It's odd when I think about it; I'm not really much of a Naruto fan, but I did enjoy this game and it's strangely the first game I've ever got a Platinum in - I always thought it'd be Bayonetta, since I'm about 10 easy Trophies away; what's taken me so long is completing that blasted Alfheim Portal on Hard so I can get the Umbran Tear! I got so close then lost my cool and died carelessly on the last wave - it's what happens when I get excited about reaching a long-awaited goal...
Anyway, back to Naruto. I watched the anime as soon as it came out and followed it religiously until the fillers kicked in. Close to 100 episodes of filler just so they didn't have to take a break until the release of the next arc, which was still being penned by the author! It was the fillers that killed it for me; despite not being canon, they were so badly written and consisted of 3-4 episode story arcs, which while offered time to expand on the characters not heavily featured, just grated on me with how lame they were. As soon as the 'Curry of Life' arc rolled along, I thought enough...just no.
I can't really remember much about them and this wasn't meant to be a vent post about the anime anyway, so let's focus on the game. I haven't played Ultimate Ninja Storm I, so I'm kind of doing this backwards - I did order it, however, and will play it after White Knight Chronicles. Then again, from my understanding, the UNS series basically recaps the story so far, so UNSI covers the story up until Naruto: Shippuden - again, I watched it as soon as it aired, and switched off as soon as the fillers came on; I haven't kept up since. I know I can always pick up the manga, but if what I've heard from my brother and my perusals of Wiki are anything to go by, I'm glad I chose not to. The end of Sasuke's Revenge arc seen in the game just further facilitates my reasons for not getting too deep into the series, though I will be buying UNSIII if and when it comes out.
UNSII is based on the Shippuden series up until Pain/Nagano's defeat and the encounter between Killer Bee and Sasuke. It's weird, I really did enjoy the game - battles were enjoyable and the story itself is good, I just can't stand some of the characterisations and how it's delivered at points. My only gripes with the game are that the Request Missions weren't spaced out evenly; there wasn't much to do when controlling other characters and that there weren't any special moves for characters to execute when in the Awakened state during battle. Oh, and the lip-sync was horribly off at some points of the game - the worst being during the Jiraiya vs Pain scene.
Other issues include how Naruto and Sasuke are the only characters to have alternate costumes and Ultimate Jutsu - in this regard, I believe it's keeping in line with the manga, where the two are the only ones to undergo heavy development and power progression...a staple of your standard shounen/boys manga. However, I don't see why it should affect the sub-characters - Choji going giganto is good and all, but I doubt he'd have forgotten how to go Uber/Butterfly mode and hearing Shikamaru utter "That's your grave," every time I execute his Ultimate Jutsu just gets annoying. The same can be said for the majority of the characters, but I wish they had been given better treatment to make things just that bit more fun - variety is the spice! It would have been interesting to see Sakura in an alternate Sage Mode, seeing as she is obviously the Tsunade to Naruto and Sasuke's Jiraiya and Orochimaru respectively. Oh, and would it have been so hard to allow players to play the different incarnations of Pain?
In my brother's words "The game's really good, but it's broken at the same time..."
Other aspects to note include my fangirl-ish realisation that both of Archer's - from Fate/Stay Night - VA's were present, as guest character Lars Alexandersson from Tekken 6 (Japanese) - I was and still am not fond of his alternate costume - and Gaara (English). Speaking of VA's, I still can't stand Naruto's English VA...being a woman and forcing out an older voice, she really killed some scenes that called for emotion.
Oh and the following video from the anime really makes me feel glad that I never caught this fight in its animated 'glory'...
...Makes me wonder if they hired the same group of monkeys that did the animation for a few of the episodes in Hakkenden: Legend of the Dog Warriors - despite it's varying animation quality, it was a very good anime.
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