I have always heard about Ninja Storm games but never heard of Naruto: Rise of a Ninja. I think one of the reasons could be that it was released exclusively on Xbox 360 but I was shocked to find out that it was developed by Ubisoft.

The game had a lot of potential, but it also had flaws that kept it from being the perfect Naruto game. One of the main issues is the slow and boring beginning, which consists of tedious fetch quests and tutorials that go on for far too long. The game picks up speed later on, but some players might lose interest by then. Another issue is the lack of depth and variety in some gameplay elements, such as the combat system, which is enjoyable simple and repetitive. Quick time events and button smashing in combat make the combat boring after 2 hours (Although it takes only about 3-4 hours to finish the game). The platforming sections are poorly designed and frustrating at times because of camera movement issues.

The game does have some redeeming qualities, though. The game’s presentation is impressive, with faithful recreations of the original anime’s locations, characters, and music. The game tells the story of the original Naruto anime series through gameplay (similar to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot) and also uses actual clips from the anime as cutscenes.

This game is a mixed bag for me. It's definitely carried by the presentation and style. It's got that anime look to the menus and the game is cell shaded and looks great even today but the gameplay has it's ups and downs. The world exploring part is good for the most part, you've got lots of abilities and things to do like races but the combat isn't super in depth. The main thing that happens in every fight Is you push your opponent far away and use your most powerful Jutsu and in story mode Naruto only has one Jutsu that does damage so it's that same one over and over again. I don't think it's bad but it gets repetitive really quick. It also doesn't help that there's lots of back tracking to the same areas especially if you do extra missions. I feel like the saving grace for this game though is that it's pretty short. I finished it within 5 hours so it won't get too repetitive before then. I had fun with this one but I definitely could see some cracks in the gameplay.

while many anime games these days settle for a 3D arena fighter, ubisoft threw caution to the wind and shit out an open world (sort of) naruto game with a focus on replicating the movement of the series - and the actual movement feels pretty good! great sense of speed, stops on a dime, mostly co-operative camera.

its just everything else that doesn't. calling the core fighting game-style combat anemic is an understatement, and the missions that aren't story related are extremely dry and often involve a long stretch of backtracking for about 30 seconds of new content. its trying.

additionally, while the game features clips from the show, it also features different voice actors for most of the minor cast, including iruka, jiraiya, sarutobi, and ebisu - and they are all extremely canadian and cannot pronounce ramen to save their life. everyone in this game says "ray-men" and it drives me up a wall.

this feels like a tech demo. fingers crossed the sequel irons the kinks out - and hires the voice actors.

Bringing the OST from the anime was a really great decision. Cutscenes consisting of straight up scenes from the anime? Eh, not so much. It feels lazy. Combat is extremely dull and very uninteresting. With that being said, the cell shaded aesthetic and overall audio design along with all of the original voice actors, it feels really charming. A love letter to the fans of the anime; even if it's a love letter, with ugly handwriting on it. I can still appreciate it! Exploring the world and wandering around is a lot of fun. Walking around the Hidden Leaf village is really mesmerizing, especially for its time. What's most mind boggling and upsetting though, is the fact that this hasn't been re-released on any system out of the X360! Like come on, the Ultimate Ninja Storm series feels absolutely soulless in comparison to this. But then again, that game is more focused on the fighting! But that's another review for another time. Despite my score, I think the game is truly worth experiencing, IF you're a Naruto fan. Despite its evident flaws, it continues to be one of my favourite games ever made.

Wait! Some French studio made a Naruto game!? It's not foreign for western studios to tackle Japanese IP but this one feels especially weird. There's something off about the character designs and the crude UI and at times it feels like they probably didn't even watch the anime. A majority of the story is just told through anime cutscenes that have almost nothing to do with what you were doing gameplay-wise. It's weird! But is it bad? Not at all.

Exploring the hidden leaf feels odd at first, but once you start to unlock more of the traversal abilities it becomes really fun to run, slide, and jump around. Side missions are a joke however with the ridiculous amount of backtracking that's required when jumping between the small handful of locations.

The fights are fine, but not deep enough to get into. It all adds up to an oddly distorted retelling of the first half of the Naruto anime. As a child, I always wanted to play this and was jealous of it being an Xbox 360 exclusive, and now as an adult, who has finally played it. It's okay, especially for a 2007 next-gen Naruto game! If you like racing trials with some solid mobility it's pretty good actually.

Hopefully, the broken bond improves on the elements that were lacking in Rise of a Ninja.