Pros: Great fighting system, Some great characters,Unlocking Most Characters is easy
Cons: Hundreds of worthless unlockables, finishing move animation unskippable,limited roster
The bottom line: Fans and even non fans should have fun with this game's stellar gameplay.
Allright, I should probaly assume if you're even looking here you've allready seen the anime but on an off chance you haven't, I'll give a small summary. The story begins simple. The 9 tailed fox, the ultimate tailed beast, attacked Konoha village. No ninja to this day is powerful enough to kill the fox. So back then, the 4th hokage had to seal Kyuubi into a young boy named Naruto. Naruto was discriminated unjustly because of this. Despite being a drop out with seemingly no potential as a ninja, he strives to be Hokage, the leader of the village and usualy the strongest shinobi. From there the plot becomes too complex to explain in a simple summary.

Allright now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the game.

Graphics:

Unlike the Clash of Ninja series, Ultimate Ninja uses cell shaded graphics. This gives the game it's own little unique feel and in a way makes the characters look more like their anime counterparts. The animations for finishing moves are well done, as are the effects during the actual fighting.The ending scenes in story mode are drawn just like it was a scene from the anime, as are the chuunin/jounin at the game screen menu.

Sound:

All the voice actors from the American version of the series(don't let the term American version fool you. The dub is overall accurate to the original)have lended their voices to the game. The sound effects for attacks and such are fairly good, although at times a little muddled sounding but nothing that's of great signifigance. The music, minus one cool tune, is lackluster and forgettable. It would've been nice if they had used some of the actual backround music from the series, as the Naruto anime has some of the best backround music I've ever heared for ankind of TV series.

Roster:

Here's where the game gains and loses some points. We have a bigger selection then Clash of Ninja and a greater selection as well. You start out with Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Sakura, Shikamaru and Rock Lee. Through story mode you can unlock the others with the exception of Cursed Seal Sasuke and 9 Tailed Naruto. The other characters you can unlock are Neiji, Hinata, Gaara, Haku, Zabuza, and Orochimaru. Now this is a very cool roster of characters however it is still limited. No Ten-ten? Temari? Kabuto? Chouji? What the?

Complaining aside, the roster is well balanced. There isn't one character who is so strong that there is almost no point in using the other characters. I'm personaly best as Neiji, Hinata and Orochimaru but for others it could be Naruto, Kakashi, who knows. So there's a balance which is good. Though female fans may be dissapointed with only 2 female characters(and not even the strongest ones at that)

Game Modes:

There are a fairly wide selection of modes for a fighting game. There's Story mode to start. You select a character and you go through a series of battles with short scenes inbetween to give a storyline of sorts. The stories are often episodic and are only marginaly accurate to the series. You start out with only the 6 characters stories however comepleting one unlocks the story of an unlockable character. Play through that story and you unlock the character and another story is unlocked.

Then there's practice and free battle, which are self explanatory. Practice you, practice and free battle is jumping in wht you against the computer, or a friend. Then there's mission mode. You have to start from exercise missions, then make it to D rank, all the way up to S rank. It's basicly battles with stipulations added, such as winning with a certain move or within a certain time, etc.

Gameplay:

Here's the nitty gritty of things. This is going to take quite a bit of explaining and will probaly make more sense when you play it but I'll try my best.

Like every fighting game, each character has a health bar. Okay, I think you probaly figured that out beforehand but oh well. Below it, is a chakra bar with 3 levels of chakra, each a different chakra. You have 3 finishing moves, that you press the triangle button to activate. Pressing it once will give you energy to perform a level one move, which will take one level of chakra. Level 2 takes 2 levels of chakra, so you get the point. Now the finishers themselves are animations showing your character performing the move. The both ends of the screen is a bar with a line of buttons that you and the opponent must hit. Now there are usualy 2-3 animations of fighting moves. if you fail the combo, the move does less damage and you can't go onto the second animation. If your opponent enters the combo sucsessfuly, they take less damage. If not, then you let'em have it. Unfourtanately because of this, animations are unskippable and over time will become dull.

Now, want to wail with finishers again? Well there are a few ways to restore chakra. First is through items(which we'll get to) the second is holding down the down button, which will put your character into a stance and slowly gain chakra back. However during this time you will be vulnerable to attack. The third way is through a special move you can enter during the battle hitting a certain combo of buttons. Usualy the opposing character falls to the ground and chakra shoots out of him or her.

Now let's get to partners and items. Every character has a partner, many of them characters not on the active roster(Ten-ten and Gai as 2 examples)They appear at random times and leave an item. However if the character is attacked by the opponent or you, the partner dissapears. There is one item that if you hit your opponent, your partner can jump in and perform an attack.

Besides your partners, you can get items from random breakable objects that either appear out of nowhere or are part of the scenery. Different items do different things. Your character always has a long distance weapon from the start, however if you get a weapon item you can switch it with your normal weapon.

Now last but not least are arenas. Every arena has 2-3 layers. Using down and X button, you can teleport to this layer. This can do many things for you. Get you time to recover, get an item, or hit a long distance attack. Also, at random times, an option for a character who is down is given to change to the next arena in order. This will restore the chakra of whoever does so by 10%. Also beware some arenas have their own perils which you or your opponent can use to their advantage.

Phew, it's allright if you didn't get all that, it's much simpler once you start playing a few matches. If not for the gameplay this game wouldn't be worth getting. The gameplay is what makes this game fun.