Games 54-57 - Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Saga - Week 100 - Nov21

aruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm is not a saga I expected to be playing in the fall of 2021. Craving an anime fix I decided to fill a major anime gap in my childhood: Naruto Shippuden. It took me five years after the final episode aired to get around to this because of how much I was feeling like it was becoming bloated and detoured from what made the show great. Even skipping the filters. So to assist my journey I played Pokemon SoulSilver. Even though it was disappointing (more on that later) there were a lot of strong moments that pulled those right Naruto strings (also more on that later), so wrapping up the series had me wanting to experience the story in game form. As a kid I played the Uzumaki Chronicles games on PS2 which were basically filler but I enjoyed them as a fan starved for content. I also played Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 by CyberConnect and what a gem this was. The fighting, animation, story - it all came together so well. And then there was that adventure mode where you could run around the Konoha. It was exceptional. So I decided to pick up their next-gen saga that covered the  entire series from the start. 

Part 1 - Naruto Arc

The original ninja storm starts in the Konoha, and oh boy do I immediately feel like the controls and camera are awkward. It feels like the games that transitioned from the D-Pad to Joystick in the 90s and considering this was CyberConnects first foray into 3D - that probably explains it. It's surprising that I feel like Ultimate Ninja 3 was much much smoother on the PS2. This was the only disappointment as moving around Konoha, a major reason fans hold the first in such high regard, is overrated. It's really dull and awkward, Naruto uses a cannon instead of just Ninja jumping to travel around the village and carry out terrible fetch quests. Not only this there's no wall running up every building? WTF. This was on Ultimate Ninja 3 on PS2... Instead you need to find specific wooden boards, essentially a ladder. 

The gameplay might have been novel and interesting in the awkward transitioning period from PS2 to PS3 but its outdated now. It has a few cool features such as fights transitioning vertically onto walls, which don't return until 4. But the fights are incredibly spammy and you'll be repeating the same jutsu over and over and over and over. Of course you play most of it as Naruto, so you'll see the same Shadow Clone ladder grab enemy and throw dozens or hundreds of times (up until you get the Rasengan I assume). There was one fight in particular against Sakura when you had to hit her with a combo while she was down several times. After the 5 attempt and seeing Naruto's jutsu for the 20th time I gave up - this game isn't for me. The game often put these dumb win conditions into story fights that weren't optional. Speaking of, maybe the biggest sin of all is the story. It's all flashbacks that don't do how great that anime is any justice. So if you were hoping for fan service and a retelling of Naruto Part 1 - look elsewhere. That's a real shame considering Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3 had a great story, great gameplay and fantastic adventure mode (with better quests from memory). The story also included all the arcs - so for the definitive experience of the original Naruto anime this is the game. In fact I'd probably play Ultimate Ninja 3 and Ninja Storm 2-4 if I wanted to play through the anime in the future. Considering how much fans love this game clearly I missed the boat. Maybe the online and splitscreen verses was where it was at but I'll never know. 

Even Sexy Jutsu is more useful than this. 

Part 2 - Pain Arc 

Well it looks like CyberConnect were listening to feedback because the second instalment feels like it improves in almost every way. Fights are superb, especially story fights with cutscenes and animations - moments from the anime are recreated as QTE that serve the core fight mechanics - failing a QTE cutscene sequence loses health and makes you retry from that sequence, succeeding gains health. If you want to play the anime as a game - this is clearly the title to do it. The open Konoha of the first game is gone, replaced by paths, full of items and people with beautiful backdrops. I didn't mind this - it made it feel more like a classic JRPG a kin to Final Fantasy 7 and the world felt much larger as a result. The backtracking however was not ideal. Running over the same areas again and again is terrible, it's not a desirable or clever back tracking as seen in Resident Evil or Final Fantasy. Why the teleport scroll wasn't available until the very end of the game beats me - they could have removed an extra 5 hours padding with it and this game would have been a much better tighter experience. I can see how this would have disappointed fans of the first game, but if it allowed CyberConnect to tighten up the rest of the game instead of improving this, good riddens. Do it right or don't do it at all. 

Most importantly, you feel like a ninja...

