With CyberConnect2's Naruto series proving popular with both gamers and critics alike on PS2, it was only a matter of time before the mischievous Naruto Uzumaki made his inevitable debut on the PS3.

Hot on the heels of the equally impressive Ultimate Ninja 3 on PS2, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm clearly benefits from the upgrade in technical performance that's possible on PS3, along with the added bonus of Namco Bandai and CyberConnect2's long running history and understanding of the series. Sadly though, Ninja Storm subsequently suffers from the same basic issues that have marred previous iterations in the series, primarily an open world RPG-lite approach to the Ultimate Ninja mode that still feels more laborious than it really should. Although the fighting mechanics are still accessibly simplistic, with a fair degree of hidden depth for those wishing to master its controls, the Ultimate Ninja mode that sees you completing basic mini-games, fetch quests and battles still fails to live up to Ubisoft's open world efforts on 360, which feel much more fluid and alive by comparison. Luckily, like its 360 counterpart and PS2 predecessors, Ninja Storm provides a visual tour de force on PS3, often looking nothing short of phenomenal. In fact, it's probably the closest that anyone has come to recreating a living, breathing animated world in videogame form; it leaves the excellent 360 titles looking slightly shabby by comparison and, in some cases, it looks even better than the Manga series upon which it is based.

Ultimate Ninja Storm is generally split up into two separate game modes: Ultimate Ninja Mode and Free Battle Mode. The more traditional Free Battle Mode can be played against the impressive computer AI and its four well-defined difficulty settings or against a friend in local multiplayer mode, allowing you to get straight into a selection of one-on-one battles with your favourite characters and locations from the Naruto series.

Unfortunately however, there are two elements of Ninja Storm that strive to get in the way of your early enjoyment, the first of which is the mandatory twelve-minute, 4GB install. Pretty epic but hardly enough to ruin your day, I hear you say. Well, for the most part I would agree but this install seems to make very little dents into the borderline excessive load times you will come across during your time in Hidden Leaf Village, making it a much harder pill to swallow. In fairness to CyberConnect2, they may well be accompanied by some of the prettiest load screens I have ever seen, but at the end of the day a load screen is still a load screen, regardless of its visual appeal. The second feature that might well tarnish your initial impressions of Ninja Storm and its Free Battle Mode is the fact that you can only choose twelve of the twenty-five characters from the outset, with numerous support characters, levels and awakening modes also locked until you play your way through the flawed and overly long Ultimate Ninja Mode.

Get past these initial gripes though and you will be treated to a fighting system that perfectly complements the source material; simplistic and accessible yet deceptively deep. The fights in Free Battle Mode are epic one-on-one bouts with some highly stylised action and a fondness for hugely cinematic visuals. Beyond looking absolutely gorgeous, the first thing that grabs your attention is just how much the camera jumps around to give the impression of a battle that's cut straight from the TV show. This really should come at the cost of gameplay but with a camera as fluid, intuitive and technically sound as this one, it never becomes a problem.

It also helps that the basic control scheme is very simple, with an array of visually impressive attacks and combos available at the press of a button. While fans of Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter may well scoff at this approach, it's a system that woks perfectly well for the source material and allows for a great deal of interaction without the need for an overly complex move-set. Nearly every move is mapped to a single button, with melee attacks activated with the circle button, allowing for some pretty hefty combos by doing little more than smashing this button as hard and fast as you can. Projectiles are thrown via the square button while jumping and dashing is activated with the X button. Holding triangle charges your Chakra, while dodging, blocking and calling for a support character to jump in and dish out a few hits are all achieved via simple combinations of the shoulder buttons. There are also simple character-specific items mapped to the d-pad that can improve stats temporarily, increase your health or simply damage your opponents. Needless to say, this is a game geared towards accessibility.

This may sound a little too basic for the more discerning gamer and on the basis of the above move set, is exactly what it appears to be; a fighting game needs depth as well as accessibility, something for the more astute gamer to get their teeth into beyond the initial visual fireworks, which is where the potential subtleties of your Chakra powers and the more advanced blocking mechanics come into play. Chakra is a limited power source that can be recharged via the triangle button, but doing so leaves you completely open to attack. Chakra can be used in conjunction with any primary input, lending the game a much greater tactical nuance as skilled players manage their chakra to produce battle-altering moves and attacks when they are most needed. When used with the jump button, Chakra allows you to teleport across the screen instantly, a move that is especially useful when your opponent attempts to replenish their own Chakra supply and it also allows for far more powerful projectile attacks, along with hugely powerful and extremely impressive character-specific Jutsu moves.

