In what’s been a bumper year for Nintendo’s latest, it looks like seemingly every major franchise has started to make its way over to the Switch. Now, hot on the heels of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Naruto has snuck his way onto Nintendo’s new hybrid with the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy. So how does the ninja action fare with the first ever Naruto Switch game?
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new offering. Bandai Namco’s latest is a collection that comprises of the first three Naruto Ninja Storm games ported to the Switch, giving fans a huge amount of great looking ninja action you can play on the move. Unfortunately, that added portability is about all that’s changed here, outside of some improved loading times (even without the switch being docked). Unsurprisingly then, this package is still one that will probably only appeal to die-hard Naruto fans.
As with the previous console versions, each game has many meandering quests to complete with so much running around asked of you, that we think we actually covered more ground here than in Breath of The Wild. When you eventually do get to a fight though, they play just as well as they look. Despite offering up some enjoyable over the top anime antics, however, it’s hard not to come away a bit underwhelmed. With fighting games coming on leaps and bounds in the decade since the first Naruto Ninja Storm was released, playing these games in 2018 feels like a pretty shallow experience.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re looking just to pummel some ninjas on the go, but for the hardcore fighting game fan, this isn’t your next portable game, save your money for Smash Bros.
So who is this game for then? Any hardcore Naruto fan will forgive the boring filler content in order to play through the storylines in an engaging and enjoyable way. However, the issue is that it’s hard to imagine any gaming Naruto fans that haven’t already played these games to death. If you are in that small category that have watched all of Naruto but have not played these games then, we would definitely recommend you pick this tidy trilogy up. Otherwise we can’t imagine that just the allure of replaying through these three games on the move will be enough to part you with your money a second time.
Hopefully, this is the last we will see of a Naruto fighting game without depth and too much filler content. The release of Dragon Ball FighterZ has shown that anime series can also appeal to hardcore fighting fans by giving their series another dimension, just by removing one.