Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, is CyberConnects2’s latest entry in the Naruto storm series on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It comes packed in with 118 playable characters which one of them being special “Mecha-Naruto” as it was created by the author of Naruto himself Masashi Kishimoto. This character has his own exclusive story arc made especially for the game itself and a new battle mode which allows 4 player brawls.

If you aren’t familiar with CyberConnect2’s story telling at this point I’ll have you know that it is generally applauded for it’s great retelling of the Naruto story, capturing the emotion of the scenes and battles for that fact from the show perfectly. I would even go as far to say myself they tell the story of Naruto better than the manga and animation put together! Although in this entry we don’t get a continuation of the story from the last Storm game which was Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. Here, instead we get a mode called Ninja Escapades. In this mode you will see the untold stories within the Naruto universe through actual animation sequences. There are three stories in this mode that go through as to how the Akatsuki, an evil organisation within the Naruto universe, was first formed. “The Two Uchiha” which tells the tale of both Itachi and Shusie (but I won’t spoil anything about this) and “The far reaches of hope”. Again, these are little story animations and there isn’t much to it, so I won’t spoil it for you fans.

The downside to this mode is that it is short around 50 minutes or so to get through all three shorts as they are animations with two of the animations actually having transitions into a fight scenes where you get to actually do something and battle the opposing character rather than watching it but I wouldn’t really put this as a downside at the same time cause it was rather interesting to see the back-story of how the Akatsuki was formed and how they interacted with one another when first forming. I really thought this was pretty cool actually and how they managed to transition into fights seamlessly.

The aforementioned special character Mecha-Naruto comes packed with his own exclusive story arc in the game too where you traverse over Kohana and some select environments of the Naruto universe taking on a quick job or just reaching said point in-game. This wasn’t exactly long either, it took me maybe an hour and half to get through. It is a short filler story if anything and it wasn’t bad to tell you the truth. It managed to suck me in with the story as you find Mecha-Naruto isn’t a badly written character even though he is a kinda generic filler type character. He’s actually likeable and funny, while going through the story of helping him to regain his memory.

The combat of the game in a way got a major overall technically but not command wise as the button layout is the same as past Storm games where circle is to punch with different directions giving different varied combo styles and triangle to charge your chakra and so on. The technical side of things however when choosing your characters you know get three types of battle styles to choose from these being:

Drive type – A cooperation based style with Support Characters to Prevent the opponent from executing awakening mode or ultimate jutsu by using the seal barrier which is unlocked as you get hit a bar is filled underneath your main chakra bar this is the same for all three types just different moves are available once filled for each type.

Awakening type – This type was the bar is filled underneath the chakra metre you are able to use true awakening powers and attain victory with an enormous power boost this may include a transformation for a short duration as well if the character you pick has one.

Ultimate Jutsu type – With this you deal large damage to your opponent with Ultimate Jutsu and Team Ultimate Justu attacks.

Another new addition to the Storm series added is the ninja world tournament it is a 4 player brawl reminiscent or a past title Naruto game having something similar that can only be exclusively played through single player. It’s a game type mode where you’re pitted against 3 other AI characters in an open battle ground and all start off with 1000 orbs. By hitting the opponent, they lose orbs and you gain their orbs instead. The player with the highest amount of orbs after the time limit of 60 seconds will be crowned winner.

To add some variety to the battles, there can be traps found on the actual battle field called stage traps some will cause you damage others will blow you back. Another interesting mechanism to the 4 player brawl maps are rails you can use to zip around the field by pressing L1, which can be pretty fun! In addition to this it will prompt you to mash circle to use a powerful jutsu to collide with whoever is targeted. There are also vertical rails that can launch you into the air for you to preform an aerial attack as you are coming back down. There will be red markers indicated on the field where you will attack as you land, and the markers size or number will change depending on the the character. This mode even has RPG elements tacked on as well where you can run around the surrounding outside area of the arena that the Ninja World Tournament is held at called Festival Island and unlock more to explore as you gain higher ranks in the tournaments. Here you can buy items, roll the lottery using lottery tickets earned from battles and take on jobs / missions which involve helping characters, who can then become your ally to use in the Ninja World Tournament. These small events will include tasks such as getting/buying a specific item for them and then presenting it to them to even doing little Naruto based quizzes about the world of Naruto and the characters, which is a nice touch in my opinion.

The multiplayer is the main meat of this game and CyberConnect2 have added something called a Network Clone, a new feature where you can customise your Naruto character online and basically upload them with certain stats boosts such as ATK+1, regular combo +1 and so on. Your custom character isn’t created from scratch however you pick a character from the cast of the series and you customize them with accessories to make them a bit more unique. After creating your clone you can then send them to fight for you through the CPU online and level up and gather items automatically while the player is away from the game.

Review Summary

This is another stop gap in the storm series before another main game comes out however I would say it is the most packed stop gap having some free roam elements and RPG aspects aside from the standard Tournaments, Leagues etc, from Generations