I loved this games basic mechanisms - played the hell out of Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2-4. the multiplayer was especially fun, never got tired of it playing with 2 other people.
But it always failed so hard at fanservice.. it never updated existing characters with new jutsus - like Kiba never got garouga, chouji butterfly mode...etc, it pretty much took away all the pre-ts characters and was trying to sell them little by little with just a new post-ts skin and a couple of new moves, maybe specials, sometimes not even that... havent added all the characters that should've been obligatory, like Pain and Konan. Havent added the deceased pre-ts characters into the Wii games, like zabuza, haku, sandaime, sound 5..
they just always cut corners. with the addition of all the missing important characters, major jutsus and some graphic improvement this could be the best Naruto fighting game. hell, I still like it the most even with all the shortcomings.

• Herbert Milhomme3 months ago

  Also take into consideration one is called shippuden. so the whole pre/post time skip is a very debatable subject. I think they covered their objective without those characters. But yes I am disappointed they didn't make choji butterfly a back+special as a power up. Among a few other things...

• D'onte Graves4 months ago

  I'd disagree on the fanservice thing. The first two games were limited, but Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 and onwards (except the first EX) were on point in that aspect. Yugao Uzuki and Baki were playable in Clash of Ninja and EX 3 before any other Naruto game. It would be two years until the Storm series featured them.