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     San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone, and with it the demo of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations. I love (and by love I mean I am obsessed with) all things Naruto, so when Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 was coming out, I was all over every screenshot and piece of news. Then the game came out in all its fan service glory and I loved it....until I realized it was broken. Combos were horribly unsafe, leaving you open for jutsus or worse, specials and a lot of battles involved running in circles throwing stuff at each other. I hated it. So when I saw that CyberConnect 2 (CC2) was making another Storm game, I was cautious.

     Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations features characters from the whole span of the Naruto series (pre- and post- time skip). For the first time in the Storm series, Zabuza and Haku, the "villains" of the first big Naruto arc and fan favorites for some reason, will be included as playable characters. It will also include the Raikage, Mizukage, and Tsuchikage, along with their guards. (although it's not known for sure if the guards are playable) Like Storm 2, this game seems like it'll have a bunch of characters that I've wanted to play in a game since their appearance.

     The Comic-Con demo had 4 characters, Pre-Time Skip Naruto (or PTS Naruto), Time Skip Naruto, the Raikage, and Sasuke. It also had 2 modes, 1 where you fought 3 CPUs in a row, and another where you fought a second player 3 times. The first thing I noticed was that this game looks just like the Storm 2, which is great, since the Storm games are really pretty. Unfortunately the demo plays just like Storm 2 as well. This is NOT a good thing. There are a few changes, but they don't make up for a broken system.

     One change is that if you substitute in the air, you have a very short period where you can not attack and you fall to the ground quicker. This means that unlike the previous games, you will not end up in a silly string of aerial combos and substitutions. At first I thought this was good, but then I realized this meant that if someone aerial combos you and you substitute, you fall to the ground before them, leaving them open to, you guessed it, a jutsu or special. So this change I actually dislike since it makes combos even MORE unsafe. Another change is that you cannot kill the enemy with a grab for some reason. I'm not entirely sure as to why they made this change, but it may be because a lot of grabs were too good, in which case this does almost nothing to change that. (so I hope that's not the reason)

     In the first game, Guy, Rock Lee, and Minato had crazy good awakenings. They could teleport to the opponent at any time by chakra dashing. If you learned how to dodge it, it wasn't much of a problem. If you didn't know how to dodge then it was game over. Well, Raikage's awakening is the same, but with a major change. You cannot chakra dash in the middle of your combo like you could before. You need to first finish up your combo, giving your opponent ample time to collect themselves after teleporting. While this is good since it makes this kind of awakening less cheap, it also made it a lot less useful. Someone who had never played the game was able to get away due to this change.

     Another change that may signal some more tweaks to the gameplay was Sasuke's new special. He has the same type of special initiator that Kakashi had in Storm 2, a distanced attack that first warned the opponent by producing a circle and then activating if they didn't respond fast enough. This special was kinda hard to get off since it had a slow start and the circle did not follow the enemy. It's advantage however was that it could hit the opponent from anywhere on the stage. Sasuke's special initiator is exactly like Kakashi's except it takes almost twice as long for the initiator to happen. It takes so long to hit that it wasn't even an appropriate counter to a missed jutsu.

     I didn't notice any other changes in the demo. The game is way too similar to Storm 2 for my taste, but there is at least hope. CC2's President and CEO, Hiroshi Matsuyama, has stated that the major gameplay changes they are making to the game have not yet been revealed, mainly because they are still 8-9 months away from release. So it makes sense why the demo is so much like Storm 2. It's main purpose was to show off some new characters and minor changes. (I liked this demo much more than Storm 2's demo)  Storm Generations seems like it'll be Storm 1 meets Storm 2, hopefully with changes we are looking for, like the substitution system. (DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THIS)

     I'll probably get Storm Generations, not because I have faith that they'll change everything I hate about Storm 2 (which is a lot of stuff), but because I know this game will deliver a TON of fanservice, which is exactly what I've come to want from the Ultimate Ninja Series. TONS of fanservice first, gameplay second.

    If you want to try and have a say in how Storm Generations is made, voice your concerns or recomendations in a email to them at:

inq_fun @ cc2.co.jp

and

inq_pr @ cc2.co.jp

Remember to not sound like a fanboy! (I know, it's hard)

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