Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja 4

Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja 4, known in Japan as, is the fourth instalment in the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, and the first in the Accel game series.

Gameplay
In addition to elements that were established in previous Ultimate Ninja games, Ultimate Ninja 4 offers several new aspects to combat. When two opponents clash, they will begin a series of high-speed attacks, appearing as a pair of blurs flashing across the stage. The winner is determined by a game similar to that of Rock, Paper, Scissors. There is also the addition of "Awakening Jutsu". When certain conditions are met, a character may trigger their Awakening Jutsu. These techniques are more powerful than the standard Ultimate Jutsu and, as the name implies, "awakens" a character's powers (i.e. Naruto's tailed fox form, after which he is surrounded by the fox's red chakra).

The game features a "Master Mode", an RPG-like mode that takes place before the storyline of Naruto: Shippūden. In this mode, players are able to experience the main Shippūden story, but before that they must complete an original storyline called The Black Shadow. The storyline is fairly long, and at the end of it they have to defeat the Black Shadow himself to move onto the main Shippūden storyline. The Shippūden plot line in this game ends halfway through the Kazekage Rescue Arc (approximately up to Episode 17 of the Shippūden anime), after which it moves onto a free mode where the player can complete various missions and tasks, and can also look for tokens called Pieces of Memory, which are needed to unlock Hero Mode fights and cut-scenes.

Story Mode
During Naruto's journey with Jiraiya (somewhere after he developed the Giant Rasengan), Naruto proceeded with his training and was given prayer beads which he put around his arms and legs and is put through Jiraiya's Sealing Technique: Four Limbs Weighting Seal, making the beads really heavy, forcing Naruto to carry the beads until they glow red and Jiraiya takes them off, effectively making Naruto exponentially more powerful.

They then make their way to Tree Felling Village, where they have a cave where it's possible to mine for high-quality crystals. Naruto and Jiraiya then discover several villagers gathered around the cave, including their mayor. A young woman, who lives close to the village, appears and explains that the villagers have gathered for a ritual, a human sacrifice. Jiraiya then explains that it's in fact a ceremony to offer human sacrifices to the demon living in the mountains around the village. The human sacrifice for the ceremony is a little girl called Aoi. Progressing into the cave, Naruto gets stopped by an unknown creature; claiming to be Black Shadow. The creature seals Naruto's path with a crystal wall. Naruto tries to break it with his Rasengan but fails. Meanwhile, the beads start to grow red and Naruto leaves the cave to find Jiraiya to get the beads off. Jiraiya asks Naruto to find the lady they met earlier, before he can take off the beads. Naruto manages to get the information from the village Mayor and, in the Forest of Delusion, he find the woman and Jiraiya appears and points out that the woman was Aoi's mother. It is then revealed that the main ambition of Aoi was to bring back the leaves of the Tree of Life; capable of curing even incurable diseases; to cure her sick mother from an incurable disease. After the talk with Aoi's mother, Jiraiya takes the beads off from Naruto and Aoi's mother's condition gets worsen, while she gives a pendant to Naruto to give it to Aoi; saying that it will protect Aoi. Naruto then leaves to save Aoi. Naruto reaches the gates of the cave and remembers Sasuke. His Rasengan becomes stronger and he breaks the crystal wall blocking his path. Naruto reaches further inside the cave and find Aoi there. Naruto gives her the pendant and asks her why was she doing it. Aoi then starts crying; saying, "I can't just sit back and watch my mother die". She proceeds while crying, "I lost my father, but I didn't want to lose my mother. I love her, I lover her with my whole heart." On hearing this Naruto asks Aoi to stay there, while he will fight with the Black Shadow. Naruto leaves and enters the final area of the cave. There he fights with Black Shadow, but soon finds out that he was invulnerable. Naruto gets cornered, while Black Shadow comes near him to finish him off. Suddenly, Aoi comes in and throws a stone at Black Shadow, distracting him. Aoi then says that she wants to fight with Naruto. Then Black Shadow looks at Aoi, and says, "the sacrifice" and heads towards Aoi to finish her. Naruto blocks Black Shadow's attack and saves Aoi. The pendant Aoi got from Naruto; indirectly from her mother; breaks and some petals fall out. Black Shadow then gets uncomfortable from he fragrance of the petals. Naruto then remembers the words from Jiraiya, and other villagers, "Black Shadow can't stand the smell of the flowers that grew near the Tree of Life". Naruto finds this as his last opportunity to defeat Black Shadow and release his chakra, and goes to his Nine-Tails form and defeats Black Shadow. He then wakes up in an unknown house. He leaves the house and sees Jiraiya standing outside, who tells him that he had been sleeping for two weeks. Naruto totally forgets about Aoi and quickly leaves the place and heads for the Forest of Delusion. There he looks at Aoi and her mother; to whom he thinks is a ghost. After a warm talk, Naruto and Jiraiya leave, while Aoi asks Naruto to come back again, to which Naruto smiles.

Playable Characters
Some characters may or may not be available in both pre- and post-timeskip outfits. Parenthesis indicate a character's Awakening Mode(s).

Game-Only Characters

 * is the first boss in Master Mode, and is a giant wolf-like monster with five eyes, two snouts and six legs. It only talks in Katakana in the Japanese version.
 * , a young girl. In order to heal her terminally ill mother, Aoi becomes a human sacrifice to the Black Shadow, but actually went to kill the demon so that she could retrieve a leaf from the Tree of Life that would be able to heal her mother.
 * , Aoi's mother. She was dying of an incurable illness before Naruto and her daughter, Aoi, saved her by obtaining a leaf from the Tree of Life.

Trivia

 * For some reason, the Naruto playable in Master Mode before the main Shippūden storyline, isn't playable in Battle Mode.
 * There is a Japanese Plus version with new music.
 * To get 100 000 ryō, the player should have a saved file of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3.
 * This is the first game where Chiyo doesn't have puppets.
 * The Shippūden version of Sasuke is not playable or even seen in the story mode and throughout the game.
 * After a certain mission, the Tree Felling Village changes to Tree Revival Village.
 * Oddly, after the main storyline ends in Master Mode, Gaara never appears again but Chiyo does. According to manga and anime, Chiyo sacrifices herself to revive Gaara, and therefore shouldn't be alive, whereas Gaara should.