The story beats are fantastic, even if they lack a little bit of the details from the anime, as conservations are often altered or removed. The fights iterate on the first instalment and do an excellent job of making you feel like a Ninja in this combat arena. You can dash left or right as characters faze out of view rapidly in typical Naruto fashion, as with the first game projectiles deflect each other and when clashing with ninja kunai to kunai, a block parry will be met with a knock back, land and counter attack or dodge. It's fluid and quick, everything it needs to be as a ninja fighting game. Playing the story mode it's quite clear this is a fighting game first and foremost. The adventure mode is an amazing way to relive the story with a lot of touching moments such as the Gallant Jiraiya visiting the Amegakure - the hidden rain village to face Pain where he is betrayed by his form student. Leading up to one of the most epic moments in all of anime and a lot of peoples favourites: Naruto vs Pain and the internal struggle for the path of revenge and hatred (becoming Sauske) or mercy and forgiveness (rising above). The story feels add odds sometimes, you have these fights which epic animated cutscenes that are so smooth and makes you feel like you're playing the anime out, but it ends with a score board. As someone who wanted a pure story experience this absolutely breaks the immersion after an awesome moment such as Jiraiya fight with Pain or Itachi fight with Sauske. It would have made sense to make this flow on seamlessly I think, similar to Mortal Kombat in one smooth story experience. The score and metagame can be represented in a much more clever and subtle way such as currency or experience. 

The art is beautiful in both 2 and 3.

Part 3 - Pre-War

The first thing I noticed is that the the story is an immediate upgrade. Considering the story in the second game delivered exactly what I'd want and expect from a  high stakes high energy fighting game, it came as a huge surprise when the third game surpassed that. What better way to do this then by opening with Minato as he goes toe-to-toe with the Nine-tails. After heals a Tailed Beast Ball, he's ambushed by Tobi and they teleport outside the village. This is such a beautiful scene and strong start - taking all the spectacular (in the true scenes of the word) cutscenes from the second game and demonstrating the next evolution. Kakashi, Itachi, Rock Lee - these are my favourite characters in the anime - add Neji, Sauske, Ino, Orchimaru and you have my favourite characters to play in Part 2 so far. Now you can add Minato to that list. He's as fast as you'd expect the yellow flash to be, his dodge is literally a yellow flash and he has an ultimate jutsu that lets you tag enemies with his special kunai and get a teleporting Rasengan - so fucking cool. Following this spectacle in the hidden leaves, you cut back to The Third Hokage. Hiruzen Sarutobi is in full battle gear and ready to go. You jump around the village, sending titanic fireballs at the Nine-tails and calling on different clans of the village to help you. Hurt it enough and it drops its head for you to monkey pound with your staff. The final fight ends with an awesome scene of the Third calling on the entire village to combine their power and destroy the Nine-tails. Seeing the village supporting you is so stylish. Its a shame that no other cutscene one-ups this one. Boss fights are all in the typical arena and the Jinchuriki fights feel uninspired. The cutscenes though do not stop or fail on the consistency front. 60% of this game must have been cinematic and I'm not complaining. I want to live out the anime and some of the QTE cutscenes often seem better animated then the actual anime. Minato vs Obi, village vs Fox, Naruto vs Sasuke, Kakashi vs Zabuza and Five Kage vs Madara are all absolute stand outs for their animation. Especially Naruto vs. Sasuke, bonus points for overall ninjaness. Slinging fireballs while classing on the side of the wall, perfect. It even gives you a choice to fight in their current forms or as a flashback to the last fight in the Valley of the End. A really nice touch - these choices often dot the game as a hero or legend route - and represent difficulty. This was a fun addition and I always went legend. If you get enough stars in a QTE cutscene you unlock a secret moment which is typically a scene from the anime, a nice emotional touch that usually hits and feels rewarding.

The addition of mob fighting is a nice way to pace out the fights, and a fantastic way to make it feel like a JRPG. I felt this was just what the game needed in 2, so it's sad to see it's few and far between. If they removed the score after fights as previously suggested, turned this into a JRPG style adventure game and dungeon crawler, it would be such an immersive Naruto experience. If you get enough stars you unlock a secret moment which is typically a scene from the anime, a nice emotional touch that usually hits right and feels rewarding. On the flip side fighting all the Tailed Beasts show just how repetitive that combat system for Kaiju is - and the final fight was so frustratingly difficult that I had to search for a guide. The gameplay outside of this hasn't changed much outside of general improvements, but the Full Burst edition made a massive change: Substitutions' are now limited to four uses before they need to recharge. Not only does this prevent sub spam, but the technique which was always frustrating and always felt clunky to get the timing right in previous iterations is now super responsive. It might seem small but this is such an integral part of each fight that it makes the gameplay sooooo much better. 

