Upon starting the story mode of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is an accurately flashy rendition of the Anime's stylized combat, but the single player modes get repetitive fast and leave something to be desired.
after playing Naruto shippuden UNS 3 full burst and enjoying how CC2 delivered the story with the familiar combat system and all I hoped this game will surpass that yet, this game could've been a fine DLC but it shows how greedy the owners of this franchise are. let's start with the basic thing there's no story mode! the game "main mode" is a world tournament , you'll fight against 3 enemies at once while the basic combat system remained the same you cannot execute ougies[ultimates] nor use the awakening mode while gathering orbs from the enemies, you'll have a rail and npc that interrupts you but if the enemies all gank you together it's simply annoying, even though i beaten them all I felt no difficulty even when i reached the S rank tournament, while the animation itself could be good it didn't ran smoothly. cinematics in the entire world tournament thing were the same to unlock team mates you had to preform idiotic quests like fight guy,neji and etc then run there, fight blahblah blah and run there, bring this bring that, you can have your girlfriend/wife to send you for the same quests and no i'm not joking and all of that so you can occasionally use that team member to do something cause ofc to preform ougis you need to chase the red orb.... worst thing is the mode "Ninja escapades" which is an extremely short story sequences that sometimes contradicts the manga itself [eg. itachi recruited before kisame] but that's not the real problem it has 0 story value specially cause in ngs3 you felt part of the story here it's like now fight this, now fight that "oh you're stronger i'll join you" except orochimaru's motivation and even his were a joke... the two uchiha chapter was interesting but too short and again had the same problem you didn't felt part of the story,I'd take few quick time events anytime instead of showing us some "real" animation, I buy movies to watch and games to PLAY, and if there's a cinematic I expect it to be good and the majority of cinematics in this mode doesn't give a thing to the game. those two modes could've been easily a nice dlc including roster and all 15euro for this DLC could've been ok for the average naruto fan but 30-40 euro for this game is a hoax. good: huge roster, graphic is true to the anime/manga, the animations are done well, the combat system would've been awesome it wasn't so repetitive in the tournament mode., if teamed with certain characters you may get a new ougi [sasuke and itachi] but on some pairs you don't [itachi and kisame?!?!] bad: animation can be stuck sometimes, world tournament story is ****, ninja escapades offer barely any gameplay or holds any water, no ougi variety [NH2 and NH3 had tons of variety], no jutsu variety, could've been a dlc but costs like a new game, no new story, repetitive, can be finished in less than 6 hrs of gameplay, **** quests in between the world tournament mode.
For a long time it seemed like Dragon Ball Z would be the anime series with the highest number of console fighting games, but it seems like Naruto is hot on its heels, if it hasn’t caught up already. The Ultimate Ninja Storm series has had several iterations on the PS3 and Xbox 360, starting early in the life of the consoles. Now with those two consoles near their end of their lifespan, we might have the last Naruto game for that console, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution.
CyberConnect2 has had a wealth of material to work with, including hundreds of chapters in its manga and two different anime series. While previous entries have had a good deal of story to use, they story here is comparatively thin. The Ninja Escapades contain two stories broken up by battles, with a five minute giving background on one character. These shouldn’t take much longer than an hour so if you were hoping to relive some favorite Naruto moments, you’ll likely walk away disappointed.
The main portion of Revolution is the Ninja World Tournament. Fighting through to determine the best fighter, you’ll find most of the content here. Most of the battles here are mano-a-mano, with your typical health bar showing the status of the combatants. Occasionally a four-player battle occurs, but the mechanics here change. Each player starts with a number of orbs and as players get hit an orb pops out and can be picked up by other players. The player at the end of the round with the most orbs wins that round. It kind of reminds me of Power Stone, except you don’t get a power boost for collecting all of them.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t much to do between fights, and you do get some small story bites in here. Challenge missions reward you with medals to gain accessories. The employment office lets you spar with other characters or tasks you with finding items across the island. Meeting up with other characters lets you perform side quests. As you perform side quests for these characters, they become available in the game. They not only become available to use in the other modes, but they can be used as support characters in the Ninja World Tournament. These characters can be used to perform multi-character combos, give you extra buffs, or block incoming attacks. It takes a while to get all of these characters unlocked with a roster of over 100 characters once all is said and done.
Since Revolution has over 100 characters, the question of balance comes into play. Since certain characters are more powerful than others in the anime, I am willing to be a little more forgiving since I don’t believe they are all meant to be balanced. However, the large roster list might be a bit too overwhelming to all but the most strident fans for Naruto.
The fighting itself has changed significantly. The new system includes breaking and counter mechanics that require proper timing to pull off successfully. Without using these, you will most likely fail, no matter how good you are at the previous tactic of dashing and attacking. Leaving yourself exposed can cause a large portion of your health bar to disappear.
Unfortunately, if you haven’t played before then you will have to look up tactics online or experiment through trial and error. The developers must have assumed that anyone who is playing this game has played the others because no semblance of a tutorial is given. Whenever I play a new fighting game, I like to go through the tutorial to help remind me of the mechanics as well as learn any that have been introduced or I have just plain forgotten.
Revolution looks great, but a few setbacks reveal its age. Graphically the characters look like their anime counterparts, and all of their special moves are faithfully recreated in the battle scenes. The open world sections suffer from a poor draw distance though, with characters sometimes not showing until they are right next to you.
All of the voice actors return to reprise their roles, so you won’t be shocked by the speaking parts. The dialogue isn’t anything special, but they do what they can with what they were given to work with. Musically Revolution takes its cues from the show as well, helping high energy flow throughout the battles while calming during the exploration.
The barebones online mode disappoints. You can jump into the action with one-on-one matches, but lobbies for 4-8 people exist as well. However, only two people are fighting in the lobby while everyone else waits. Don’t be surprised if others drop off while waiting their turn to fight.
While not working as a Database Administrator, Keith Schleicher has been associated with Gaming Trend since 2003. While his love of video games started with the Telestar Alpha [a pong console with four different games], he trule started playing video games when he received the ill-fated TI-99/4A. While the Speech Synthesizer seemed to be the height of gaming, eventually a 286 AT computer running at 8/12 Hz and a CGA monitor would be his outlet for a while. Eventually he’d graduate to 386, 486, Pentium, and Athlon systems, building some of those systems while doing some hardware reviews and attending Comdex. With the release of the Dreamcast that started his conversion to the console world. Since then he has acquired an NES, SNES, PS2, PS3, PSP, GBA-SP, DS, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One S, Gamecube, Wii, Switch, and Oculus Quest 2. While not playing video games he enjoys bowling, reading, playing board games, listening to music, and watching movies and TV. He originally hails from Wisconsin but is now living in Michigan with his wife and sons.
The parts of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution should mesh together to make a great game rising above just being fanservice. However, a few missteps within the game drag it down. If you are a fan of the game series, you may want to check it out first before making a purchase.