Based on the Naruto manga, here comes the latest video game instalment Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, developed by CyberConnect2 who are more than experienced in the series after lending their hand to over ten different Naruto games. Despite myself being a newbie to the Naruto franchise I have played a small part of its prequel and if I’m honest I don’t think I gave it enough chance as I wasn’t overly keen on it. So with this new one released, a fighting game may I add, on 8th March for Xbox 360 I am ready to see if it can impress me second time around.
The story follows on from Ninja Storm 2, where Naruto is now a hero but the threat isn’t over by any means. After a brief prologue showing of years gone by when the Nine-Tails beast hailed destruction down on Hidden Leaf Village before being sealed inside our protagonist Naruto Uzumaki. Now on the eve of the 4th Great Ninja War he faces a tough physical and emotional potential battle with Sasuke, who he considers a friend but the only thought on Sasuke’s mind is to bring an end to the Hidden Leaf Village. A much greater threat looms though from a masked man whose name is unknown and he bares power that can put fear into the Allied Shinobi Force.
So onto the actual game itself, it’s a fighting game essentially with a bit of added free-roam adventure thrown in but I’ll go over that later. This issue I have immediately is the lack of a tutorial, despite button command lists and combo lists I always feel they should have a helping hand to get you started. Even if it’s optional, then the experienced gamers can overlook it if need be, needless to say I was learning on my feet and quickly otherwise I’d be replaying the Prologue. They have free practice mode against a non-moving opponent, however I feel that isn’t enough to get you up to speed for a fully fledge battle.
The first thing it chucks you into in the Ultimate Adventure mode is a boss battle that gives you an idea of the intensity you’ll face in future ones. I don’t want to spoil much but it’s a recreation of when the Nine-Tails attacked and it’s up to you plus a bit of an army to take down this absolute monster that is ten times your size. It has a strategic feel to it where you have to have patience to wait for the opportunity to strike others you’ll get crushed time and time again. Unlike the normal non-boss battles, once you drain the opponent’s health bar down to a certain level with regular attacks then the real fun begins to deliver more punishing blows. A combination of quick time events will occur, it could be buttons to tap quickly or press in a certain order or even rotating thumbsticks. These are the best part of the game as it requires focus and it brings a real interactive yet cinematic excitement that is rather hard to explain.
The Ultimate Adventure mode, more commonly known as your usual story mode follows various characters along the timeline of the Great War (Naruto get’s more screen time, naturally) in their own personal battles. This adds a greater amount of variety, although you don’t get used to their combos it helps keep the whole thing fresh and you’re always exploring their Ninjutsu (like a signature move) or Ultimate Jutsu (glorified finishing move) moves which require a degree of timing and accuracy to pull off.
At certain points in the story it will allow you to wander around areas and shop for items to use mid-battle that will really come in handy. Whether it’s to increase your health bar when you’re nearly down and out or to boost chakra levels, this is the energy used to pull off the more powerful moves and even unleash your awakening. (Side note – each awakening is different but one turned me into a rather powerful beast for a short time, when I was nearly beaten, it was my last hope. I must say it was fascinating).
My only main concerns within story mode are, firstly the cut scenes are huge and spectacular there’s no doubt about that, to be honest I did enjoy most of them. However sometimes I got completely lost not knowing what was going on or who certain characters were and why I was or wasn’t about to blast some sense into them. That may also be a positive though as I stuck with it despite being out of the loop of what was happening. Secondly there’s no real difficulty setting (apart from the odd decision time, see later on below), kind of “one toughness suits all”.
Finally the mob battles, which I’m led to believe are new to this franchise, basically you end up fighting a group all at once. Well it’d be great if the in-game combo link when you’ve defeated one member wasn’t an absolute freeze-fest. Whenever prompted with the onscreen button to jump from a fallen enemy to the next living one it would have a hissy fit and lag/mini-freeze, which was irritating because it not only put me off the combo I was about to perform but also it gave me the fear of the whole thing freezing entirely.
In some of the key fights it’ll offer you a difficult choice between the Hero or Legendary path, with the latter being slightly tougher. Depending which you chose it’d help level up your in-battle item usage ability; you can carry more and use better items eventually. I felt that even a couple of the Hero options weren’t exactly a walk in the park.
The amount of depth in this mode isn’t really noticed until you finish that main story, when you are dropped off to free-roam properly and complete more side-missions to add more pieces to the timeline. These can be anything from retrieve and deliver, training fights or protecting friends in a battle or two.
I almost forgot to mention that you can be aided by a few support characters; these can be called in to attack or will guard you during battles. Once you get used to them they can be a handy tool to utilize, unfortunately I’m not that skilled yet. Speaking of characters you’ll find a massive 80 usable ones, if you get them unlocked via story, which is incredible to think that you can have a go at mastering them all.
To hone your fighting ability outside of the main mode you can either have a bash at a knockout tournament or dare I suggest venturing online. Yes I did the brave thing and tried to show the world how good I was, I got utterly destroyed so here’s a warning – be sure that you are capable as the real people aren’t forgiving.
There’s a vast amount I could say about Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm, I’ll cut to the chase though. This game seems like a perfect fit for Naruto fans and if you are one there’s probably a low chance you’ll be reading this as you should have already purchased it. So I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys manga or anime who subsequently fancy getting into Naruto. It takes patience, intrigue and a little reading up to fully understand what’s going on to get the best out of it. For the rest of you, rent it if you feel it may be out of your comfort zone or stick to something more mainstream in the fighting genre like Street Fighter.
