Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4's Story Mode starts off where
Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst concluded, right before the final battle with Tobi, and it takes the story all the way to the end of the
Shippuden storyline and into the aftermath of those final fights.
What I found interesting was how the game handled following both Naruto's and Sasuke's stories, since the two are on different paths at the start of the game. For Naruto, it is all about confronting Tobi and Madara with the help of his friends and teammates. Meanwhile, Sasuke's journey has taken him in a new direction as he decides to revive Orochimaru in order to get some final bit of crucial information. Both stories end up colliding when Sasuke shows up to help Naruto, but there are more than a few twists and revelations that should surprise anyone not already familiar with how the story plays out because of the manga and anime series.
Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 also features an open-world Adventure with a new story that takes place after the events of the Story Mode. While this mode is available at the start, some spoilers will be revealed if you jump into this mode having not already completed the Story.
In Adventure Mode, Naruto is sent out on various quests around across the various villages, and along the way, he will find plenty of excuses to get into fights. Where the Story Mode relied heavily on animated cutscenes to advance its story, the Adventure Mode stays in-game and doesn't quite pull you out of the game as much. As a result, Story Mode has a much more arcade feel to it than Adventure, even those the actual fighting aspects are the same in both.
As for the fighting itself, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 feels like the culmination of the past games in this series. All of the good aspects of past titles return, while a few new additions add some really nice polish to the overall experience. I already mentioned the bigger feeling fighting arenas, but outside of that, the addition of weapon and armor damage adds a new depth to the fights. In the past, weapons were more of an extension of each particular character's skills. If a character typically fought with a particular weapon, then using that weapon was just a standard combo. Here though, weapons can actually be damaged and while the combos themselves remain the same, the effects of them will be different if the character has his/her weapon or not.
The game also does a spectacular job of conveying the sheer epicness of some fights, particularly those where summoned creatures fight each other at their summoner's command. At the start of the Story Mode, you get to experience this with a fight between Nine-Tales, controlled by Madara, and the First Hokage's massive Wood Golem.
Outside of the two story-centric modes, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 also contains both Free Battle and Online Battle options. The Online Battle system is a ranked fighting system that lets you heavily customize your fighters, though the customization aspect has to be earned. As you win fights (in pretty much any mode), you can win both money and ninja items. Both can be used to purchase everything from character cards, to skins, to which clips you want to start fights with, and of course, how you want to equip your character for the fight itself. The in-game store contains a huge number of items you can buy and while very little changes how your character handles in the actual fight, it does let you shape them to fit your own personality.
The local Free Battle Mode offers all of the fighting game staples like Survival, Tournament, Versus, League and Practice. While there isn't really anything here to write home about, it would look odd for any of these options to be missing.
The final Main Menu option is the Collection screen. It is here where you can trade in your money or ninja items to unlock all of the aforementioned customizable details.
