Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations Review

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations landed on my desk a few days ago, and after reluctantly pulling Skyrim out of my Xbox, I inserted Generations with some trepidation. Fighting games are not really my “thing” any more; the last one I played with any conviction was Mortal Kombat 3.

It turns out that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations is the latest in a long-running series, which in turn are based on the manga series Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto; it boasts over 70 playable characters from the whole Naruto saga and ties in with a real-life collectable card game.

Gameplay is very much what you’d expect from a 3D fighting game, linked together with anime cut-scenes playing out the stories of the main characters from the series. The fighting is very fast and crazy and is, at first glance, quite chaotic and confusing, living up to it’s name Ninja Storm.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find that controlling your character is not as hard as it may seem, thanks to the basic moves being sensibly assigned to the face buttons and the mapping of power-ups to the D-pad. The big feature is that combos are, for a refreshing change, not a mean feat of thumb acrobatics that involves all manner of complicated button presses. In Generations, combos generally consist of repeatedly pressing the ‘B’ button a number of times and directing the left thumbstick around. Once I cottoned onto this simple fact, I actually started to see some method to the madness of timing the right attack, and I even won a few battles against the CPU. For me, this simplicity makes Generations a true ‘Get in and Go’ title. The moves list is also available through the menu system if you need to pause and have a quick study in the middle of a fight. Handy.

Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations introduces two new play mechanics over previous iterations: the first is ‘Awakening Mode’, which enables an almost defeated character to utilise a sort of ‘mutate form’ which gives your character a boost of power for a last ditch effort to try and take your opponent down.  The other mechanic is the inclusion of a substitution meter (a yellow quadrant bar below your red health and blue chakra bar) which effectively limits the amount of ‘substitution jutsu’ (escape moves) your character can use in a battle.

These escape moves come in handy if you’re in the unfortunate situation of getting pounded by your opponent; activation of the ‘substitution jutsu’ move literally substitutes your character with an inanimate object, leaving your opponent dumbfounded while you appear behind him to administer a good old-fashioned kicking. Admittedly, such a move does sound too good to be true – and in Generations, in order to keep the gameplay balanced, each use of this move drains a quarter of your substitution meter, introducing a little more strategy into Generations in comparison to previous games in the series.

The graphical style stays true to the television series, with vivid visuals and a lot of contrast; however the characters, while smoothly animated, have a distinct lack of anti-aliasing in their outlines, and I sometimes found this quite jarring in comparison to the backgrounds.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations also has a ‘free play’ mode and robust online multiplayer. Online was very smooth and lag-free (although all that did was remove an excuse from my arsenal for reasons I was getting my butt kicked), which is crucial for a fighting game. The menus are easy to navigate and packed full of goodies – offering a range of options such as ranked or player matches, a shop to buy extra ninja paraphernalia, substitution upgrades, power-up options and plenty more besides. There’s also a neat facility to create and upgrade an online player card to show off your online prowess (or lack thereof). I, of course, can now proudly display my Ninja Numpty card …

All in all, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations is a solid fighter with a good online component. It is very easy to get into without needing any great skill or  knowledge of the manga series.