Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections Deluxe Edition - PC (Steam)

Overall, the description of this game is pretty comprehensive: it's just a combined content from all previous games, telling the entire plot of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, but the game has a lot of minuses.

I should start with you, that most of the game is damn cutscenes (not interactive), where you stupidly sit and watch a movie, only occasionally reaching out to the gamepad or keyboard in order to join the fight. Many boss fights, unfortunately, did not get their finest hour, and remained simply in the form of this very movie. The list is simply huge: Naruto vs. Gamabunta (toad), Tsunade vs. Manda (Orochimaru's snake), Gaara vs. Deidara, Sakura vs. Sasori, Naruto vs. Orochimaru, Naruto vs. Kakuzu's fight was heavily cut, as was Jiraiya vs. Pain's fight, the Third Hokage and the entire village's fight against the Nine-Tails, Minato vs. the "Masked Man" was cut, Sasuke vs. Mizukake, Naruto vs. Sasuke's fight was cut, as was Guy vs. the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Kakashi vs. Zabuza (cut), Choji vs. the Gedo Statue, the fight of the five Kage vs. Madara was also nothing more than a cutscene for the sake of pure viewing, Naruto's fight personally (not in the form of the nine-tailed fox) against the Tailed Beasts, Naruto vs. Tobi was cut, Kurama and the Ten-Tails' fight was not gameplay, as was there was no fight of team number 7 (control of the summoned) against the clones of the Ten-Tails, the First Hokage (in the team of the second and third) against Obito, Guy against Madara, the huge and red fight of Naruto and Sasuke against Madara became just some kind of joke, and not a normal boss fight, however, as well as fights against Kaguya. This is a huge pile of content from previous parts, and far from all. When I say "the fight is cut" I mean that the entire boss fight was reduced to just a fight with one stage, and often without interactive cutscenes, which many players love. Yes, this part of Naruto Ninja Storm added some fights inside itself, but this is negligible, in my opinion. The game would probably be stretched out a lot if you included all those fights, but damn, the anime itself released its 720 episodes over the course of years, how can you even make a game that covers the entire plot and isn't stingy with the gameplay without making the game stretched out? Sure, the game would be long, but I think it's better this way than what we got.

The game as a whole has become much simpler, and the enemies' intelligence is dumber compared to the previous parts. I may be wrong, but the enemies don't use the substitution technique as actively and obligingly take the player's hail of blows, in this game there are often cases when the enemy makes a chakra dash back from you and stands at the other end of the arena, and sometimes doesn't even accumulate chakra, but jumps from side to side like an idiot, as if thrown shurikens are the most terrible weapons in the universe, although in fact the damage from them is like a mosquito bite. It's just stupid.

In general, the trend of games becoming casual in recent years is nothing new, I haven't really revealed anything new to readers, but this game managed to surprise me by adding a simple control mode, where the character will automatically accumulate chakra, use ninjutsu instead of a dash, and some other crap, like help with awakening. The game doesn't fully play itself yet and goes through the story instead of the player, otherwise they would pay to watch anime instead of a fucking GAME. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

The added storyline with Boruto had little effect on the impressions of the game, because even there the player mostly just watches cutscenes and doesn't participate in fights. Boruto mode becomes more or less interesting and unique only towards the end of the game, where the tension builds and the fights that are truly important for the plot begin. But fuck, 80%, or even all 90% is just a damn movie again.

Overall, this game didn't bring much new to the table. They added the ability to counterattack in exchange for a temporary decrease in the maximum chakra scale, a few new fights that do not cause much delight, because they are the most ordinary one-phase fights, and for the most part, that's all. There are not many pleasant innovations, and even a single mod with nekus will add more variety to combos and jutsu than they did here. Personally, I think this part is the worst in the game series. Instead of making this game a huge fucking encyclopedia that no one needs, and breaking through the bottom of the simplification of the gameplay, they should have added more interesting and colorful fights. On a personal note: Thank you, Bandai Namco, for this shit on my plate.