One of the hottest properties in Japan right now is Naruto.   This story of a young ninja with a demon trapped inside of his body started off as a manga in Weekly Shonen Jump but the title quickly became a phenomenon. In short order it spawned an anime series, toys, action figures, clothing and accessories, a tradable card game, and naturally, video games.  The first console game to be released in the US based on the franchise is Naruto: Clash of Ninja for the Nintendo Gamecube.  This ninja story is a natural for a fighting game, it's too bad that the developers couldn't come up with something better than this.  The game is very short, even for a NGC title, and the moves and combinations are much to simple for anyone but the most novice gamer to find challenging.

Though the concept for this game sounds promising, it just doesn't deliver on any level.  When you first pop the disc into the console you'll notice seven game modes.  Seven!  It sounds like there'll be a lot of variety that will keep you busy for a while, but nothing could be further from the truth.  In reality many of these modes are redundant and copy each other with only the most minor differences.  In "One Player" mode, you select one of eight characters then cycle through eight levels fighting the computer who automatically selects the character.  "Play Against the Computer" mode is the same thing, but the player gets to select which character the computer fights as.  "Time Attack" is the same as "One Player" except the battles end after a set amount of time, and "Survival" has you rotate through the eight levels but your health meter only gets a small amount of life after each battle instead of being filled up again.  In "Training" mode the character you're fighting doesn't do anything (or you can set the options to have him jump or run) so you can try out your moves.

The other two modes are "Two Player", the only time you'll come close to being challenged, and "Story Mode."  In the later you're treated to short cut scenes that replay the story from the anime and manga, following Naruto Uzumaki as he graduates from the Ninja Academy and goes on to more advanced training.

The fact that there are only a few real modes isn't really a problem though.  Mortal Kombat didn't have half a dozen modes when it was first released for a home videogame system.  It's the quality of the gameplay that counts, and Clash of Ninja just doesn't have much.

Like all fighting games, there are some basic moves.  Hitting "B" with any character with throw a punch, up is a jump, etc.  The problem is that this game is much too easy.  Hitting "A" will launch a ranged weapon (shurken, kunai, etc.) across the fighting ring so you can attack the enemy even if he's across the field.  The most outrageous thing is the ease of the special attacks.  There are no complicated key sequences to memorize and practice, they are simplicity incarnate.  Hitting the "X" button launches a (very powerful) special attack if the power meter is full.  You can actually win battles by just hitting the d-pad and "X" over and over again.   The combo moves are almost worse.  A string of six "B"'s will launch a devastating attack, or if you want to get really fancy, try "d-pad right-B-B."  Think you can remember that?

Once you've mastered one character, which will is a matter of minutes not hours, the rest are pretty much the same.  (My ten year old beat the story mode in less than 20 minutes, and could put up a good fight in two-player mode with any character after that.)  Though the combo moves themselves are different for each character, the sequence to activate them are either identical or nearly so.  (One combo for Naruto is "B-A-A-A-A"and for Sakura the combo is "B-A-A-A".)  Playing through the game a second time in any of the one-player modes, with any character, quickly becomes dull.

The gameplay itself is okay, but not great.  The controller is fairly responsive except when a character has to turn around.  In those cases it takes a split second longer than it should for the fighter to face the right way.  Aside from that the characters react with good speed.

Graphics:

A lot of the scenes in this game are fun to watch, the special attacks are some nice eye candy, with the action pausing as Naruto jumps into the air and unleashes his Naruto Uzumaki Barrage or Kakashi lets fly with his Lightning Blade.  The cell shaded figures also move and fight nicely and look very much like their TV animated counterparts.

I did have a problem with the reproduction of the graphics though.  The image on my LCD screen had a lot of artifacts, with aliasing, a stair-step effect on diagonal lines that should be straight, being particularly bothersome.  While this didn't ruin the gameplay, it didn't help it either.

The audio is nothing special.  It sounds like they sampled the dialog from the English dub of the cartoon, but I rather doubt that they had to call anyone in to read lines because the dialog is very simple.  A sentence or two of how the person talking will be victorious and that's it.  During the fights there each character will yell his catch-phrase over and over, and in the short amount of time it takes to finish the story mode, you'll be really sick of Naruto yelling "Believe it!"

The background music that plays during the fights is best described as forgettable.

Conclusion:

While this wouldn't be a bad game for someone who has never played a fighting game before, there isn't enough challenge to keep them interesting for long. Even a young inexperienced player will pick up the skills needed to beat this game in short order, and after that it will be a short time before ennui sets in. While the special attacks do look cool, they are way to easy to pull off which makes the game too simple. I did have a lot of fun playing this game through for the first time, but I was very disappointed when I realized that there wasn't more. If you now someone who would have funny thrashing bozos with little risk of being defeated, this would make a good rental. By the time the game is due back at the store, the player will be tired of it.