Less characters, but more depth in the characters that are still in the roster, all in all, not worth 50$.
Is 4-player still good?: I say it is fine but you can notice that the framerate drops when you do 4-player. Well other than that it is excactly like CON2. But the thing is.. if you knock a person to another stage while somone is in a middle of a combo. That person combo will break wich really messes me up when i play with friends.
Controls?: 4 types of controls, 3 out of the 4 are good. The wiimote and nunchuck require returning fans of the series some practice to master, but you get and added bonus for doing so, for the fact that you can use the wiimote and nunchucks motion controls to get extra damage on an oppent while using a jutsu. The classic and gamecube controls are identical but using this control scheme means that you can activate certain combos without much of a problem. The wiimote control, in my opinion bad. There is a learning curve to this control scheme without much reward for learning it. Jutsu are hard to activate due the fact that you have to press 1 and 2 at the same time while 1 and 2 are the buttons you press to attack so you may want avpid doing jutsu. I have ecountered this weird thing for the wiimote. If you land a jutsu you get the same powerup as the wiimote and nunchuck conrols where if you do the motion you can do mnore damage. But the problem is, you have no nunchuck, so you can only do the wiimote motion control, so good luck :D.
Unlockables: Almost all the characters are unlocked in single player mode(not story mode, even though you ecountered the unlockable characters) wich is strange and tedious way to unlock characters. Since they took away shop mode, you have to unlock other options (like attack power 4) in single and multiplayer mode, but it is still tedious what you have to do to get them.
Story: Not much to say, been improved not by much. Not much of a point to go through story mode except to get the 2 unlockable characters( wich i wont spoil who).
Characters: Most of them taken out, but all the other characters have 2 or more jutsu, sorta... But there is a new feature for certain characters to change modes (Like susukes sharingan) Wich may boost their power and change their jutsu. Theres also another new feuture called crisis mode. Wich you become more powerful and also activate either a diffrent jutsu, or a more powerful version of their old jutsu.
AI: Easily exploited, and not hard at all. Even on the highest difficulty. Making this game a more multiplayer focused game. Bring some friends over, duke it out, have a good time :D.
All in all, it is a more in depth fighter version of clash of ninja 2, but falls short on the gameplay options, wich in my opinon sucks out some of the fun making CON2 superior to CONR. When this game price goes down it may be worth it. But 50$ price tag is not worth it.