The Naruto Ultimate Ninja series has always stood above its peers in the licensed-anime-brawler market. Though last year’s Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations was a bit of a disappointment, Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 restores some of the series’ more enjoyable game mechanics — and introduces a few new ones, to boot.
The game starts with an awesome boss fight that showcases both a beautiful graphics engine and the new Ultimate Decision Mode, which allows for branching storylines and additional story scenes in some stages. Exploration sequences return from previous Storm games, with new environments giving a great glimpse into the world of Naruto and pals. These story bits help break up the 3D battles, which remain as fast-paced and dynamic as before. Multiplayer is robust, featuring lobbies and a variety of ranked and player modes (including endless and tournament-style), as well as a huge character selection right off the bat.
It’s not really fair to bring axes, hammers, and pals to a fistfight.But a few foibles hold the game back. Ultimate Decision Mode is underused, with disappointingly few options to branch into differing story paths. Also, because backtracking isn’t always available for story reasons, and you have only one save-game slot, it’s very easy to save yourself into corners, ending up trapped in areas with few supplies needed to withstand strings of tough enemy encounters and sudden difficulty spikes. Moreover, with so many playable characters, multiplayer feels less balanced than it should — though given that it usually devolves into mostly mashing B and seeing who runs out of evade moves first, that’s not that huge a deal anyway.
If you’re already a Naruto believer, this game’s excellent visuals and its faithfulness to the source material will outweigh its flaws. But hopefully future installments will continue to fine-tune this still-less-than-perfect storm.
Orange jumpsuit against white snow? Not the best camouflage…PUBLISHER: Namco Bandai • DEVELOPER: CyberConnect2 • ESRB: Teen • MULTIPLAYER: 2 over Xbox Live • ACHIEVEMENTS: Sneaky • COST: $60 • RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2013
+ Beautiful visuals perfectly capture the look and feel of the anime.
+ Restores the exploration and free-roaming elements missing from Generations.
- Combat still feels rather rudimentary; frustrating single-player difficulty spikes.
? Do ninjas ever worry about glowing blur jutsu auras ruining their stealth?
