Pros: Decent Enough graphics, nice music
Cons: Bad storyline(s),Naruto steals spotlight, just no fun
The bottom line: No fun at all, this game is not worth yours or anyone else's time.
It's sad really. Naruto has done well with their other big console games. "Ultimate Ninja", "Clash of Ninja" and "Clash of Ninja 2", all great fighting games that are so much fun to play. But "Uzumaki Chronicles" is no fun. This time they tried to mix the fighting with an RPG style and all around fail.

Graphics:

The typical cell shaded as used in "Ultimate Ninja" The Naruto characters look very simalar to their cartoon counterparts(although Clash of Ninja makes them look even closer to their anime counterparts) The enviroments are well rendered, and the cut scenes are actually done using the game graphics rather then the typical anime game cutscene using cut outs of the characters.

Sound:
Everything comes through crisply and clearly. Most of the music is actually pretty good, probaly the highlight of the game. The most memorable being the victory theme that plays after you win a battle.

Story:
There's some big ninja war going on, so all the top ninja are supposedly busy, meaning the genin have to take up all the missions, even the A and B missions. Every mission has it's own storyline, and all of them are either stupid, or contradictory. How the hell are you fighting Orochimaru? Why aren't these ninjas at war fighting him? Isn';t he the enemy? If all these ninjas are out at war, why does Kakashi have time to train you in the opening turtoil? Considering he's one of Konoha's top jounin level ninja, I'd imagine he should be out there. Some of the missions are just ridicolous. Advertising to help a store out? Collecting candy? Are you serious? This is what they're doing in the midst of a war? I mean, imagine if the U.S was under attack, and while the milatary was out fighting the enemy, the police went out advertising and collecting candy. These are just two examples.

Besides that, none of the stories are very compelling, or even remotely engaging. The characters are reduced to stereotypes of themselves. It's like a really bad fanfiction. Fighting Chouji in a life and death battle over a piece of candy? I rest my case here.

Gameplay
This just reeks of lazyness. You start out by going to the hokage's place to take your mission. After that, assuming you don't want to buy any items before your trip, you leave the village and enter this map. There are several points on the map marked by red dots, and you basicly cursor to the dot you want to go and Naruto begins walking. Every now and then you hit a random encounter, the encounters always being the same enemies, who you have to dispose of. The fighting is much more simalar to an action game, no turn based stuff here, and you can't run away. Although these battles are fiarly easy, over time they will drain your health. Even worse is that on certain missions, you finally get to the place you found to find, in an unskippable cut scene, that you need to find another place. The most annoying part of that is the cut scene, you can't skip them at all! ALL game developers need to realize that not everyone is going to want to wait through a cut scene, ESPECIALLY if they've allready been through it.

Worse yet is that Naruto hogs the spotlight. You play primarely as him. Eventually you get others characters in your party such as Neji, Sasuke, Chouji and shikamaru, but you only get to play as them for a very short while, not even 30 seconds. What a bunch of garbage. I want to play as Neji and Sasuke for awhile, but no, I have to play as Naruto throughout. Imagine FFVII if you could only play as Cloud, with the other characters only getting weak 15 seconds intervals. Also the difficulty curve is ridicolous. The first mission is short and easy, and is followed by a much harder and longer mission with no save points, so if I die, I start all over. The game makers weren't smart enough to make it challenging and fun, only ridicolously challenging.