I'm always struck by how much they no longer resemble the manga characters. Sasuke especially. He was always so slick and cool. Now he looks like a wino with a weapon.
Everything about him now is completely inconsistent with his persona of being methodical and in control and planning everything so that he doesn't miss a beat. Instead he's got his hair in his face, ragged clothes and a dirty, stained headband.
Naruto looks dead inside. And outside. I'm glad they put him in a uniform. Helps remind me that the number one, loudmouth, knuckle headed ninja of Konoha no longer lives here anymore.
Sakura looks complacent. And the few action shots she has are disconnected from anything to do with the actual story. Like it's a postcard from someone else's life.
And Hinata looks vacuous and lost. She's just a pretty doll in the background. No reason to be there, except to look pretty.
Sorry for my rant - every time I see publicity images like these, I hate them all over again.
Out of likes.
But I agree with you. There's a reason why people kept saying that this should be what if, not canon. It all feels different and lack of old personality. It makes it worse that the epilogue don't really connect well with The Last. It's like "Well, we did our stuff with The Last designs, let's revert back." Luckily I guess Naruto kept his hair short because well, he's not Naruto. Oddly enough, the mountain don't have his look. I guess they realized how kitten it is with the new design. Not consistent.
I'll be honest, I sort of feel bad for them, though very little, because they did support NS. But I think they do get SP influences when it comes to marketing because they do marketing whenever it's new at the time. I played their old games and they were going for the consistent and logical choices. Like the last ps2 was damn good, even team special are creative and actually fun to watch. Not to mention, it's not too out of this world. Now, well yeah.
But anyway, I won't be getting their products because of many reasons, even outside of Naruto series itself. Whenever it's out, I'll just play something overshadows it. It would be bad to release on Halo 5 day. Haha.