G'day guys and gals!It's no secret that I'm a massive anime lover and have been since my father introduced me to Astro Boy all those years ago, and of course, I've come to love the many classics over the years - Naruto being one of them. While in the past Naruto games have been genius and downright addictive, even as a fan, Revolution is unappealing, dull, repetitive and downright boring.
The last game in the UNS series (UNS 3) was a continuation of the manga and anime, picking up from the second game in the trilogy. The ending itself is an absolute trainwreck and completely deters from the original storyline (as the manga is only slightly rapping up now a year later) but Revolution, even if a small play on words from a line in a recent manga chapter, features nothing at all to do with Revolutions. The entire of the game boils down to four modes: Tournament, Free Battle, Online Battle and Cinematic storyline and all of which are short and mostly lackluster.
Tournament is just how it sounds, with players picking their character of choice to fight in ranked matches from D to S+ and beyond. After the initial preliminary round, players must gather new characters or choose from pregained characters and continue in the tournament. This all takes place on an undisclosed area of an island, simply known as Tournament Island, with all the characters in the series standing around in various spots on the island; from every Uchiha to every Kage, dead or alive and some rarely seen in the anime or manga, all are welcome to the island to take place in the fighting. How are the dead ones there? Developers don't explain it in the slightest.
Players of the previous games will immediately fall back into the game as the controls, nor feel nor fighting style has changed. Only with the addition of brand new characters never used in the game and the new "guard break" and "counterattack" moves which can stop defensive and offensive characters in their tracks (but the game fails to explain this in the tutorials which will constantly pop up), the game does allow some fun in battling your favourite characters to get them on your side in the tournament. Playing in your own squad or the classics, players must fight without health loss to collect Orbs; pretty standard that the character with the highest amount of Orbs, wins. The higher the ranking does change the significance of the difficulty, even if AI characters can be duped and overcome easily. This is exploited even more so with the introduction of "rails", which focuses a special attack on a single or multiple characters. With that and Awakening/Ultimate Attack Orbs, traps and extra characters focusing on attacking the players, the gameplay gets more tricky to win even when online players also begin joining the mix.
And while the island itself does feature freeroam (The first game of which to do so in the last several alterations) the tournament will become incredibly dull and repetitive after defeating the D ranking. The same cutscene camera pans(the only thing changing being the arena), the same dialogue, the same speeches, the same characters speculating, each time you being a tournament will take roughly 20 minutes (If you stick with the same character and minus travel time) even with the 3 minute cutscenes, back to menus and single minute Orb hunts. And at the end of each Tournament, you pick your prize; A new character, a new customising option or cash, and "Fin" graces your screen, leaving you to retrace your steps and begin the process again. Customisation is brand new and fun, but limits to three options on your character, a new Ultimate Attack screen and substitution jutsu object. Do you want to be decked out in Nine Tails gear as Naruto from head to toe? Nope! Can't do it. Voice acting is as standard as ever but nothing stands out outside the cutscenes and even then the majority of the game is nothing but text and pressing A. The musical score and sound effects are just as standard as ever and mostly reused and tend to repeat after 30 seconds.
Oddly enough the two episode side story of Mecha-Naruto takes LONGER than completing half the tournament itself! With a proper, although cringe-worthy and stereotypical, storyline, players return to the Hidden Leaf with a new friend in toe, whose past and jealousy will come back to haunt him. I will admit, this mode is the only to feature a gameplay boss of sorts and keeps the story interesting and concludes decently. However, what's really shameful about this is that the Hidden Leaf is the exact same model from the last two games, with the exact same layout of the village. No new areas, no freeroam like on the Island or previous games, the only new addition is the Lottery Booth, where players can get the same still-shot cards and mottos, new characters, the same musical soundtracks as before or brand new customisation for your character. The story itself is the classic, stereotypical Naruto subplot fans will know from the fillers and movies: "'You can overcome anything with friendship!' Sob story, sob story, group laughing at Naruto's immaturity, the end."
For fans, the Cinematic Storyline is where the game shines: players see mostly brand new cutscenes and never before heard conversations. Although one of these storylines features no gameplay and just an 8 minute straight cutscene (You get an achievement for it though!), the gameplay ties it in with the extra storyline.
Regardless of where the game shines, there is still no excuse for how much this game lacks in some of the most important areas of a game. It repeats and reuses so much from the previous games that its downright boring. The gameplay is still enjoyable, the free roam of the island is great and customisation is vast, but this is no excuse for the repetitiveness and reusing content and character skins from a 4 year old game. Fans looking to fight their friends with their favourite team will find no fault, but for those looking for a continuing storyline or even a way to kill more than 20 minutes of content will find themselves wanting more. To those who bought Day One, you'll get a few bonus skins and even an unreleased DVD, but still I believe it is definitely not worth it.
Even as a Naruto fan, this game is a huge disappointment and no way near worth the current asking price. Wait for a price drop and even then consider renting it or loaning it from a friend. Personally, I'll be sticking to the manga and anime from here on out. Revolution? More like desolation.
Out of 10, I give Naruto Shippuden UNS Revolution a 3/10.
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is out now for the standard price of $90.
Seriously, wait for the bargain bin. If you need me, I'll be playing The Broken Bond.
No comments:
Post a Comment