Video Game Vintage Title: Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja

Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is a 2007 Xbox 360-exclusive video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal, making it the first Naruto game to be developed by a non-Japanese company. The game is specifically based on the English dubbed version of the anime. The game was released on October 20 2007. Ubisoft has also released a free 60-mb download which includes a Japanese voice option, the ability to change the in-game voices to Japanese, while still keeping the English subtitles. A sequel titled Naruto: The Broken Bond was released in fall a year later.

Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja Plot

Based almost directly on the first three arcs of the anime, the story follows most of the missions of Naruto Uzumaki and Squad 7, including the battle with Haku and Zabuza and the travel through the Forest of Death for the Chunin Exam to the battle with Gaara of the Desert.

Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja Gameplay

Rise of a Ninja was released in Fall 2007. The game itself consists of two major gameplay modes: one-on-one fighting and RPG, where Konoha serves as a main hub to access various missions players can go on. The main story mode alternates between these two modes, and takes place from the beginning of the series to the end of the Invasion of Konoha arc (episodes 1-80 of the anime), with included sidequests . It features gameplay similar to that of a 3D platformer, like jumping acrobatically from rooftop to rooftop or racing through checkpoints, as well as having one-on-one brawls much like the Naruto: Clash of Ninja series. Like with most Naruto games, it features cel-shaded graphics.The game also allows online versus multiplayer via Xbox Live, titled "The Forest of Death", enabling you to play with your friends. You start off choosing a character, and defeating other opponents to rank up and eventually gain points to complete the exam. If the player is defeated, they must begin from the bottom of the table all over again, but the points are still kept. Offline play, and two-player versus mode are also available.

The game supports downloadable content; five new characters have been made available (Shikamaru, Choji, Jiraiya, the 3rd Hokage, and Temari). Downloadable content also adds two new arenas to play in, and also additional achievements for each character played in the Forest of Death. Currently, the game has 37 achievements with a maximum of 1075 Gamerscore.

Reception
The game has met generally good reviews from critics. Its Metacritic aggregate score is 78, indicating "generally favorable reviews". One main example of praise is from IGN, awarding the game 8.4/10 and stating 'the first great Naruto game' (despite giving good reviews to past games in the Naruto franchise). In addition to winning the best fighting game award at E3 2007, it was also praised for having a simple but fun and fast fighting engine. The game though was slightly criticized for giving players an abridged story, and many characters not being in the story as well.