izigame.me

The best way to experience the story of Naruto


Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 is a 3D Arena Fighter with loads of characters all with their own flashy special moves. The graphical style manages to capture the look of the anime but in a 3D format and all voice actors return to resume their roles. The story mostly follows the source material but takes some creative liberties and cuts out a lot of unnecessary filler. Fights are definitely style over substance but there is still some strategy, and although I prefer more traditional fighting games there is merit to having some games that are more accessible to newcomers of the genre. The game used to run in 30FPS but thankfully you can now run it in 60FPS, just be sure to select HD when launching the game.
While there is an impressive cast of characters, they all feel very similar due to controlling fundamentally the same. Combos are done by mashing the attack button, ranged characters will instead use the shuriken button, chakra can be spent to unleash ninjutsu and powerful finishers or to quickly close the gap. There is some depth with the substitution move letting you avoid and punish slower attacks, or using blocks and counters to parry combo strings. You can also summon partner characters to unleash an attack or help you out of a tough spot by tanking an attack or stopping you from getting ringed out among other things.
There is an open world to explore with lots of items to collect and characters to interact with. It really helps flesh out the game over just having a simple arcade mode. The story mode features lots of memorable battles from the series and does a good job of summarizing important events with well animated and acted cutscenes while cutting out the fluff that makes watching the anime such a chore for a lot of people. It's feature rich with loads of content and while not being super in-depth covers pretty much everything you need to know from the very beginning of the original Naruto up until halfway through the final arc of Shippuden. Story battles are exciting with boss battles featuring QTE's playing alongside some very impressive animations for the climax. There is decent variety to the missions with some having you take down hordes of enemies instead of a 1-on-1 battle and a few fights taking the Kaiju approach with giant monsters duking it out.
The most feature rich and enjoyable Naruto game out there. I highly recommend this over Ninja Storm 4. The roster may be a little smaller but the story is far better and it's far more polished and feature complete. I honestly recommend playing this game over watching the anime; they did a great job with the cutscenes and getting to skip the filler makes it a far better experience.