Bloodplay it again posted:

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I don't mind the occasional filler episode (for example, 119-120 [Kakashi's Rasengan story] were completely enjoyable to me because you learn more backstory about a central character and support characters), but there are some episodes that I don't realize are part of a terrible arc until I'm most of the way through it. When watching Naruto, there was an episode about how the Curry of Life saved Rock Lee and I felt completely depleted by the time the episode was finished. I'm up to #123 now and enjoying Shippuuden a lot more than Naruto because I find the amount of time per battle spent explaining what someone has just done or is about to do has been cut down dramatically.

I no longer have a PS3 or I'd give the whole UNS series a try and it looks like 3 and 4 are the only two available for PC. Part of the appeal of UNS4 for me was that it was updated to add 60 FPS support recently and looks great, but it was also at a time when I thought I was getting close to the end of Naruto to where it would tie in, not realizing Shippuuden was a thing at all. You'd think I would have tripped over a major piece of information like that sometime over the past decade, but nope. The only exposure to Naruto I've had aside from what I've watched over the past handful of months is accidentally winding up at a Naruto Character Popularity Polls wiki page.

I launched the game and played the first mission a few times until I got S rank on it. I definitely can't play beyond that point for another few hundred episodes. I really wish I hadn't played that first mission because now I just want to keep playing. I've also considered trying to find the manga locally at a decent price because I could probably finish the story much faster than cherry picking episodes.

re: character popularity polls

Sasuke is the third-most popular character by the end of manga #60, 4th most popular by #107, back up to third for the third official poll (through #199), and comes in at first by #245 (Naruto's Homecoming). How??? Sasuke doesn't ooze an ounce of coolness until the manga hits ~#343, which is about 114 episodes into Shippuuden and starts getting a posse. Kakashi's popularity doesn't surprise me and obviously Naruto's popularity makes sense, but Sasuke? It's really sad to see Rock Lee and Gaara ranked so much further below him.