Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja 4

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File:HCUNR.jpg

The Japanese Cover

File:UN4eng.jpg

The English cover

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 4, known in Japan as Naruto Shippūden: Narutimate Accel (NARUTO-ナルト-疾風伝ナルティメットマクセル, Naruto Shippūden: Narutimetto Akuseru), is the fourth installment in the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (Narutimate Hero) series, and the first in the Accel game series. The game was released on April 5, 2007 in Japan and on March 24, 2009 in North America for the Playstation 2. It was released on May 1, 2009 in Europe and May 7 in Australia.

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).

Game modes

Master Mode

A 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 Rescue Gaara arc (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's videos and fights.

Hero Mode

The player needs to unlock the stories in Master Mode to play through this mode. It's a resumé of the Naruto storyline arcs in Part 1, with some animations and fights.

Free Battle: Normal fighting game.
Practice: A mode where characters' different moves and jutsus can be practiced.
Shop: The player can buy figurines, special videos of characters' jutsus, voice clips and music to view and listen to in Collection Mode, as well as different characters (guide ninjas) to appear in the main menu. There is no Ninja Info Cards in this game.
Collection: The player can watch sequences from the game as well as items bought in the Shop.
Options: Game options and configuration.

Characters

Playable characters

Some characters are playable in both their pre- and post-timeskip forms. All characters have one or more different forms, such as cursed seals, that can be activated when special conditions are met.

Game-only characters

Black Shadow (影法師, Kagebōshi) 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.
Aoi (あおい), 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.
Tsubaki (椿), 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.