What the heck was CyberConnect thinking?!
Then we get to the Ultimate Ninja Storm series on the PS3. Now I guess what they say is true, "Ignorance is Bliss." If you have never played the PS2 games, you don't know what you are missing. That aside, lets talk about what we had in the first Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm game (PS3 exclusive). We had the new 3D flashy graphics, which looked super sharp to be sure, and the really cool Ougi's (Ultimate Jutsus) as well as the Boss fights. We also had an expansive, if greatly repetitive Story Mode. What I liked about UNS 1 was that the Jutsu's were customizable, for your character and the assists, and the Ultimate Jutsus's still retained part of their epic flair from the PS2 titles as well as the Command, Mash, or Spin mechanic. THEY ALSO LASTED MORE THAN 4 SECONDS. Also when some characters like Guy, Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke transformed, their justsu and Ultimate Jutsu changed as well. However, of course the game only covered Naruto, not Shippuden, so characters were limited.
UNS 2 Cut things down a lot. Though it covered Shippuden now, the story was more linear and less fulfilling than it was in the first game, and I was greatly disappointed in the big change to Ultimate Jutsus. Gone were the epically flashy original Ougis were you had to combat against the player performing them to try and hit with it. Now we have incredibly short predictable ones pulled right from the show. Supposedly this was done to reduce lag in the new implementation of online gameplay. I didn't play it much, i always had more fun playing locally. I did like the flashy boss battles, and some new class features, like when your shurikens hit Itachi's in the Sasuke Vs Itachi boss fight. At least those were still flashy, even if the multiplayer was not quite as interesting.
Finally we come to Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations. The only things added since the previous installments were more characters, and more online features, and "better" net code. Even the graphics don't look very different from UNS1. Now lets talk about what is gone. The "story mode" has been completely cut down to nothing but Anime Cut-scenes and battles. Don't get me wrong here, I love anime scenes to go along with an Anime story, but that is ALL IT IS! And its not before every fight, you just get a few of em. Gone are the cool boss battles you used to have, no more QTE's. Gone are any type of "clash" element, such as Naruto clashing with Sasuke with Rasengan Vs Chidori, or Guy's Dynamic Entry Vs Kakashi's Raikiri (just to name a FEW of the possible clash moves). The only way the story mode gets remotely challenging is that they increase the stats of your opponents.
--Example: Killer Bee Vs Kisame Hoshigaki (Attack +100)--
When 2 combos can kill you, sure it felt tougher, but he still has the same moves, they just do crap ton of damage. Still doesn't feel like a boss battle at all. Awakenings are disappointing or very unbalanced. The character select screen looks thrown together with no real order to the character selection. The online mode does not tell you if a game is full, and when it is, you have to go back to the search screen, not back to the game selection. There are multiple versions of Sasuke Naruto and Garra that look exactly the same, but have different moves. This is due to the laziness of not including customizable jutsu, and no longer having transformation states in the games. And even though it may have been unnoticable to many, remember when you used to start a match and have the characters arrive and say a line or two to each other? Even that is gone.
While I know this is just another "fan service" anime game and not a serious fighter, its just not very fun a all. Unlike the PS2 games which for the most part steadily got better with each installment, the PS3 ones are steadily getting crappier over time. Even with friends playing locally, I get bored after about 6 matches, but we still have a lot of fun going back to the PS2 games and even UNS 1.
To sum up, I would NEVER recommend buying this title. A simple 3 day rent should serve to get as much "fun" out of it as you can stand.
For those interested, here are the cool Ougi's/transformations that were in the final game on the PS2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwDHGGeOsLc&feature=related