Despite having a terrible story, this fast-paced fighting game will become more addicting almost each time you play it
Fast-paced combat; four players can fight at once; tag techniques; balanced characters and fighting system, each with their own unique set of moves and special attacks.
The Bad;
Can get repetitive; downright terrible storyline, tag moves may sometimes damage less than solo moves, despite using up more chakra; AI isn't very hard, even on hard difficulty.
When starting off a new game, most players would like to skip ahead of all the story, wandering around, boring training scenarios, and simply get into the action. Those players would very much like Revolution 2.
The game starts off with story mode immediately in an easy battle, introducing two brand new characters to the Clash of Ninja series, as well as warming you up to the game itself without the tutorial session, which can simply be accessed at the main menu whenever you need some tips on the extra features this game has to offer.
---STORY--- 4/10
The story itself is downright terrible, and is nothing more than yet another much-hated Naruto filler that has no connection between the Naruto and Naruto Shippudden storyline. It starts off with the people of the leaf village suddenly falling under a jutsu (spell) that seems to be forcing everyone to see their closest friends and family as their worst enemy. Throughout most of the game, you'll play as primarily Naruto as he fights all his friends in order to bring them back to their senses, which surprisingly works, before heading on to fight the real mastermind behind these evil deeds.
---GAMEPLAY--- 8/10
In the storymode, each battle will have the player go through specific conditions in battle, such as having to defeat a character within a timelimit or using a special move, though the enemy will simply not die if he is to be finished off with a normal attack until he is exposed to the character's finishing special attack, pulled off at the press of a single button.
Additional missions will also have you fighting a seemingly unlimited amount of ninja at a time, as you pick on more than a dozen of them at the exact same time.
As well as in Versus mode, there are also scenarios in which you'll have a tag-team partner, with whom you can not only switch between, but team up together as you both use up your chakra to unleash a devastating new move which matches the techniques the characters would most likely do in the series. However, this only works between specific teammates, and they don't meet up the expectations of the technique, they will simply use a double punch together against their opponent.
New to the game is the ability to perform hand-seals in order to power up your chakra and make your character stronger, but that's about as far as any character will go, unless you have a transforming character like Naruto, Sasuke, or Lee (who will also knock back any enemy standing near him when he finishes his "hand-seal" poses). Although it seems trivial at first, this will greatly help as you proceed in story mode or even in Versus mode.
What keeps the battle even more interesting is the ability to slip out of a combo with either vanishing or counter-attacking from behind at the cost of your own chakra, or even switching between characters mid-combo, whether you're attacking or being attacked. And in addition, most characters unlock an alternate technique to use in battle once reaching "crisis mode" which is basically low health. This will either alter your character's in-game performance for the match or pull off a much stronger move to turn the tables on the opponent.
---GRAPHICS--- 7/10
They're nothing special to look at, and if you've ever played any other cel-shaded game, this won't feel very new to you either, although having a cel-shaded environment (including the bursts of smoke) keeps the game more interesting to look at than having it take in an almost real-life shaded experience.
---CHARACTERS--- 9/10
Despite the new characters to the series having terrible back-stories to go with the game's storyline, their execution in creating a great playable character for the game works great. Even the story-exclusive characters have their own tag jutsus to go with the game (and of course, their own special attacks as well).
---LEVELS--- 8/10
Although they are much the same to each other apart from their size and appearance, each level does it's job to set the mood of the battle, with their own lighting, stage transitions, and music. It keeps things interesting to change levels even if you've fought a battle with the same characters over and over.
=======OVERALL=======
The game offers up hours of fun and variable gameplay, as well as many unlockable content and characters, even some that are not at all connected to the story, such as Kisame or Itachi, previously seen in Revolution 1. Once you've learned to play the game, you'll be able to find out different angles of attacks as well as have the skill to come up with your own combo of attacks to give the game further variety.
8.5/10