With the inexplicable popularity of the Naruto cartoon series, there has come a slew of games just as hard to keep track of as the numerous other anime imports. So be forewarned, if you can’t tell your dragon balls from your Airbenders, or Naruto from Inuyasha you aren’t going to be able to connect with the story behind this game. In fact, I honestly can’t see any Westerner being able to make sense of the endless dialog in this title as the characters drone on about “8 Trigrams Palm Rotation” and Hidden Leaf Village.

It’s so bad that it brings on an awkward contentment with the state of sound in Ninja Destiny. Very little of the dialogue is voiced, but when it is, it uses the talent from the cartoon. Beyond that, everything is completely unremarkable with all the characters making the requisite grunts and shouts during matches and Japanese music droning on in the background. But to dismiss the game on these elements alone would be a mistake and leave you without having experienced one of the better fighters available on Nintendo’s DS.

Ninja Destiny compensates for a lot of its flaws with a fighting system that can work in the hands of a novice button masher just as well as a more strategic player wanting to work complex combos into his dance. Further, elements like timing, character choice, and use of the game’s 2.5-D setting will also give more detail-oriented players a lot to practice with. But the most appealing element to any player will most likely be the power-ups system. This is the only aspect that takes advantage of the DS’ unique touch screen capabilities, but it does so perfectly. Six power-ups are randomly assigned before each fight and are accessible by six areas on the screen that essentially become buttons and are easily hit by either the left or right thumb during a match. Power-ups consist of boosts to health, chakra, and shuriken, as well as defense against opponent knockdowns, etc. Real strategy comes into play when you realize that all six power-ups have to last through as many rounds as your fight lasts.

In addition to the power-ups, each character has 1 or more super attacks. During the normal course of a fight, the frame rate is very respectable, and animations and character graphics look very good for a DS game. When you initiate side steps to dodge attacks, you see that the game does an impressive job of rendering the fights in 2.5-D. The real eye candy comes when you initiate those super powers and the camera zooms out to various angles and distances to show off the full 3-D power of the game’s engine. The quality of the visual effects showing lightning, wind, and other forces are surprising to see on the little handheld.