I'll be honest, the story in general dragged on and I was happy once it was over. But this is completely representative of the plot in the later half of Naruto Shippuden and it's issues (more on that in Part 4). Minato and Kushina sealing the fox and sacrificing themselves to save Naruto and the village was a nice touch to play out. It was weird that after fighting Obito in the final sequence, Madara doesn't reinforce him like the anime but instead everyone retreats. The did this so you can play after the game in adventure mode but it felt no less jarring. The adventure mode side content is pretty terrible. No one is voice acted so instead it's: text box, fetch quest, fight, backtrack, repeat. It's just bad. My favourite side mission was using Naruto tail beast bomb in a fight to finish Konohamaru in the middle of the village, destroying it in a nuclear level explosion (before the cutscene ends and nothing happens). An example of the terrible power scaling in the anime. On the other hand the Itachi, Sasuke and Kabuto fight from Full Burst was an absolute joy. Not only is this one of the most redeeming moments of the 4th Shinobi War and Reanimation Jutsu, the animations in this multi-stage fight are absolutely phenomenal. 

 

I'll always drop a year when watching this scene. 

The game has a lot of content - in addition to adventure, story and multiplayer it also has tournament and challenges. These are variations of different fights across the anime with one hundred in total. The gameplay is just so fun it was a joy to explore the full roster and learn every characters move set, strengths and weaknesses. 

I enjoyed 3 so much I platinumed it. You could game the system and get plenty of S Ranks through OP items. 

Part 4 - 4th Shinobi War 

This is going to be a short one - because in essence, everything has been improved upon in the ultimate wrap up for the storm series. Interactive cutscenes are so good that they very often look better than the actual anime. Adventure and story mode have been separated. I whole heartedly support this. Especially considering how jarring it was at the end of Part 3 to break up the plot like that. So not only does the story feel tighter it has an interesting hub map that follows the separate ying-yang paths of Naruto and Sasuke. The map has optional side-stories - they're all great. Obito and Kakashi, Madara vs Hashirama, Naruto vs Sasuke... all these fights are absolutely superb. The final fight, one of the best in the anime is done so right with every interactive cutscene crafted to absolute perfection. The raw emotion in every punch until the brothers have nothing left is felt just as strongly. Switching between playing the two in the present or as children at the academy is such a nostalgic touch. It really captivates the heroes story, of paragon and adversary. My brother loves this scene as the climax of the anime, he really needs to play or watch this scene. 

No punches are pulled in the making of this story mode...

With the adventure mode separated, it feels like there's more content but its still fetch quests. It's clear the team focused on improving the story mode over the adventure mode. I steered clear of adventure mode mostly, I enjoyed it for what it was but it certainly had limitations as the filler of the game, it lacked voice acting and it served as a constant reminder that the series never met the potential of what a Naruto JRPG or open world game could have been. The gameplay, I just can't its so good. Limited substitution return and the gameplay feels even tighter and smoother on the PS4. Character each feel unique down to their movement and individual animations. Neji is smooth and elegant, Kakashi calculated and viable at short and long range, Shino remains at a distance letting his critters do the work. Rock Lee is exactly as you see him in his fight, doing back flips and going full 6 gates to unleash a rapid flurry of power will never get old. Now the unique playstyle and animations of each characters was already top notch in Full Burst and even Ultimate Storm 2, but with an overflowing roster, minor characters have been fleshed out. Kushina is a fry-pan wielding red headed raging demon - her Nine-tails injected into her flowing hair. Shisui the Teleporter (my favourite), flickers around his enemy following up with kenjutsu strikes in rapid succession, augmented by his fire jutsu. His ultimate ability is the ultimate genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami. Trapping his enemy in a vision of absolute annihilation "this is the difference in power between he us...". A lot of love has been given to fan favourites.  The biggest improvement without a doubt is changing support jutsu with left/right bumper, to actual characters. Now not only can you play all three characters in your roster, but you can switch them on the fly allowing for amazing moves and cancels mid-combo. It's a thing of absolute anime weabtastic beauty and really feels like the classic Storm fighting arena formula has come full circle in its ultimate form. I could see people playing this for a long time. For the first time in a fighting game I delved into multiplayer with the full intent of getting stuck into it. I think I would have followed through if the latency wasn't absolutely unbearable in Australia. Something I expected. Still, I got some fantastic fights out of it including one with Minato against his former student Kakashi. I still had the Road to Boruto DLC to play and I would have kept going but my TV died so I'll have to save it for another time. I'd really like to do a local session when my TV is repaired too. 

