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Also included this time around in a cover system, which allows players to duck behind - or with a little practice, vault off of or over - on-screen objects. It's a small addition, but again, teaming that with all the other nuances of the core engine will result in a hell of a lot of diversity within the game.

Since this is more of a brief multiplayer update we're going to leave our impressions at that. We've had a chance to play with nearly every character in the game thus far though, and you can look forward to a more in-depth full hands-on with the game in the coming weeks. Even though details are still pretty scarce we can tell you with confidence that Clash of Ninja Revolution is already shaping up to be a better fighter than its US predecessors, and is Wii's best fighter hands-down.

Clash of Ninja Revolution also has a pretty deep amount of modes this year, including many that you'll remember from GameCube, and a few new ones as well. You've got the classic arcade mode, time trial, survival mode, and story mode, as well as two and four player bouts, and the ability to do free-for-all, team, or even 3-on-1 (which we've shown in the video above; brutal). In addition you've also got two player arcade mode now, which is a level-by-level 2-on-2 bout against teams of CPU fighters, and Wii-enhanced mini-games including quick gesture-based games and an IR arcade shooter clone that has you throwing shuriken at plywood cutouts. It isn't an astonishingly big change over last year, but it's still a pretty solid offering, and for fans of the story mode this year's is a bit more in-depth, including an up-front tutorial mode and new characters from the show. Not bad.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution isn’t a huge improvement over its GameCube predecessors, but it is still a better overall package, and for that we can’t fault it. For fans that have been with the series since the beginning Revolution may be a bit too familiar overall, as you’ve got many of the same levels, characters, and modes, but more in each category to tide you over until a full upgrade is made. Make no mistake about it though; Clash of Ninja Revolution is the real deal, and that doesn’t pertain to just anime (or franchise) fans.

Truth be told we aren’t Naruto fans outside of the Clash of Ninja series, but there’s no denying a great game, especially when its at the top of its class on any given system. Simply put, Clash of Ninja Revolution is Wii’s best fighting game, and with no worthy contenders on the horizon – and Smash moved to early 2008 – this one will be holding that title for a long while. Revolution brings more fighters, more depth, tons of available control options, and a core fighting engine that has now seen years of optimization. It’s fast, brutal, and extremely deep in the characters and control styles available to players. Whether you’re a fan of the anime or not doesn’t really matter. Clash of Ninja Revolution is the best in its series, and hands-down the top fighter on Wii this year. We say it every year with this franchise, but the bar has just been raised yet again.