14 DAY TRIAL // Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution's storyline will follow the entire Naruto series, up to the latest anime episode.
Naruto is a Japanese manga that began life in 1997, at the hands of prestigious author Masashi Kishimoto. Since then, it became a massive international success, seeing countless video game adaptations, anime series and trading card games spin-offs.
The upcoming installment in Bandai Namco's series of brawling games, Revolution, will introduce some big changes to the combat system, which developer CyberConnect2 hopes will attract hardcore fighting game fans to the series, but at the same time keeping things accessible for more casual players, who just want to explore the storyline.
When Siliconera asked him how much creative freedom they exercise when working on the game, CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama replied that they show episode proposals to Kishimoto, and as such they do get to come up with their own ideas, but it's up the series' author to approve and help expand them.
The manga and anime have been pretty big hits in the west, and Matsuyama revealed that the Ultimate Ninja Storm series of video games managed to sell over 12 million units worldwide, pointing out the fact that with each new game, there is a growing number of both returning as well as new players.
"The people who have watched the anime or read the manga before and left the series might come back to the game, play it, and have it reinvigorate their interest in Naruto. It’s a great circulation between anime, manga, and game," Matsuyama stated.
In order to truly please fans of the Naruto series, Revolution will give them the option to activate and transform into a summon, a gigantic character from the Naruto series.
"In the battle system called ultimate jutsu type, you can make a combo ultimate jutsu, which combines three characters' Ultimate Jutsu together. One of them—Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura's—will summon their giant characters and do a huge combo attack on your enemy," Matsuyama said.
Furthermore, when players progress through the World Tournament mode, they will be able to unlock many more characters, from the over 100 that the game boasts.
"Also, each character has a strong-point or weak point, but when you select a character you can select one of three battle types: Ultimate Jutsu Type, Awakening Type, or Drive type," Matsuyama added.
"Each have different strengths and weaknesses. Players can select a character, and then a type, and essentially create their own fighting style and strategy. This new battle system creates a variation that lends itself to an equal playing field," he concluded.
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is coming out this September, on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms.