Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 3 (Import)

THE BAD:
- Pricy
- Some characters played similarly(Mizuki/Iruka)
- Japanese

SUMMARY:
Naruto is a very successful series, thus it has spawned several PS2 and Gamecube games. This one is the third of the so far four in the series. Its fairly pricey at $60 without shipping and handling.

However, it easily redeems itself for the high price.

It offers a large amount of characters, and even though I said some played similarly, that's only in the two characters mentioned really, as they are the same. You have characters from Naruto and Sasuke to Zabuza and Haku, to the three Sand Nin and Itachi too. Overall there are 29 characters:

Naruto
Sakura
Sasuke
Mizuki
Iruka
Orochimaru
Tsunade
Jiraiya
Temari
Garaa
Kankuro
Karasu(Kankuro's Puppet)
Sarutobi(The third Hokage)
Neji
Shikamaru
Iruka
Rock Lee
Kakashi
Chouji
Haku
Anko
Tenten
Gai
Ino
Zabuza
Akamaru(Kiba's dog)
Kiba
Shino
Hinata
Itachi

Each character not only looks good, but plays well too. So it is, for the most part, up to you to decide who you want to play with. The game opens up to a lot of arenas, however, they're mostly there for show as you can't really interact with them, just reenact battles where they took place. The main story basically covers the first part of Naruto from the training with Kakashi to the fight with Garaa, with the occasional cutscene here in there that's done with the game's graphics engine, for a nice cel-shaded cutscene. Though sadly, there are only a few. The game does offer a variety of modes from Story Mode to 2-4 person battle, CPU battle, and even the shop where you can purchase more things like characters and arenas. The sound quality is pretty good, not as great as other games, but it fits the game rather well.

Now, to cover the fighting engine. Most fans of Naruto will probably get this because they want fun and their favorite characters, with this you might not want a combo-heavy system. In my opinion, this game offers two modes of play, Combo-heavy and Casual gamer. So to say, you can get through the game with button mashing if you like, even though it makes it harder, or you can go into figuring out combos that make the game relatively easier as well as making it look and feel more like the show, pulling off moves that are seen in the show.

And that brings this to the final portion. The Chakra gauge shows your Chakra level, depending on where it's at, you can, depending on the character, transform or pull off a special. So to say, Rock Lee and Gai's gate openings, and Sasuke and Kakashi's sharingan, as well as the Naruto Kyuubi. That isn't all though, when the guage is filled, each character has a special, some with cutscenes, some without them, that can be performed and that deal great damage. Some characters have multiple special moves that can be performed by changing up the button press or by transforming. However, sometimes it depends on the characters health, such as Naruto has the Naruto rendan, but when his health drops below 40% he can use the Rasengan, and when Sasuke is normal he uses Shishi rendan but he uses Chidori in Sharingan mode.

So to say, the game is perfect for casual gamers and fighting game lovers alike..however, with Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 4 already out, you might want to pick that up instead as it offers more characters and more variety.

Still, Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 3 gets:

4 out of 5.