Characters use the same combo button presses and control in much the same way as each other. The combat, which remains unchanged between the single-player story and multiplayer modes, favours style over substance. There’s an awful lot of watching compared to playing, but as someone looking to get through the story, that suited me just fine. Featuring full English and Japanese voice tracks from the cast of the anime, the story mode tends to switch between ten-minute chunks of anime cutscene and short fight sequences as appropriate. Where did Kakashi get his Sharingan? Who is the guy in the orange mask? Will Naruto ever convince people to “believe it”?Īs a reminder of the story’s progression and to round off my enjoyment of Naruto, Ninja Storm 4 was a solid, satisfying experience. Starting in the midst of The Great Ninja War, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4‘s story mode tells the same tale as the manga and anime, cutting out any side action and pruning what’s left to the bare essentials. Much like the previous Ninja Storm games, this is a combination of 3D multiplayer fighting with a truncated re-telling of the story of Shippuden.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 provided an abridged recap, a final chapter in the saga, and the closure I needed to put the series aside. Last year when Naruto‘s manga came to a close, I tried, unsuccessfully, to reproduce my initial enthusiasm and finish the series. I still cared about seeing a resolution to the story some day, but I convinced myself it would be easy to jump right back in when the series reached its conclusion.

The Great Ninja War had dragged on for over a year of manga chapters, with diminishing amounts of weekly progress killing my interest in continuing to read. As a socially awkward nerd who had just discovered that Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were part of a larger media genre, I spent years avidly following the adventures of the titular hero, Sasuke, and Sakura from their beginnings as trainee ninjas into adults dealing with complex issues.Īnd then one day, I just stopped following the series. Almost a decade ago, in my mid-teens, I was hugely into Naruto.

Naruto shippuden storm 4 roster