➤ Definitive impact 🎮

After offering us a fighting game different from the usual with the first episode of the Naruto series: Ultimate Ninja on PlayStation 2, in the now distant 1995, the developers of CyberConnect2 have progressively adjusted the tendency towards the genre of third-person action games, eliminating entirely the typical dynamics of beat'em-ups. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact presents itself with this new approach, retracing the narrative arc of the anime that goes from the return of Naruto and the kidnapping of Gaara to the last sagas seen in Spain, for a single player campaign that lasts about twenty hours , while including a good deal of dialogue in the calculation of the total.

The main mode is flanked by two secondary ones with a good number of extra missions, to be faced alone or together with a friend in a cooperative multiplayer, which help to draw the picture of a fairly full-bodied product, able to offer Naruto fans who own a PSP lasting entertainment, waiting to migrate to PlayStation Vita and / or Nintendo 3DS. The campaign is titled "Supreme Road", and can be accessed via a Japanese-style main menu, with screens scrolling from right to left instead of the other way around. The structure behind this mode is simple: each chapter is composed of a variable number of missions, which we see represented on a map with the Naruto pawn that can move from one area to another. Even the dialogues, devoid of any interactivity, contribute to enrich the number of missions, and therefore they too must be completed (but it is possible to skip them beautifully, once started) to increase the percentage of completion of each section. There are also boxes that are used exclusively to make us earn a card, or the shop in which to spend the money earned with the purchase of these cards, each of which can equip our characters with extra skills.

In action

The real playable phases follow the style already adopted previously by the Ultimate Ninja series, also on PSP, and therefore see us control a different ninja depending on the narrative needs, in a third-person action context where we are gradually provided with some indications on what to do. In the upper right part of the screen we see the map of the scenario, on which the objectives to be achieved are highlighted. Often these are handfuls of enemies to fight, almost like in an episode of Dynasty Warriors, but that we will be able to defeat without any effort, despite the overwhelming numerical inferiority.

In fact, the lack of complexity of the opponents' artificial intelligence immediately catches the eye, they limit themselves to making numbers and often do not even attack us, waiting for us to eliminate them with some combos. A similar situation occurs with bosses, whose presence defines each mission. Even in this situation, the thickness of the fighting leaves much to be desired, the parry becomes almost a superfluous maneuver and in the same way the degree of challenge increases simply because the enemy moves continuously, evading our assaults and making the fight a sort of pathetic tag. The problems in terms of balance are evident, in short, and it is not even possible to select the highest difficulty level immediately to make things more interesting: it is unlocked only after completing the campaign at the normal level. The strengths of the experience, at this point, lie solely in the spectacularity of the moves we can perform.

Rasengan!

The control system of the game is similar to that of the fighting-game-style episodes, with the Circle button to perform combos, the Triangle to activate the chakra, the Square to throw the shuriken and X to jump, while the L and R backbones are used respectively for center the view (which can be managed directly by acting on the d-pad) and to perform the parry or the evasive ninja maneuver (yes, the one in which the enemy finds himself punching a piece of wood). The attack maneuvers are therefore fairly numerous, although they depend directly on the chakra bar (which must be continuously filled, holding the Triangle button - no problem, so the enemies seem not to want to hit us ...), and the most spectacular start the classic alternative sequence of great impact.

The point is that, as in the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors, you have to repeat them indefinitely to eliminate the piles of scarcer enemies and then still go through the most powerful moves to take out the bosses. Fortunately, an extra bit of challenge comes from the extra missions, which are unlocked as soon as we complete the first chapters of the "High Road". In many cases, in fact, these stages provide for the clash with several bosses in sequence but using a single life energy bar, which will force us to use the parry, evasive maneuvers and a minimum of strategy to survive. Finally, a few words for the technical sector. The cel shaded graphics work really well for the characters, very similar to those you can see in the Naruto anime and have a good set of animations. Moreover, the engine used by CyberConnect2 manages to manage a large number of moving objects on the screen without the slightest slowdown, but the price to pay is high in terms of quality of the scenarios and drawing distance. The latter is in fact very scarce, with trees and walls that appear a few meters away and contribute to the feeling of emptiness of the locations, which in the end must be explored only to achieve the objectives of the moment but leave a lot to be desired. A positive note regarding the sound: it is possible to silence Naruto's hateful American hoarse voice in favor of the Japanese dubbing.

Comment

Resources4Gaming.com

6.7

Readers (44)

8.4

Your vote

If for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact CyberConnect2 developers have decided to completely abandon the fighting sections, only partially present in the previous Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3, there will be a reason. However, it is difficult to understand what it is, since the third-person action structure chosen to replace them not only suffers from obvious limitations in terms of gameplay, but is further devalued by a bad artificial intelligence, which reduces the level of challenge to almost zero for much of the single player campaign. Things improve later (much later) and in the extra modes, but probably only hardcore Naruto fans will be able to notice, because to get there it will take a lot of patience, with the risk of getting bored always around the corner.