How Fan Feedback Affected Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4

In a new video focusing on new features and changes in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama talks about how feedback influenced the design of the upcoming fighter.

Matsuyama first points out one of the game’s main new features, the “Leader Change” system, which allows you to use three characters in matches instead of a single main character and two support characters. He then talks about this system a little further with regards to feedback, along with other feature changes.

On why the Leader Change System was created:

“Yeah, I get it! I’ve been blasted by everyone from around the world! I thought the feature of adding 3 types [in Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution] to choose from would make everyone happy, such as with how you can use Naruto differently in battle, but a lot of you slammed me saying that’s not good! Everyone complained how crucial it is to access Ultimate Jutsus, Awakenings, and Drives. Sure, whatever! It’ll be back to how it was before! So for Storm 4, the Ultimate Jutsus, Awakenings, and Drives aren’t separated! Use them to your liking! You can even use Leader Change to use each team member’s Ultimate Jutsus and Awakenings! You can do Leader Changes even in Awakening! Like, while you’re huge!”

On how feedback affected Combination Ultimate Jutsus:

Matsuyama: “This isn’t strictly only in regards to Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, but we’re constantly receiving and looking into everyone’s feedback, and applying them to our new features but, how can I put this… The last time we did a survey for Revolution regarding Combination Ultimate Jutsus we received feedback between pairings which place emphasis on the original story and pairings based on ‘what if’ cases, and we found out that most people didn’t care too much for the ‘what if’ scenarios and we found that most seemed to prefer pairings that follow the story background, so this time we placed emphasis on preparing pairings based on the original story and applied it beyond the Combination Ultimate Jutsus as well.”

On balancing Guard Breaks and Counter Attacks:

Matsuyama: “And, we received a lot of feedback on the battle system. In particular was Guard Break and ‘atemi,’ or Counter Attack. In regards to these, I got feedback from many who said to just drop it and get rid of it. Others said that it should stay because it’s a critical part of strategies, and others conveniently asked for a better balance. We got a lot of feedback, so we’re trying to balance it out to the best we can, so it probably won’t be the same as before, but I’m hoping everyone will look forward to what we’ll bring out.”

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is in development for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The game will showcase events up until the climax of the Naruto anime.