Developer: CyberConnect2
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
Platforms: Pc, PS3, Xbox 360
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution – Review
Bandai Namco has released this year’s annual release for the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games, namely Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm. This game features a couple of themes that weren’t present in the previous games, namely an original Ninja Tournament organized to find out who is in fact the strongest ninja of them all. So sharpen up your senses in this new adventures with new scenarios and fight your way to the top!
Story
This installment in the Naruto games features a couple of unique story lines that are exclusive for this particular game. Firstly you have the Ninja Escapades mode, in which you go through a series of battles and/or animated videos. There are a total of 3 events that you can go through, 2 being playable and 1 being an Original Video Animation. The two playable are called “Creation of the Akatsuki” and “The Two Uchiha” . The other one is called “The Far Reaches of Hope”.
The “Creation of the Akatsuki” tells the story of the recruiting of the 10 Akatsuki members to the group. Madara (?) commands Nagato to go in search for specific S class rogue ninja and invite them to join the group. You’ll be playing against all the characters that you recognize from the animated series. The second playable Escapade tells the story of the two Uchiha friends Itachi and Shisui and their attempt to prevent the coup that their clan is preparing upon the Hidden Village of the Leaf. Seeing no other option than sacrificing his Mangekyou Sharingan (awakened sharingan), Shisui has to battle against Danzo, who thinks that the offering of the mangekyou sharingan for a simple coup is a waste and tries to take Shisui’s eye away. Shisui, who lost an eye offers his other eye to Itachi and kills himself so that Itachi can gain his own Mangekyou Sharingan.
The last Escapade is not playable, but tells the story of the relationship between the fourth hokage’s wife Kushina and Obito, in which Kushina hopes that her own son would become a bright and optimistic child just like Obito.
The second great mode, Ninja Tournament Mode, offers the players a unique story mode that they can unlock once they beat the D rank tournament. When unlocked, the player will meet an exclusive new character, never before seen: Mecha Naruto. In the story, Hinata and Naruto go on a quest together to the island where the Ninja Tournament is held. After they finish the mission, they go back to their village, but encounter some kind of strange mechanical junk lying on the beach of the island. When Naruto touches it, the robot comes to life and claims that he is Naruto. The two don’t get along too well, when they notice that Mecha Naruto has lost some of its memories. Hinata thinks it would be a good idea to enter the tournament, as the reward for the winner of the tournament is a gem that looks just like the gem that Mecha Naruto is carrying. And thus the decision is made that, since only two persons can be on a team, that both Naruto and Mecha Naruto will be participating in the tournament.
While the game does feature some unique storylines never seen before, they are way too short to fully enjoy. A little more depth to those storylines would’ve been nice, but the fact that the Ninja Escapades are fully animated just like in the anime, does make it very interesting and fun to watch.
Graphics
One of the good qualities of this game is that the graphics are really good. The game is fully cell-shaded, which goes very well with the anime characters. Aside from the cell-shading, you’ll have occasional animated cut scenes, which are also done very well and are certainly a gem to look at.
Sound
The sound in this game is very similar to that of the previous installments. The music fits the theme of Naruto very good and feels just like in the anime. Both English and Japanese voices are available, so you can choose which one you like best.
Gameplay
Naruto is a 3-dimensional fighting game that implements an adventure mode to its story mode including some collection options. The game features a total of 4 modes, namely “Ninja Escapades”; “Free Battle”; “Ninja World Tournament” and “Online Battle”. You get a wide choice of characters that you’ll need to unlock. Unlocking these isn’t really difficult, just play though the scenarios or the other modes and you’ll have most of them. There are in total 100 playable characters, including new characters and transformations.
The fact that makes this game different from other fighters, is the fact that you are able to move freely around a battlefield during a match. You have a couple of basic options you can do: connecting combo’s, making use of all kinds of items, using “Jutsu’ (which are similar to special attacks), jumping and moving. Each character has their own unique move set, some are very different as they have unique features. Each character also has an Ultimate Jutsu that they can do, which are just bigger and more impressive “Jutsu”. You can connect all of these things together, like dashing when making a combo to reset your combo and keep on repeating your attacks. You are also able to use “Substitution Jutsu”, which allows you to escape a combo and teleport behind the opponent. You cannot use these infinitely though, as you have a gauge that fills up to 4 times. These fill up after a certain amount of time or when you take damage. You can also choose for team battles, which allow you to put together a team of characters, one main and two supports. These supports can be used multiple times in a match, and will refill after an amount of time.
