The cutscenes in Story mode – one of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road To Boruto’s many modes – are probably its biggest letdown, mainly because the developers have relied on semi-static images played over audio from the anime. The arena battle formula has served Namco Bandai’s anime adaptations well countless times before – just take a look at Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 or the My Hero One’s Justice games for starters – with each battle consisting of free-roaming throwdowns between various characters from the Naruto universe, with lots of QTEs and a lot of cutscenes. The Ultimate Ninja Storm series has been around for almost 17 years now and has grown from a humble fighting game with a small roster on PS2 to the gargantuan battler we see today. There are few anime series quite as successful and beloved as the journey of one Naruto Uzumaki, and developer CyberConnect2 has produced a videogame adaptation that’s so good some might even consider it better than its source material.

Should you have exhausted the substantial offering of the 2018 port of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy on Switch, then you should expect something equally gripping.

Like most ports of Japanese origin, the Nintendo Switch version of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto has taken its time to go handheld – the original launched back in 2016, and its anime film tie-in expansion a year later – but with three different story modes, and a frighteningly large number of playable characters, this full-fat version certainly helps ease the pain of its timekeeping skills with a sheer force of content.

Jump ultimate stars review