By: Robert Murphy
It would appear that the world of Naruto is finally about to come to a close after countless chapters and episodes and even the last Ninja Storm game brought the 4th Great Shinobi War to our gaming systems. It's sad to see one of my long time favorite animes about to come to a close but I will still have these games to relive all the action in the palm of my hands and that's exactly what I intend to do with the release of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. Wow, these titles are definitely not getting any shorter.
Revolution takes a bit of a step back from where we left off with the last game by bringing some of the unsung stories of Naruto to our attentions. Ninja Escapades takes on the role of telling the games only real main story element but sadly it only offers three story arcs to choose from, one of which is just a watchable cut scene. The two playable stories tells the story about the formation of the Akatsuki and the other is the tale of Shisui Uchiha, both of which are intriguing storylines but are represented here in an incredibly dull fashion. The story writing and cut scenes are extraordinarily dull and were honestly the most mind numbing experience I've had before, sure cutscenes have always been a tad dull but this one takes the cake. The fights themselves are uneventful as well and will take you about five minutes to complete so it makes the whole mode just feel like a waste of time.
Next we are introduced to a new mode to try and spice up the 1v1 style fighting we are accustomed to from the Naruto games and introduces us to the Ninja World Tournament. The mode is marketed to try and allow players to try and determine who the strongest ninja to ever live is and allows you to choose from the games massive character list and fight other ninjas in a 4v4 battle mode. The winner in this mode is determined by earning points balls that drop from your NPC opponents after you land blow after blow against them in combat. While on the hole this seems like an interesting idea, it quickly sours as your enemies are incredibly easy to beat even as you get to the harder modes latter on. This mode also suffers from annoying side missions where in between each fight you can return to a free walking area and find ninja to help you fight in the tournament which at one point involved me answering Naruto trivia, yes that really happens. It is an overall waste of time and energy on your part to even play.
After you defeat the first wave in the Ninja World Tournament, you unlock the next tier but also a new mode which tells the story of a new character, Mecha Naruto. This is a mode that involves free roaming and a small semblance of a story to tell players about a new world with this robotic look alike of our favorite ninja hero. This mode though also suffers from the lack of good storytelling and writing that Ninja Escapades suffers from and it also will make you walk and maneuver through tedious cut scenes and conversations with familiar Naruto faces.
In the end, not much changes in Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolutions in terms of the way you play through the games fights and battles. It is nice to see the updated list to the character roster but really there is no area in the game where it is fun to use them. The game is bogged down with the bad game elements that developers came up with in previous games and adds a whole bunch of new ones without adding anything appealing to it. I really don't know what happened here with this game and hopefully the next one will not suffer the way this one did.
Good:
- The game sees an updated roster that takes you right up to the manga releases
- Features the same solid fighting mechanics it has in previous games
Bad:
- The new story modes of Ninja Escapades are short and unappealing
- Poor writing and mind numbingly dull cut scenes make any story unbearable
- Ninja World Tournament tries to add 4v4 fighting fun but the whole experience is a flop
Scully Rating: 4.0 out of 10
