The long running Shounen Jump magazine has been home to many popular Manga series with a lot of them being turned into an Anime show such as the recent Death Note and other giant classics like Dragonball. Most of the series have managed to reach the West and one such show is.”Naruto”, a story about a group of modernly dressed student Ninjas training in the hidden village of Konoha. Long ago, an evil spirit known as the “Nine Tailed Fox” terrorised the village before it was sealed into the body of a little baby boy. That little baby boy Naruto has now grown up to be an energetic Ninja in training who is always up to some mischief yet, he strives to become the strongest Ninja there is one day – to be the leader, the Hokage of Konoha.

All Naruto related titles from Takara Tomy for Nintendo’s handheld consoles have all been 2D platformers so far but now, they’ve come up with a 3D beat-em-up “Naruto: The Biography of a Shiboni” which have mechanics that are slightly similar to Bleach DS. The story picks up from when Sasuke has left the village of Konoha after his battle with Naruto. Naruto’s wound have been healed but he is down in the dumps. Seeing how his mood his improving much, Godaime Sensei decides to get Naruto to go on a mission to pickup some scrolls that her subordinates have lost.


Story doesn’t last very long.
Besides the extremely short Story Mode which you can probably beat in less than an hour on normal, there’s also a Free Battle Mode and a Wireless Battle Mode. There are two difficulties you can choose from but even on hard the AI isn’t much of a challenge. To be fair, beat-em-ups aren’t supposed to have long intricate stories like in RPGs but with only one character Naruto to play with in Story Mode, you’ll find yourself playing it through once or twice before forgetting about it all together. Don’t worry though because you can still play as other characters such as Sakura and Sasuke in Free Battle Mode. This is very much like Story Mode where you must battle your way through a number of AI opponents but without the story scenes in between. Again, it doesn’t last for long.


All your favourite Naruto characters are here. Few to unlock.
The 3D environments of the game work pretty much like other beat-em-ups such as Tekken. Most of the time you’ll only be moving left or right but the game also allows you to dodge into the screen and out of the screen using the up and down buttons. Movement is generally very swift although the jumping is a bit too fast.

As expected with Ninja related games, you can also pull off a disappearing act so that you can teleport yourself behind your opponent and try to surprise them. This and other special moves use up Chakra though, energy that is saved up in a small blue bar under your main health bar. Once it’s full, you can pull off a character’s ultimate move by simply tapping the A button but you’re not guaranteed to hit your opponent. Every character has their own unique ultimate from the Anime show. Moves and combos are really easy to pull off. You can end up with a different attack simply by changing the sequence you press buttons in.