Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections Review

thesixthaxis.com:

The Ultimate Ninja Storm games sit in my gaming happy place. CyberConnect2 has been perfecting their 3D anime arena brawling over the past fifteen years, securing them firmly in the Naruto pantheon alongside the original manga and anime. Now we arrive at the needlessly verbose Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections, and can gaze lovingly into its Sharingan eyes while wondering where the last fifteen years have gone. Seemingly, it’s not gone into revolutionising this particular fighting series.

Connections – we’ll call it that from here on out for the sake of my sanity – brings the beloved host of Naruto characters together once more, firmly allowing them to whale on each other in a variety of ways in 3D arenas. There’s an unbelievable 130 to choose from, though that number is ballooned by many of the characters being different iterations of the same fighter. I know Naruto is the star, but they could have just been alternate costumes.

There are two story modes here to delve into, and fans of the original Ninja Storm titles will undoubtedly recognise History mode as it charts the original Naruto/Sasuke narrative in its entirety, though it frames it as having to restore history that hasn’t happened. This is the first time it’s all appeared in one place rather than spread across multiple titles, which is good news as a newcomer, but if you’re a returning fan there’s going to be an immediate and overriding sense of Déjà vu.

It’s also not the most complete rendition of the tale, with a bunch of missing fights, and a real sense of disconnect as many of the events are replaced by static screens from the anime and text-heavy exposition. Some of it is narrated or voiced, but I really don’t understand why we’re not just given scenes from the anime itself. Surely that would be the most straightforward solution?

The second story mode, Special Story, is an all-new original tale centring on Naruto’s son Boruto and the arrival of war to the region. It’s nice to have