Yes Kakashi, the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Legacy Collection is a great deal!

Now to round things out prepare for a rant. The biggest problem with this game is an issue that stems entirely from the anime. The story sucks, the 4th shinobi war sucks and Naruto (in the end) sucks. Let me explain. A common pitfall with many Shonen anime is power scaling. Characters scale to the point that stakes do not matter any more, and to complete the heroes journey neither do consequences - typically resorting to Deus Ex Machina (Naruto Jesus) to dig themselves out of a hole they created. The story is just boring, it's devolved into Kamehameha and Kaiju fights. These have always been a part of the series but the focus use to be about ninjas first - using deception, guile, and skill to outdo your enemy and get the upper hand. It led to some of the best underdog moments in the story such as Gaara vs Lee, Neji vs Naruto, Pain vs Naruto. There are absolutely some great ninja fights as mentioned above, but they're few and far between. Most fights are Rasengan Kurama, Train, Stronger Rasengan, Kurama, Train, Repeat. For some reason they decided Naruto needs nine-tails fox Super Saiyan mode. Why? It gets so stale and boring and predictable. We're robbed of anticipated moments such as Naruto Jesus saving Guy from the 8th Gate of Death and so many other plot holes and trivialities of a world that was so carefully crafted in the beginning. I loved the warring clans arc and was disappointed that I didn't see the origin story of Hashirama and Madara in this game. These are two characters along with their fellow clans that were done perfectly throughout the entire series. The bottom line is after the Pain arc the show just stopped being about scrolls, toads, kunai, sages and hard training - thrown to the way side in favour of god tier power ups - it wasn't about ninja anymore, it wasn't Naruto. 

The perfect Naruto game 

I try not to be someone who says "if I made a game" or "if they had done this" because I know exactly how hard, or even impossible it feels to make great games. But I feel like CyberConnect has the potential here for a Naruto open world game that every fan has dreamt of. The fight gameplay of Ultimate Ninja Storm is basically perfect, especially for bosses, characters and stronger enemies. Nothing else has made you quite feel like a ninja in combat. But if the mob fights were beefed up to be more fun and stylish, something a kin to Devil May Cry, it'd serve an open world experience much more. Meanwhile character progression would be a great way to simulate that journey of training and hardwork, reaping the jutsu of your labour through experience to be used in mob fights and arena duals. Especially if you're creating your own ninja, but it could also work if you're progressing through the story alongside Naruto. Like Shinobi Striker, CyberConnects other game I would much prefer to create my own character. But instead of a multiplayer arena, I'd like to see my own character as he embarks through this world. It could even be set during an earlier Shinobi War. The movement mechanics would absolutely have to make a return to the game. Traversing up walls and jumping in Striker is the most unique thing about it - and evolved that feeling of being a ninja in an open space like no other game. Transition that mechanic to an open world game. Finally would be building your ninja squad to overcome obstacles - both in combat and exploration. Using genjutsu, release, visual jutsu etc to unlock secrets and new areas as you return to different parts of the world would provide an addictive Metroidvania formula. Perhaps you can do so after acquiring new characters and new jutsu. CyberConnect attempted something like this with DBZ. But the Kakarot game still seemed arcadey, floaty and fetch questy. Like Shinobi Striker, it felt like it was lacking its full potential, a common sentiment I feel with CyberConnect games. One can dream and until they deliver that game Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm will be the last game in the universe I ever play. That chapter is closed. 

The traversal in Shinobi Striker was phenomenal, it's too bad the microtransaction ridden multiplayer was not..