Naruto is one of the most loved manganime series of all times. A wonderful work created by Masashi Kishimoto that I personally revere and that has left us with a multitude of titles, many of them of great scope… but few as good as it was. Naruto: Rise of a Ninja. And why was this Ubisoft production so special? Well, for many reasons, starting precisely with the fact that it was the first title based on this character developed by a home study no Japanesein this case Ubisoft Montréal. A team that had already left us true wonders such as Splinter Cell either Prince of Persia.
Another important milestone was its launch exclusive on Xbox 360. Considering that there were already sagas intended solely for specific machines such as the famous Naruto: Ultimate Ninja PlayStation, Naruto: Clash of Ninjas from GameCube or Naruto: Ninja Council of Nintendo DS, this commitment by the French company was very well received by users of the Microsoft console.
However, the best thing that this production presented had to do with its style. Far from offering us a clearly focused approach to the fights between Naruto, Sasuke and the rest of the characters in the saga, this work was uncovered with a much more ambitious concept. A game formula that combined different elements with great success, making this production a real claim for fans of the series.
A different Naruto game
Naruto’s hometown, Konoha, served as the central hub of what emerged as an absolutely wonderful and absorbing third-person adventure in which we had to solve numerous main and side missions. And for this it was necessary to do almost everything, from overcoming platform areas to participating in mini-games, exploring the sets in depth or learning new techniques from Naruto’s masters. A very varied gameplay that distanced itself from the rest of the titles based on this franchise that, until then, had been published for the rest of the formats.
A triumphant premiere that, of course, was also spiced up by melee battles, an element that was very well recreated thanks to a simple but fairly complete control system that allowed us to carry out a good number of actions and movements, including exclusive attacks of each character. And to squeeze even more out of these fights, the game included a online mode via Xbox Live Quite solvent and complementary to the main game mode.
Far from offering us a focused approach to the fights, this work was uncovered with a much more ambitious concept.
All these qualities turned this creation into best naruto game ever designed to date (something I still think to this day). A work of which many gamers have very special memories and which, due to its success and excellent reception by the specialized press and Xbox 360 users, was followed by a continuation called Naruto: The Broken Bond which, without surprising as much as the original game, also reached some very remarkable levels of quality.