Robot Geek Review : Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Dan and Jamie both review NSUNS 2, (I'll be damned If i'm typing that out again). With no prior lack of knowledge to Naruto, it shows...

[RedDead]

Guess it's a fans only game then haha

Also I know a game should be able to stand up on it's single player but alot of games these days are for multi player only, this game is more or less a multiplayer game with a tacked on single player, just like the first one.

[ExplosionSauce]

"this game is more or less a multiplayer game with a tacked on single player, just like the first one."

The first one was single-player only.

[OT]
If this game has improved over the first one overall, then it's all good for me :)

[Heartnet]

Story Only lol since there is a demo for it and it has split screen multiplayer :)

[RedDead]

Split screen(well not really) but two people on the same console was where it was at. I wouldn't have played the game without it.

[ExplosionSauce]

I meant off-line!

Sorry, I was thinking online multiplayer.

[RobotGeek]

That's the impression we got. The campaign seems like a fan service as you can play through all these cool battles and as every character essentially, but it just was a chore getting from one place to another! Not actually worth the effort, rather just free battle. One problem i failed to mention was the fact the only way to unlock characters was through the flippin campaign!

[Optical_Matrix]

Whats wrong with unlocking characters through the campaign? Isn't that how most fighters work in terms of unlocking characters. You play with arcade mode/story mode fulfilling conditions to unlock characters. I'd much rather have that than unlocking them through buying them with in game money like the Gekitou Ninja Taisen series. Just throwing it out there

[RobotGeek]

I'd have no problem with it normally man, but if you read the review, both of us say the campaign is as boring as, apart from the fighting, which is the minority of the snoozefest.

[Senden]

I'm with RobotGeek here.. I LOVE naruto but I played the campaign on ultimate ninja 4 I think it was and it was bloody awful.. finding you way around mazes for no other reason than to add playing time to the campaign. I LOVE naruto but that had absolutely nothing to do with the anime.

I haven't checked the campaign in this however I won't hold my breath for something deep and compelling.

[Redempteur]

i'm pretty sure the campaign wouldn't be so "boring" if you actually knew the plot ..and understand it .. going from point A to point B is boring ..but it's pretty clear that most of your frustration was because you didn't understand anything about the game ( setting , characters , plot ).. and of course you don't understand a thing .. you're jumping into the second half of a story without prior knowledge of the first half.
all the important points ( sasuke , itachi , akatsuki , the nine tails, the battle for the jinchunrikisn ,ect ) are foreign language for you making the game boring thats' for sure ..

[PeterGriffinSays]

Naruto has a very intricate and deep story. Unlike some other anime, it's not a show where you can jump into at any point. You need to see it from episode 1 of the first series all the way to where it's currently at in Shippuden to understand anything. The review is goin' to throw many people off. I played the demo, and I must say, it's a very good game. Captures the feel perfectly. Fans of the series will love this, and people who aren't fans will like it as long as they understand its their own fault they have no clue what the hell is goin' on, story wise.

[metalanime]

I understand quite a bit about the characters plot and everything else, the things is that the games way of going about these details doesnt compare to the manga or anime. All the story in these games boils down to is a pretty stale and outdated navigation, primary there not to increase the enjoyment, but drag out the playability of the game. Story bits are just presented in japanese simulator format, which is pretty horrible, and once again cant compare to the source material, and they throw in the battle in between. The story cut-scenes are pretty cool, but that is only the presentation for major battles.

I dont see how seeing an inaccurate version of the original telling, all over again and in an inferior format doesnt qualify as boring.

[metalanime]

im a huge naruto fan, but i have to agree with this. Theres nothing fun or intriguing about the story mode. A lot of the time its more of a chore, and while i personally still have fun, its a pretty lame shot at immersing the player in narutos world. Even cutting that out, while the game looks great, the combat, while fun, is pretty stale and doesnt allow for too much strategy. It lacks in combo variety, homing shuriken suck, and its often more of a battle to get the lvl 3 ougi. I like the control and evasion, but the gameplay is just too simplistic.

Maybe if it was more like gekitou ninja taisen on the GC. Had more combos, more strategy and 4 player battles which were f*ing awesome. At the very least, they should have tried doing 4 player battles here too...either way, i would expect it to deserve more than a 3 out of 5, may 4 pushing it.

