"Naruto joins the "Legacy of Goku" in a whole new adventure!"

“Naruto”, a famous Japanese anime/manga series, has been inspiring bad handheld games for quite a while, and fortunately this game appears to break such painful tradition. Based on “Naruto Shippuden” series, this is a title which allows you to play across the first chapters of the latest show, in an adventure that leads Naruto, Sakura and a few new characters to a quest where they look for their former friend, Sasuke.

While this storyline is quite enjoyable and has no major flaws, it leads you to this game's very first problem - there is way too much dialogue, and you just can't skip it. Sooner or later, you'll feel like you're playing across the episodes of the show, with dialogues heavily resembling those of the actual series. More often than not, you'll be busy striking several enemies with Naruto's blows and a cutscene will pop-up, leading to another area and completely breaking your fighting spirit, something which is far from amusing.

Despite this flaw, fighting sequences are extremely enjoyable and very addictive, and obviously make up for the problems presented by the excess of storyline sequences. You may opt to defeat all the enemies in the good old fashion way, using Naruto's fists to take them down, but you're also allowed to mime the accomplishments seen in the show, summoning a certain number of clones (which help you defeat enemies), or performing the famous “Rasengan” technique, an option which is always painful to your enemies.

Unlike what happened in previous titles, the enemies you fight here have more to do with the actual show, and even if snakes are absent, wolves still make their unexplained appearance. Ninjas and puppets are also available, and they sure are more accurate enemies. All bosses presented in this game come from the actual show, and battles against Itachi or Deidara feel extremely epic, even if they're also a lot easier than you may suppose. Such an issue becomes easy to understand when you notice that this game is a cross between a RPG and an adventure title, with your main character having to move around labyrinthic areas and increasing his stats as he defeats more and more enemies.

Another thing that defeated enemies tend to drop is items. Healing ones are far more common than in other games, and they end up being very useful when you reach the final battles this game offers - apart from that, you may feel like they're just unneeded, as you can easily pass across a large horde of enemies without ever suffering significant damage, even if you're not the kind of person who likes to farm for tons of level ups. Apart from these, there are also items that you can equip and support ones, which give different kinds of abilities, or statistical gains, to your character, and are as useful as they sound.

Now, if you're wondering on who you will be playing with, that's always Naruto, with all other characters serving as nothing more than support. Characters tend to lend you their support when you find them, which always occurs as part of the storyline, and their aid is surely precious. Even thought some of them simply appear on the field and strike all the visible enemies with a special move, others also give your main character certain special effects, helping him fighting his own battle.

Oddly, you can only assign three characters to the lower screen, where you can tap them to unleash their effect, but since you can change the available characters whenever you want, this makes it possible for you to use all your available characters in a particular battle. Not that they are that useful, but since you can only call each of them once, having to visit save points to repose the used ones, the more the merrier.

Even thought this RPG part of the game is certainly enjoyable, there is a lot more to this game than first meets the eye, and the adventure sections are surprisingly good. At first, you'll play as a Naruto that can't more than fighting, but as you progress further in the game you'll attain all sorts of new abilities. Those aren't that useful when it comes to battles, but they generally allow you to reach different points of the scenario, reaching previously inaccessible sections of all levels. One of these makes it possible for you to jump higher, while others allow you to teleport over certain cliffs or move huge rocks, features which you will have to use sooner or later.

All physical areas available in the game are pretty easy to get across, which hints that this may be one of those titles aimed at a younger audience. Nevertheless, once in a while you find something that requires some thinking, or some quick taps on a particular button, but that's as far as difficulty goes, which may disappoint those who seek a more mature product.

Unfortunately, and even if this is an enjoyable game for a couple hours, it seriously lacks replay value. Once you complete the main storyline, there's not much else for you to do, apart from completing three or four different sidequests and playing an extra mode. Available in the main menu, this is a multiplayer mode, where four players - up to four humans, with each of them being required to have a copy of this cart, or with three being controlled by the console itself - confront each other in a battle with objectives similar to “Capture the Flag”. Offering a very limited number of scenarios to play in, this probably isn't the kind of thing you'll be spending much of your time in, and seems more like an option that was added in order to try to increase the replay value.

In terms of graphics, all characters, scenarios and special moves are perfectly drawn, in a way that clearly resembles the series, but sometimes may feel like there is something missing. Since some in-game sequences are presented with images taken from the actual show, they tend to clash with the (obviously inferior) graphical quality of the game, leading to some overall mixed-feelings.This usage of pure cartoon images is rare, but those static scenes slightly break the interesting mold used in the rest of the game, and are obviously unfit to this adventure.

Even if the graphical quality of this game is certainly high, the same can't be said about the sound. Some melodies may remind you of ones heard in the show, but others are just boring and may even hurt your ears, to the point where you may try to keep it all low, or even turn it off. Also, and unlike happens with many other titles available for this very same console, they decided to give voices to random parts of the character's speeches, which is awful - sometimes, you'll be quickly reading the dialogue, waiting for the next adventure sequence, and suddenly you'll get to hear pearls such as “My name is Naruto” or “Ahaha, you will lose this battle”, which feels just too unfitting.

With its lack of replay value and limited play time, this is ones of those titles that is better fit for people who are fans of the show. Knowledge of the language isn't required to enjoy this game, you can beat it with almost no online help, but if you're looking for a product that lasts more than a couple hours this just isn't for you.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/19/08, Updated 03/03/08

Game Release: Naruto Shippuden: Dairansen! Kage Bunsen Emaki (JP, 02/14/08)