Fan of the series or not, there is a lot of mixed-reactions to this game, but worth checking out. #Real S
If you've been following the Naruto series and of course Shippuden series, the plot Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 story follows the first 175 episodes of the series. Where Naruto returns to the Hidden Leaf Village after a 2 and a half years of training from Jiraiya and reuniteing with his friends in the Village. If you are a fan of the series you'll most likly to know whats going to happen next, but if your not a fan of the series you may get a little lost on it's story.
Gameplay: It's a Fighting game and yes the controls are easy to pull of moves, you will be using Circle a lot to Punch and Kick at your opponments. X is jump and to dodge attacks, and Square is used for throwing Shurikens. To pull of good moves and powerful attacks you can use the Triangle to use your Chakkura, it's Chakkura won't last that long if don't get near your opponment and do some damage to them. Support Drive is also active if you have 1 or 2 charcters in your team, you can summon them to help you and do some damage.
Most battles are simple and challenging, some of the bosses are pretty breath-taking and you'll need to think how your going to beat them. But also during Boss fights they'll be cutscenes and also Quick-Time events will appear out of random so you will be pressing buttons that will appear on the screen. From each battle you'll get a rank from S to D on how good your fighting was but there will be a few that will have Trophy support, but some of these trophies will appear after beating a Boss and gaining an S rank.
Apart from fighting charcters in the Shippuden series, there is also side-quests from collecting Perals, Fighting Cursed Dolls and giving money to the poor. There is also Online support where you can play againts other players online or with friends, you can play Single Match or Team Match pending on what you want to pick on.
Graphics and Sound: The graphics look well done and well detailed since it's an Anime game, the animarion is well done too from it's cutscenes to its gameplay too. Most cutscenes and enviroments are pretty breath-taking too you could say that you are watching the anime series but your not. Like I said on the gameplay section the boss battles will have the best moments and of course button mashing and pressing buttons on the screen.
But however there is a few problems which are annoying now and then, one of them is that Loading times will appear from each area you go to and also before each battle loads up. Another thing which will bug if you have a PS3 that this game takes a lot of MB to Data Install into your console, it can take up to nearly 4500 MB which is a lot.
If you are a hardcore fan of the series or into Anime you'll have the option to switch the voicing to English to Japanese. Either way if you've always watched the Naruto series in English it does do a great job on voicing. Too be honest I kinda enjoyed playing Ulitmate Ninja Storm 2 in Japanese on it's voicing which does sound better and doesn't have any annoying voicing in the English voice acting. The soundtrack itself does a great touch too and also making it feel like an RPG game but expect that it's a fighting game instead.
Overall: This will most likely appeal to the fans of the series, however it's still an enjoyable for Fighting fans out there you just might be a little annoyed on it's random loading times that will appear now and then.
But through out the main story you'll be running back and forth from one to another, you can't teleport or jump from one place to the next; you would have to run across there back.
Beating the main story can take you up to 20 hours or more pending on the number of side-quests and picking up random items from each area. There is trophy support if you are a trophy collector, but like I said it might be everyones cup of Green Tea on it's fighting genre but still worth checking out.