Now, I’m a lover of both anime and fighting games — I grew up with Killer Instinct Gold, Tekken, and late night SBS anime sessions in lieu of a babysitter — and 99% of the time I can enjoy games that mix the two. Having never really gotten into Naruto, I figured that perhaps I could at least enjoy it because it’s just a fighting game. But I couldn’t. I really, really couldn’t.

For fans of Naruto, this game does what it was created to do — provide an updated fighting game that is concurrent with the manga and/or anime. It also includes some rather neat new features including an entirely original story for the new Mecha-Naruto character, new Ninja World Tournament and Ninja Escapades modes, and a brand new storyline for the Akatsuki.

Excuse sir, but are you aware of the Venus flytrap around your head?

Putting aside the usual modes such as Free Battle — your stock standard “fighting” mode between yourself and either your friend or the computer — and the online battle mode, the new Ninja World Tournament and Ninja Escapades modes are great new additions to the series.

Ninja World Tournament has seemingly replaced the previous storyline-based mode in former titles with an all-out ultimate fighter battle where whichever team has the most orbs — collected by literally beating them out of your opponents — at the end of the battle, wins. You can customize your character’s garb, items used in battle, and even eat bento to increase your stats. Personally for me as a non-Naruto fan, this was the mode I enjoyed the most as it was a unique battle environment where your focus was not only on beating the opponent you’re focused on, but also avoiding attacks from other opponents whilst collecting the most orbs. This mode also has the new Mecha-Naruto character and his brand new story arc.

Saving your Chakra is highly recommended.

The most noteworthy addition to this game for the fans however, is the new Ninja Escapades mode — a series of short, untold/unreleased stories (and one-on-one playable fights) providing backgrounds and history to characters and groups, like the creation of the Akatsuki.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolutions looks gorgeous, but nothing overly impressive. It’s as pretty as a cel-shaded game can get, with very minor improvement from its predecessor. The new animation for the cut-scenes in Ninja Escapades are beautiful, and this game does not fail to deliver crisp and clean interpretations of Naruto’s writer and illustrator Masashi Kishimoto’s work.

Kermit — WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!

My only concern with this game is how little it does to assist new-to-Naruto-gaming players in terms of controls, menu-navigation, and information deliverance. Personally this was difficult to pick up and play as a gamer, nor is it a title where your random non-gaming friend can just pick up the second controller and button mash their way to a victory — because there is no button mashing. The characters move and dodge slowly, and 80% of buttons relating to gameplay are to be used as part of a sequence or only available once certain conditions are met, and even then — you need to understand the Naruto lingo to even begin to grasp the abilities. As for the menu system, well, if you enjoy having GIANT font with LOTS of COLOURS and PICTURES shoved into the screen at once then good news — there is an abundance of the aforementioned. Descriptions of modes and various bits are simple and mostly vague, and because of the scrolling text you are required to sit on a screen for twice as long whilst waiting for it to all scroll back across.

What she said.

This game isn’t for me. And I’m okay with that — as I really have zero interest in Naruto (read: I don’t have time for a never-ending anime series). For hardcore Naruto fans however, there is plenty of new material that Kishimoto has added as a thank you, over 110 playable characters (300 technically if you’re factoring in their different forms!), and a huge push towards multiplayer — as these types of games are best enjoyed with friends.