Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 not only wraps up the Shippuden storyline with the conclusion of the Fourth Ninja War, but it also provides an adventure that occurs after the main Story Mode and, of course, tons of fast-paced, chakra-infused fights.

Given that no other Ultimate Ninja game has been released for this generation of consoles, it should come as no surprise that the visuals of Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 are a marked improvement over even the more recent and great looking Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution and Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst. Everything from the characters to the locations and the various visual effects are top notch. I was especially impressed with the amount of detail in the various fighting arenas, as they not only felt large, but also seemed to accurately reflect the various locations from the manga and anime.

When it comes to the game's sound, Naruto titles have rarely been found wanting. Not only are the characters appropriately voiced, but the high-energy music and background sounds all fit just right. While the primary focus of the game's sounds are focused on what happens during fights, the cutscenes and even the somewhat random background noises during the Adventure Mode all help with the overall feel of the game.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4's Story Mode starts off where Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst concluded, right before the final battle with Tobi, and it takes the story all the way to the end of the Shippuden storyline and into the aftermath of those final fights.

What I found interesting was how the game handled following both Naruto's and Sasuke's stories, since the two are on different paths at the start of the game. For Naruto, it is all about confronting Tobi and Madara with the help of his friends and teammates. Meanwhile, Sasuke's journey has taken him in a new direction as he decides to revive Orochimaru in order to get some final bit of crucial information. Both stories end up colliding when Sasuke shows up to help Naruto, but there are more than a few twists and revelations that should surprise anyone not already familiar with how the story plays out because of the manga and anime series.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 also features an open-world Adventure with a new story that takes place after the events of the Story Mode. While this mode is available at the start, some spoilers will be revealed if you jump into this mode having not already completed the Story.

In Adventure Mode, Naruto is sent out on various quests around across the various villages, and along the way, he will find plenty of excuses to get into fights. Where the Story Mode relied heavily on animated cutscenes to advance its story, the Adventure Mode stays in-game and doesn't quite pull you out of the game as much. As a result, Story Mode has a much more arcade feel to it than Adventure, even those the actual fighting aspects are the same in both.

As for the fighting itself, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 feels like the culmination of the past games in this series. All of the good aspects of past titles return, while a few new additions add some really nice polish to the overall experience. I already mentioned the bigger feeling fighting arenas, but outside of that, the addition of weapon and armor damage adds a new depth to the fights. In the past, weapons were more of an extension of each particular character's skills. If a character typically fought with a particular weapon, then using that weapon was just a standard combo. Here though, weapons can actually be damaged and while the combos themselves remain the same, the effects of them will be different if the character has his/her weapon or not.

The game also does a spectacular job of conveying the sheer epicness of some fights, particularly those where summoned creatures fight each other at their summoner's command. At the start of the Story Mode, you get to experience this with a fight between Nine-Tales, controlled by Madara, and the First Hokage's massive Wood Golem.

Outside of the two story-centric modes, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 also contains both Free Battle and Online Battle options. The Online Battle system is a ranked fighting system that lets you heavily customize your fighters, though the customization aspect has to be earned. As you win fights (in pretty much any mode), you can win both money and ninja items. Both can be used to purchase everything from character cards, to skins, to which clips you want to start fights with, and of course, how you want to equip your character for the fight itself. The in-game store contains a huge number of items you can buy and while very little changes how your character handles in the actual fight, it does let you shape them to fit your own personality.

The local Free Battle Mode offers all of the fighting game staples like Survival, Tournament, Versus, League and Practice. While there isn't really anything here to write home about, it would look odd for any of these options to be missing.

The final Main Menu option is the Collection screen. It is here where you can trade in your money or ninja items to unlock all of the aforementioned customizable details.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4's Story and Adventure Modes aren't too difficult to work your way through, and doing so will give you a good feel for how the game and fighting mechanics play out. As a result, by spending the time to go through these single player options, you will find yourself better able to tackle the online opponents, who are typically much tougher to take down than anything the computer can throw at you.

That's not to say that the single player modes are a cakewalk either, but they are doable and even some of the game's tougher fights never feel impossible to beat.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4's fighting system seems to be a much more honed version than those found in the past games. While you don't have to learn a wide variety of combos to get through each fight, it does offer quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to how effective those combos are. As in past games, the special attacks you can perform are based heavily on the amount of chakra you currently have available, and while you can collect some that appears in the arena itself, the best way to build up that reservoir is always charging up manually. Of course, this leaves you open to attack, so each fight is always a balance of pressing attacks combined with trying to gain as much chakra as possible in the hopes of pulling off a spectacular and damaging jutsu. While the core idea behind this hasn't changed for most of the Ninja Storm series, this game's version just feels smoother and tighter than it has in the past. This cleaner feel, combined with the added effects of armor, weapon and environmental damage, really help to make the fights even more dynamic and fast-paced, something most Naruto games did already, but Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 seems to excel at.

As a culmination of the Shippuden story, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 also feels like a culmination of this series, and as such, it is a title that any fan of Naruto or Ninja Storm should seek out.