Fans of the ludicrously popular Naruto anime have been fortunate enough to have a series of legitimately fun, and well structured games across almost every platform. Naturally, the majority of this “shonen” fighting show’s game adaptations consist of one-on-one brawlers, not unlike Atari’s Dragonball Z: Budokai series, and its followers, but last year’s Xbox 360 exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja broke the traditional mold, and went in a more free-roaming, open ended direction.
PlayStation 3 users are getting a familiar opportunity in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, a similarly open ended/fighting game fusion in the Naruto universe. Utilizing both objective based missions and versus combat, Storm isn’t exactly breaking any boundaries –as mentioned, they’ve already done this on 360 — but it offers an excellently entertaining experience for fans of either genre, while being a complete overload of fan service.
The most notable of this fan service onslaught is that it looks exactly like a 3D rendition of the stupidly-long anime series.
Vibrant colors, motion blur and insane particle effects litter the action-packed environment and make for some seriously beautiful visuals. While backgrounds are pretty hum-drum, and the existing character designs for the cast –25 of which will be playable in Storm– aren’t exactly spectacular in detail, but the simplicity allows for the world to be packed with buildings, expansive forests and snow-capped mountains.
Combat continues to be impressive (the call-a-buddy-for-help feature makes for some quick, hilarious 3v1 action) with its simplicity and isn’t restricted to flat surfaces. Battles often take a turn for the sideways as Naruto and his foes/friends duke it out in a gravity defying manner, traversing cliffs at an angle that can cause confusion if you’re not on top of your game.
There’s plenty to love here, though it might be a tough sell for non-fans.
Open ended adventure often leads to fights, so expect face-punching, item throwing and monstrous transformation aplenty; Battles are often interrupted by close-ups of characters getting socked in the jaw, or being set ablaze, but it never slows down the pace of the fight, so the cinematic moments make for entertaining interjections between the fist fighting; and the game, as emphasized before, is extremely well rendered. Character animation is fluid and fast, and the world is really something to see, especially for fans.
Leave a Reply