Over the years of this website, I have written many reviews about the Naruto UNS series. I hold fond memories for some, and terrifying memories for others, so naturally, when I heard of a new Naruto game coming out, I wasn't too highly impressed at this move.On closer expection, the gameplay and synopsis was enough to draw my attention and begin this review you are reading. So, what of Naruto to Boruto?
It's almost like enjoying spicy food and trying something stronger; you're enjoying it but you're still in pain and it hurts the more you chew.
Naruto To Boruto: Shinobi Striker takes place during the Boruto era, where your customisable character is the protagonist; you are an unnamed Shinobi in the Leaf Village for the World Tournament. After being shown around by Konohamaru, you are free to play with the modes and explore what you can. Sound effects are well sourced and are clean, and the musical score is finally, fiiiinally unique to the game. While it does remind me a little of old school Runescape, as a long time Naruto game user, this was a wave of fresh air. Graphics look quite clean and bright and characters almost resemble oil paintings. This can be a little offputting with the character models (Personally speaking Sakura looks a little...off), but this will soon become easily avoided.
Voice acting is decent enough; the player characters sound fantastic and the older characters sound well toned. With all that aside, lets look at the big attraction: gameplay.
The VR Missions are training missions you can run solo or with a group of four friends; missions are unlocked the further your level grows or by meeting key characters in the HUB world. They range from escort, defend-your-position, and boss fights, all within ranks of difficulty, fighting against AI opponents. You gain more time the faster you complete events in these missions.
From here, you have the Online portion of the gameplay being Open Match or Tournament Mode. Similar modes are shown in both of these options: Bases (King of the Hill), Defend, Capture the Flag and Free Fight mode. It's a little disappointing that the modes shown in both Online and VR are incredibly similar and show little variety. Free Fight is fun and can take a lot of time to master, but I expect many gamers to grow tired of both Online and VR fighting very quickly.
Players also have the opportunity to customise their character; starting off with chosing your home village, you can choose your outfit. Other accessories must be bought with coins collected or earned in gameplay or accessed by random luck. During gameplay, players will achieve scrolls of varying value. The higher value scroll, the better equipment you're more likely to unlock. This does limit some progression; players will have to use the undesired clothing to gain an advantage than what they'd prefer to wear. Perhaps they unlock the robe they're after but the colour is off, or they want a hairstyle but it costs 3000 coins that they'll have to grind for an hour or two to get.
Customisation, additional missions, even the core gameplay for what slim story is thereof being a ninja in the Naruto universe, all of it is a grind.
I do have to give the developers a little credit when it comes to Scrolls; as of writing, there are no microtransations for Scrolls. While there is a few costume DLCs (show me a Naruto game in the last decade that doesn't), I am oddly impressed by this lack of corporisation from the developers and publisher.
The amount of customisation is extensive; players can mix and match abilities (two Ninjutsu, one ultimate ability, one tool and a substitute), weapons (depending on your class) and players also earn new abilities with Mentors: using the VR Master, players can unlock and choose from twenty tutors across the generations to learn new abilities. Although I must admit I'm a little disappointed none of the Sanin make an appearance in the list.
This brings me to glitches and hoo boy is there plenty, at least on the Xbone version; any sort of gameplay online will result in a coin toss of being Kicked To Dashboard or simply freezing. VR and especially Tournament mode are riddle with this glitch. The loading screen will often cut to black and either time out or result in a KTD, and main gameplay has its own bugs; players can randomly die for no reason, or fall off the boundaries. Players also cannot mix and match classes: an Attack class cannot have a sword, Defence cannot use specific Ninjutsu, etc.
The biggest annoyance is the wait time for matches. After timing myself for two hours, I was able to play three seven minute matches, four of the matches glitched out and resulted in a KTD, and another four simply timed out. This doesn't even begin with the servers for an online only game being down on release day. On a positive note, as of writing, the game has received a patch of 15.91GB.
Wow. I mean at least they're addressing the issue in force!
