Naruto games have been flooding the market as of recent, and most of them are nothing more than fighters that go through the same paces and same stories that Naruto fans have already read and seen before through both the manga and anime. Given that, it's always refreshing when someone goes outside the box and uses the franchise name to create a game that stays faithful to the material while yet delivering a completely new story in the process. As it turns out the reason Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 succeeds as well as it does is ultimately because of the new story.

THE STORY SO FAR
It's hard to figure just where in the official timeline Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 (Naruto: UC2 from here on) falls. We know the story takes place after Tsunade was appointed the position of Hokage, but the clothing of Shikamaru and Gaara looks like their older incarnations that comes up in the Hurricane season (as it's being currently called last I heard).

The story involves a clan that many had thought long ago wiped clean from memory, but as it turns out apparently they were only in hiding, and have now chosen this as their time to strike. The mysterious clan ominously uses living puppets under their control to attack their enemies, much like puppets Kankuro uses himself. The clan of puppet masters are looking for spirit orbs, which when combined is supposed to revive their master. As Naruto and other ninja intent on protecting the Village Hidden In The Leaves, you must make sure these spirit orbs don't fall into the wrong hands.

Unlike the first Uzumaki game, if all you want to do is experience the story, then you're able to just play the story missions, which are played out like episodes of the anime series, with shouted out episode titles and all. The story unfolds mostly through cutscenes that bookend the missions, but sometimes you'll get story elements throughout the actual missions. The story is told completely through the game's in-game graphics, which works fine for the most part, but when the cutscenes are zoomed in close on the faces, everyone talks with mouths that extend freakishly with each spoken word.

Usually with a Naruto game you come for the gameplay and stick around for the story, but with Naruto: UC2 the roles are almost reversed, though that doesn't mean the gameplay is beyond bad or anything. It could've been easy to have haphazardly thrown together a loose and dull story, but the developers actually went out of their way to create a new narrative which is quite interesting and works wonderfully throughout the course of the game.

GAMEPLAY
Instead of creating a new section we'll just group the multiplayer options in here as well. For starters there is a 2P Battle mode where you and a friend can pick characters and fight each other, and for what it is it works. The bigger inclusion is the cooperative mode which lets you and a friend go through the game cooperatively, each controlling one of the three character you have the option of choosing from for each mission. Games are always more fun with a friend, so being able to play a game together with a friend is a nice inclusion.

The game is split up into several different modes that are all accessible from the title menu. If you want to play only the story of the game, you'll be spending your time in the Story Mode. The Story Mode unfolds by giving you some story cutscenes to detail what you need to do, letting you go to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, level up or buy items depending on what you need, and then head out. Once you get out on the map, you'll see several different landmarks with paths leading to them. Generally your landmark is outlined for you, so all you have to do is scroll to it, click, and watch as Naruto and the gang head there. More than likely you won't get to your final destination without some interference, so you'll have to battle it out with your party of three.

You can't pick your group all the time, but Naruto will always be in the group primarily. You'll be able to team with many of your Naruto favorites, such as Sakura, Kakashi, Kankuro, Shikamaru and others. Unlike the first game, you're able to freely jump between the three characters, who each have their own health meters and everything, and you don't have to switch back unless you want to or that character runs out of health. We didn't like that the first game only let you tag out for brief moments, so it's nice to be able to completely play through the game without using Naruto if you don't want.

When you enter the battle environments you'll have the ability to perform strong and weak attacks, use items, jump, dash, and use your special ninjutsus such as Naruto's rasengan or his clone jutsu, which are tied to the R1 and R2 buttons. The combat is a tad hack-and-slash, but there is some strategy that needs to be involved. Since there isn't a block button, for example, whenever you get hit you need to press the right button to do a substitution jutsu and jump out of harm's way. By beating enemies different things will drop, including experience orbs, health orbs, and items – these all go to helping improve your character, especially the experience orbs.

By picking up the experience orbs you're able to upgrade your characters, but only those who actually picked them up, so if Naruto is the one that grabbed the orb only he will have that orb counted to him, so basically if you want to make Shikamaru a lean and mean fighting machine you have to actually use him. You're able to increase things like health, attack power, defense, and much more. Another way you'll improve your character is through the chip sets you find, which are skills you have to manually place into your character's grid that give your players new attacks, improved attacks, and other skills and abilities to improve yourself. You'll be able to find these skills in the field sometimes or you can buy them from the shop.

Mission Mode lets you take on missions to gain items and money, but also are an extra way to get more experience than the Story Mode alone would be able to get you. As you complete more and more of them they'll get harder, ranging from protecting something to catching something to beating all the enemies in a certain place under a certain time. There is also a Survival Mode that unlocks pretty early on, which lets you fight as many enemies as you can until you've died.

Most levels will have you simply fighting enemies, but there are some where a bit of platforming is required, and these suffer the worst because even barely landing on the edge of a platform will make you fall, and so you have to land perfectly center or else have to work your way slowly back up to where you were just to take another chance at the jump. The platforming moments help break up the combat, but they are flawed and ultimately hurt more than they help.

GRAPHICS
The first Uzumaki Chronicles was downright muted and ugly at times, but luckily the graphics have improved a great deal since the last one, though they are far from perfect or beautiful. The environments are a bit too open and sparse at times, but the bright colors and semi-cel shaded look help improve the style of the game and make it look closer to the anime style the Naruto name is more familiar with. It isn't the best looking game, but it's not the worst either and certainly has its moments at times.

SOUND
The music is average, but it does pretty well at sounding like a score ripped straight from the anime. The sound effects fair better, including plenty of grunts and punches, but it's the vocal work that ends up being the star on the audio side. Though it sounds like maybe one or two characters aren't portrayed by their usual vocal talents, for the most part the characters pull off all the lines and end up sounding just like they do in the English anime dub.

IN CONCLUSION
Though the game has some flaws, Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2 is infinitely better than the first game in the Uzumaki line, and a big part of that comes from the completely new story. Given the new story the game should be a must-buy for fans of Naruto, but as for newcomers to the franchise, well, they just might not be able to look past the flaws that keep the game at the slightly above average quality that it is.

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