Aside from the Ultimate Jutsu, each character can choose between 3 types of playing styles, namely: Drive, Awakening and Ultimate Jutsu Battle Type.
These different playing styles is what makes this game a little more different from the previous games. The “Dive” Battle Type makes use of you support characters when performing a combo. When you perform a combo and your Drive is active, your supports will use additional combos dealing massive damage. Ultimate jutsu are disabled when you use this type, but you do however get something different in return. Instead of having an ultimate jutsu to your disposal, you’ll be able to seal your opponent from using any special skills. This is performed just like an ultimate jutsu, but focus more on efficiency and limiting you opponent’s actions instead of dealing damage.
The Awakening type allows the player the player to activate the Awakening ability. These are special modes that a character can achieve, buffing you character to deal even more damage. Aside from a normal Awakening, you can also perform True Awakenings, which drastically changes the playstyle of certain characters. Other character just get an enormous boost. After a certain amount of time, the awakenings will disappear, and when a True Awakening is done, the character will get penalties that weaken you.
Lastly we have the Ultimate Jutsu type, which is pretty basic. The ultimate jutsu of the character will be performed using both support characters to deal additional damage. If you choose a certain team of characters, a Ultimate Combo Jutsu will be performed, which is just like an Ultimate Jutsu but unique to the team.
As mentioned before, in the “Ninja Escapades” mode you’ll be playing 3 different scenarios. Two of them are playable while the other one is just an animation. These, however, do not really offer new game play elements to the game. You will be playing with a certain character, varying between the characters of the Akatsuki, and the other being just Shisui Uchiha, which is a new character since this installment. Nothing is special about these scenarios game play wise.
The “Ninja World Tournament” mode gives the player an amount of freedom to explore. You can walk around the villager or island and talk to different NPC’s, sometimes asking you to perform a mission, like sparring or delivering certain items. By completing these missions you’ll improve your relationship with characters, and you’ll also be able to add them to your team. You have two different stories in this mode: one being an entire tournament based story (you can choose what character you wish to play) and the other being the exclusive “Mecha Naruto Story”. The battles in the tournament are slightly different, as you’ll be playing with 4 characters at once trying to take away battle orbs from your opponent. The more combo’s you perform or the more jutsu you use, the more orbs your opponent will drop. The one that has the more orbs at the end of the battle wins, and will pass on their orbs to the next member of the team. This is quite a fun type of battle, which makes the game less repetitive in play style.
The last two modes that you can play are the standard “Online Battle”, which obviously allows you to play online, and the “Free Battle” which allows you to fight as much as you want.
For the collectors among you, the game offers tons of collectibles to find, varying from titles, characters, ultimate jutsu video’s and all kinds of small things.
Conclusion
The only thing that makes the game a bit less interesting for those that played the previous games, is the fact that the new scenarios are way too short to fully enjoy. However, the game offers tons of hours of fun, accompanied with amazing visuals and good sound. The new addition of 4-person battles, makes the game a bit more different from the previous installments, which is definitely a good thing. The amount of characters that you’ll be able play is also very amusing. Whether you played the previous games or if this is your first one, tons of fun is offered and you’ll have no reason to regret the purchase.
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution - Review,
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how is the support for keyboard control because the previous game was just a emulator and almost impossible to play without controller.
Also the story has changed(removing rpg element) and the tournament is new, so they have done some changes
Since the testing has been done on a gaming console, I cannot say much about the controls with a keyboard. If the previous game was pretty impossible to play with a keyboard, I wouldn’t expect too much improvement.
As with the story, it is indeed different from the previous games however it doesn’t really make the game feel different overall. The new tournament mode was indeed new and did make the game feel a little more enjoyable from the others, but it is essentialy the same, only that battles are fought in 4-person battles, which have the basic concepts of normal battles but with more opponents and a different goal.
Overall, it is still a good game, and it is definitely a fun one.
I also have the feeling they made the game for a wider public because you don’t have to follow the anime to play the campaign while with the previous installment you would have spoilers yourself if you follow the anime or you wouldn’t understand much about what is happening.