Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

NARUTO: NINJA STORM (2008) was a really enjoyable game. By no means was it a perfect game or the best game, but honestly something about it just tugs at the heart strings of this nostalgic 90's era anime/manga loving gamer. While I agree with many of the reviews here and was tempted to rate this game similarly as "mediocre"...my nostalgic inner nerd signals suddenly kicked on and I simply cannot low-ball the rating to this one, silly and repetitive as it may be.

Yes, this game has silly and highly repetitive side missions, yes, it is slower paced, yes, it isn't the best of the series...yea, it certainly has it's cheesy, pointless parts. But I guess that's what I loved about the original manga and the anime as well.

Even still, with its imperfections, the gameplay was really super great, the fighting style was fluid, fast paced and real fun, and the world and characters highly detailed. I've always wanted to explore the city of the Leaf Village, as well as other memorable areas in the series. The art style was suitable and perfect for Naruto. I loved the 2D (?) anime styled world and so glad it wasn't turned into some 3D un-Naruto monstronsity. It really held the similar vibes of classic early episodes of Naruto, which yes, made me very nostalgic. And vulnerable to loving it excessively and perhaps unreasonably so.

But, you know? So what it's not perfect? It rang all the right bells in my heart, was super fun to play and I just really loved it. Was well worth the play for me. Overall, this was a fun one, especially if you are a fan of early Classic Naruto manga and anime series and like Japanese anime styled games.