Well, it's here. The second in the Naruto: Ultimate ninja series, Known as Narumite hero in japan, has finally hit american shelves.

To put it simply, this is a game that falls somewhere between the old school Street fighter or Marvel vs capcom games, and Smash brothers.

Anyone familiar with the series knows already what to expect out of it. Extreme combat, manic, frenetic action, and some of the craziest finishing moves ever seen.

The game play is one on one, in large, multi tiered areas that can be switch by actions during the battles. Each character has different strengths, but all have similiar moves and technique.

What sets Ultimate ninja apart is it's faithfulness to the anime it's based on. The character all have a rich, impressive cell shaded look over the 3d bodies, and the american voice work has been much improved over it's previous version. Naruto has dropped the annoying "Belive it" that was used to replace "Datebayo" from the Japanese version. Other voices, such as Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, Itachi Uchiha, and Might Guy, fit there characters very well. Itachi sounds both brooding and sinister while guy is boisterous, energetic, and at times Hilarious.

The games modes are a bit short this time, a larger story mode has been built but it's still little more then a wrapper for various matchs and mini games. Theres almost a dozen mini games.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the Ultimate ninja Series has been and always will be the characters various finishing moves. In this one, all the characters have a variety of finishers, divided by Levels. Those characters who don't have them, and admittedly, theres a few, instead can amplify there power to do more damage instead.

As an example of the amazing finishers, Might Guy, a Hand to Hand specialist, does a move called "My Own Rules", In which he blast an opponent into the air, stating that if he can't hit them 100 times before they reach the ground, he'll do 200 push ups. As he states, he only gets 99, and begins doing push ups before the fight resumes. These moves are almost always directly taken from events of the show, or are expandsions on moves and abilites characters have, such as rock lee, one of Guys students, using a move that, while he certianly could learn it, was never actually seen in the show, but looked awesome regardless.

So, if your a naruto fan and like action heavy fighters with incredible moves and finishers, then Naruto Ultimate ninja 2 might be for you. However, if you can play imports, get the 3rd game instead.

It's called Narumite hero 3.