IGN: Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2 Review

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2 is one of the more gorgeous games IGN has seen in a long time. They’ve really captured the feeling of the cartoons, and playing the Adventure Mode -- at least in the less tedious portions -- feels like you’re playing inside an episode of the anime. The fighting system is surprisingly rich; but they should unlocked the full character roster from the start. No one wants to buy a fighting game, invite their friends over, and then realize they need to play hours of a story mode just to get their favorite characters. Still, this is a fun fighter, even if you don’t really care for the subject matter.

Presentation - 8.5
Graphics - 9.0
Sound - 8.0
Gameplay - 8.0
Lasting Appeal - 7.5

[despair]

another crappy review from ign..I'm shocked...give a guy who doesn't watch anime, or doesn't play fighting games to review an anime fighting game in another 1 page half review.

[Neckbear]

"OH NO I HAVE TO UNLOCK CHARACTERS"

"DEM GRAPHIX"

Indeed.

[TheBlackSmoke]

Apparently there are "plenty of people" who want to buy a Naruto game and not actually play through the story of Naruto..... and here's me thinking the majority of buyers would be Naruto fans.

Basically add a point to this score if you actually know about the anime beforehand.

[Heartnet]

but dont most fighters make u unlock 1 character or another.. ^^ but yeh 8 is a good score but they should have got an anime or a fighting reviewer to review this game

[ExplosionSauce]

This guy has more experience and understands these types of games and genres better.

/end rant

[ABizzel1]

I knew this was going to happen. No matter how good a anime game is it'll never score over 9 in the American community.

The same thing happened to DBZ Budokai 3 8.5/10 and to this day it's one of my favorite fighting games ever.

IGN as well as many other sites are biased, but in a unique way. They give free passes to established franchises just as long as they're good (especially Nintendo).

The game can have 8/10 written all over it, but if it has the nostalgia factor to it you better believe it's getting bumped up to a 9/10 just for being a childhood franchise (as they and many other site did with the recent review of a certain game starring a pink fluffy character who sucks up enemies and takes on their abilities, named Kirby, which is basically the same game Nintendo has been putting out since the original NES with a unique art style.)

Examples: Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Bros. 4, New Super Mario Bros. DS, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Yoshi's Island, Super Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi Partners in time, Paper Mario, Super Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story, need I go on.

But that's it I have nothing more to say about them and Nintendo.

But here we have a great game, and they gimp it's review score by letting someone who doesn't know about the anime, and who doesn't play fighting games review it. WTF. As many of those above me said if you are a fan of Naruto games this game is a 9/10 for you, and if you like fighting games, like I do, you should really try the demo out and see if you like it. The original was one of the best fighting games this gen, and I'm sure this one is no exception.

[Chuk5]

they atleast gave it a good score.

[despair]

7.5 for lasting appeal in a fighting game with good online and offline MP and a fleshed out story mode. 8.0 for overall is what I expect most non fans to rate it but at least give the individual areas a proper deserving score.

[GoldPS3]

It's a great score. You know want to expect from IGNorance. Play the game yourself and make your own judgement. You don't need any ones opinion to know if a game is good or not.

[Rush]

Do you ever get tired of that tard motto some 12 year old thought of in his mothers basement?

[rukia_chan]

biggest disappoint game so far in this year.

[ExplosionSauce]

Hardly. If you judge a game by one review and take it as ultimate fact? Then yes, it is.

But it's an 8. It's not even that bad of a score. Still lower than what I believe this game deserves.

[chazjamie]

what are you talking about? "biggest dissappoint game". that does not even make sense, unless you referring to games that intend to disappoint.

what were you expecting though. you, the player create your own arc with the characters?

[tacosRcool]

Just watched the video review and I can say that the reviewer doesn't like to play the story mode. Isn't that the whole point to play through the story mode to unlock characters? How many other fighting games do that? Looks like a buy for me

[GoldPS3]

The guy sounds like a COD fanboy don't he. You right about the story mode. I'm glad there's a story mode to unlock characters. If I'm gonna pay $60 for a game, there damn well better be hours of play time in it.

[ABizzel1]

He's says from the get go he's not a Naruto fan, and he doesn't play fighting games. My question is why would IGN have someone who knows nothing about the game or it's genre review it. That's very unprofessional of them.

