COOL

One of the most unique FPS experiences you can ever achieve.

Like the game says, its a solid mix between various halo concept with the usage of portals. The shooting mechanics at its core don't feel that much different than other FPS titles and. The portals added to this equation make the games movement mechanics very different from most typical FPS titles, it takes a second to rewire your brain to think about using portals for movement rather then sprinting around, as basic FPS movement has been so engraved in our minds. It definitely heightens the experience and makes for a unqiue game that hasn't been replicated anywhere else. Its fast paced nature and movement mechanics definitely can consider this game as apart of the Arena Shooter genre.

Its art style is very sporty and adds to the appeal the game is trying to showcase. Having advertisements spots on your maps for real world marketing is an incredible idea that needs to be considered for other games that can pull this off within their art styles. There's something really awesome about seeing GFuel ads on Olympus.

Weapon Balancing is solid with a few small changes the developers are currently working at. For maps there are a lot that need to be balanced different, there are obviously more balanced maps then others, or sections of maps that need to be changed to allow for a more balanced flow of the games pacing. Overall the developers are really really fantastic job at listening to their community and have an active team within the community looking for bugs or issues to be resolved and its lead to them having some great QoL and bug fix patches.

Custom games allow for the ability to customize any game mode to your hearts content, there is a lot you can do and achieve by changing settings withing the game to create a unique and fun gamemode for you and your friends / others to play with. Gravity modifications, big head mode, speed modifiers, all can be customized and make for a great party game for you and your friends. Its a really nostalgic game for people who used to play old school halo.

Overall this game is a solid 9.5/10 in my books and has the ability to be one of the most appealing games for FPS fans against the oversaturated market that is BR games currently.

Pros & Cons

Pros
•Unique gameplay with portals
•Free To Play
•Very unique art style
•Wonderful Developers who are very vocal and active within their own community
•Active competitive scene
•Large QoL & Bug fix patches
•Lots of cosmetics to mix and match and explore.
•Easy entry skill gap with a larger skill curve for people who enjoy grinding. Easy to learn, hard to master.
•Casual / Ranked Modes for various types of gamers
•Lots of unqiue game modes that can be explored
•Custom games with a lot of customization available in the games settings to allow for some really creative custom game modes
•Having proximity chat brings back the old age of sh*t talking and makes for a very enjoyable experience.


Cons
•Some maps or areas of maps need to become a little more balanced out, specifically competitively
•Some weapons aka the shotgun need to be nerfed a bit. The developers are working on balancing this weapon as we speak.
•The proximity chat can bring out a lot of toxicity, be warned if your afraid of getting ♥♥♥♥ talked you better be ready to suck it up. No softies here.
•F2P games will always bring out more hackers and smurfs, but hackers do seem minimal and get discovered really easily thanks to their anti-cheat.
•Some people have had issues playing on lower end PCs but overall the game isn't that intense, a 700 series could easily still run this game at 60fps no problem.
•Spawns on certain smaller maps are rough, but the developers have said they are working on adding more spawn locations to their algorithm to help with this in a future update

Overall I wouldn't recommend this game, I'm torn due to the conflict of its price point vs quality & content within the game.

The game features a massive number of cosmetic items with various stats to help boost your gameplay in various ways. These cosmetics allow you to have multiple different play-styles that coincide with your ability choices and class role. The ability to create your own ninja and design them yourself has been a long awaited feature for a Bandai Namco Naruto game so its great to finally see this implemented with so much customization. The best part about this is there's no micro-transactions that give you any significant advantage in gameplay as the abilities attached to the cosmetics can be easily obtained in other cosmetic items. The fighting feels like any other Ninja storm game, and the open maps feel really nice to battle in, moving the fight to various points of interest within the map makes the terrain feel different every time you battle it out. The grind in the game is large but very rewarding and not completely necessary, you don't have to spend your time grinding out VR trainers and unlocking abilities, most of this comes over time while playing the Missions or even doing PVP. You can easily put 100+ hours in this game without even realizing it. The various PVP game modes keep the game interesting and fun and its great to play with friends and develop strategies on how to best take objectives or get a competitive edge. The 4 classes gives you the ability to have various compositions and playstyles, The competitive aspect of this game really wants me to see if a competitive scene can grow, with tournaments, LANs and other various events. It definitely has potential to be something great... but