Regardless, its a day 1 purchase for me.

[RedDead]

I can't really blame them for it, it's for Fans only really. I mean it's hard to fit so 150+ 20 min episodes into a game. Then there's also the backstory and the reason everything is actually happening which if you skipped Naruto part 1 and even Uns1.

It's fine by me. All I know is that I liked the first game(besides some overpowered jutsu) quite a bit and still play it against my brother the odd time. So i'll still be getting this.

Reviewer is right that if your not a fan you won't understand properly, you won't know why Sasuke is trying to kill his brother fully, you won't know where the powers come from like Mangekyo sharingan. The game won't explain the coolness of Jutsu and the chakra system in general(best reason for having super human powers in fiction imo). More importantly you won't know why Certain people are such a big deal, there's not enough time to explain it all.

Edit--It's hard to sympatise with characters when you don't know whats wrong with them in the first place, the first game was terrible at telling the story so I don't expect it to be great in this one.

EDIT----Also this game has toned down violence, nudity and language for the sake of kids in America who watch it the Dubbed version, that's why there's some weird random lines you won't understand like the peverted sage(he's a really BIG pervert in the show, you'll have to take my word for it)

[RobotGeek]

I genuinely said that it's perfect as fan service. But for anyone else it's not particularly welcoming, and i considering there is a large community that don't watch naruto but play games, i think it's a fair reflection score wise. Granted i'd have liked someone from the site to be a massive naruto watcher, but we don't have everything :P

[Baka-akaB]

it doesnt matter if it's anime fan service or not ... it's a fighting game and you're lowering a score of a fighting game based on its single player mode ? Nor could you even try the online , wich is pretty much what everyone on the fence would be still undecisive about .

Sorry but it makes little sense to me . Or did we miss reviews where you lowered score for other fighting games because of its plot and sp mode with unlocks ?

You dont even seems to get the gameplay parts right even ... you couldnt have a gamescore for the original game , as it was never on 360 , and didnt even have trophies on ps3 .

And wich part of it's gameplay is reminiscent of final fantasy ? You made a rather vague point wich might need some clarification .

Imo you just rushed to push the first or one of the first review of the game , but it''s worthless to non-fans with very little useful infos , and as worthless for fans with nothing on online nor much details on the gameplay changes .

[eX-GREED]

'Baka' you got him good... gamescore my ass. NUNS1 was/is exclusive to the PS3. I don't want to come out harsh but this review is 'FAIL.'

^_^

[metalanime]

1. the single player mode is part of the package as a whole, so it stands to reason that it should have bearing on the total score, especially if its required to unlock all characters

2. How does this game, as a fighting game, really deserve much praise? Im not saying its bad, but its not great either. Take away the amazing cell shading and all you really have is a bunch of characters with a very minimal amount of combos, 2.5 special moves (.5 being a chargeable lvl 1) and homing shuriken. The battles are very simple and there is very little to the gameplay. Yes the control on the characters for dodging and evading/running are cool, but otherwise it doesnt bring much to the fighting game table. Plain and simple, its and anime game for anime fans, and im one of those fans, but im not going to fool myself into thinking of it as a fighting game on the level of street fighter or mvc2.

final fantasy part, if it wasnt obvious enough, is because you do a lot of running around in final fantasy, of course you usually have more to do in ff games...

[Baka-akaB]

@metalanime

Well you are actually fooling yourself quite a bit . I said nothing about the game being great , or even good , nor comparable to "real fighting games" in this instance .

1 . It's a double standards if your not judging sp mode for pretty much most fighting games out there the same way ... and i bet they dont .
I dont remember points removed from say the original SF4 when you had to unlock characters via a story mode that's everybit as integral , forced , and way more boring , with a story that makes no sense for people not already used to the street fighter universe .

2. I spoke mostly about the review itself and its poor quality with plenty of errors .

You're reading quite a lot into a simple matter , i'd say the same about a review of dbz raging blast 2 done the same way .. and i can't stand een the sight of that game .

[RedDead]

I agree with you. Fan service entirely. So the score for you and people who don't watch is probably right. There's a few Naruto fans on the site but there's alot of people who also think Anime is shi* in general.

