Generations is more like Ninja Storm 2.5. The glitches and game play mechanics resulted in a flawed experience.

User Rating: 5 | Naruto Shippuden: Narutimate Storm Generation PS3
I enjoyed Storm 1. I thought Storm 2 was okay. But what did I think of Storm Generations? Its review time.

The presentation of Storm Generations is decent. I feel this area wasn't as good as the previous games. There is no shock that the graphical representation of the game is spot on. The graphics has been impressive for all of the Storm games that came before Generations. The problem involves the way the story mode was created.

Cyber Connect 2 summarized the events of the Naruto season well. Those who never really watched the series should be able to get a good idea of what the cartoon is about. Avid Naruto followers like myself might skip most of those segments. From time to time you do encounter some nice animated cutscenes, but thats all you get. There are no boss battles and exploration of any kind. What a drag. I guess I can understand why CC2 did this. They probably felt improving the gameplay and online segment of the game was more important.

CC2 made the effort to improve the gameplay aspect of the game, however it wasn't good enough for a few reasons. I will get into why after I elaborate on the gameplay.

The gameplay is very similar to Storm 2 with a few changes here and there. You use items, combo attacks, shurikens, enhanced long range attacks, the ninja move maneuver to jump around consecutively, jutsus, air dashes, support attacks, and ultimate attacks.

Support characters play important roles that are exactly the same as Storm 2. There is a support gauge which increases as you call your partner for help. Once full, depending on the support type chosen your support character will assist you in a number of ways. The guard type protects you while you power up. The attack type will help you by using one of their ground combos along side you. And the balance type uses shurikens.

For example, while the support gauge is full your balance support character will throw shurikens with you when you use enhanced long range attacks. Your attack type supports can kick knocked back opponents to you in order to deal more damage as well as use ground combos along side you.

And if you think you are going to take an ultimate attack you can use guard type support characters to take the attack in your place. Only use this when you are in real trouble, because you can no longer summon them to attack the enemy for a while. You can also use team ultimates which involve your main character and your supports to deal serious damage. However, the numbers appearing during the team attack should have been taken out because we can count....jeez.

Plus the team ultimate can be spammed, since it isn't a one time deal. I feel CC2 should have only allowed players to use the team ultimate one time. That way players will have to think about how they are going to use the full storm gauge. Will they spend the majority of the time allowed to take advantage of the full storm gauge for added support or sacrifice the full storm gauge to attempt the extremely deadly team ultimate.

Last but not least the awakenings in this game are more unique this time around. Some character's awakenings isn't too different, however they get a huge power boost. Quite a few characters transform or use some kind of special ability unique to them. The damage taken is huge and the tide can quickly turn. You will be immune to grabs and ultimates as well. However, you can't call for help and use items. In order to balance it out awakenings don't last long.

Now that I covered how the game plays I would like to go over the biggest gameplay changes I noticed. In Storm 2, there were a lot of turtle style players. Chakra is the name of the energy you use for defense and offense. A substitution allows a player to avoid an attack and appear behind the attacker. Executing a substitution required very little chakra in Storm 2.

Turtle players pretty much plays like a turtle. They will spend the entire match in guard position. They wait for you to attack, use a substitution, and attack you. They don't perform combos. They spam jutsus, grabs, and team ultimates.

In order to fix this problem CC2 decided to add a substitution bar, which means substitutions are no longer tied to the chakra bar. You are able to perform five substitutions. I am a little tired of typing substitutions, therefore I will abbreviate the word. Once you use them all you have to wait a while to regain your subs. The sub bar sounds like good idea, but it only made things worse.

There are some jutsus in this game that forces you to use more than one sub just to avoid getting hit. Subs are critical in this game, because subs are no longer tied to the chakra bar, which means subs are now limited to only five. This led to a lot of people choosing characters with a jutsu that forces players to use more subs just to avoid one attack. At least in Storm 2 one sub is all you needed to get out of harms way. Therefore, it doesn't seem very fair to players that use characters with jutsus that doesn't force their opponents to waste subs.There is another reason why the sub bar is bad. I will explain why the dash cancel makes the implementation of the sub bar a bad idea.

The dash cancel allows you to reset your character by using a chakra dash. You can do a chakra dash in mid combo to continue attacking or use combos that end in ultimates with the proper timing. The dash cancel contributed to the dislike of sub bar due to the ability to apply close to unavoidable pressure. Especially, since you can use air chakra dashes to apply pressure from the air.

The attack properties of the dash cancel are consistently being abused by a lot of the players. Dash cancelling allows players to be extremely aggressive in order to force players to waste all of their subs. For example, I get attacked.....I use a sub....the attacker performs a dash cancel....I sub....the attacker dash cancels again.

There really isn't much you can do to stop the attacker due to the speed of the dash cancel. If you don't stop the first dash, then prepare for a dash cancel flurry. The only thing I know you can do is slow down a dash cancel by dash cancelling yourself. Dash cancelling probably wouldn't have been such a problem if there wasn't a sub bar.

The online lobby system has been improved. You can use the Endless Battle option to set up a lobby that consists of more than 2 players. You can start tournaments. And you can save matches for replays. I think you can customize items for your battles as well.

There is a first time for everything, because I have never discussed the character of online communities before in a review. I had to make an exception for this game. I feel the online community for Storm Generations also contributed to the fall of a potentially fun game. Many of the players main characters with over powered jutsus in order to spam to victory, use two over powered supports, abuse the dash cancel, and send hate mail.

I played many fighting games over the years and never encountered a community as bad as this one. I know spam and picking the strongest character is a common practice, however this game takes the prize. I rarely play against players that don't main over powered characters and supports like Masked Man, PTS Kiba, PTS Tenten, Hidan, Pain, and etc.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:

+Amazing graphics
+Nice animated cutscenes
+Lobbies can hold more than 2 players
+Can host tournaments
+Can replay saved matches
+More characters

Cons:

-Glitches involving certain items
-Some characters have a jutsu that will rob you of more than
one sub.
-The dash cancel is consistently abused.
-The only game where spam is endless.
-There is no mechanic put in place to help you effectively
counter aggressive dash cancelers.
-You will mostly see the same over powered characters and
supports.
-Team ultimates can be spammed
-Story mode lacks variety.
-NO BOSS BATTLES!
-Prepare to rage occasionally.



I will not say Storm Generations is horrible, but will say it isn't good. Its not all that different from Storm 2. The changes that were made to make the game better actually made the game worse than the previous installment. The sad thing about all of this is the fact that Storm Generations could be fun, but that fun can only be obtained by playing with friends and players who are not obsessed with winning.

I like to play games, but I don't really care about winning. I just want to have fun playing it as fair as possible. I don't like to resort to cheap tactics just to win. The online community kind of sucked the fun out of Storm Generations. I am not saying all of the players play unfairly, however the majority does play in a way that will annoy you. I never raged while playing a video game...............until now.

This game gets a 5 out of 10. Thanks for raising my blood pressure past 120/80 Cyber Connect 2. I felt the power of rage. I just hope Storm 3 doesn't follow this path.