The DS has long been the handheld of choice for anyone that's ever wanted to raise and take care of a fake dog or grow their brain from its puny human status. While that may be enough for those who just want pets without the hassle of buying pet food or watching where they step, and those who don't mind having to buy their hats in increasingly larger sizes, a whole lot of gamers have felt no love from Nintendo's toy.

Fans of fighting games have had little to chew on in the DS era. The system didn't get its first decent fighter until last fall with the release of Bleach: The Blade of Fate. Now, the DS is boldly stepping into the 21st century with the release of Tomy's and Dream Factory's Naruto: Ninja Destiny -- the first 3-D fighter for the handheld. The game does a few things right, but -- more than anything else -- it just whets the appetite for what's to come.

Think about evolution. Yeah, it was cool to finally be able to breathe out of water, and it was a kick to be able to wrap our hands around sticks and tools with an opposable thumb. When all is said and done, though, the true measure of real evolution as a species is the ability to do one's virtual fighting in a true three-dimensional environment.

It's always cool when you gain another dimension in which to play. Sadly, in Ninja Destiny, the addition of that bonus dimension comes at a price. Due to a less-than-wonderful controller setup, your abilities when you step into battle become somewhat restricted. Whereas Bleach let you use the d-pad to modify and put together combos, here, with the directional pad used for player movement, the majority of your fighting is done using just the B and Y buttons. To show you how limiting that is, I'm going to write the next sentence using only the B and Y keys. Byyy bbb bybyby bbbyb yyybby. Not only doesn't that sentence make any sense, it wasn't even very fun to write. That same lack of sense and lack of fun haunt a lot of the battling in Ninja Destiny.

Where the game redeems itself somewhat -- and does its best at tying in with the anime series -- is with jutsu moves that you can pull off when your chakra meter is full. Fans of the series will dig the ability to square off as any of 16 characters that can eventually be unlocked. While the individual fighting styles of the characters closely reflect the same strengths and weaknesses -- speed versus power, for example -- of their TV show counterparts, it's their special jutsu moves that'll make you want to take a spin with every character.

Hitting the A button with a full chakra meter will unleash a power move that -- depending on the character -- can wipe out up to half of an opponent's health. It's a calculated risk. When the move hits, it can really turn the tide of a battle, but more often then not, the move won't happen and a giant chunk of your chakra meter gets depleted. When you're not trying to hit a ninja-esque home run with your prime jutsu move, you can also do a substitution jutsu by hitting the left shoulder button. Here, in exchange for some chakra power, you transport from being in front of your enemy to being in back of him. Early on, you'll be able to overly exploit this: You'll think you've stumbled on a bug that lets you jump in back of your foe, pummel him in the back of the head and then jump in back of him again when he finally turns to face you. Deeper into the game -- and at the harder difficulty level -- this won't work.

What separates this fighter from the GameCube's Naruto-based Clash of Ninja games is the use of the second screen. Here, just like in Bleach, it's used to call up wild cards. These are power-ups that influence the way your chosen Ninja gets his or her stuff done. Power-ups can do anything from restore your health and chakra meters to bolster your attack and defense skills. While the power-ups do add a bit of strategy to the fighting, the arbitrary nature of how they show up doesn't make the best use of them. At the beginning of each battle, you get six random power-ups with which to play. In Bleach, increasingly cooler power-up cards are won during gameplay. Constructing decks of your best cards is a way to make sure you can use the best power-ups during battle. This collecting and constructing element adds a depth that's just lacking in Ninja Destiny.

Another thing that's lacking is a decent variety of things to do. This is one short game. It will take you all of 20 minutes to blow through the initial Story Mode. The Story -- which is little more than short narrative scenes that pop up between scrapes -- is comprised of 10 fights. You'll fight as Naruto. You'll fight as Sasuke. You'll fight against Naruto. You'll fight against Sasuke. Once you beat the Story Mode, you'll want to hit the Battle Mode, where you can either go up against the opponent of your choice or you can pick one fighter and try to make it through 10 straight fights. Wirelessly, you can take on a pal. Some tweaks on the basic fighting game -- different fight modes, the ability to customize characters -- would have added a lot of replay value.

Naruto games have been hitting the shelves at rate of roughly one every 11 days. At last count there were almost a dozen and a half ways for gamers to virtually control their chakra power. While the annoying-voiced ninja has represented himself well on the big consoles -- I thought Rise of a Ninja for the Xbox 360 was especially cool -- handheld takes on the Naruto world have been less successful. Ninja Destiny bags the quasi-fighter feel of the Ninja Council games and the RPG qualities of Path of the Ninja to deliver fighting action -- complete with a z-axis. The fighting is promising, but still feels somewhat incomplete. That said, it does show that 3-D fighting is doable on the DS. Ninja Destiny isn't the ultimate way to be scraping in three dimensions, but right now it's the only way to do it on Nintendo's handheld. For that alone, it's worth a look.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game supplied by the publisher.