PG 1 | PG 2

"Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2" is a fun, if at times tedious, action adventure/fighting game with great visuals and incredible set-pieces.  Naruto fans will definitely enjoy "Ultimate Ninja Storm 2" and even newcomers to the Naruto series will find themselves enjoying the huge battles that take place throughout the game. 

“Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2” is a fairly lengthy and complete action/adventure game with a rather simplistic multiplayer component. The adventure game known as “Ultimate Adventure” recaps many of the main story events from Naruto Shippuden. The player will control many different characters from the series throughout the game as he or she progresses through the storyline. For someone like myself who has had very little contact with the Naruto series it takes a little while to understand the relationships and motivations of different characters. However the game does a passable job of fleshing out each main character just enough to allow for the emotional impact of story events to resonate with newcomers to the series. The gameplay consists of travelling the gameworld and fighting other characters in huge fun battles.

The (Un)eventfulness of Travel
Ultimate Adventure mode has some spectacular battles however to get to these battles the player must wade through a lot of boring travel. At first the visuals of the game make travelling the gameworld fresh and exciting but after Naruto traverses the same locations for the 10th time, with nothing new to accomplish, the visual beauty can get stale. During travel between different locations the player can do one of two things: collect materials and move from point A to point B (the player can also make characters jump, but for no reason). These travel sections would benefit greatly if some platforming and/or combat was introduced. However, even if some of the environments get a little stale after seeing the same backgrounds over and over there is no denying that “Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2” is a gorgeous looking game.

The Colours and Sounds of Naruto
The characters in “Ultimate Ninja Storm 2” are 3D with great physical animations. The backgrounds and the world surrounding the characters are beautiful 2D environments. A player should take the time to pause at each new location to see the incredible amount of visual detail in each environment. The visual style of “Ultimate Ninja Storm 2” provides, beyond gorgeous environments, some unique camera angles that further enhance the high artistic quality of the game. Unfortunately, the lack of anything to accomplish in these environments feels like a waste of the visuals and a waste of the characters inhabiting such a beautiful world.

The audio is a little less stellar compared to the visuals. The music complements the scenes and action well and the voice acting is generally well done. However, the English dialogue is terribly clichéd. I am not certain if the over abundance of generally bad dialogue is a reflection of the source material or an issue with translation, but there are plenty of cringe worthy lines that detract from the mostly enjoyable narrative the game is trying to convey.

Materials and Ninja tools
During the travel sections of the game the player can choose to collect a myriad of materials found inside objects and scattered on the ground. The player can return collected materials to shops in the villages to either sell or to fill orders that unlock new items to purchase. Purchased Items will offer certain benefits in future fights when consumed. For example, eating a particular Bento before a battle can give the player extra defense or attack in the next fight. There are also Battle items to purchase which can be mapped to the D-pad to offer real-time assistance during a fight, like throwing down explosives or taking certain pills mid-fight to temporarily boost stats. These items help to add some strategy to the huge battles.

Battle Ready
The battles in “Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2” are spectacular. The minor fights are entertaining but the boss battles steal the show. The boss battles are some the best looking boss encounters I have ever seen and the boss fights are presented on a huge scale (I lost count of how many massive craters were left in the wake of some ridiculously huge and fun boss encounter). These boss battles often include quicktime events, which I usually despise. However in “Ultimate Ninja Storm 2” the use of quicktime events offers a bit of a give and take formula. During a quicktime event the player has a set amount of time to press the buttons shown on screen. If the player successfully completes the button presses in time the character they are controlling gains some health back. Conversely if the player misses the button presses the character looses some health. Missing the quicktime event does not restart the battle, rather the game resets near the last missed quicktime event and the player can continue to miss and retry until the character the player is controlling runs out of health. As well, the payoff for completing quicktime events is always one stunning cinematic moment.

Some boss battles even completely change the gameplay. Certain boss fights will, for example, shift from a 3D fighting game to an on-rails shooter. The variety of gameplay and sheer cinematic scope of the boss fights offers the best moments in the game and makes the sometimes tedious journey to the next boss fight worth it just to see the end result.