If the title hasn’t made it clear yet, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst isn’t the first entry in the series. In fact, it isn’t the 3rd one either as the series goes way, way back as it traces its roots to the Clash of Ninja series on the Gamecube. However, it is worth tackling because it is the first one to be ported to the PC, which is amazing because the PC isn’t the platform of choice when it comes to fighting games and games based on anime/manga franchises. Yet here we are, UNS3FB for the PC, with UNS Revolution reportedly following suit.
The Story
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is a 3D cel-shaded fighting game based on Masashi Kishimoto’s extremely popular shonen franchise, featuring a story mode that takes you from the first appearance of the masked man (spoiler: who claims to be Madara Uchiha but is eventually revealed to be someone else) all the way to the fourth great ninja war.
The progression of the story isn’t linear, as it uses flashbacks to tackle key points from the past (pre-timeskip stories are only addressed in flashbacks.) Additionally, the ending deviates from the story in the manga and anime, probably to give it a proper ending – which it can’t if it tries to remain true to the manga’s (which is still unfinished.)
Graphics and Audio
The game uses cel-shading to great effect, which when coupled with the 30 frames per second framerate, sort of makes it look like you’re watching a more polished version of the anime series. The attacks are very impressive, particularly the super attacks and the transformation. The jinchuurikis can transform into giant beasts, the uchihas have their Susano’o, and you will be fighting gigantic opponents that literally dwarf your character.
The audio is crisp and uses sound effects that are varied enough that it won’t grate on you even if you’ve been playing for hours non-stop. At the very least, it isn’t like Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 where majority of the SFX for the beam blasts sound the same. Even with your eyes closed, you’ll be able to distinguish the explosion caused by a Tailed Beast Bomb from Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu based on the sound they make. Now, there are noticeable problems with framerate, but we’ll get to that later.
Gameplay
The Ultimate Ninja Storm series is frequently derided for employing an extremely rudimentary control schem, and it’s true: you basically have one button for attack, one button for jump, another for chakra burst, and another for kunais/shurikens – then a couple more for substitution jutsus and blocks. That’s it. Attack>Attack>Attack>Attack constitutes a combo in this game.
HOWEVER, just because the controls aren’t complex does not necessarily mean that the gameplay itself is shallow. It’s not Tekken by any means, but the combat in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is deep enough that people who take the time to learn how to play properly will almost always win over players who just mash buttons. It is possible to play the game competitively, if you’re the type of player who cares about attack priorities, frame cancels, counters, etc.
Unfortunately, UNS3 FB isn’t suitable for competitions because the roster is horribly unbalanced. There are characters that can be abused by button mashers to the point where they only need to do a single attack over and over, never giving the opponent a chance to fight back. They’re not invincible by any means, but it can be a little bit unfair that you need a lot of skill to beat people who just need to mash a single button simply because they chose the right character.
Content
Content-wise, UNS3 FB is easily the best in the series so far. It has almost all of the characters that matter in the story at that point, including ones that weren’t even present during the story arc (such as the pre-timeskip versions of the main characters) There are over 80(!) total characters and multiple costumes. Different versions of characters will even have different awakenings and movesets. It should give you a lot of things to unlock, and add the fact that fighting games are meant to be played over and over even after finishing the story mode and you have one hell of a replay value.
Bugs and Glitches
As mentioned above, there are frame rate issues with the game, which is generally blamed on a poor porting job. The game is framerate dependent, meaning the speed of the game is tied to the framerate. If you fail to reach the full speed (30 fps), the game won’t skip frames – it will continue to push out each frame, regardless of how slow it gets. This results in slow motion gameplay for many people.
Now, this wouldn’t be a problem if it were simply a problem with optimization. You just need to throw as much hardware power at it, but it seems that the engine is inconsistent with requirements. If you look at various forums (particularly ones on Steam, where you can see that people actually bought the game, thereby negating any suspicions about pirated copies as the result of the lag), there are people with high end gaming PCs having problems with frame rate while there are people on laptops and IGP users reaching fullspeed.
I have two gaming PCs with identical specs (both Pentium g2020 + nVidia GT 440) but different OSes. One uses Windows 8 while the other uses Windows 7, both 64 bit. The Windows 7 one suffers from poor framerate, and I have to run the game as a Low Priority task in order to reach fullspeed. The Windows 8 one, on the other hand, works right out of the proverbial box. I just installed it and ran the game – VOILA! consistent 30 FPS according to FRAPS. I don’t claim Windows 8 as the fix, as this is just based on my own experience and my own hardware. I have no idea if the experience will be the same for everybody (it’s actually the dev’s job to find out.) but it is worth trying if you’re one of the few people having difficulties with the game’s performance. Try it on Windows 8.
Conclusion: Buy or Not?
Assuming that you’re not affected by the performance issues above, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is a recommended buy. If you’re a fan of the Naruto franchise, this is easily the best videogame adaptation and your only chance to play some of the newer characters (until Revolution is released). Even if you’re not a fan of the Naruto franchise, it is still an enjoyable fighting game and buying it will help convince publishers to port more Fighting and Anime games to the PC.
