Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-4019647-20140909004624/@comment-6036561-20140913215713

I've bought the game and played a bit. I couldn't try all the characters (didn't have time to unlock all of them), but I will try to give a quick review (obviously it will be my opinion, not a fact...)

First of all...

Hiyayaka-kun wrote: Anyone know if you can do more than 1 ninjutsu and 1 ultimate in battle this time around?

For the little I've played, it is exactly like UNS3: you can change a character's costume and with that its technique may change as well, but they seems to be fixed. Oh, and sometimes the "main" technique changes also when the characters awakens (i.e. when Mei awakens she will use Solid Mist instead of Melting Apparition)

Also, they tried to balance the awakenings: now all characters have two kind of awakening: the normal one and the True awakening. The normal one is an immediate awakening, and it is done the way it was done in UNS3 for the characters that had it. The other one can be done by ammassing chakra, under certain circumstances (I will explain that below)

Said so... you can't always use the Secret Technique or Awakenings. When you begin a fight, you have to choose not only your character but also your "type":
 * Awakening Type: you can use Instant Awakening / True Awakening
 * Secret Technique Type: you can use Secret Technique / Team Secret Technique
 * Team Type: you can do Combination Attacks / Sealing Techniques

Sorry if the names are incorrect, but I have the games in my language and I don't know how they are called in english. As I said, Instant Awakenings are just like in the previous game, and that stands also for the Secret Technique (you can use them only if you have a certain amount of chakra). Combinatio Attacks simply means that when you use you normal combo, you ally/allies will appear and will attack your opponent with you. To use True Awakenings, Team Technique and Sealing Technique (using the last one on you opponent will prevent him of using TA / TT and ST) you must charge a bar named "Storm Bar", by hitting your enemy or being hit by him.

About this topic, if I like (from one side) the fact that they give all the characters the same kind of awakening (in UNS3 the fact that, let say, Yamato could instantaneously awaken while Tobirama couldn't was annoying), I can't see why they choose to prevent a character from using both awakenings and secret technique at once, but only one of them at a fight... I really can't.

Last, but not least, the Tournament four-way fight. That kind of fight is, at the same time, awesome and annoying. Awesome because I really liked to fight against three characters at once, and having them fight each other. Annoying because the last statement it isn't always true. Often I found myself with all the three enemies attacking me at the same time, ignoring each other and focusing on beating the c**p out of me. Both when I am the one hitting the first enemy and when I am the one being hit. And the four-way battle are available only in the story mode (and maybe in the online battle, but I haven't tried it yet).

I just began playing the two story modes (there are two story line, Ninja Tournament Story and Mecha-Naruto Story), but both of them focus on the four-way battle tournament.

As for the new animated sequences (Akatsuki creation, Shisui's story and Minato's Team story) they are fine. I really enjoyed all the three of them.

When I have finished the story modes (if I will remember to do so ... ) I will give a deeper opinion on the game, but for now - apart from the 100 playable characters - I don't see that much improvement from UNS3, and the story mode seems worse than the one from UNS3