Preview

New Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 trailer, gameplay videos & hands-on impressions

At Bandai Namco’s Global Gamers Day this weekend in Las Vegas, the Japanese publisher released a new trailer for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, and I had the opportunity to briefly go hands-on with the game.

The latest trailer essentially contains a montage of one of the demo selections I had the chance to play through. This section features the grand climax of the Fourth Shinobi World War where series protagonists Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke call upon their summons: Gamakichi the toad, Katsuyu the slug, and Aoda the snake, respectively. I took control of Naruto’s toad Gamakichi in his gigantic summoned form to defeat the army of Ten Tails clones. The gameplay here is slower than the frenetic ninja fighting that takes place during most Naruto games, but it’s a nice change of pace that nicely conveys the scale of the war at hand. This feeling of taking part in a monumental battle is further emphasized by the Dynasty Warriors-like Defeated meter that displayed the thousands of clones I killed so far. Meanwhile, the combat controlled nicely for me as I switched between mashing attack buttons and leaping up high to dodge attacks and advance forward toward the Ten Tails Beast.

Once I move through the battlefield enough, the original Ten Tails Beast demonic god launchs his lengthy arms toward our three ninja heroes, which transitions into a crazy setpiece sequence. In order to get close, Gamakichi begins running and grinding on the miles-long arms of the Ten Tails Beast, where I must hop between the different arms to avoid getting hit by giant balls of fire. Then in the epic finale, the game has me tap buttons in quick-time events to get Gamakichi the toad surfing on Katsuyu the slug and Aoda the snake before jumping up and throwing Naruto and Sasuke toward the Ten Tails Beast baseball-pitcher style, all culminating to an “I-don’t-quite-know-what’s-happening” final attack spectacle. Just watch the gameplay video and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The other demo available at the event was the section shown in the older gameplay video “A crumbling friendship” from Bandai Namco, which features the battle between Hashirama and Madara. It started with a more traditional on-foot ninja battle between the two before jumping into a huge Godzilla/kaiju-style fight between their Nine Tails and Wooden Golem in the forest. Again, the battle ends in an intense and flashy quick-time event-laden finish.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is easily shaping to be the best-looking Naruto game ever crafted. Utilizing the power of the latest generation of consoles has allowed developer CyberConnect2 to produce fantastic cel-shaded visuals. The game engine renders everything with a wide range of colors, shaders, and effects to really give the graphics in Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 a dynamic, living appearance which makes it look just as good or better than the anime. You can tell a lot of passion and attention to the source material has gone into Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and it results in a game that, while not particularly deep, is quite fun to play. There are moments that will have your inner ten-year-old cheering and accidentally squeezing his Capri Sun juice pouch in awe, and that should make fans of the anime and manga happy.

Passion: at the event, CyberConnect2 President and CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama even cosplayed. He reportedly reads over 60 volumes of manga a month during development! (photo credit: radiomake.fr)

Be sure to check out our other Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 article about the release window and other details. Check back later this week for more coverage of Bandai Namco Global Gamers Day 2015.