Let's get one thing out in the open right away: we're huge fans of Naruto. So, you can understand how we've become accustomed to the unsatisfying stream of licensed garbage games that inevitably come from a popular anime/manga property. For a time, it seemed that our beloved "little ninja that could" would follow in the footsteps of his testosterone-overloaded cousins from Dragon Ball Z by suffering one uninspired brawler after another, but Ubisoft has stepped in at the last minute to intercede on our plucky protagonist's behalf. Not only is Naruto: Rise of a Ninja the best Naruto game released yet, but it's also a pretty damn fine game whether you appreciate the Naruto franchise or not.

On the Chunin Road

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is incredibly ambitious because it endeavors to combine three distinct types of game into one distilled experience. For the most part, it succeeds famously by providing a vast open-world exploration hook in the winding streets and alleys of Konoha Village (Naruto's hometown), a reasonably nuanced character progression to act as a role-playing element and a responsive and engaging fighting game. Essentially, Rise of a Ninja draws elements from three different genres into one game, and tethers it all together with the Naruto license. Somehow, it all works.


Following (almost verbatim) the first season of the anime series, Rise of a Ninja opens with the tale of the Nine-tailed Fox and how it would have destroyed Konoha Village were it not for the superhuman efforts of the Fourth Hokage who trapped the demon within the body of a young child. That child grew up to become Naruto, universally reviled by the citizens of Konoha for harboring a tremendously evil demon-beast, yet totally unaware of the reason that he has been rendered a total pariah. This introduces the driving force behind the role-playing aspect of Naruto: Rise of a Ninja in that Naruto must gain respect and earn a positive reputation with a town full of people that hate him. He does this by performing a variety of errands and favors for the people of Konoha Village and hence we get a nifty quest/mission system that moves the plot along and also delivers periodic improvements to Naruto's abilities.