[Baka-akaB]

those folks wouldnt be wondering about Naruto UNS2 to begin with . A more fair approach would be to give it its due in ratings , with a bold and huge "behold it's only worth that much for fans of the series or anime fans in general "

[FAGOL]

Damn there's fetch quests and crap like that. I hated collecting them scrolls in NUNS1.

[LordMarius]

Why would someone play a Naruto game if they are not a fan of it, especially since this game only focuses on the Shippuuden arc so you are missing the first part of the story

[saulx6]

1. First off how can a unknown site like you get a early copy of the game.. highly unreliable..videos reviews will solve might this issue...

2. I read both opinions and i respect your decisions but a review shouldn't be given a score unless they tried the online as well

[Lavalamp]

Is it really fair to fault the game because you didn't know what was going on in the narrative? I mean, there's really nothing the devs can do to remedy this to the point where you'd be even remotely up to the same speed as fans of the franchise. Naruto Shippuden is a sequel to the original series after all. Jumping into this game would be the equivalent to jumping onto Assassin's Creed 2 without having played its predecessor.

[Redempteur]

why ? why do they let people with no prior knowledge of the serie review a fan centered game.
"Admittedly, the only experience I’ve had with Naruto is a 5 minute playthrough of the original (easiest 1000 gamerscore ever gained), and ofcourse the abridged series…"

gigantic facepalm ..
the one on 360 isn't made by cyberconnect . they are radically different .
His experience with the manga is slim to none .. next time let people with no knowledge of music review rock band !!
Never played a fighting game before ? let's go review marvel vs capcom 3 !
This is stupid beyond redemption
"I had no idea what the fuck was going on."
had you'd been intrested in the manga/anime prior to the game you'll understand !!
What's going on ? you're jumping into the second half of a +400 anime serie +50 volume of manga and expect to understand the plot ? are they serious ?

"Now as for actual gameplay, the core of it are the familiar intense battles which have clearly been improved to be like an answer to the more recent final fantasy games."
WHAT ?? Does he even know what is he talking about ??

In summarry he doesn't understand the appeal , he doesn't know the games before it ( the 6 games made by cyberconnect ) , nor the plot or the characters and obviously won't find the appeal . and concludes that it's average game ..

What's average is your review morons !!

you can find flaws and stupids things in both reviews making these "wall of text" a complete JOKE .

WHAT'S THE POINT OF REVIEWING A ANIME FAN BATTLE GAME IF YOU DONT KNOW THE ANIME ? am i supposed to know the appeal of doing a kamehameha in all those dbz games if i haven't seen DBZ in manga or anime before ???

END rant/

[skrug]

i agree with you x100000000000

[metalanime]

maybe on an anime fansite, the review would have and should have garnered a higher score. Hell, as far as anime games go, this is a 5, but a review as a gamer to the general gamer audience, or even gamers primarily in the fighting genre, it deserves a 3.

Edit: its a game review, not an anime review, and as a GAME thats what it gets, as a FAN you will rate it higher for various reasons/

[madara0sama]

3/5 if your a non fan of the series and a 4.5 maybe 5/5 if your a fan of the series.

*Multilayer is gonna be the important part of the game and if you got friends that are also fans Naruto the game is gonna be blast.

If your not a fan of Naruto move on.

[metalanime]

very true, i guess a lot of anime fans dont understand the concept of reviewing the title as a game rather than anime fanservice...that i will buy right away.

[chadneil123456789]

@redempteur......well said bro u made some good points there....it seems as if they didnt even know the first one wasnt on the 360. Its funny tho that they didnt even like the fact that u unlock characters by playing the story mode

[Blackpool]

well said.. i knew lmao once some reviewers got it they would hate lol they never even watched the show.. dats why it will get bad ratings cuz reviewers like them

[Blackpool]

and u can unlock ppl while playing freebattle you earn sp

[kagon01]

Is as if a FPS fan reviews a game that is extremely unappealing to him/her like a jrpg or a fighter...

[Mr Exclusive]

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has a 73meta on the Wii, and I personaly think it's one of the most fun games i have played.

Reviews mean nothing.

GTA4 doesn't deserve it's 97% meta either.

