Hideous cover. Should've kept the old one.
CyberConnect 2 is a company that usually gets a lot of flak for being lazy and... this game isn't helping their case. A disappointing game bundled with its disappointing DLC, Ultimate Ninja Storm is anything but a fitting end to the series that promised so much.Well, Story mode has changed a bit, now being split in an episode-based Story Mode and an Adventure Mode that takes place after the story. The Story mode follows the final parts of Naruto's story, which sees Naruto fighting deities and finally reuniting with Sasuke. Story mode had usually been a highlight in the franchise but they managed to ruin it. About 3/4ths of the story is told through ugly anime stills, usually featuring off-model characters, instead of the beautiful 3-D cutscenes CC2 was known for. It's incredibly offputting and cheap, and they only stopped using them because the anime hadn't gone that far into the manga. Losing the ability to freely roam around is also missed, this episode structure feels very disjointed. As for the adventure mode, there're three chapters, one for Naruto, one for Shikamaru and a final one for Gaara, they are silly scenarios that will barely hold your interest, but they have various sidequests and things to do, so there's no shortage of content here... it's a shame most of it is rather dull and repetitive, 'Go find X thing for me', 'Pick up Y things' or win simple fights. Boruto gets his own Story Mode which is a return to form for the series, featuring Adventure Mode's free roam as well as the gorgeous cutscenes from story mode, it's a shame Boruto's movie, the story it covers, isn't very interesting. Rounding up the package are the usual VS and online VS modes you've come to expect.
The particle effects are much nicer, but it doesn't look all that much better than it used to.
If story mode wasn't disappointing enough, the character roster sure is. There're only 13 new characters, mostly made up of new forms of Naruto, Sasuke, Obito and Madara. They have different animations and models, true, but being just new forms makes them rather dull. What's most disappointing is how many characters we're missing, like the mist swordsmen or a few reanimated enemies, many which already had character models and animations from Ultimate Storm 3. Road to Boruto is even MORE disappointing, there're many enemies with animations and movesets that are simply unplayable, instead we get a total of THREE Borutos(Which share a lot of moves), TWO Saradas(Which share a ton of moves) and new versions of adult Naruto and Sasuke... which are reused character models that share some animations with their previous versions. All of that and not a single playable Boruto villain. To call the character roster underwhelming is an understatement. At least the game includes the Sound Ninja DLC, which should've been part of the roster since the first game. To add insult to injury, 90% of the DLC costumes, thankfully also included, return from Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 and quite a few costumes remain Story mode exclusive. Cyber Connect 2? More like Cutting Corners 2 much.Gameplay is basically the same as usual, but with a few novelties. The system from Revolution is gone, thankfully, so now you can Awaken or use Ultimate Justsu at will. A good new addition is that you can customize which Jutsu and Ultimate Jutsu to use with a few characters, which should've been a great idea but is very limiting, for instance, Minato can't use Reanimated Minato's awakening or ultimate jutsu, which sucks since reanimated characters are ugly, but Reanimated Minato can use any of Minato's skills(Sans awakening). That's a great idea executed halfway decently. A good addition is tagging, by using the right analog stick you can switch between any of up to three characters, all of them sharing a single life bar. Lastly, there's chakra counter, by shortening, for a short while, your maximum chakra you can repel any attack directed your way, if you time it right. There're some framerate issues here and there, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Still, this game looks almost exactly as it looked on the PS3, the particles are better, and still only runs at a barely stable 30 fps. What the hell? Take away tagging and this game could've perfectly run on a PS3. So the money didn't go into making new characters, didn't go into a decent story mode and didn't go into enhancing production values, so where was it spent? Only CyberConnect 2 knows.
Road to Boruto's DLC is one of the most lackluster DLCs I've ever seen.
If you've been playing the series sporadically, skipping a game here and there, or if this is your first Ultimate Ninja Storm game, you might think it's a very good game. But us who have been here since the start(Or Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 in my case) know just how badly CyberConnect2 cut corners with this one. This game was gonna bring closure to the franchise, this was supposed to be the best Naruto game, the ULTIMATE Ultimate Ninja Storm. But CyberConnect 2 managed to disappoint and tried to demonstrate why so many people call them lazy.6.0 out of 10
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