The game just barely hits the highlights and is anything but exciting. If you haven't played another Naruto Shippuden game, read the manga, or watched the anime, don't expect to be spoon-fed the story. I think somewhere in the development process, someone realized this the story just kind of trails off halfway through, and the game expects you to fill in most of the blanks yourself. What ensues is the plot of every other Naruto Shippuden game on the market. The format of the game is fairly boring, and doesn't really do much to draw the player in, especially as the game starts up exactly where every other Shippuden game starts up: when Naruto returns to Konoha. These points can be special items, dialogue scenes, or actual battles. Instead of giving you a semi-open world to explore, you get a static map with different points to select. The game only has one main mode: the story mode. And the unfortunate fact is that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact feels like a stripped-down version of games that already exist. I'm all for tons of games being released for a single popular property, but they all have to be just a little bit different. Dragon Ball Z fans have suffered through the same content over and over for nearly twenty years, and it looks like Naruto is starting to have the same issue. On the other hand, you've got to suffer through a lot of repeated content.
On the one hand, it's great to see characters from your favorite franchises evolve and grow over time. Being a so-called "franchise player" can have some serious drawbacks.