[princejb134]

this game will still be excellent
and people should buy despite the crappy review
i loved part 1
the only downfall of the first one, there was no online fighting

[Nitrowolf2]

" they should unlocked the full character roster from the start. No one wants to buy a fighting game, invite their friends over, and then realize they need to play hours of a story mode just to get their favorite characters"

really i think most people will play Storyline first and unlock a good handful of characters before they start playing with people. Plus most fighting games do this, i mean should all cars be unlocked in need for speed game at the start? No its part of rewarding the player

[Panthers]

For real. Its called lasting appeal. Unlockables are always great to keep someone playing.

[Monkey521]

This guy really doesn't know the fan base that this game targets. The majority of the people who get this game will play through the storyline regardless because they follow the series and enjoy the story. Honestly, I think they should have had the person who reviewed the first game, come back and review this one also. If you play the first Ultimate Ninja Storm, you would already know that this is an established system in the game.

[chazjamie]

with tekken 6 they gave you all the characters from the start. however, you could unlock clothes (and vids) to make your favourite character look disgusting. tekken 6 felt very....uhm confused. confusing in a sense, that it didnt know what it wanted to be. that tekken force nonsense was so broken, but lasted about 4 hours. the fighting part of tekken was there, but for some reason, for me, it felt like it was no longer the main priority.

the customization system was really shallow. so it failed there. it did so many things, unecessary things and it ended up being another title that does not know what to do about this next generation of gaming. unlocking characters was one of my favourite things to do, but now they just rushed everything.its kind of sad.

[WLPowell]

who gave super smash bros brawl(aka shameless nostalgia whoring over coherrent game design) a 9.5 and that game was the biggest fucking offender of this crap. at least UNS2 doesn't advertise the hidden characters on the back of the fucking box!

But good to know IGN is just letting whoever the fuck draws the name out of the hat review the game.

"I don't like anime, and I don't like fighting games, but this game isn't that impressive IMO"
... WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU REVIEWING THIS THEN!???

Again with the "knockdown the overall score because it doesn't spoil Multiplayer whores" Reviewing from IGN... SMH

[AntoineDodson]

Game is awesome, got it today. An 8 is a great score, sure it's not a 10 of course but for a fighting game this is really well done. Another thing I noticed is the online is incredibly smooth, which surprised me. A proper netcode is important in fighting games and it seems they did pull it off.

[billbox2010]

rental game confirmed.

The Japanese gaming industry is dying...

anyway, i expect worst reviews for this game.

[rdgneoz3]

And it beat IGN's score for MOH by 2 ( http://ps3.ign.com/objects/... ). Also, most reviews besides this one have given it 9s.

[Dysmorphic]

An eight outta ten equals a rental for you? Jesus, people these days.

Regarding the review, he wants everything unlocked from the start? Where's the fun (or challenge) in that? I don't recall anyone having a problem with unlockables before this generation began. Does everyone need to be spoon-fed from start to finish? It sure seems like it.

[The Wood]

you really have to hand pick that 1 game you buy every six months therefore for him an 8 may really be a rental ;)

anywho this is a buy for me

[TheBlackSmoke]

When a game has this much production value, the complaints about it are reallly only going to be preferencial ones. If you are Naruto fan you wouldn't even need to question whether or not to buy this.

[visualb]

then I bet you rented Modern Warfare 2 and every other game ever

ah wtv this is another kid that enjoy's "pissing" people off on n4g and has fun with replies

having fun?!

"ooooh so many replied I have friends now"

bah....*ignore*

[Fullmetalevolust]

Everything from the presentation to the story mode makes me want to pick up a copy,I'm just not sold on the fighting system yet. The combat looks fluid and visually striking, but parts of me feel like the button combinations for most attacks might seem a little simple. I barely played the first one, maybe someone could tell me how truly deep the fighting system is? From the vids I've seen some fighters have more varied attacks than others.
As far as unlocking characters, most fighters I've played have required playing the story mode or arcade mode to do so, what's new this time around?

[AntoineDodson]

It's deeper than the first one, more combo's and ways to win a fight. They also removed those super attacks from the first one that entered you in a QTE scene, so the speed during the fights wont suddenly vanish. Last but not least, they gave actual use to the support characters now. They come in 3 styles: attack, defend or balance. You can assign any of these styles to your support character, so he can attack for you, catch a devastating blow from your opponent that was meant for you or serve as distraction while you load up chakra. So yeah its a lot more deep :)

[Fullmetalevolust]

I see that you already got your copy. You must be having a blast!
So no more super attacks in this one? or how does that work?

