Naruto, a very popular anime series with teenage fan boys and no doubt Japanese middle aged men, I was browsing through the PS3's online shop and the download size for the demo was relatively small so I decided to have a crack at it. It turns out the small download size was in relation to the pretty much empty demo of the game. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm is a PS3 exclusive by CyberConnect2, the previous developers of the well known .hack games and the previous Naruto games.

Most game demos I play show the full game, with all the buttons and whistles of the completed product, but with certain sections [most of them], locked off. This however threw you straight into the character selection screen pausing briefly for you to select the language for all the voices, Japanese or English.

The character selection screen left much to be desired, 2 characters, Uzamaki Naruto and Hatake Kakashi, 2 characters; I am not going to penalize the demo for this as it's a substantial amount for a demo, as the finished game has 25 playable characters, a fair amount. It only gives you on stage in the demo, an outdoor/lake stage.

The actual game is presented quite nicely, the smooth, cell shaded graphics compliment the games anime style, much like previous anime fighting game series: Dragonball Z Boudokai. However the cell shaded nature of the game doesn't show the full potential of the PS3's graphical ability. The scenery is great, it appears to be more artistically drawn and the 2 styles assist each other, leaving Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm pleasant for the eyes.

The game play differs from its predecessors, while the previous games has a 2D plane of fighting, with multiple background and foreground planes to fight in, this opts for the more free roaming fighting style, with restrictions. At first glance the game appears to be have a circular fighting style, much like Dragonball Z again, but it's not as finely tuned, the characters cannot freely move around the arena as they tend to attract each other like magnets, however you move your character will continually pull towards the CPU, not that it's a bad thing, but it can get very frustrating, while DBZ has a lock on feature, NUNS has you permanently locked on to your opponent.

The control scheme and difficulty was varied, at my first 2 plays I got the tar beaten out of me, but 3rd time around I found it to be surprisingly easy, at times it seems it is just button mashing fun with added combos if you want to take the time to make life difficult for you, but all the flashy moves and dancing around the opponent make it pretty fun to watch and play.

Essentially this game has been done before, and not just once by Dragonball Z, so really its nothing new to the fighting genre, and there are better fighting games out there for the PS3. However, based from the demo I can judge it to be a pretty good game, and it's definitely worth a look into maybe a rent, not a buy, or maybe even just download the demo to see if you like it. Hardcore Naruto fans are sure to love the game and all its quirks. But for all you other fighting gamers out there, whether you be hardcore or casual, if you're looking for a truly great fighting game, skip Naruto Ultimate Ninja and just grit your teeth and wait for Street Fighter 4.

Graphics - 8
Gameplay -6
Sound - 5
Originality - 4

Overall - 6/10