[eX-GREED]

Next they're going to give Gran Turismo 5 a 3/5 because it's going to have cars they have never seen... "I didn't know what fucking car I was driving."

^_^

[saulx6]

meowy

[Chuk5]

Can't take the pain of a licensed game being only decent. See what I did there.

[Mystickay86]

I see that you're trying to instigate, nothing more.

[eX-GREED]

I see a 'FAIL'

[Senden]

People are being way too harsh on the guy, yes it's essentially a fan service game.. so ofcourse a lot of reviews will be aimed at the mass audience and should be as it's them at the end of the day who are up in arms over this. For a fan it's going to be 5/5 for the fact its naruto and it's online. That's how I see it anyway.

[Baka-akaB]

too harsh ? The point isnt if it's good or not or fanservice or not ... they can't even get straightforward facts right ... it reeks of amateurs hour , because it probably is .

It wouldnt be accepted for "regular games" , why should it be because it's a fanservice anime game ?

[Redempteur]

too harsh ??
are you kidding me ?
-with the final fantasy comparison ( what the hell does this have to do with this ?? DOn't even talk about QTE .. there are no QTE in FF13, don't EVEN talk about the number of bouton used .. you need R2[block], circle [attack], triangle[super attack] and almost every items , fighting in naruto require most of the pad boutons )
-NO online mode tested ( the BIG plus of this title ..yes it's the main dish , because it's a fighting game and online mode wasn't present before in the previous CC naruto games)
- no knowledge of the serie rendering them unable to understand KEY plots points or simple jokes , anyone reading or watching the anime would have known.
- Weird comments about gamerscore .. making obvious that they haven't played the first ultimate ninja game ( of course otherwise they'd know the story ) but ALSO proving that they are even mixing entire games from the franchise ( ubisoft games and cyberconnect games are way different, they don't cover the smae ground they have a totally different approch )
and how the hell do you get 1000 gamerscore in 5 minutes without playing the damn game ???

It doesn't matter that it's a fan service game , this review is missing key elements about the game itself ..
NO mention of the new skills , or the new gameplay elements , They aren't even able to know that the music they are critizing is the same used in the anime !!! it's not out of place .. it's perfectly used .. it's what everyone intrested by the game wants !!

And i could go on ..but i already talked up there about others "mistakes " they've made .. it's not professional as a review , they are missing explanations,they are mixing up facts, they are vague and imprecise in their descriptions .

This review is a key example on how to NOT do it .
If you compare this game to the previous ninja storm, they are key differences. Online , dynamic terrain during battle , exploration instead of staying in one city..even the way items are used changes ..
THERE is no mention of the quests ( how many , how hard ? ). what is the average life span of the game ? how long did they finish the story ?

i mean is it THAT hard to answer those questions ??

you dive into naruto games after watching the abridged version ? seriously ???

[Senden]

To be fair, there was a hell of a lot of errors in the review but still, who should review the game? Naruto fans? People will either get and love Naruto or think it's stupid and hate it.. I can't imagine there being a happy middle.

Not to mention naruto fans make up such a minor proportion of gamers out there. I think the large majority of people who are even slightly interested in the game would appreciate reviews from people who don't know nothing about naruto. Like perverted jutsu or ero senin.. to the average person they're going to think WTF??? to that as will they to some of the facial expressions.

While it's easy to argue that you need to watch the anime to fully appreciate the game but I think that's just the developers flaws if you need to watch a whole anime to really enjoy the game.

At the end of the day, the review was done for the average gamer by an average gamer. I think you're all just being the bitter resentful naruto versions of trekkies who think it's blasphemy to downplay something just because they have no prior knowledge.

[Lavalamp]

"While it's easy to argue that you need to watch the anime to fully appreciate the game but I think that's just the developers flaws if you need to watch a whole anime to really enjoy the game."

And it's totally easy to argue that it's the developers flaw. Seriously, how do you expect CyberConnect2 to create a game that's tailored to both fans and newcomers? You can't. And you're not even taking into consideration the fact that this is a direct sequel to another video game entirely. Even by gaming standards, jumping into a sequel without having played its predecessor only means you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're expecting the impossible from the devs and now you're faulting them for not being able to accomplish that.

