Honestly, this game is nothing but blah.
Gameplay: Seriously the worst aspect of this game. For one, this game is SLOOOOOOOOWWW. and by slow, I mean SLOW. There's a small delay time for each attack. and even though this delay is fairly minor, any delay at all in a fighting game simply isn't right. The control is clumsy, and as much as you pound B over and over again, the characters are as slow as ever. playing this game is comparable to telling an old turtle, who's about to die in 2 days, to win a race with a bunch of other near-death turtles. As much as you keep cheering "GO TURTLE, GO TURTLE!" the turtle will still go as slow as ever. I mean, c'mon, these are NINJAS for crying out loud. arent they, like, supposed to be fast? so why do they move at a snails pace?
plus, there are also some other problems. like, why doesn't gaara use his sand? what happened to temari's fan? why does neji's special look more like he's molesting his opponent, rather than fighting him? Graphics: I've seen better graphics from toilet cubicles. no, seriously, if you just bang a bunch of toilet cubicles against a 3d modeling program, even that would look better than this. I mean, c'mon. Super mario 64 DS showed that you can pull off good graphics with the DS. why not this? Okay, I'll admit, some of the character models look pretty good, but outside of that, everything is crap. The backgrounds are completely in 2d, and the special effects look rushed. As I said before, why does neji look like he's molesting his opponent? Why does kakashi's lightning blade attack look so....stupid?
Sound: Imagine this: take a bunch of ear-exploding GBA quality music and make the characters say thier recycled phrases from GNT, but scrunched up to GBA quality. painful, no? still, props for trying.
Overall: This game is just made of pure BAD. yeah, the game might be fun for the first hour, but after playing the super-short story mode and even shorter arcade mode, thus unlocking the the entire, yet very limited, roster of characters in this game, even though I wouldn't even have the patience, but I did it anyway, cause it's just that darn short, then you cant help but to feel as if you've been ripped off for such a promising game. I mean, c'mon! GNT! On the DS!? How can this game NOT be awesome?! Well, it turned out that takaratomy had to disappoint, and give us this. boo.
So basically, if you're looking for a good naruto game on the DS, go buy naruto: SND4, and if you're looking for a good anime fighting game, go get bleach DS or jump ultimate stars. Stay away from this one. and, yes, I expect a bunch of people who say "No" to the helpfulness of this review, but this is simply my opinion on this game.
~tirkaro.