The visuals, while still in a cel shaded manner, look as close to playing the series live in your living room as we've seen to this point thanks to the power of HD. The presentation and visual style is much like the show itself. The backdrops, while simple, are colorful and vibrant enough not to distract the star of the show, the characters.

Each cast member of the show is fully recreated in a 3D, cel shaded, polygonal form, yet move and animate as smoothly as if they were hand drawn. Even more impressive is the transition between moves are seamless, which helps the believability of questioning whether you are playing a game or watching the show. Even the specialty moves have to be seen to be believed. I would not consider myself a fan at all, yet I found myself mesmerized with the amount of not only detail, but over the top imagination some of these moves presented.

No longer are you confined to a flat surface as each battlefield is robust, multi tired, and huge. Speaking of huge, there is also a massive overworld you may explore between fights based off Naruto's home town. Here you will find unlockables from art work to characters, so it is indeed worth you time to explore here as well. For a game that has a long install, roughly 10 minutes, the load times are still far too long between battles, which is really my only gripe in an otherwise stellar presentation.

The voice work, score, and sound effects are taken directly from the show. Fans of the popular show will be happy to see the game didn't just cash in on the name as this is as an authentic experience as you can get when recreating a show into a video game.

I would be lying if I were to say that Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is as deep or complex as say Virtua Fighter, Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter. I also think, while the game is truly accessible to all skill levels, which is also part of its charm as you won't have to endure failed combo moves to see the final result disintegrate due to a failed button press. This is not to say there isn't a good amount of strategy involved to make battles interesting and competitive, but veteran fighting fanatics may scoff at the fact that hitting the circle button numerous times pulls off a big finishing maneuver.

The mission mode will give you something to do between battles as you will take on 100 missions that take place during the events of the TV series. You will also encounter large and interesting bosses throughout to make the experience more visceral.

I mentioned before that I'm not even a fan of the show, and to be honest haven't watched anime since the days of Ninja Scroll, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what the team at Cyber Connect 2 has brought to the table. This is truly a love letter to fans and the best version of the Naruto series to date. Fans should not miss out, even if it means upgrading to the PlayStation 3 if you haven't already.