After five games, the new Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series started, which finally put players in the third-person view.
Naruto, while being a lot younger than Dragon Ball, also started things with a 2.5D series of fighting games called the Ultimate Ninja series. Dragon Ball Z, of course, kicked things off with the Budokai Tenkaichi series that featured over-the-shoulder 3D battles where players could fly and shoot energy beams in any direction they pleased. The emergence of 3D fighting games made the transition from page to screen a lot smoother, and truly allowed fans to recreate the fights from their favourite franchises. After the fighting game boom of the ‘90s, it was only natural that popular manga would follow suit, though these early 2D entries often saw mixed results when it came to fan reception. Shonen manga and fighting games go hand-in-hand, and complement each other thanks to the vast amount of fights and fighters.