[e-p-ayeaH]

MGS4 was a game for fans and still is 1 of the best action adventure games for the PS3

EDIT: From today forward im a uber troll

[denero1]

6.5/10

3/5 it will get scores like that but i will still buy it

[denero1]

some of you come off as fan boys -_- its his their review their opinion

do you really believe each person who reviews a naruto game will have previous knowledge about it:\

[Senden]

Exactly, some people seem to be personally insulted by this review.. i'm a huge naruto fanboy but common sense should prevail and there will be loads of reviews like this... sure the more well known websites will get someone more knowledgeable to review the game but ultimately the review scores will be around the same.. fan service games will never score high because there is never enough work done on them for them to hold enough appeal to anyone other than fans.

[despair]

reviews and opinions are not the same thing, reviews should be informative and actually help you in deciding if the game is right for you or not.

The scores represent the reviewers overall opinion of the game but the actual article should be at the very least informative and critical. This "review" was neither with incomprehensible references to FFXIII, sexual frustrations, incorrect prequel and dislike of older JRPGS.

Oh and some research before hand or at least spending more than 5 minutes on a previous(and correct) game should be done. I mean some sense of professionalism should be there not just halfassed references.

Most reviewers will at least have some knowledge on Naruto, you don't review a game based on a TV series without having some knowledge of the series, if you don't care about it enough to learn a little then you have no business trying to review the game, find someone else who has some interest or knowledge on the subject.

[bigrob904]

the reason people are upset is because they make the excuse of not knowing whats going on in the story. as a gamer you should know that if you dont play the first game most things in the sequel are going to be foreign to you. you cant go into the sequel expecting an origin story, thats ridiculous, and shouldnt hold back the reviews core for a game. its so easy with the internet to find out whats going on in the first place. and i noticed the picture they talked about the faces in its description. if they knew even just a smigen about Japanese anime, they would know they over dramatisize( if thatts a word) there faces when they draw so it makes since in the context of the game. but when you review a game you have to review who its intended for. you wouldnt tell a person who playes fps all day to go review a jrpg, they wouldn't get it because all they have experience with its fps. so the correct thing for them to do would be to get little knowledge of the material then judge it on what its suppose to be.

[Senden]

I guess it's more of an opinion piece but look at it from these guy's points of view.. for the most part it's a small site run by a few people. They receive a review copy of the game to review so done the best they could. While true a review should reflect a lot more on the game you can't expect every reviewer to go into each one with the same professionalism sites like IGN or Gamespot would do.

[Baka-akaB]

I see you put lots of energy trying to defend well nothing to really defend .. through various stages .

1st by accusing fans of being butthurts ... maybe some are , but since when do they care about great scores for anime game ? I dont think any usually receive great exposure or scores , except in stuff like famitsu ... so imo it is hardly the point .

Sorry but no they didnt do their best , they didnt even bother checking for simple facts to avoid errors .

Anyway i my case at least , the subject at hand doesnt even matter , i'm just tired of sloppy standards , under the pretext of blogging ... while pros are already lacking and slipping far too much already .

[iMaim]

their review seems like an outright lie.
one could question if they even played the game or if they even own it.
i bet they they just watched a couple gameplay clips and made shit up from there.

[RobotGeek]

In regards to the complaints about this review:

I apologise that maybe I didn't make it clear in the review, but the problem we had with the story wasn't our lack of understanding, it was the way the story was implemented through large walls of text. At the best of times, it's not a particularly immersive experience, but when you're constantly having to read through it all, it becomes tedious. Granted a lack of prior knowledge apart from the very limited reading we had on the internet didn't help to alleviate matters.

We do say that the fighting itself is good in the game, in fact I thought it was great fun. However The fights in the campaign are few and far between.

The complaint that we should have had a Naruto fan review the game, fair dues. I'll hold my hands up and admit we should have. Yet the majority of gamers aren't Naruto Fans, and we were reviewing this purely as a game, not as a fan service. We do note that this game will appeal to all Naruto fans. However, we simply said it wouldn't appeal to people who were trying to get into Naruto for the first time, or are looking for a new game to play, as the story mode is difficult to get into as a first timer and the fighting isn't exceptional enough to let that grievance go.

[iMaim]

the moment you mentioned gamerscore sent your credibility to hell as the prequel was a PS3 EXCLUSIVE.

