The Naruto franchise, or universe, is one I have visited on several occasions over the years thanks to the multitude of games released in the last eight or so years. Still, despite having played these (although only in brief spurts), I can’t help but struggle to stay interested. Furthermore, I couldn’t pass a test on the differences between each game for all the Ryo or Chakra in the world. So if you’re more or less in the same boat as me, hopefully this brief review can help you decide if the latest Naruto, Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, is worth checking out.
So the biggest draw to Revolution is that it features what has to be a record for any fighting game: over 100 playable characters. Most of these are not available from the start of course, and I am nowhere near unlocking them all. With 100 characters, you have to figure at least half of those are useless against the more skilled characters and perhaps another half of those are useless against very skilled human opponents. I spent only a brief time with this game online, but historically the community is passionate and skilled, hence the annual release of Naruto titles. Anyway, the multitude of characters is commendable, but simultaneously overwhelming for all but the most hardcore Naruto fans, and as suggested, it’s probably overkill (in true anime/manga fashion no less).
The massive character roster gets utilized across several modes of play. The primary of these is the Ninja World Tournament. You also have online battle, Ninja Escapades, and Free Battle. Within Free Battle there are other modes, like Survival (you get one health bar and you have to clear as many consecutive enemies as you can), Tournament (setup 4 to 8 player tourneys), standard Vs, League (Ever-Changing League offers multiple conditions, and Challenge League), Practice, and you can also customize your character and setup presets here, too. Ninja Escapades offers a story-mode like experience in which there are nicely animated cutscenes that lead up to battles. As you clear stories, more get unlocked. I dabbled briefly in this, but spent the majority of my time in the Ninja World Tournament which begins with players arriving on Festival Island. Unfortunately the tourney has a really cheesy TV show presentation complete with repetitive commentators who talk during the battles.
Before diving into battles, you must first choose a character and find your way around the island. Three types of maps and plenty of pop-up tutorial messages and visual cues will make this a straight-forward task. Quite a few NPCs are scattered about the island that you can interact with; some offer just a brief comment, others are merchants, and some you can recruit for you team, too. One of the earliest tasks in preparation for getting into the preliminary round of the D-rank (first) tournament is to get through an Ally Event in which you have to locate and talk to a mother and child. The mother will ask you five Naruto-themed questions, none of which I had the slightest idea about, but I could locate a Merchant and buy reference books (which amounted to about four sentences each) to discover the answers. Of course there was Google, which was handy.
Anyway, the rules of battle are simple, and apparently from what I have gathered from some Naruto game fans, too simplistic. There are four Team Types to choose from, Ultimate Jutsu, Awakening, and Attack and Defense Drives. I believe in previous games all of these were available for you to use at your discretion at all times, so long as you had enough Chakra and the Storm Gauge was at Max. In Revolution, you choose between these types, which for me made things a little easier I guess, but I was still confused. Despite all of the tutorial messages, there is still plenty of room for misunderstanding here, but this is a game meant for a niche, fan market after all.
After what seemed like a bit too long, I was finally entering into battles with my three man team. Battles are not won by outright defeating another opponent, the goal is to collect as many Battle Orbs as you can. Battle Orbs are needed to advance and collecting enough of these unlocks new paths on the island. Each fighter starts with 1000 orbs and the goal is to beat the crap out of the other three fighters (all Ninja World Tournament matches are four-fighter free for alls) and collect Orbs. The good thing is that you don’t have to worry about actually running around collecting fallen Orbs, the Orbs you “create” by dealing damage are drawn to you. At the top of the screen is the HUD showing the avatar of all four fighters and their Orb count, as well as a timer that keeps these battles relative short, roughly two minutes.
When the first round is complete, the Orb count is handed down to the second fighter and added to their starting value of 1000. I noticed that by the time the final round was upon us, the CPU spent less time fighting each other and more time focused on me, but in the early tourneys it wasn’t too hard to build up enough of an Orb lead to make it very difficult to lose. Kakashi, my favorite character (honestly just because of his cool appearance, I don’t know anything about him) coupled with Sai and a random third character, worked pretty good for me. Of note, you choose the order your fighters go in and manage your Ninja Inventory and Items you’re taking into battle (used by assigning to the d-pad) before the opening bell.
In between some battles players are free (and sometimes required) to explore the area. Along the way you’ll find various hidden goods and other minor distractions geared towards the target market, i.e., Naruto fans. The Ninja World Tournament has several layers as it goes from Rank D to Rank S, and also includes a Mecha-Naruto side story, too. In any of these modes, you’ll be treated to a smooth frame rate and a wide color palette. The Naruto games are no stranger to flashy and vibrant visuals, which remains the case in Revolution. Sure, the game is looking a little bland these days in comparison to the PC and PS4 games I have played lately, but what’s offered here is plenty sufficient. The audio, the music especially, gets grating after a while of hearing the same tracks loop, but usually the next battle isn’t too far away to help break up the monotony.
With that, let’s get to the summary…