I have been a long time fan of the Naruto anime and manga series, and a long time begrudging purchaser of the Naruto video games. It isn't that the games are bad, exactly, but rather that they seem content to do the absolute minimum amount of work because the developers know fans will purchase them all anyway. If there have been any bright spots, it has been the Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm series which refined all the rough points in the Ultimate Ninja series until the game was actually fairly enjoyable. The recent release of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is essentially the complete version of Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 which was released earlier this year. While this is basically just a glorified DLC (and it is an actual DLC if you already own the original title) pack, it represents the most comprehensive and complete Naruto title to date, and if you can slog your way through the intrusive story and mediocre combat there is enough here to appease most fans of the series.
The story here focuses around the titular Naruto, and fans of the anime or manga should already be largely familiar with the events covered in the game. It throws you right into the action without much explanation as to what is happening or what has already happened, so hopefully you're already entrenched in the Naruto storyline otherwise the plot will be lost on you starting sometime shortly after the opening credits roll. Naruto's father is battling a mysterious masked man and an enormous fox creature known as the Nine-Tails. While both seem intent on destroying his home village, they unfortunately picked a fight of a village consisting of super powerful ninjas, and the opening battle is grand in scale and impressive visually. After resolving this situation in the punchiest way possible, the game throws you into the future as Naruto and the events surrounding the Fourth Great Ninja War. While the intensity drops a bit from the opening sequence initially, the story still manages to be relatively compelling provided you have the slightest clue as to what is going on.
The story itself is enjoyable enough, but it keeps getting in the way of the game, shouldering its way on to the stage and demanding it gets another guitar solo because it's afraid you'll take control and mess things up. There are multiple times where an intense fight will finish and right when you're ready to jump back into the action, the game slaps the controller out of your hands and throws a twenty minute series of cutscenes at you. Because of this, the pacing ends up being completely uneven, and these huge gaps in the action occur basically every chapter. Even worse, because of how dense the lore and backstory for this game is, the huge focus on dialogue and story is going to be completely lost to someone who hasn't been following along so far. Even with all the time the game spends talking at you, newcomers aren't going to be able to find their way to the path of story coherence without at least three roadmaps and a Sherpa Indian guide to help them along. This is absolutely a game for hardcore Naruto fans only, with a story so front and center and completely inaccessible to outsiders that I have a hard time imagining anyone who hasn't already been following along will glean any enjoyment out of this at all. With all of that being said, if you are invested and can follow along Full Burst tells a compelling tale all the way through, with the only questionable hiccups occurring near the very end of the game.
The game varies in quality depending on exactly what sort of fight the game throws at you, but there were parts I found genuinely enjoyable. The focus of the game is clearly on the story mode, and in the story mode you will either be taking part in big epic boss battles, frantic mob battles, or more traditional one on one fights. While the gameplay feels a bit uneven in each segment, the emphasis seems to be on the spectacle rather than actual complex and im