[AntoineDodson]

The awesome QTE events are saved for boss battles in Adventure mode. During normal fights you still have a sort of "super attack" except this is not QTE based anymore so it doesnt take the speed out of a fight. And yea the game is a blast, online works extremely fluid so kudos to a proper netcode.

The only downside? For a game with a 15 minute install of 5 GB, I was expecting loading times to be a bit faster and less occuring, but that's the only flaw I have found so far. The graphics really are jawdropping..

[RedDead]

Just like to tell, as the review said, this game isn't about combo's per se, when your fighting other people it's ALL about your timing. Throwing stuff or using jutsu or dodge at the right time will win it for you. game's fighting system truely shows itself when your fighting someone with almost the same skill as you when your both winning and losng matches each.

[EskiJoe]

I like it more when you actually unlock characters through story mode.
It feels to empty when you can't...

[SpaceFox]

WOW @ complaining about having to unlock characters. Bad review, getting this game regardless.

[RedNinjaPro]

DOES anyone know if you can pick more than one jutsu for a character.

In the first game you were limited to one jutsu. So Naruto could pick either rasengan or demon bomb not both. Personally I felt it would be alot more interesting if you could flip between skills.

[RedDead]

I'll explain it,
there are levels of jutsu in this. level 1,2,3. Level 2 beats 1 and level 3 beats two, level 1 versus 1 just clash and charcters do a backflip.
level 1:Rasengan,Chidori.........tri angle, circle
level 2: Odama(giant) Rasengan, Chidori sword/or current...........triangle, circle(hold)
level 3: Rasen shurikan,Kirin,AMaterasu...... ......triangle X2, circle

You can pick 1 level 1 jutsu and 1 level 3 jutsu, your level 2 jutsu will be a powered up version or slightly dif version of level 1. For example, Fireball becomes Dragon fire tech and lets say...Chidori can either become a ranged attack
(raikiri wolf), defensive attack(current) or just a more powerful version of the first one (chidori sword)

[RedNinjaPro]

Thanks ;)

[RedNinjaPro]

To follow on it sounds like the system has been improved.

One idea I had was that you click in the right joystick and you change your jutsu. i.e. from rasengan to demon bomb. OR you could change say Gara from long distance to close.

Anyway, the new system sounds good.

[wildcat]

I was hoping the guy who reviewed the first Ninja Storm would review this. So I can see how it compares to the other ultimate ninja games. But I guess this review is more for the non fans.

[crxss]

this game is going to be great. i kinda have to agree with ign on the single player, i wish the game would have all the characters unlocked bu i guess i need some incentive to play the adventure more. in storm 1 all i did was download a friend's save data cause that single player was awful but storm 2's looks better by far.

[HelghastKid]

if you guys are basing your purchase of an anime game on reviews you are really stupid. These games are made straight for the fans. If you dont like the anime, then you wont like the games simple as that.

[clintos59]

For this guy not to play through the story mode shows u he obviously is missing a big chunk of what makes this anime series amazing. Along with the great battles & all the sick ninja & other fighting styles that keeps the fights fresh with sick azz ninja arts & forbidden jutsu's. I cant say enough about this anime, its just that good & im definitely buying this game. I wish they would make a bleach game like this. My 2 favorite anime shows im watching.

[belal]

and it's super fun, a must buy for aruto fans.

[LightofDarkness]

I'm not a Naruto fan, but this looks fun. Also, gorgeous. Should i?

[armogangsta]

bs? were they not paid handsomely enough? 8 is a great score, but their reasons of taking 2 whole points off were really stupid.. made no sense! OH I HAVE TO UNLOCK CHARACTERS!! so much work -___- 2 POINTS OFF! stupid -__-

[RedDead]

Not really, a game makes it's way up to 10, it doesn't start at 10 and lose points, the gameplay, sound etc are worthy of an 8

[Aleusia]

eight out of ten ain't bad

[Michael-Jackson]

An 8 is a good score. At least this game is not a quick cash in unlike Dragonball Raging Blast 2.

[Justin_bristoe]

but your opinion certainly doesnt matter when it comes to naruto uns..this will be a 10 for almost anyone who buys it

[Nappa]

Naruto is OK but i think it would of scored better if it was DRAGON BALL Z HAHAHa...ign probably took 2 points off for not liking naruto ..but who can blame them.this was a horrible review ign,dick move ign...dick move..