Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja 4

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

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 plotline 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 you 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 cutscenes.

Story Mode
During Naruto's journeys 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 Jutsu: 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.

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 Shippuden storyline, isn't playable in Battle Mode.
 * There is a japanese Plus version with new music.