Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker Review (PS4)

So, basically "wait for a couple patches and this'll be the definitive Naruto game someday" then?

I'm okay with that. It was never gonna wrestle control of my gaming calendar this side of Christmas anyway, so maybe once things have settled down and there's a big enough gap in 2019, I'll give this a try.

Great review!

Seems another game that's been released at the wrong time and will be lost among the bigger games coming out, so will wait till next year when patched and cheaper, you do think the developers of these games would use a little common sense and release at a different timw.

Nice review. I wasn't planning on getting it since I don't enjoy multiplayer, but thanks to the offline mode, I'll definitely get it.

well i'm glad it has offline modes so i'll be picking it up but i just couldn't get it day one, i just didn't have the funds

Guess I'll have to check out this Naruto Xenoverse then, eventually.

What about the soundtrack though? Naruto had some great tunes, but the previous game didn't use any of the awesome music bums me out.

@NathanUC it's expensive licencing Anime music for games outside of Japan, that's why it took so long for Dragon Ball games to get Cha-La Head Cha-La and why they had to sell the songs as a Anime Music pack for XenoVerse 2 and FigterZ, to cover the cost

7/10 stars?! You've got be kidding me.

The biggest thing they have going for them is customization, but they were lazy. The problem is EVERYTHING is locked to specific classes. I understand the concept of building an effective and well balanced team. I think that's a really cool idea, it's actually something that I was thinking about when I was fantasizing over the perfect naruto game. But the way they did it is too restricting even to things that don't need to be class specific, like ninja tools and weapons. If you're not playing online for whatever reason then you are going to be doing missions virtually by yourself, so why would you restrict players from building a well balanced character? And maybe we just want the aesthetics; for instance, if I wanted a ninja with a tanto and body flicker, I couldn't, so what you're telling me is that Shisui doesn't exist?

At this point I'm going to start listing all the things that would seriously improve the game.
1. Get rid of the restrictions on all ninja weapons and most ninja tools and jutsu. Obviously certain things need to be restricted like only healers have access to healing type jutsu and the healing tag but balancing can be accomplished very easy.

• Attack types do exponential damage with taijutsu
• Ranged class strong hits, no matter what weapon they are using will default to the powerful kunai throwing and have a higher ninja tool count
• Defense does less Taijutsu and ninjutsu damage, but regardless of the weapon, their strong attack has the no flinch armor and are the only class with access to the sealing tag tool
• Healer class are is the only class have access to healing jutsu
  EVERYTHING else should not be restricted. There should also be a separate class possibly only available when playing offline that allows you full access to choose between all learned jutsu. A player should be allowed to choose only ultimate jutsu if they so choose, because it already balances itself out; the player will be basically useless until their ultimate is ready. If a player chooses only ultimate jutsu, it should have a very SLIGHT faster charge speed. (Still assuming that the player only picked ultimates) transformation ultimates should be combine-able and last longer individually and separately and attack or heal ultimates should charge just a very slight bit faster. If a player is smart enough to make this play style feasible, then their skill should be rewarded, not restricted.

2. Have trainable stats. Not all ninja are just as fast as each other, or as strong, or stealthy. Trainable stats should be:

• Speed- (running and chakra jump distance)
• Strength- (Average Taijutsu damage)
• Skill (Chance of critical hit and ninjutsu damage)
• Chakra control- (because of the combat system is is what already is this would have to be jutsu refresh speed)
• Sign weaving- (Speed in which jutsu can be cast) Would add an extra interesting detail to combat, the current jutsu casting speed would have to be slowed down for this to have any noticeable change, but would also promote less chaotic and most strategy orientated game play
• Stealth- (Character ability to be locked on to and visibility when not being locked onto) Catching your opponent off guard should be rewarding, especially for a NINJA, which is why I believe stealth damage should be introduced for the first or first few attacks you land while not being locked onto. This goes into the horrible targeting system in this game. If you are being hit by someone that you are not locked onto AND NOT the person you are locked onto (if you are locked on at all), then you should auto lock change to the person hitting you. The higher the stealth, the more transparent the player looks when not locked on, the closer one has to be to be locked on to, the more directly one's camera would need to face the them to lock on, and the more consecutive hits can be done before the auto lock or lock switch occurs meaning more stealth damage. However if one enemy locks on you then you are clearly visible to every enemy, this would make for interesting game play, but this would also make the byakugan a much more feasible tool. Offline play, stealth gives a point in time where new enemies that have not already locked onto you will ignore you unless you brush them or attack them (obviously except for bosses).

3. Return the combat to ultimate ninja storm 4. Not saying bring back how much chakra you have to cast jutsu, how many substitutions you get, support attacks, or the ability to do your ultimate virtually any time you feel. I'm talking about everything else, just the overall feel and style of combat, you guys had it fine why would you work to do it different when you had a perfectly fine finished product. Besides the terrain and everything I already described, the game should play virtually the same as ultimate ninja storm 4. We are already used to dealing with chaos flying at us from the support attacks, now instead of support attacks we have team mates. There is virtually no difference except we have to play more cautious because a teammate doesn't just pop in, do a jutsu and leave, which is a good thing that we have to think more before just rushing in!

4. Make more maps no pit falls and capture the flag needs to have larger maps and the game mode needs to be revamped. Renamed capture the scroll: 2 rounds, one team is on offense, one team is on defense, each team starts way on their side of the very large field, the offense team has a set amount of time to make it all the way through the forest and capture the defense's scroll and bring it back to their base ONE TIME. The defense can try to intercept them or wait for them at the scroll. When the offense is in possession of the scroll, the defense gets a speed buff to be able to catch up (just like in the show, they always seem to be able to catch up to the person they are tracking somehow lol) This allows speed and stealth the play a decent role on both sides; the faster you are, the harder you will be to catch up to or the faster you will be able to catch up and return your scroll. Stealth will make it harder for the enemy to find you in case your teammates die and you need to stall for them to respawn and catch up to support you. If the offense drops the scroll, it does not teleport to the home base unless it is relatively close and must be carried by the defense with no speed buff back to close enough to their base. This will make it so the offense might not necessarily have to travel all the way to the other side of the map every time the scroll is dropped. Once the round is over offense goes on defense and vice versa. If both teams succeed or both fail then it is a draw, otherwise the team that was successful wins.

5. Give some sort of equivalent to Xenoverse 2's QQ Bang. I like my character to be aesthetically pleasing. I don't want to have to put on weird stuff that doesn't look right or make sense just because it has a very useful effect.

Past no.5, I am not too concerned with, but I already came this far so I might as well finish.

6. Expand the village. Ya'll already know about this. Once again you had a finished product that would have worked perfectly (Nauto broken bond) but you guys were too lazy to put it in.

7. Make NPC's last rank allow them to be customizable. This could some what circumvent the issue described in no.1 if that couldn't be achieved but, playing so long and ranking all the way up with your mentor should grant something way more special than an ugly t-shirt that just has a little symbol to represent the character you got it from. Bring able to treat an NPC as a CaC would be pretty cool considering most of them do not fight in the conventional way that someone of their class would (i.e: kakashi is attack but has kunai, sakura is Healer but fights bare handed, etc.)

8. All clothes and weapons should be sell able regardless if you have more than one. C'mon guys, no one likes clutter..

4-10