[Lavalamp]

"However, we simply said it wouldn't appeal to people who were trying to get into Naruto for the first time, or are looking for a new game to play, as the story mode is difficult to get into as a first timer."

That's exactly what's wrong with your review. It's all well and good to inform your readers that this isn't the sort of game new players can just jump into, but it isn't fair at all to fault the developers for this. The game is both a sequel to another game entirely as well as an incredibly faithful adaption of the anime. It's like faulting a brilliant narrative like Metal Gear Solid 4's because you went into it without having played the previous installments and are now incedibly lost because you don't understand why there are so many code names with animals and states of matter. Who's fault is that, the devs? No. It's yours. And you'd be twice at fault for deducting half of MGS4's stars because of this.

[bigrob904]

bt you are missing the point that you cant just jump straight into a sequel or an anime game for that matter. for this simple fact you should have just not reviewed the game in the firt place and leaved it at that. simple.

[Balflear87]

Do you guys even know what a review is? Oh dear... to think they send review copies to people that don't know how to review... it's a shame.

[TheHardware]

Baka, bubs bro

redempteur excellent points bro

robotgeek.
how will the addition of online reflect on your score if implemented correctly? another half point? a whole? cause a 4/5 star game, while retaining all the negatives you said about it would confuse a consumer....4/5 is a high score.....maybe you jumped the gun just to be first with a review.

to each his own though....Ive preordered already

[Redempteur]

@metalanime
i'll waste my final bubble to answer you.
"Story bits are just presented in japanese simulator format, which is pretty horrible, and once again cant compare to the source material, and they throw in the battle in between."
it's still the only way to tell a long story without wasting too much ressources ..the game cover OVER 150 episodes of the shippudden saga .. so they should have made 150*24 minutes of cutscenes ?
it's not like fans are used to read ( manga , anime with subs ).Graphics are gorgeous and the story is SPOT ON .. the horrible format worked perfectly in the 7.. ( yes seven ) games made by cyberconnect before .it may be horrible ( to you ) but it works ..

"the single player mode is part of the package as a whole, so it stands to reason that it should have bearing on the total score, especially if its required to unlock all characters "
you missed the point baka made .. they missed the ENTIRE online part ..an entire half not reviewed and as i said before most of fans wants to try online.
let's review WIPEOUT HD without ONLINE ! Better Let's review TEKKEN 6 without ONLINE !!Let's review fifa 11 without online .!! ( same score ?? /sarcasm/ )

"final fantasy part, if it wasnt obvious enough, is because you do a lot of running around in final fantasy"
WHAT ? Loooool please tell me you're not serious this is beyond ridiculous..running ? that's your reason??

"Maybe if it was more like gekitou ninja taisen on the GC."
It's not .. please stay focused we're not judging the depth of the game i'm attacking this poor review that doesn't even have facts to back up the poor claims they 've made..

"How does this game, as a fighting game, really deserve much praise? Im not saying its bad, but its not great either. "
sorry were you expecting tekken ? street fighter ? soul calilbur ?
no it's naruto .. it's a fan service game .. it's overpowered skill and balance .. everyone wants to have fun with all the cool moves , the sharigan , the rasengans, shadow or water clones , ect ect ..i'm not critizing the note. MY PROBLEM is WITH THE CONTENT OF THE REVIEW ..i read a review to know about the game .. unfortunatly all i saw was misinformation and weird comments..it lacked information about the game simple as that. i'm not asking for spoilers , but informations about the lenght, the online , the combo system , the changes from the first NUNS1 ... NOTHING of that was present !!No mention of Lars !

"very true, i guess a lot of anime fans dont understand the concept of reviewing the title as a game rather than anime fanservice...that i will buy right away. "

Way to miss the point some of us made ... Do fan care about the note ? they'll buy the game anyway !! what they want if a proper review for an anime site , or for a mainstream site .. it's the same thing people want ..a good review ..i want the guy telling me if a game is good or not to know his stuff a little .How hard is it to understand that ?

i'm not asking him to know naruto but at least to have played the prequel ... his only reference is a naruto on 360 completed in 5 minutes ( a BIG FAT LIE ) and the abridged series .. seriously they should be ashamed of themselves to feed that IGNORANT review to anyone