bit weird in a 1v1 fighting game. Either way, I’m not complaining!

Now, onto the main feature of the game, the actual fights. The fights are 1v1 matches taking place in a 3D environment, usually ringed off into a circular shape. Combatants are free to move in this space and sometimes you can even have environmental hazards, like water you can drop into if you run out of chakra! Countering my earlier statement, while the fights themselves are indeed 1v1, you do get to set two assist characters to your team. These two helpers can be called upon in battle to do one attack, after which they have to go have a breather for a bit. I really liked this system, since it added a layer of tactical thinking to each match. Some characters worked very well together and made great combos! My favourites were keeping a foe busy with Rock Lee’s taijutsu combos while I got a heavy hit in with Kakashi.

The controls themselves are relatively simple and each character has the same base set of moves: you have a button for your punches, a button for charging chakra, a button to throw things at your enemy, and a button to hop and dodge with. As every character used the same set, it was easy to hop from one to the next! However, it didn’t feel repetitive, as each character had their own way of using each attack. Naruto, for example, was very mobile and energetic, having multi-hit combos and area-of-effect attacks, whereas the always-lazy Shikamaru was much more languid. The battles themselves varied a lot in difficulty and enjoyment, with some being controller-tossingly annoying and some being a simple one-two-punch combo to victory. Especially some of the later optional missions were brutal!

A unique aspect of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm was the Awakening system. As you powered up your character (and took enough hits) you could enter an “awakened” mode unique for each character which would both boost your power immensely, but also give access to some cool moves as well. The downside to using this technique, however, was that once it ran out, you would be fatigued for a bit. While I really liked this system, especially because everyone had their own unique variation, the Awakenings were not doled out evenly in my opinion. Some characters hardly seemed to change in terms of attacks or outward design, whereas Sasuke and Naruto gained unique skill sets and looks! Sure, they’re the main cast, but still. If you’re going to the trouble of adding it to everyone anyway, why not make them equal?

Luckily, the cast of characters up for selection does make up for it, with many familiar faces being either unlocked from the start or unlockable later. Most of Naruto’s classmates are playable, as are their senseis and a set of other iconic friends and villains, such as Kibito, Kimimaro, and the ever-beloved Idachi. All of the characters felt great to play, with their unique personalities shining through, especially with fighters like Might Guy. Some ninjutsu moves could have used a bit of a touch-up, as they seemed hard to hit compared to the damage they did (looking at you Neji), but in general, I felt fine playing regardless of the choice of character.

Before I go into discussing how well the game goes through the story's events, there is one more facet the game seems very intent on: collections. Throughout the game, you earn a fair bit of money (Mora), which can be used to buy Ninja Equipment among other things. The biggest use of your coin, however, is the three different collections you can gather. Featuring character figurines, battle arenas, and music, buying one of these will allow you to view/listen to it in a special menu — only accessible via save points for some strange reason. When you collect the right stage, figurine, and music combo, you unlock a Diorama. These small displays often show off a key moment in the series, such as Naruto’s duel with Neji in the Chunin Exams and allow you to see it from different viewpoints, pause it, or just… look at it, I suppose. They’re cute enough and my goblin brain forced me to collect everything, but I’m not sure what the idea behind this was.

Now, how well does the game do in terms of going through young Naruto’s life? Well, we start off with a very small set of missions called the Genin Training Arc, which acts as the tutorial for the game. It does an okay job of giving the basics, but weirdly enough we mostly skip the whole of Naruto’s time at the School under Iruka’s tutelage. Maybe it’s to save space for other fights, but I found the admission a bit weird. The first proper story arc we touch on is the Chunin Exam Ark, which is a bit of a letdown if I’m being honest. Again, it does hit the basics, but it goes by very quickly and doesn’t really go into detail on what's happening. Luckily, most of the key battles are there. The arc ends with the very first Giant Battle of the series!

These special fights pit you up against a gigantic opponent, Gamabunta in this case) and has you fight them. The boss has a larger health bar and often uses a set of attacks that you need to avoid. Once you hit a certain health threshold on the boss, you’ll need to perform a (annoyingly strict) quick-time event to progress and beat them down. I’ll be honest, Giant Battles sucked. They took too long, were very repetitive, and the QTE’s were not fun. However, I do appreciate the effort and hope they are improved down the line.

Straight after Gamabunta is defeated, we hop into the Leaf Destruction Arc, which may be my least favourite of the lot. We start off with the second half of the Chunin Exam battles, which are fine, but then we jump ahead to Orochimaru’s planned coup and Gaara’s little anger management issues. While we do get to face Orochimari as the Third Hogake, the fight is lacklustre. The final two arcs of the game are Tsunade Search and Chasing Sasuke and both do an ok job at telling their relevant story beats, though the final fight between Sasuke and Naruto is where the game shines, having a unique encounter where both fighters are permanently Awakened. Though a bit scripted, I do hope to see more of this style of fight further down the line.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm feels very much like the first game in a franchise: the bits are definitely there and I can see what they’re going for, but it also seems like the devs themselves were a bit unsure of the direction they wanted to go. It’s a fun little game and pretty quickly beaten if you stick to the main stuff. It’s a fine recap of the events of the series, but if you’ve never watched or read the series, you may be a bit lost. While I wasn’t completely sold on the game being as great as many tell me, I am interested to see where this all goes in the coming games!

Next time, we dive into the world of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 and progress into Naruto: Shippuden!