The problem with this game mostly relies in its PVP mode, The servers are complete garbage, there's consistent game disconnects and drops without any ability to return to that game, leaving your team in a 3v4 situation being a huge crutch in objective based combat. This server performance gets in the way of your combat as you can attack someone without a ability, item, or weapon even register a hit on an enemy, I know this is expected of any game where there is a difference in ping issues but here its just too common. This also gets in the way of movement based abilities, often I find myself jumping only to be shot back down to where I once was not even registering my moving at all, This is crucial in PVP fighting moments as I can get stuck in a general area with no where to move but a few feet. The worst part about its PVP experience is there is no matchmaking system for Ranked gameplay. (for example) A brand new solo player starting at lvl 12 and D ranked can be matched up against a party of 4 S ranked players who have put close to a hundred or more hours into the game. The problem with this is players who party up have communication and ways to excel at the PVP mode of the game others are not able too. This leads party's to climb ranks faster and easier and making the game completely 1 sided, with this being said there's no communication aspect to the game, there is a chat function that little to no one realizes is in the game, and there's no text chat feature for anyone who doesn't have access to a microphone to communicate. The ELO system is unbalanced and will often take points away from you even after a win. The biggest example was me losing 100 battle points after winning a game and have the best stats on my team, but then the next game I could lose the game with the best stats and still gain 20? It seems there's no matchmaking system in place and even with a small player base I feel players would rather wait 5 minutes to get matched with a player closer to their skill level then get thrown in a game that is obviously 1 sided. With matches never lasting more then 7 minutes I can't see this being too hard to implement. The movement and controls feel great, other then a small sensitivity issue that's barely even noticeable it doesn't really even feel like this game is ported from console. As for the abilities most are fairly balanced but the one that arises everywhere is Planetary Devastation, with the ability to wipe your entire team in 1 shot regardless of health level is a bit broken and definitely needs to be fixed, in a game that has such a long TTK having 1 shot abilities is not fair in the slightest to people who can get competitive and outplay their opponent with skill. Even though I like the variation in game modes, it seems half if not most are ever active, the only mode available in ranked (at the time of this post) is CTF (Capture the Flag) its a fun game mode but gets repetitive after about 4 or 5 consistent games. If all modes were available all the time it would be more entertaining and having the ability to select which game modes you'd like to que for would be great for people who feel that they aren't getting enough of a certain game mode, or playing too much of another.

I'm really torn on this game because the amount of content and time you can put in this game definitely matches its CAD$80 price point ($60 USD). This is coming from a guy who purchased the Deluxe Edition at CAD$116.98. But the issues surrounding its PVP scene makes me thing that the effort wasn't put into this side in its development even though Its the main focus of this game. I'm simultaneously excited and disappointed in this game, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have potential to be a great game, especially competitively. Only time will tell but with Bandi Namcos history of listening to its community its hard to say if it will actually happen.

TLDR

Pros:
-Lots of Cosmetics
-Little to no micro transactions
-Fighting feels great
-Maps are decent sized, not to big, not to small, lots of variation in fighting locations
-Lots of different abilities allowing you to create your own fight style.
-There's a decent grind in this game to complete and unlock everything, the grind always feels rewarding.
-Huge potential for a competitive scene
-Movement and controls are good, but is just 1 small change away from being great.
-The map selection is small with all variations just being at night, sunset or daytime. I can see more being added on in the near future but with the various game modes causing you to move and battle around these maps differently the maps don't begin to feel old in the slightest.


Cons:
-Servers are complete garbage
-No way to reconnect after disconnecting or crashing out of a game
-There's an outstanding number of bugs and issues (usually server related) that are game breaking and hinder performance in PVP situations. (some have been said to be fixed [aka black screen issue] but these issues sometimes still arrive)
-No matchmaking system at all in place.
-No text communication in game
-Very niche market as it only appeals to fans of the anime / games franchise. Can't recommend this to anyone who's not a fan due to its outrageous price point.
-A few abilities need to get balanced but we haven't seen a large patch yet so this is subject to change.

This game needs a lot to change. I will update this post if Bandai Namco proves me wrong but for now I wouldn't recommend this game in the state that it is in.

Its pretty good.