While I've highly enjoyed this new breath of fresh air into the Naruto game genre, I am utterly disappointed in how it has turned out. New models, new gameplay style, a variety of maps in the lack of modes, but still so much progress that needed to be done. If it wasn't for the glaring issues, bugs, and general player needs, this game would definitely be able to score much higher. But I simply cannot. For full price, a lack of modes, a lack of stability and just general lack overall in most departments, I'd even advice longtime fans of the show to be careful buying this game. I hope this new patch fixes a lot of issues the game has, but I write the view for the first hand experience.
A breath of fresh air to the series, but in need of extra love.
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker - 6/10
Voice acting is decent enough; the player characters sound fantastic and the older characters sound well toned. With all that aside, lets look at the big attraction: gameplay.
The VR Missions are training missions you can run solo or with a group of four friends; missions are unlocked the further your level grows or by meeting key characters in the HUB world. They range from escort, defend-your-position, and boss fights, all within ranks of difficulty, fighting against AI opponents. You gain more time the faster you complete events in these missions.
From here, you have the Online portion of the gameplay being Open Match or Tournament Mode. Similar modes are shown in both of these options: Bases (King of the Hill), Defend, Capture the Flag and Free Fight mode. It's a little disappointing that the modes shown in both Online and VR are incredibly similar and show little variety. Free Fight is fun and can take a lot of time to master, but I expect many gamers to grow tired of both Online and VR fighting very quickly.
Players also have the opportunity to customise their character; starting off with chosing your home village, you can choose your outfit. Other accessories must be bought with coins collected or earned in gameplay or accessed by random luck. During gameplay, players will achieve scrolls of varying value. The higher value scroll, the better equipment you're more likely to unlock. This does limit some progression; players will have to use the undesired clothing to gain an advantage than what they'd prefer to wear. Perhaps they unlock the robe they're after but the colour is off, or they want a hairstyle but it costs 3000 coins that they'll have to grind for an hour or two to get.
Customisation, additional missions, even the core gameplay for what slim story is thereof being a ninja in the Naruto universe, all of it is a grind.
I do have to give the developers a little credit when it comes to Scrolls; as of writing, there are no microtransations for Scrolls. While there is a few costume DLCs (show me a Naruto game in the last decade that doesn't), I am oddly impressed by this lack of corporisation from the developers and publisher.
The amount of customisation is extensive; players can mix and match abilities (two Ninjutsu, one ultimate ability, one tool and a substitute), weapons (depending on your class) and players also earn new abilities with Mentors: using the VR Master, players can unlock and choose from twenty tutors across the generations to learn new abilities. Although I must admit I'm a little disappointed none of the Sanin make an appearance in the list.
This brings me to glitches and hoo boy is there plenty, at least on the Xbone version; any sort of gameplay online will result in a coin toss of being Kicked To Dashboard or simply freezing. VR and especially Tournament mode are riddle with this glitch. The loading screen will often cut to black and either time out or result in a KTD, and main gameplay has its own bugs; players can randomly die for no reason, or fall off the boundaries. Players also cannot mix and match classes: an Attack class cannot have a sword, Defence cannot use specific Ninjutsu, etc.
The biggest annoyance is the wait time for matches. After timing myself for two hours, I was able to play three seven minute matches, four of the matches glitched out and resulted in a KTD, and another four simply timed out. This doesn't even begin with the servers for an online only game being down on release day. On a positive note, as of writing, the game has received a patch of 15.91GB.
Wow. I mean at least they're addressing the issue in force!
While I've highly enjoyed this new breath of fresh air into the Naruto game genre, I am utterly disappointed in how it has turned out. New models, new gameplay style, a variety of maps in the lack of modes, but still so much progress that needed to be done. If it wasn't for the glaring issues, bugs, and general player needs, this game would definitely be able to score much higher. But I simply cannot. For full price, a lack of modes, a lack of stability and just general lack overall in most departments, I'd even advice longtime fans of the show to be careful buying this game. I hope this new patch fixes a lot of issues the game has, but I write the view for the first hand experience.
A breath of fresh air to the series, but in need of extra love.
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker - 6/10
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