Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Review (Jassie-Winters)
I went into this game expecting something very different than what I got. I have already played this game and most of its entire series in fact, on playstation, but this one was the one I played the longest ago. I had nearly fully completed all of them too, and had beaten all of them. This is a series I love, and I want that to preface this review.
As a quick aside, I played primarily on Steam Deck, and overall it did work great. That said, the Chunin Exams Finals stage lagged badly, and certain sections of the giant battles, specifically the end of the third, lag so bad that they are no challenge even on the second refight. Also, the run/chase stages could lag a bit at times.
To start off the actual review, if you have already played later STORM games and want this one for that reason, I do not recommend it. There are VERY few cutscenes, leaving the story primarily in text and very hard to piece together, plus they completely skip the Zabuza section of the story. Also, you cannot set your item load out until you are in battle, which is odd and kind of overpowered.
This game is split into 4 styles in its story mode, only one of which is actually the main gameplay seen in the versus and other games. I'll go a bit over each of them.
Battle: The part of the game everyone came for, this is the first entry and feels like it, being more janky than the other entries as far as I recall. The Substitution Jutsu doesn't ever seem to want to work, and unlike other games does not seem to tell you if there is a limit to how many times you can use it. Like in other games, this mode is tweaked a bit and reused for giant battles, but unlike others, the quicktime events in these do not give anything for perfecting them. A lot of achievements for standard battles are glitched or borderline impossible to trigger single player.
Tree Climbing: There are two variations of this one, standard and battle. If you can beat one you can really beat any, the design of this one does not really allow for meaningful difficulty increase. Later battles also just have your opponents run into branches constantly. Very easy and not really fun.
Run/Chase: I HATE this stage type. When going for 100% completion, many of the later levels require you to play borderline perfectly, and this is NOT a style that lends to that. It is infuriating and has many obstacles you have little to no time to react to, Too difficult, and horribly lacking in fun.
Overworld: One of the entries in this series that actually has one of these, this is normally the most boring section of the game, but there are missions in it that are kind of fun, if a bit too easy.
Overall I would definitely recommend the game, but temper your expectations, as it is nowhere near as good as 3 or 4. I think I would give it an 8/10 overall, good, but a lot of room for improvement.