Developer: Soleil
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Tested on: Xbox One
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker – Review
After the series of Naruto ended, people suspected that Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 would be the last game dedicated to the Naruto-universe. Not long after the introduction and start of the new series about Boruto, Naruto’s son, the Japanese magazine Weekly Jump had revealed that a new game was coming called Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. The name already implied that it would be a mix of the Naruto and Boruto storylines. Later it was known that this new game would be more focused to online gaming, while the older games were mostly single player games with the functionality to play 1v1 online battles.
Story
Every true fan of the Naruto anime series knows everything that has happened inside the Naruto universe. Like many former Naruto games, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker will also show parts of the story of the anime series. You will take part in many epic battles from the series by playing missions at the VR Ninjutsu Arena.
In Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, you get to create your own Shinobi with all the characteristics you like from the series. Combine the styles of the famous characters of the Naruto universe and make your own unique combo. You can also copy the looks of one of the ninjas in the series.
Graphics
The graphics of the Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker are very good and all the characters look just like how they look in the series. That’s the ease of a game based on an anime series. All the Ninjutsu look great as well when used. The terrain and buildings are exact copies of the ones you see in the series, plus you can walk and climb on them as much as you want.
One downside with the graphics is that the color of the outfits everyone wears looks a bit strange. The clothes look like they’re all stained with darker and lighter spots on one surface. This could have been done a lot better. The colors used for hairstyles are way too bright, even brighter than in the anime series.
The places where you fight your battles are all well-known areas from the Naruto anime series and they look just like the original.
Sound
The sound in this game has a typical Naruto-style. Some tracks have been used in previous Naruto games. This definitely suits the setting of the game. The voice-acting is done by the original actors of the anime series so every characters feels authentic. The intro movie is standardly played in the English language while the most fans are used to the Japanese version. In the game settings, you can set the language to English or Japanese. Subtitles will provide a translation, just like in the series.
Gameplay
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is an action fighting game that can be played both online and offline. Traditionally, Naruto-games have always been 1v1-fighter games and they have always done well with this. The gameplay was smooth and all the cinematic battles were executed like you were watching an episode of the original series.
Now with Shinobi striker, Bandai tries to get in on the competitive online action with 4v4 online battles by combining online and offline play to keep pleasing the casual gamer while also focusing on the competitive online market. Unfortunately this hasn’t been quite a success as you will notice that many flaws still exist inside the game and sometimes you just need to play online to clear certain missions.
The fighting in Shinobi Striker is pretty good. It’s pretty easy to learn, no difficult combinations and such but you need to time your attacks well or enemies will blow you away while executing your attacks and special techniques called Jutsus. Especially Jutsus are a bit harder to execute because they take a short time to be activated and when you’re attacked while casting your Jutsu, it will fail. So practice is needed to perfect your own combat style.
When you first start the game, you get to create your own ninja to fight with. You can customize this ninja with many different options. After you create your character, you get to pick your Master. These Masters are the popular characters form the Naruto-series. When you choose your Master, you will learn their techniques over time. That way you can specialize your fighting style to the character from the series you loved most. These Masters will also stand by your side in missions.
Then, when you’ve chosen your master, you can freely enter the VR Ninjutsu Arena and the Hokage’s estate to play missions and take part in PvP battles online. At the Hokage’s estate, events will determine seasons for Ranked PvP battles.
Before battles and while respawning, you can choose between four fighting classes. These are: Attack, Defense, Ranged and Healing. All these classes have their own specific Jutsus and these are divided among the four classes available. This also means that some techniques can’t be used while playing a specific class resulting in the fact that you can’t combine moves from other classes.
In the VR Ninjutsu Arena, you can take on missions alone or with others online. The first few missions are easily cleared with no help from others online. After completing some missions, we noticed that some missions are too hard to complete while you’re alone. For example, in one of the first missions where you need to defend the village wall, waves of enemies will spawn to destroy the village’s wall. You need to defend it by killing them before they get the chance to destroy it. These waves are too big for one person to handle, certainly in the beginning when you’re still on a low character level. These missions require you to get help from others online but it can take a long while before your party will be full. Having friends to play with makes it a lot easier.
When we entered a PvP battle for the first time on the day of release, we immediately noticed that we were overclassed by people who had already attained level 80 in 12 hours time. We also noticed that leveling your character will be a time-robbing task so it was obvious people had means to cheat their way to high levels in a short time.
Completing missions and winning PvP battles will give you scrolls. These scrolls are divided in 5 ranks: Plain, Quality, Valuable, Esoteric and Kakashi scrolls, with plain scrolls being the most common one and kakashi scrolls the most rare. These scrolls will give you collectibles like outfits and weapons which you can then use to fit on your character, further personalizing your character as you wish.
Conclusion
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker can be a fun game to play for fans and newcomers to the game series. Loading times can be annoying because it takes a while before loading everything, from starting the game to entering a mission or a PvP fight. Grinding to high levels is needed to take part in the competitive fights or you’ll be massacred by your higher leveled opponents. This game appears to be more focused on online functionality than we initially thought. Sometimes it proves that online co-op is needed to advance in the missions. Depending on your co-players it will be easy or a hard task. If you like this way of playing, this game can be really interesting but if you’re not really into the online fighting genre, even when you’re a fan of the series, this might not be the game for you.
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker - Review,
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