In reality, we are talking about a “modular” product, as it is possible to purchase all the episodes of the package individually or to limit yourself to the first three with the Trilogy edition. In any case, those who do not know the franchise and want to make up for lost time will find four games of great value,
full of stories, missions and spectacular fights: a legacy not just that, the study conducted by Hiroshi Matsuyama, who has demonstrated how it is possible to make tie-ins visually better than the souls from which they are drawn, exploiting the plot thoroughly and making the characters look better in a riot of colors, ninja techniques and effect phrases.
NARUTO: ULTIMATE NINJA STORM
The first game included in the collection is Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, originally released in 2008 on PlayStation 3. It is a title that starts from the great experience made in previous years by the development team, and that offers an RPG structure in the optics of a rich countryside, made of main and secondary missions to be accessed by visiting the streets and places of the Village of the Leaf.
The remastering work greatly benefits from cel shading, which hides very well the simplicity of the polygonal models related to the characters , although the map appears rather bare and distant from its representation in the manga and the anime of Naruto.
The formula, however, is always the same: counting on a roster consisting of twenty-five characters, to which are added support, we will have to deal with fights as more complex by selecting a main ninja and two companions to call if necessary .
The action is that of a brawler rather than a brawler at meetings, and not by chance the buttons used for maneuvers are few: the Circle starts a simple combo, the Square allows you to throw knives from the distance, X serves to jump or shoot and the Triangle adjusts the ability to accumulate the Chakra to make the most powerful moves. Blows with backbones are parried, evasion techniques are
practiced and, in general,the gameplay is frenetic and engaging, although some opponents tend a little too often to escape the conflict by lengthening the distances , a practice that can generate frustration when it is not possible to score hits.
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: ULTIMATE NINJA STORM 2
For the second installment of the series, released in 2010, CyberConnect2 has decided to change the hub of the Village of the Leaf (the first of a set of environments visited), using a system of fixed shots that can enhance the richness of the landscape, as opposed to the desolation of the previous episode. Little has changed, however, in terms of structure,
with a campaign that sees us again this time to go far and wide in search of access points to the missions. If the methods of exploration have remained similar, with excessively dilated times for travel, from the point of view of the direction there are instead several changes, in particular challenges of a different nature and a use of the characters much more varied, which follows in a fairly faithful way the events of the plot.
When it comes to hard, the experience confirms its solidity without however revolutionizing the mechanisms already tested at the debut. So we continue with a lot of commands reduced to the bone, an emphasis on timing and the spectacularity of maneuvers, especially the special ones, which can also involve our inevitable teammates, to be recalled through the pressure
of the main backbones, and that they make the difference during the fights, inflicting huge damage on the opponent if they hit. As for the first Ultimate Ninja Storm, here too the remastering work is unexceptionable , indeed it further benefits from the cinematographic setting of the shots.
