The Wii has had a few fighters already, most notably of the anime variety, including a Dragonball Z game and Bleach too. It was only a matter of time before Naruto made his Wii debut, and wouldn't you know it, but Naruto is doing what he does best – fighting. Is Naruto on the Wii a natural fit and the best fighter on the system or only one fanboys will be shouting, "Believe it" over?

THE STORY SO FAR
I could probably just copy and paste this section by now when it comes to Naruto games, as most of them (sans one) share the same story about how a young boy who is born and has the demon nine-tailed fox's spirit imprisoned in him, making him an outcast to his village. As he grows up Naruto strives to be a ninja, specifically the leader of the village – the Hokage.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution (Naruto: CONR from here on) basically tells the same story that fans have read, seen in the anime, and probably experienced in the games before (though the story here is more expanded, covering the majority of the anime series up to the Hurricane season).You'll play through the Mission Mode experiencing the story of Naruto, such as having to beat your teacher Kakashi, experiencing the Chunin Exams, and then ultimately the attack on the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The story is what it is by now, which is a shortened retelling of the main events, which will leave fans wanting more because they know this story ad nauseum by heart now, while new fans will wish it was more robust, going into more detail on how things advance from one scenario to the next (something only fans will already know since they know the franchise in and out). The story moments are completely dialogue driven, told with spoken word over static images of characters standing around, changing facial expressions only when needed to express something that is about to happen.

Overall the story just isn't done that well in the game, as it's the same story we've seen repeated plenty of times before already, only done worse. It's still technically okay, but the story is too short and the missions needed to complete story scenarios are kind of a drag too.

GAMEPLAY
The default way to play Naruto: CONR is with the Wii remote and nunchuk attached, though there are alternate ways to play and control the game if you don't particularly like that style. Besides playing with the default method, you can also play with the Classic Controller or an old Gamecube Controller. Each control style uses the same moves and gameplay styles, but they each change button presses or ways in which you execute the moves. For the purposes of this review we're going to stick with the default mode.

There are several different game modes, but the main two for the single-player will be the Single-Player Mode (a series of battles one after another with enemies that get harder) and the Mission Mode (the story mode of the game, which you'll probably only play once through to experience it and unlock some things). There is also a Training Mode to help you practice and learn how to use your characters, as well as a Multiplayer Mode so you can fight with another real life person. There's also a Mini-Game Mode, which is pretty simple, and isn't much fun; you point the remote and press a button to throw shuriken at the right targets.

The fighting controls on the default are almost perfect, featuring a very clean and easy to use style that can have you button mashing (or Wii remote flailing if you prefer) though there is enough depth there where a properly trained player will know when to attack and what combos to use when. The majority of the attacks will probably be your weak setup attacks, which are easily done with a flick of the remote in any direction; keep flicking the remote to keep doing a line of steady weak attacks. If you want a strong attack, however, all you have to do is press the A-button. The A-button is your general strong attack, which will change depending on what direction you are pushing your nunchuk's control stick or if you are even pushing it at all. If you're just pressing the A-button or hold it down, you'll execute your character's projectile throw. If you're pressing the control stick, you'll be able to perform one of four strong moves, corresponding to the up, down, left, and right positions. The game still has combos, you just have to figure out what move leads into which move the best. For example, I can use Temari and hit my opponent with a few flicks on my Wii remote, follow it up with a control stick down and A-button press to pop my enemy in the air, and then use a few control stick up and A-button presses to juggle them for a while.

Besides the basic attacks, you use the control stick to also move your character, pressing down to crouch, left and right to move in those directions, and pressing up to jump. Meanwhile you'll use the C-button to perform grapples, the Z and B-buttons to dodge left and right on the field of battle, and you'll press right on the directional pad on your Wii remote to perform your special jutsu, which builds up as you do damage and take damage; being able to land your special jutsu are many times the key to winning a battle.

One thing new about the jutsu – besides the fact that Naruto now can use his Rasengan – is the fact that you can increase the duration and damage of the attack by performing motions with your Wii remote and nunchuk, performing various controller spins or flicks to cause additional damage; the jutsus still do enough damage on their own, but spinning your controllers in circles to virtually spin your Rasengan, for instance, is oddly amusing and actually helps with the gameplay.

Besides the ability to power your jutsus up, there are a few new additions to the fighting franchise since it was last seen on the Gamecube. One new thing you can do is hide behind objects, such as stumps or boxes in a level, which will temporarily provide you cover for a few attacks until they break. Besides hiding behind the objects, you can also spring attacks from them by jumping over them and landing an attack. Another new addition is the multi-zone battle arenas, which let you power hit an opponent off the stage, track them in mid-air, and then either perform an extra hit or flash and appear before them so you'll be ready when they land. The battle arenas aren't as connected as the multiple stages of a Mortal Kombat, for example, but it's still fun to hit an opponent off screen, run up a wall, jump to attack, and then miss because they perform a substitution jutsu at the last moment.

Besides gameplay additions, there are also some new characters thrown into the mix of things, which weren't playable for one reason or another the last game, mostly because they weren't yet revealed in the story. New players include Shino, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Itachi just to name a few. It's nice to be able to play as 20 different characters after you've unlocked them all, but you wish they would take the more Dragonball Z approach, and throw at us every character from the franchise they can possibly think of; sure, nobody is probably going to want to play as Konohamaru, but give us the chance to decide that for ourselves.

Combat can happen one-on-one (the majority of your fights) or even up to four players battling at one time, which can be a bit hectic and hard to follow, as it's sometimes hard to get focused on the player you actually want to attack, but still it's quite fun and the speed is solid despite the fact so many players are fighting at once.

GRAPHICS
Graphically the game looks good, but not as well as it could or probably should look. The characters are all pretty close to looking like their anime counterparts, but there are certain aspects of the characters that are too blocky and jagged, such Kakashi and Jiraiya's hair. You can also see the jaggy problem during Naruto's win celebration as he jumps in the air, showing the shadow on the ground between his legs that is very pixilated and frankly ugly. The battle arenas are pretty open, but the background graphics are pretty good, and fans will certainly know where they are fighting just by glancing at the screen for a second.

SOUND
The voicework of Naruto games is usually good, mostly thanks to the voice actors who always do a good job at bringing their characters to life. The sound work is also good, featuring plenty of grunts and moans, rushes of wind, and other sounds that will be familiar to Naruto fans. The background music is a bit too average and plays seemingly all the time, but overall the audio package isn't bad.

IN CONCLUSION
There is the potential for a great game lurking within the Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution package, it just needs to break out of the trappings that is currently hindering it. The combat and the way the game uses the Wii's motion capturing abilities works phenomenally, but the graphics need to be improved, more characters need to be added, and something needs to be done about the story to either make it more interesting or change it up so it isn't the same one we've experienced before. For his first appearance on the Wii, Naruto overall didn't do too bad for himself.

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