Considering Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes is the Ultimate Ninja's first stint onto the PSP, it doesn't do that bad a job at all. Visually, it follows the console versions pretty closely. One of the line's biggest differences, when compared to other Naruto games, are the multi-level fighting arenas. In each area, you can jump from a background plane to a foreground plane which adds an interesting level of depth to the game. Well, Heroes has that as well; unfortunately, the one downfall to this style is readily apparent on the PSP. Basically, if one fighter is on the foreground and the other is on the background, then the camera pulls back so that you can see both fighters. While this isn't all that bad on a TV, the PSP's smaller screen makes it really hard to see what either player is doing. So while the locations look great (just like their PS2 counterparts) and the characters translate to the PSP really well, this one mechanic makes aspects of the game's visuals a bit of a hassle.

Sound is about on par with the other games from this license. The voices used are those from the show, while the high-energy music and sound effects really help to get your blood pumping while in a fight.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes offers quite a few options of gameplay. The main mode, Heroes Mode, is basically the game's story. While it doesn't strictly follow the events of the series, it basically takes you to just before the Chunin finals and through the destruction of the Hidden Leaf Village. This mode is very different from the console version's Ultimate Road. Here, you will chose a team of three characters (you can choose preset teams or make a custom team) and take part in a series of fights in an endurance or survival fashion. Each fight starts off with you choosing the order that you want to use your characters in. If your current fighter is defeated, the match restarts with the next person in your queue. Whoever wins the fight gets a little bit of their health back (including the opponent if they win) and once you clear a stage, all of the characters on your team gain some health and chakra. So this means that even if you have two of your characters defeated in a battle and your last fighter is all but gone, beating the stage will give them all some health and give you a sporting chance.

Teams and characters also have abilities that you can use before the fights start. These are modifiers you can use to help even the playing field. Some moves can be used on your team (like health, chakra, attack or speed increases) and others can be used on your opponents (basically the same modifiers, just decreases instead increases). Also, some moves can be used on an entire team and others are for individuals. You are given a pool of moves to use throughout the entire series of battles so you will want to ration them out accordingly.

Once you have completed a story-arc with a team, you will unlock the next arc (and difficulty level), be awarded points and collectables and get to try the same matches with a different team or go on to the next set of stages.

Promotion Test lets you take characters into a series of missions (which are unlocked by completing various modes in Heroes Mode) and increasing your rank. You will graduate from a Genin, to Chunin, Junin and eventually Ambu Black Ops. With each rank, the missions you will need to complete in order to graduate to the next level don't necessarily get more difficult, just more numerous. You just need to finish three missions in order to move from the Academy Student to Genin and four missions to go to Chunin. But along with an increase in rank, you will be able to participate in certain ranked missions. All of these battles (both in Promotion Test and Heroes Mode) let you earn points that can be used to modify characters' skills in the Parameter Power-Up Menu Option.

VS CPU Mode and Wireless Mode are both one-on-one matches, just one is against A.I. and the other is against a real opponent (over the internet). In Wireless Mode, you can also trade profiles with players that are in the Waiting Room or start a game sharing session with someone standing next to you who doesn't have a copy of Ultimate Ninja Heroes.

Naruto's House is where you will go to view all of the videos, images and songs that you unlock by playing Hero mode. This feature is carried over from the other two Ultimate Ninja games.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes's Heroes Mode has several difficulty settings that must be unlocked by beating the mode on the previous difficulty level (i.e. in order to unlock Medium, you need to finish Easy). The differences between the various levels are determined by the number of fights that your team will have to go through and a noticeable increase in your opponent's skills. I found that I was able to go through most of the Easy setting without losing any lives, while I had to use pretty much all three of my team members for most of the battles in the Medium setting.

Granted, this increase in difficulty can be countered by using the points you earn in your various fights to increase your different characters' skills via the game's Parameter Power-Up option, so even the toughest battles are winnable since even losing fights grant you some points.

It is in the fights where most of the control differences between Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes and its PS2 cousins are most noticeable. The main difference is when you execute your Jutsus. In the console versions of Ultimate Ninja, when you successfully start a Special Jutsu, you then have to enter a string of face-buttons in order to maximize your damage; meanwhile, your opponent has an opportunity (by entering a separate set of buttons) to reduce the damage. These attacks also come in several stages, so if you successfully tap the buttons to finish that attack, you are given a chance to further your damage with another attack. In Heroes though, this chance to do critical damage and/or multiple attacks isn't present. If you land your move, the game goes into a cut-scene of your character performing the attack against your opponent and then the fight resumes. I'm not sure if this change was made in order to make the matches quicker or the size of the game smaller, but either way it isn't a big enough difference to really take away from the game.

In the end, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes is geared towards fans of the anime series who is either already familiar with the Ultimate Ninja line, or those fans that just really need Naruto for their road trips. Though the game doesn't have any kind of training, the list of commands in the menu during fights should be enough for a dedicated player to get the hang of the game. That being said, there isn't anything about Ultimate Ninja Heroes that tries to draw anyone new to the license, but that's not really its purpose.