NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS Review

Game Title:	NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS
Developer:	CyberConnect2
Publisher:	Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release Date:	16th November 2023
Platforms:	PS4/PS5/Switch/XSS/XSX/XOne/Steam

NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS is the latest entry of Naruto STORM series. It's one of the best 3D Arena Fighter Anime games.
It's the first game of the series that is released on the next-gen platforms.

Story

The story of NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS is basically divided into 2 modes:

① History Mode: This is the mode where you play the whole Naruto's Saga from the beginning until the end.
② Special Story Mode: This is an original story made exclusively for this game by Masashi Kishimoto, Focusing on Boruto as the protagonist of the story. This mode includes new original characters that's non canon to the original story.

① History Mode

This mode is basically a compilation or a quick recap of the whole Naruto's Chronicles. From when Naruto is a kid doing his first mission with Team 7, until the part where he becomes a hero and defeats Kaguya Otsutsuki.

Total of 10 Chapters for History Mode

This mode is divided into 10 chapters, while highlighting the important part of the story, the game also sacrifices a big portion of the story in making the story fit into a total of 10 chapters. We used to think that this game will be the definitive way to enjoy the whole Naruto's story, but unfortunately, that's not the case.

The Ultimate Ninja STORM Series has come a long way with UNS 1 - 4 + Road to Boruto, it could have taken advantage of the previous games in the series.

If you ever played Ultimate Ninja STORM series, you will know that one of the best things about the game is the single-player story mode, which has epic battle scenes with QTE. One of the most memorable scenes is the battle between Jiraiya & Pain in UNS 2. Of course, the same story is being told in UNS CONNECTIONS, but they take out the epic QTE battle scene and just change it into a normal Match + Screenshots from the anime. And that's only one of the many epic moments that was done correctly in the previous games but was done badly in CONNECTIONS.

While you do experience the whole Naruto's story in this one game, it does so by sacrificing a lot of contents and potentials from the previous games. It will be good for people who already know about the whole Naruto's story and just want a quick recap on what has happened. We would not recommend this one for people who want to know about Naruto through this game. Also not sure if they only want to focus on Naruto for this mode, but they totally cut off the story part from Road to Boruto in this game.

② Special Story Mode

The Special Story Mode is basically the highlight of UNS CONNECTIONS. It's the original story made by the mangaka of Naruto, with new original characters. Think of it as a new BORUTO movie but in the form of game media. With a total of around 4-6 hours of gameplay. While history mode mainly uses still images or screenshots from the anime, Special Story mode is an original story, so every cutscene in the game besides the pre-rendered one, is using the in-game engine, and it looks beautiful.

The story isn't canon, took place sometime after the beginning of Boruto's Manga, where a VR game has become very popular in Konoha. There are rumors that people who play the game will fall ill and not wake up again (Think of it as SAO but in Naruto's world). Inside the game, Boruto will meet a new character called Navi, who acts like AI Support in the game. After a few conversations attempts with Navi, Boruto and Navi start to become closer, not knowing what's going to happen moving forward. Basically, that's the essence of the story.

This Special Story mode includes very detailed pre-rendered cutscenes, but unfortunately, it's only 30fps, and there are no Action QTE battle scenes, which is one of the strong points of UNS Series. While we enjoy the new friendship between Boruto & Navi, the story lacks the "Oomph" to keep us invested in it. But they do a good job at explaining the motivation of the villains, and why they are doing what they are doing. But again, some part of the Special Story really feels like a filler because you are forced to do a 5-6 match due to the plot of Boruto trying to find "Rare drops" from the VR battle.

There are parts of the story that is engaging and also feel like total filler. We personally think that the Special Story mode has a pacing issue because of that. It's definitely worth checking out but not good enough to justify buying the game just to enjoy this new original story. One thing that we love about the Special Story mode is that it has a "True" ending besides the normal ending, and you can only unlock it after you cleared all the requirements for it.

Gameplay

The gameplay of UNS Connections doesn't change too much from the predecessors, it still has Single Player Story Mode ,Free Match, Online Match. We're not gonna go too much in-depth on the various Match mode that you can play. But the gameplay still stays true to the core of the UNS Series. Not to mention that added a a few new characters from the BORUTO series lineup, making the total roster of more than 130 Characters that you can use (+6 Extra characters through DLCs and Update). By the time we wrote this review, there is still 1 DLC Pack left to come in upcoming months, which means there will be at least 1 new character added to the roster in a few months.

Not only adding the characters, they also add some new Combination Jutsu that can be done with the right characters in the team. For Example, Boruto × Sarada × Mitsuki / Boruto × Kawaki / Naruto × Kawaki. This totally improves the fun and team combination that you can use to finish your enemies with some very flashy moves. Love that every Combination Jutsu that was available before is still available in this game plus some new ones.