Summary
Like a lot of more popular shonen anime,Narutoand its follow-up series have spawned many video game adaptations. There are fighting games, RPGs, and even an arcade card battler based on the ninja series. Many of these games have tried their hand at retellingthe story arcs ofNarutoandNaruto Shippuden, with varying degrees of success.
A handful of theNarutogames have even tried telling their own original stories featuring the series' main characters. Not all the games have put the story front and center, with some choosing to focus more on action and vs. fighting gameplay. ManyNarutogames have done a good job bringing the anime to life in 3D though, whether that’s through telling their own story, or recreating classic arcs. These are theNarutogames with the most complete stories.
1Naruto Shippuden: Naruto vs Sasuke
DS Side-Scrolling Action
Released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2008,Naruto Shippuden: Naruto vs Sasukeis a sidescroller that continued theNaruto: Ninja Councilseries and retains much of the gameplay from thoseearlier 2D games. The game focuses on a smaller series arc to tell a complete story, retelling the Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission.
That’s the part of the series where Team 7 goes after Sasuke for a supposed rescue, along with new member Sai. It’s a relatively short arc, spanning around 20 episodes of the anime. The story focuses heavily on the relationship and rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke, hence the title of the game. Focusing on a small, but significant, arc like this means the game gets to tell a deep and complete story that will be intimately familiar forNaruto Shippudenfans.
While many of the more recentNarutogames have included exploration and open environments,Naruto: Rise Of A Ninjawas one of the firstNarutogames to adopt this structure. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the game combines full 3D exploration and platforming sections mixed with 2Dfighting game-style combat.
It also tells a faithful recreation of the originalNarutoseries, including scenes from the anime itself, from the beginning all the way to the end of the Invasion of Konoha arc. Rather than chopping up scenes and skipping the less action-based parts of the series as many of theNarutofighting games do,Rise Of A Ninjacaptured more of the series' identity with the acrobatic exploration, side quests, and NPC interactions.
3Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 4
Fighter With A Story
Building on the fighting game combat of the previousNaruto: Ultimate Ninjagames,Ultimate Ninja 4took an interesting approach to its story. The game featured RPG-like progression in its single-player story mode, and had players complete an original storyline set before the start ofNaruto Shippuden, before transitioning into retelling the early part ofShippuden’s story.
The retelling of theShippudenintroduction arc ends abruptly, but theoriginal storyline, The Black Shadow, tells a complete and engaging story. The gameplay also took a step forward from the previousUltimate Ninjagames, introducing the idea of clashes and taking advantage of the series' flashier aspects, like Naruto’s Nine-Tails transformation, with the addition of Awakening Jutsu.
Naruto: The Broken Bondis the sequel toRise of a Ninja, and itgoes deeper into the serieswith another faithful retelling of the anime’s story. It picks up where the previous game left off at the end of the Invasion of Konoha arc, and continues the series up to the end of the Sasuke Retrieval arc - around episode 135 of the anime.
Unlike the previous game,The Broken Bondrecreated all scenes in 3D, instead of mixing in cutscenes from the anime itself. The game retained the 3D adventure gameplay ofRise of a Ninja, adding more environmental exploration aspects, and iterated on the fighting game-style combat with the addition of tag-teams. Its retelling of these pivotal arcs from the main series is well executed, and the game world feels more alive and populated than its predecessor.
5Naruto: Path Of The Ninja 2
Original RPG Storyline
There aren’t a whole lot ofNarutogames that tell their own original story, butNaruto: Path of the Ninja 2is one of the few that does. The story isn’t going to satisfy fans in the same way as the classic arcs of the main series, but it does tell a complete, self-contained tale. It’s a typical video game setup. The player needs to collect 5 items, in this case Hope Mirrors, to face off against the antagonists and thwart their plans.
While the game wouldn’t win any narrative awards, it at least gets some credit for telling an original story. It further differentiates itself from the majority ofNaruto-based games by using turn-based combat and RPG progression mechanics. The combat has a surprising amount of depth, using front and back rows for unit placement to give increased strategic options to the player. It only really forces the player to make use of their strategic options in the game’s harder boss fights, but it’s a nice translation of theNarutocharacter roster’s abilities into turn-based RPG form.
Fighting games aren’t generally known for their stories, but one of the core concepts of theUltimate Ninja Stormseries is recreatingNaruto’s most epic battles in a cinematic way. This means that each game has tried to incorporate elements of the series' story to connect these events.Ultimate Ninja Storm 2attempted to elevate this storytelling, using a more linear structure for its story mode than the first game and providing more narrative elements in-between fighting stages.
It’s still a re-telling ofShippuden’s main events, from Naruto returning to Konoha up to the fight with Pain. It was the best 3D recreation of these scenes at the time, though, andUltimate Ninja Storm 2finally told its story in a way that even a player who hadn’t watched every episode ofNarutocould understand.
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 5was the last game to be released in theUltimate Ninjaseries under its original name. It’s one that manyNarutofans might have missed out on, as it was onlyreleased on the PS2 in Japan, eventually coming to Europe but not the US. It built on the already excellent fighting game gameplay with the addition of assist characters.
As a sign of futureNarutogames moving toward more narrative elements,Ultimate Ninja 5separated its story into the single-player RPG mode and allowed players to roam as several Konoha characters to interact with NPCs and follow the series' events that the game focused on (that’s the Kazekage Rescue Mission and Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission arcs). It’s a familiar part of the series, but interestingly, the game followed the manga rather than the anime, as it covered events past those which had been included in the anime at the time.
TheUltimate Ninja Stormgames have elevated their storytelling abilities throughout the series.Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4might have the best and most complete story of any game in the series, as it was the first one that actually finishes the story ofNaruto Shippuden.Ultimate Ninja Storm 4’s main campaign re-tells the Fourth Great Ninja War, the final arc ofShippuden.
The game arguably tells this part of the story better than the anime did, as it skips some of the unnecessary filler the anime included during this arc. That’s not all though. After the main campaign is finished, players can continue to explore and uncover battles that recap the past events ofNarutoandShippuden. That means thatUltimate Ninja Storm 4feels like it has one of the most complete versions of theNarutostory.
