I was surprised to find out yesterday that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst by CyberConnect2 got an early release on Steam. With me being alone in the house at the moment - the spouse has been out of the country since last weekend - I can easily cherish and appreciate little things like this. I was so tempted to get the original, non "Full Burst" release for the PlayStation 3 but I am so glad that Namco Bandai made that early revelation that the enhanced version of the game would also find its way to the Personal Computer. Many doubt it, but I have a feeling that we will see a lot more NB games showing up on Steam pretty soon, yes, and that may include the Tales series. With Enslaved: Odyssey to the West getting the Premium Edition release on Steam out of the blue yesterday, there will be more surprises ahead for PC gamers. There is a lot of money to be made here and NB is realizing that fact it seems.
I absolutely love the game's main menu, it's vibrant and stylish.
But let's get back to Full Burst. Purists may be disappointed to find out that the game is limited to 30 frames per second but everything runs very smoothly. The lack of detailed graphics options is also a bit suspect but the game does allow me to play at native 1920 x 1080 and at least there is a supersampling option that should be enabled if you don't want the game to look extra jaggy. I did find some odd slowdowns while running around the town map in the game's Ultimate Adventure mode but thankfully, the action sequences are immune to these and that is a great thing since Full Burst is mainly a fighting game. Full Burst still hasn't lost that wow factor when it comes to its stunning presentation - it looks like an anime. The animation is smooth as butter and it is always fascinating to see all the strange characters with their crazy fighting styles. Let me be clear: I actually don't follow the Naruto anime/manga series but I have always enjoyed the multiple fighting games released for the brand since the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 era, so it has always been about the fun gameplay and slick visuals instead of the storyline for me when I approach these games.
I didn't expect to see bikinis in this game...
I tried to find online matches yesterday and today but I couldn't find one. It's either people are just playing locally or they are still working on unlocking characters from the adventure mode. You can still fight the computer locally if you just want to have some quick action. Full Burst may not have taken full advantage of the PC hardware though it is clearly the best version of the game but it's still a significant release for the PC platform. You don't get to see games like this being released on Steam or the PC generally and it certainly deserves some attention and notice. Not all games will be a technical benchmark of what can be accomplished on the PC, this being especially true for multi-platform games, and we as PC gamers need to be able see the bigger picture when a game like Full Burst shows up on our radar. Surely a lot of people want to see JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle getting a Steam release? I certainly do.
FIRST IMPRESSION: 4 out of 5
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