Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4

All these Naruto Storm titles play the same with only variations of updated rosters and new story in accordance with the chronological order of the shows latest installment. This latest in the series is a compilation of previous games in addition to new content as well. Although the reviewer from Common Sense thinks the control scheme is"odd", this is the most playable title in the fighting world of gaming with no moves or inputs to memorize unique to each fighter, but a universal control layout that applies to each charecter universally. My wife, for instance, hates other fighting games as she doesn't like memorizing moves and is NOT a gamer aside from the simplest of games (ie, pac man, space invaders). However she CAN play this as each character has slightly different and unique moves, but those moves are executed the same way for every character, making this a more pick up and play title than almost every other fighting game. The 3D environments allows 360 degrees of motion and can take a few tries to get used to, but layout allows for freedom and difuses cheap wins, unlike side scroller fighters, that allow you to get pinned and pummelled into a corner by aggressive players. The control scheme causes much more freedom and desire for experimenting with different characters to find ones that best suit you instead of being stuck to one or 2 favorites early on being capped by your ability to memorize button inputs for each and every individual character. The cinematics are fun to watch for timed special attacks but can become somewhat repetative, but with so many characters and the fluid transition between them, you can switch up the variety once you get too offput by watching the same ones many times over. You can get into the story mode if you want, but this is just a way of linking battles in some sequence to story with unecessary tedium between battles. But, for fans, this may be a meaningful rehashing if you're itching to relive moments of the show in game form. Even for those not fans of the cartoon itself, the themes and overpowered, otherworldy ninja magic battles rival, arguably, even the craziness of Dragonball Z games but with more style and variety. fans may have a leg up on other players at first with more of a grasp of what is taking place by sheer familiarities with the concepts linked to gameplay, but after awhile, all players have equal footing once the basic controls are understood. Afterward, simply a practice of timing and some slight familiarity with each charecters range, speed, radius etc. will make most players adequate enough to be competetive with at least a handful of characters.