Hokage's Room

I have been waiting a long time for a game to come out on the ps3, that involved the naruto anime.  There have been other games such as the ps2 Naruto ultimate ninja games, those were awesome so there isnt a doubt in my mind that this game is not only gonna be awesome but pretty dang fun.  I have read much about this game and its simply amazing so far.  It goes into alot of detail about the anime so far, and is the closest game to the actual anime that has been released so far.  I believe that storm does infact have alot of potential.  I also like the fact that you can choose between English and Japanese voice overs...not only that but it actually comes with subtitles!  

First off I would like to talk about the graphics of Naruto ultimate ninja: storm.  The graphics are amazing. 

They really took the cell shaded graphics to the next level.  These graphics are just as good as the new dragonball z burst limit if not better.  I noticed this around the versus modes and the story mode.  The environmental graphics that the game displays is amazing for cell shaded graphics, it really looks nice, the environments and the fighting animations, not to mention the characters themselves look amazing.  The battle animations look like they came right out of the anime itself, which is really good considering no other naruto based anime game has done this yet.  Also, the cinimatics for the boss battles are sweet! The new boss battle system they implamented seriously rules.

Secondly I would like to talk about the story mode or "mission mode".  They implamented the whole 100% hidden leaf village plus free roam, which is astounding.  I love the fact that you can free roam around the city and pretty much do whatever you want, plus using skills outside of battle looks so much fun.  Not only does the free roam and skill usage look awesome, but in the game they implamented 100 (more or less) missions in the game, which I believe that will give you alot to do during the game.  The previous games had really fun missions, so I dont doubt that this game will have some pretty fun missions!  Plus the fact that the shukaku and manda battles I have seen are awesome.  They also implamented a system in which you actually press a button combination to complete a certain part of a boss battle.  During the Shukaku battle a giant wave of sand is about to crush Naruto and you must enter the correct button combination in order to summon Gamabunta which will save you from the sand. 

The cinimatics of this game are nicely done so far, they really are good at setting the mood and displaying what was actually said in the original anime, but with more intensity.  They did a really good job of making the boss battles seem like they came from the show, when something happens that looks like your doomed, they pull out some sweet cinimatic that allows you to counter your enemie's attack.  They really did a good job of making the boss battles ALONE look extremely epic, I cant wait to play the actual story mode knowing the fact that not only are the boss battles awesome, but there must be more boss battles.

The battle system for the game is also very fun.  The fighting is very action packed, and very very fast, making this a great fighter for fans of the naruto anime.  Two player combat alone can have you playing for a few hours, let alone 4 or 5 people at your house playing the game with you.  This game is very fun to verse the computer but if your looking for that extra "human touch" to the game invite some of your friends over (heck even the ones that dont like anime) and you will be guarenteed a blast. 

There are 25 characters for the game, which seems like a decent amount considering its the first game in a new saga of next gen anime games.  They not only released a good amount of characters, but a good roster.  There are characters for everyone to play as, there is alot of character differenciation so that the fans can play as some of their favorite characters.  The battle system for storm is indeed fun.  You have 2 support characters, and your ofcourse your character, who can come down into battle and aid you whenever your in a tight situation, or if you want to seriously injur your opponent.  The support system they have put into the game is also pretty good.  You can choose between tons of support characters that you can customize and have them do whatever you want to, these come in handy if your opponent is giving you trouble, any time you need long or short ranged distance attacks to hit the opponent, thats where support characters come in.  They can distract your opponent so you can charge your chakra or plan your next step...and they also do some nice damage aswell!   The game so far allows you to have quite a few jutsu to play around with, and the jutsu animations look spectacular.  They also have some sweet ultimate jutsu which look much better then the previous game's ultimate jutsu.  The ultimate jutsu that they implamented are alot like the naruto ultimate ninja series for the ps2.  But now if you manage to press a button more times then the opponent, spin the analog faster, or hit the correct combo of buttons while doing an ultimate jutsu the attacker will get to do his jutsu like originally planned, but if your the one receiving the jutsu and you do better then the attacker, you jump out of the way and thier jutsu completely misses!  Speaking of jutsu! Storm has an awesome jutsu clash ability! If you get a rasengan going vs a chidori your jutsu collide and you have to start jamming circle as fast as you can! the animations for it are awesome and jutus clashes are so much fun! well....it would be more fun for me if I could actually win them when my friends come over :P 

The maps that you play on are pretty large, which allows you to get quite a bit of distance between you and the opponent which gives you plenty of time to think about your next move.  The animations from the battle actually look like they are moves comming straight from the anime itself.  Storm also gives you a few combos to work with that allow for some cool strategies along with customizable jutsu and ultimate jutsu.  The fighting system does allow lots of fun along with high action battles.  They also implamented an "awakening mode" where every character has atleast one awakening mode.  The concept of the awakening mode is if you get down to the yellow bar or red bar of health, you can activate your awakening mode by holding triangle and letting your chakra gauge fill up past its limit.  Once an awakening mode is activated your character gets certain trait boosts that will give you the advantage in battle, which is pretty good if your losing by alot.  Another unique feature is the games nice ability to make good use of your chakra, like the previous games you can press R2, or L2 right as your being hit to use a substitution jutsu that takes a little bit of chakra and lets you avoid all the damage.  They also implamented a system where you can throw alot of shuriken that are covered with chakra which does quite a bit of damage and they are hard to avoid, they made a chakra dash that covers your body in chakra and you start flying at your opponent...it only only allows you to dodge shuriken but also allows you to get at your opponent at high speeds.  Another feature that I that was pretty cool was the ninja movements, they still have the feature where you dash toward your opponent by pushing X button twice really fast, but if you press, wait a little bit, and press again you will do all kinds of ninja movements that will help you dodge alot.  In addition to their new innovations in movement and chakra usage, they did a really nice job of giving each character a different move set.  On the demo Naruto and Kakashi have TOTALLY different move sets, their attacks are completely different from eachother in every possible way.  Not only that, the fighting acutally looks like the characters from the anime are fighting. 

So, it's pretty plain to see that storm will infact be a great game for the ps3.  Not only is it on a next gen console, it is on the ps3 which plays blu-ray disks which will allow the creators of Naruto ultimate ninja storm to create a very unique game.  It offers fans alot of game options and the ability to almost live the entire anime, which almost every fan wants.  I think this game is going to be one of the greatest anime fighters out there, if not the greatest.

If you dont know much about the game, and/or my review didnt help you much, head over to www.ign.com or www.gametrailers.com and check out their sweet videos of naruto ultimate ninja storm! or even check out the official website at www.ultimateninjastorm.com

*NOTE* This blog was made specifically for mission #44, I know it cant be a full "review" because I havent seen the entire game yet.  I also know that the mission specifies "one part your looking forward to" well to be honest....if i was interested in 1 part of the game I would just rent it....please dont come here and post bad comments about me being wrong about the mission or about me being wrong about calling it a review..thank you :)

Thanks to: www.hokagesroom.com (for making an awesome website!) www.IGN.com and www.Googl.com for the pictures! www.gametrailers.com www.ign.com www.ultimateninjastorm.com and www.youtube.com for giving me all this awesome information I could work with!

*I really worked hard on this blog so I hope you all enjoy it, and thank all you guys who have already viewed and/or left a comment! you guys are awesome :P*