Although Chakra successfully elevates Ninja Storm beyond simple button bashing, it's via the subtle blocking techniques that the game falls in line with the more traditionally complex fighters of the gaming world. Combos can be started as simply as smashing the circle button but blocking keeps the majority of these attacks at bay. However, continuous blocking not only leads to your guard failing but your character can also become dazed and open to a whole new wave of attacks against which there is no defence. Constantly blocking also allows your opponent to fill their Storm gauge, which provides improved attack and defence capabilities, along with an instantly filled Chakra gauge and improved secondary character abilities. To avoid all of this, you're going to have to learn how to parry attacks, something that is achieved by hitting the block button at the exact same time as your opponent hits the attack button. When carried out successfully you automatically perform a substitution Jutsu that sees you appearing behind your opponent, ready to launch into your own wave of counter-attacks. It's not an overly complex system by any means but bring two equally skilled players together and fights can become surprisingly technical affairs.

The solid mechanics of one-on-one fighting can become repetitive after extended bouts of play, which is why CyberConnect2 has seen fit to create Ultimate Ninja mode, which allows for a more varied experience that moves beyond the basics of beating your opponent to a pulp. Starting off in the hub world of Hidden Leaf Village, you are left to wander around the RPG style surroundings to talk to townsfolk, explore the area for hidden items and partake in over one hundred missions; factor in the bonus conditions for many of these missions and that number is significantly increased. During your time in Hidden Leaf Village you can purchase items from the shops and talk to the villagers to access the myriad of standard battles, mini-games and boss battles that combine to make up the mode's lengthy playing time.

The battles, as you might imagine, are exactly the same as you find in Free Battle mode but with a story to add extra impetus to your actions. The mini-games, which involve events such as hide-and-seek, forest chases and much branch dodging, are a reasonably entertaining distraction but they're sadly not as varied as those found in the more recent PS2 entries in the series and can subsequently become repetitive after a while. Exploring the village itself is pleasant enough but thanks to a measly number of inhabitants with very limited dialogue, the area can soon feel like a very lonely and desolate place. Visually it's certainly a beautiful location to visit but it does suffer from a few technical glitches that let down the game's otherwise exemplary presentation.

There are many items to collect around Hidden Leaf Village but the fact that they are all visible on your radar means that collecting them inevitably feels more like a chore than an enjoyable way to see the sights. Even the supposedly secret scrolls that are used to unlock support characters are clearly marked on the map, not only making a mockery of their name but also turning the unlocking process of many items into a pointlessly simple yet time-consuming experience. This strange design choice, combined with the archaic NPC-related quests to find and return items gives the whole experience an often forced sense of progression, with only the wish to unlock all the items and characters for Free Battle mode left to spur you on.

While many of the events within Ultimate Ninja mode feel like unnecessary filler, the same cannot be said of the outstanding boss battles. These epic encounters provide many of the game's visual highlights and are extremely enjoyable to play through; battles against giant, screen-filling enemies such as Gaara are intense, cinematic events that combine basic battle skills with quick, button-related reflexes, their only downside being that they don't occur nearly as often as you might like. Most of the best cut scenes can be found in this confrontations; expertly delivered from both a visual and audio standpoint with excellent voice work and direction throughout, they're especially noteworthy due to their surprising absence from the rest of your adventure, with the majority of the game employing a standard text-based conversation style.

With Ultimate Ninja mode padding out the game's longevity in a repetitious and sometimes unfulfilling fashion, it's even more of a shame that there's no online mode. Ninja Storm lends itself perfectly to online battles thanks to its more forgiving nature and lack of dependence upon tight windows of execution - you won't always have a friend or family member to hand and while the computer AI is challenging, it's inevitably more fun when playing against human opposition, making this omission a big disappointment. The same cannot be said of the presentation, though; while the audio may not have moved on greatly from the already outstanding PS2 work, the visuals have been taken to a whole new plane thanks to the tapping of the PS3's powerhouse hardware. Not only is the detail in both character art work and the surroundings second to none but the animations are incredibly fluid and natural-looking. It's here that Namco Bandai's and CyberConnect2's long running relationship clearly comes to the fore; although making a beautiful game shouldn't be a challenge on PS3 hardware, it's in the extra details scattered throughout the game that the team's affinity and passion for the source material becomes more apparent than ever.

As a fighting game, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is a complete success. The extremely accessible fighting engine benefits from a great deal of hidden depth and a pleasing penchant for the extravagant, while the excellent camera, colourful cast and brilliantly over the top move list combine to create an experience that feels like a playable Manga cartoon. As an RPG-lite adventure however, it tends to come up a little short; the boss battles are worth the price of admission alone but they can't mask the plethora of busy work and the general lack of original ideas. Ninja Storm is as visually impressive as any fan of the series could have hoped for and as a beat 'em up it works brilliantly, but it's also a sideways step when it comes to the rest of the gameplay, failing to evolve the worn template of its PS2 predecessors.

Reviewed by Liam Pritchard for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).