Naruto: Rise of a Ninja

Written by Kevin Leathers on 29 May 2007

Its official kids. Naruto has gone… Next Gen! Be still your beating hearts.

That’s right, this isn’t a cruel trick to make the Naruto fan’s among us spontaneously combust. Naruto has been on the PS2, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS, and finally the orange jumpsuit wearing ninja is heading to the next stage of video game evolution.

Yeah yeah, we know. Not exactly surprising considering the popularity of Naruto, but what will hit you harder than a shuriken is that Naruto on the Xbox 360 is actually being brought to us by Ubisoft and crafted by Ubisoft Montreal, who are best known for their revival of the Prince of Persia series, the long list of Splinter Cell games and the Rainbow Six series. It’s unusual for a Japanese property to be left in the hands of western developer, so has this affected the "authenticity" of the game at all? Not on your life.

Ninjas in Paris

To help quell our fears for everyone’s loveable demon fox boy, Ubisoft shipped UKA off to their headquarters in deepest Paris to demonstrate what the game is all about and what we can expect come this Autumn.

Naruto will be a 3D action-adventure with some RPG elements mixed in. As per the series, players will start off as Naruto way way back in episode 1 and will need to progress through the storyline to beef him up so he can easily face other ninja and give them a serious beat-down.

The one thing that will smack you in the face is the graphics. Using the now well known technique of cel-shading, Ubi has managed to create a living and breathing world that is so close to the anime, you’ll need to double take to make sure your not watching an episode. All the screenshots and trailers (click here to take a look) are in-game graphics. Not a damn thing is CG, it’s all in-game. So it’s safe to say, visually the game is amazing.

What will get all Naruto fans hot and bothered is that as soon as you take control of little Naruto you can walk around the entire Konoha Village. See the ninja school that Naruto leaves in the first episode? Yep, you can go there, as well as Naruto’s home and all the other places that have appeared in the episodes. If you have seen it in Konoha, you’ll more than likely be able to visit it in the game. It’s safe to say that any Naruto fan will fall in love at first glance.