Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst (PC)

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.)

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact (PSP)

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact is a 3rd person crowd-brawling game for the PSP, following Kizuna Drive and Akatsuki Rising. The main difference between Ultimate Ninja Impact and its predecessors, besides tweaks under the hood and roster updates, is the use of cel-shading in order to provide anime-like visuals.

For the uninitiated, 3rd person crowd-brawling games give you a character, an expansive stage to run around in, and waves upon waves of enemies that you have to wipe out. Sometimes you also get a boss fight at the end. If you’ve ever played any of Tecmo Koei’s –Warriors series of games, then you know what crowd brawler game is like. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact is basically like that – Dynasty Warriors with Naruto Shippuden themes.

The bad things first, because they’re few and far in between: the game is lengthy and takes you from the rescue Gaara arc all the way to the Ninja summit, but once you’ve finished the story mode, the extra missions won’t be that appealing.

There is a tendency for the combat itself to be repetitive, but this is more a flaw of the genre than the game. I mean, crowd brawlers by design will have you fighting tons of cannon fodder over and over again; complaining about it is like complaining that water is too wet. Lastly, the extra modes, as mentioned, isn’t that different from the story mode so there’s very little incentive to take them on once you’ve had your fill of the main game. It would have been better if they included a 1 on 1 vs mode against the CPU.

Now we get to the good parts:

New Batch of Screenshots for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution

Yet another batch of screenshots has been released for CyberConnect2’s next installment in the Ultimate Ninja Storm franchise, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. This time around, it features the Akatsuki. It is said that the screenshots came from the original animation that Studio Pierrot created for the game, which is rather lengthy as it clocks in at over 50 minutes – enough to fill at least 2 anime episodes.

Far from being a mere retelling of the story, the animation will delve into the origins of the Akatsuki, with series creator Masashi Kishimoto admitting that some of the characters have new outfits designed specifically for the game. Judging by the screenshots, both Sasori and Kakuu have the aforementioned new costume designs.

You can check out the screenshots below:

New Screenies for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution

Namco Bandai has recently posted a new batch of screenshots for the upcoming update to the Ultimate Ninja Storm franchise, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. Judging by the screenshots, graphics-wise it’s not going to offer much in the way of upgrades compared to Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst, especially since Full Burst didn’t offer any visual upgrades to UNS 3 and UNS2 (save for a few bug fixes and tweaks pertaining to the frame rate.)

However, we all know that people are already satisfied with the graphics engine of the Ultimate Ninja Storm franchise and don’t really mind not having extra bells and whistles. The true selling point of Revolution is gameplay tweaks and additional characters. There’s no concrete details about the gameplay tweaks yet, but info about additional characters have already been provided by Namco Bandai.