(Written February 2007) Naruto: Clash of Ninja is the first of the series, which is currently up to four in Japan, and this first one is not too spectacular. The controls are pretty simple. The B button is Taijutsu, A is Ninjitsu, X is your special jutsu, and Y is to throw. The throwing is pretty useless and hard to do, and ninjitsu is more or less pointless unless used in a combo. Otherwise it's just too slow. And most of the specials miss 75% of the time. There are only seven characters when you start. Naturally you think with only a few characters, they'd be pretty varied, but everybody pretty much feels the same when all you need to do to win a match is hit the B button repeatedly, effectively making this game a button masher where you only need to hit one button at times, with the only real strategy being to hit the R button while you're being attacked to use a substitution jutsu and attack your opponent from behind. There are also three characters you can unlock, but two of them are simply powered up versions of characters you start with. There are a variety of different modes, including one player, story, survival, and time attack, but the lack of depth will prevent you from caring if you can beat your high score again and again. And the story mode is very little more than the one player mode with cardboard cutouts of characters talking between battles. The unlockables are all pretty uninteresting, and include things such as character bios, sound test, and a gallery which would take forever to complete. Pretty standard stuff. The plus side to it is that it looks pretty nice. The cell shading works well, and characters move very smoothly. It is far more visually appealing than it is satisfying to play. This game is basically a rental game for fans of Naruto, casual or otherwise. The best thing about it is Kakashi and his lightning blade special.