• Posted March 5th, 2013 at 15:47 EDT by Benjamin Shillabeer-Hall
• 1 Comments

The third installment of the storm series hits the PlayStation 3 soon, the third act following the series Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, the anime follows the life of a 16 year old brightly coloured Ninja named Naruto, as he learns to overcome the hatred as he became a host for a Tailed beast at birth (Tailed Beasts are masses of chakra which are normally used as weapons of war), the third game covers the current running war arc from both the manga and the anime, though for anime fans there are quite a few spoilers as the story mode does go quite away past the current season of the show. The story mode continues straight after the story in the previous title Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, with the Ninja Timeline you can view and participate in previous battles throughout the series, but the main chunk of the game is not a repeat of previous titles, which is a fresh breath of air after the previous title Generations.

As usual with the storm series, there is a very long and detailed storyline, which starts off after the village had been destroyed from the Pain attack at the end of storm 2, the game covers a lot of key elements from the War arc including the 7 Swordsmen, Edo-Kages and Kin/Gin brothers, as you progress through the story, you will also unlock side missions and also new characters to play as for the Versus and Online modes, though there is a huge amount of characters in the roster, some characters are awkwardly missing including the edo-kages, these characters are quite confusing on why they are missed from both the support or playable roster, as they have a lot of moves and are a standard enough fight in the storyline, only a few things would need to be added for them to be a normal character, but this doesn't mean the game is lacking playable fighters though. There are over 70 playable characters in this game, along with several that can only be selected for support in team modes.

Main storyline takes around 13 hour’s though this also depends on how good you are at fighting games, but with boss fights and the new dynasty warriors style fighting system for occasional battles breaks up the action so you don't feel like it is one big grind the entire game, giving you the occasional breather also as you do certain boss fights you get the option to do it as a Hero or Legend, depending on the option you pick the difficulty of the boss will either increase or decrease which lowers the reward you get for winning the fight. Though once you have completed the main 10 chapters, there are loads of side missions and bond quests to help push the overall playability of the single player story mode. The bonus of beating the main storyline means you're allowed to visit any of the cities in the game, making the game exploration a huge point, there is a lot of places to visit though it would be slightly better if the areas were more open, but with the art style of the game this could cause some issues. There is also a bonus chapter for you if you find all the chakra fragments at the end of the game involving a certain Uchiha. As you explore the areas in the game you can also find secret items in breakable jars, crates, and err bird poop, so remember kids next time you're out go play in the poop you might just find some money (Warning PSU does not really recommend this).

Free battle mode allows you to pick survival, versus, tournament and practice mode, Survival and Practice don't need much introduction, but the only annoying fact about survival is you need to unlock it from doing certain side missions in the single player ... (continued on next page)