The Case

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is the latest game in the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, this time coming to the PC, X360 and PS3 simultaneously. It is a fighting game based on the popular Japanese Naruto manga and anime series. Unlike the UNS3: Full Burst which appeared on PC last year, Revolution has less ties to the original story and contains more material exclusive to itself. Let us see how well it fares compared to its predecessor.

The Trial

The battle system in Revolution remains very similar to its predecessors, but with some important changes. It is still focused on providing awesome battles without a large skill gap. Many base moves remain identical and are just as easy to perform. In arenas where ring-out is possible, it is no longer an instant kill but just a way to heavily damage an opponent. The ability for characters to transform and perform the ultimate “jutsu” attack has been separated into three exclusive categories. You can choose only one of them for a match, which influences the abilities you have available during the fight. Ultimate jutsu allows you to perform a very powerful solo or team attack, but does not allow any awakenings. The new Awakening Mode, on the other hand, gives you a chance to improve your power at any time at a cost of chakra capacity, and filling the ultimate meter can give an extremely powerful, temporary ultimate awakening. Support drive is the final choice, giving the most power to teams. With it, your teammates are much more active in attacking enemies and protecting you, while filling the ultimate gauge allows you to seal your enemies’ chakra and restrict their special moves.

While these changes do not affect the basic combat tactics, they change the overall combat a lot, especially in team matches. The ultimate jutsu choice is the most straightforward to use, no matter if you play solo or with a team, as it is always available. Aesthetically, it is more interesting now, as some team configurations have their own special team finishers. To get the most from awakening power, you have to be able to charge it, then finish the enemy before the ultimate awakening ends and negative after-effects appear. Finally, having teammates constantly protecting you and assisting in attacks is always useful. However, there is a risk of them taking too much damage while helping you and becoming unavailable for a long time.

UNS Revolution’s main single player mode is a story-less Ninja Tournament mode. In it, you can pick any character as your main one during each level. The mode is set on a separate island, which you can explore freely to find side missions and additional characters to use in the Tournament. While many side missions and network clones are standard battles, the Tournament battles use a different system. In each level, there are three special team battles. In each battle, every member of your team faces three other enemies in arena in any order you choose. HP is replaced by orbs, which can be lost when you take damage, while players have to collect them. After each round, the combatants change and get bonus orbs from their previous teammates. At the end of the final round, the team with the most orbs wins. There is no choice of special powers before these battles, although some power-ups can still be bought and applied before the battle.

The new battle format could have been an interesting addition, especially with all the additional features of the arena to spice things up. However, the controls are not cooperative, remaining too similar to the ones used in standard battles. You have little control over the free movement, free camera often does not work, and even enemy lock-on randomly disappears. As a result, you have bad awareness and often cannot do the moves you would like to perform. It is very weird, as UNS3 had a much less problematic battle system, which would have worked well in Revolution’s tournament battles.

There are also several small campaigns with some actual story in them. There is a short, completely non-canon Mecha-Naruto campaign. In it, you will play both as Naruto and as Mecha-Naruto during different segments. There are also three Ninja Escapades campaigns, consisting of a few battles with animated sequences between. These may be interesting to Naruto fans, covering the creation of Akatsuki, the relationship between Shinsui and Itachi, and the history of team Minato. Unfortunately, they are very short, especially the last story, which doesn’t even have any gameplay at all.

The online features have received some updates. Most importantly, online battles finally work well in UNS Revolution. While there are still problems finding public battles, you can expect that the online connection will not lag with a friend who is not too far away. There also is an online clone system, where you can create a clone that will appear in other players’ SP campaigns. Your online clone will improve based on the number of battles it fights, and will return with additional items. Both the online clone and your player can be customised with additional items, which will be shown during the fights.

The technical side of UNS Revolution hasn’t changed from UNS3. It is still a very direct console port, locked at 30FPS, with only resolution and SSAA as graphical options. While it is not a complete gamebreaker, it is below the standards we should expect from PC games, especially since this is the second PC game form the developer.

The Verdict

On the whole, it’s tough to decide whether UNS Revolution is worth a purchase. On one hand, we have an improved combat system, especially with team combat and working online play. On the other hand, the single-player features are lacking and not as engaging as in the heavily story-based UNS3. In the long run, it will be an easy pick for a cheaper price, but it is hard to recommend getting it at full price.

Case Review