Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations Review [PS3]

The Ultimate Ninja franchise has been the longest running and most popular Naruto series to date. Starting out as a simple 12 fighter affair on the PS2, the series and the roster have grown and matured. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm was the franchise€™s first installment in the current generation and quickly became regarded as the best in the series. The original Ultimate Ninja Storm followed Naruto and his friends throughout the first part of the manga, climaxing in the confrontation between Naruto and Sasuke that marked the end of part 1. Part 2 of the manga, also known as Naruto Shippuden (the anime title), was chronicled (up to the current point in the series at the time) in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. UNS 2 followed an older Naruto through his many trails leading to the confrontation against Pain. Now, if you do not follow Naruto then this will mean nothing to you at all. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storms Generations basically takes the roster from the first two games and combines it, creating a huge roster where many characters can be played as their younger counterparts. There have also been a few new characters added from the series who were introduced after the Pain arc so I can safely say that with 72 playable characters and 15 support only characters, this is the biggest and most expansive Naruto line up ever. I can also safely say that it will only appeal to pre-existing fans of Naruto.

Little effort has been made to make this game accessible to non-fans. Sure the actual fighting is a balance of easy to learn controls and hard to master tactics but this is certainly not a good introduction to the world of Naruto. The story mode is very light compared to previous offerings. There is no hub world or RPG esq platforming to explore, but a series of screen grabs from the anime with a narration to explain the basic gist of the story. The depth and drama of the series is completely lost in this presentation and what you get are a string of match ups from the series, explained with the bare minimum of plotting. While I wasn€™t a massive fan of the non-fighting portions of the previous story modes (favouring the platforming format used in the Ubisoft titles Rise of the Ninja and The Broken Bond) at least it was interactive. As only true fans will really bother with this title, most people will (like me) skip this brief re-capping of events as we know what happens. While there is a lot of these screen caps and match ups, following different characters and arcs, the over all presentation feels rushed. All Generations really comprises of is a compilation of assets from the previous two games as character models and fighting moves are re-cycled. The few new additions only really serve as an update which could have easily been DLC for UNS 2 and as each fighter uses the same commands, it doesn€™t go far in mixing up the action. After recently reviewing Asura€™s Wrath, I cannot help but think that Capcom have got the right idea in terms of delivering an anime narrative in a computer game format. Had Generations used this interactive cut scene method to re-live the best moments of the series, and then punctuated this with the vs battles the story mode may have been a satisfying experience.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations only offers the most basic beat-em-up formula, one-on-one match ups against the computer or another player. Thankfully there is online play, though you will be better to practice against the CPU on the hardest setting before attempting to challenge the online community as past experience has shown me that they tend to lean towards the elite. You are of course also subjected to the incessant online abuse that tends to follow fighting games around like a cloud of flies. Apparently, anime fans like to brag. Who knew?

The fighting will be very familiar to anyone who has played the Ultimate Ninja Storm games in the past as it has not changed. You are still using the O (B) button to mash out attacks and the ” (Y) to use your chakra to buff out your other moves. The fights are still as fun and furious as ever and if you loved it before you will love it still but this still doesn€™t take away the fact that much of the content here has been released in the previous games. It also doesn€™t change the fact that both the previous games have a stronger single player offering. One thing I will mention is that the loading times are significantly better and no longer leave you staring at a jumping frog for 30 + seconds before each fight. As with the previous titles in the series, you can opt for either English or Japanese dialogue and while English is the default you would be well advised to make your first port of call switching to the Japanese. Trust me, the English voice work is very, very bad and the Japanese actors are very, very good. The music is once again original to the games which has always annoyed me as the music from the anime is very good and certainly helped the the Ubisoft games feel more authentic. All in all Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations is a rushed and needless addition to the franchise and it disguises an anthology release as a new title. The addition of a few new characters may be enough for the hardcore Naruto junkies out there but for everyone else, your pennies are best spent elsewhere.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations is out on March 30th.