Update- For all who read earlier I left off one big negative. No Online Vs. :(



So Namco Bandai's Naruto fighter is out. I was highly impressed by the demo so I went ahead and picked it up. While I haven't gone far enough in to give a full proper review, I will give the positive and negatives:

Positives

Graphics - Honestly one of the best uses of cel shading I think I've ever seen. Added in the fully 3D fighting enviroments and special effects, and it is very impressive indeed

Fighting system - This is as fluid and as close to a cartoon as you will see. Yes, the gameplay is no where near complex as even Smash Bros (LOLOL), but it makes up for it in pure fun. Fighting on water, jumping and dashing, throwing stars and a host of other items make setting traps fun (Throw out timed bombs, then combo your opponent into them.

While Rise of a Ninja's fighting system was 2D with shifting, UNS is a fully 3D fighting enviroment.

Each player gets 2 assist characters, and like MvsC2, you can pick the specific type of assist the characters do before battle starts. You'll also get a chance to unlock different special and super moves for characters using in game money.

A grand example of crazyness: My wife starts a combo on me, I was able to substitute (effectively a dodge) and appear behind her. 7 hit ground combo into a special attack then adding in Sakura's assist = 24 hits.

The super attacks are flashy and insane. See below for an example video of a fight and the super that ends it.




Each super has a minigame to add more power to it (mashing buttons, or hitting the right button etc etc).

Finally, when a character has taken too much damage each character has a signature rage attack. Naruto for example calls on the Nine Tailed Fox for more power. While the rage attack allows you try to turn the battle, note your opponent can easily try to play keep away from you and that you can suffer negatives when Rage subsides such as lower defense or loss of all chakra power.

Negatives

Ultimate Mission Mode - A failure compared to Naruto Rise of a Ninja on 360 and probably against Broken Bond coming soon. While all 3 games have a fully realized town that can be explored, there are some major differences

Rise of a Ninja's town was more alive. NPCs made comments as you run past and generally feels more complete. UNS does not.

The camera and it's control is not good in town. If you "roadie run" in Rise of a Ninja, the camera could keep up going around corners and had no problem showing where you were going. In UNS, you can easily get behind buildings without the camera catching up. You'll need to manually reset the camera (R3) a lot because manually turning the camera is SLOW and there is no option to speed up the camera turn speed. When both games have collection items and money scattered high up on buildings and in corners, camera is important and UNS camera fails and frustrates.

Furthermore, missions are handled in a way that it really takes you out of the experience. In order to unlock more missions (both side and story) you need to beat previous missions and complete tasks in town. However, most missions are started by going into the menu and choosing it at which point you get a screen of dialogue without voiceover as to the story that is occurring before being dropped right into the battle or mission. RoaN had fully voiced cutscenes and whether for good or bad, you had to make your own way to the mission area.

Fighting system wise, be warned that like most games based on anime, every character plays the same. Meaning there are no differences in controls for each character. Triangle then Circle will always do a special move etc etc. Furthermore each character can only have 1 special move and 1 super move set. As I said earlier you can unlock more moves, but when you go into battle you can only set 1 of each.

To summarize, if you want exploration/story/cutscenes, RoaN and the upcoming Broken Bond are what you desire. If you care more about the fighting system and are willing to put up with a flawed main story mode, UNS is for you.