If this game would be long dead as pay to play.

Issue with this game right now is that it went into power creep spiral it will likely never recover from. While it always had p2w characters, things went massively bad with Susanoo Shisui BT and then Asura BT, characters that simply break rules of the game. Especially Asura with his "I chase whoever I wish". I can only laugh when I see current state of the game and remember people used to complain Habanero Kushina is broken. :)

Add to that months or years old bugs never fixed, passive of some characters not working at all, some skills working different than in description (Swimsuit Kushina is suppose to be able to launch her Myster twice each round. I guarantee you she can't), broken question in Cat Quiz, messed up scalling in Arena, stagnant prices of frags. Oh, and icing on the cake: some things are treated differently by the game depending on situation. Ie. Edo Tensei Minato who is barrier user and isn't barrier user at the same time when his bond skill is not active. He isn't for Arena mission, but is for Toad Chant Jiraiya barrier effect.