The game retains the signature "Storm" fighting style, which distinguishes itself from traditional 2D fighters (like Street Fighter) by utilizing full 3D arenas.
Storm 3 covers the manga from after the Five Kage Summit up to the climactic battle between the Allied Shinobi Forces and the masked Tobi, just before Naruto and Kurama finally join forces.
Warning for purists: The game famously diverges from the manga at the end. Instead of the actual manga ending (which hadn’t been written yet at development time), CyberConnect2 created an original “what-if” ending where Naruto and Killer Bee defeat Tobi and save the world. This epilogue is considered a “what-if” finale and is exclusive to the original Storm 3 (later changed in Full Burst to be more accurate). Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Xbox 360
For Xbox 360 players, this original ending is now a piece of history. If you find a launch-day disc, you’re experiencing a timeline that never happened in the anime or manga.
The Xbox 360 was not the primary home for anime games—that title usually went to PlayStation consoles. However, Bandai Namco made a concerted effort to bring the Ultimate Ninja Storm series to Microsoft’s platform. By the time Storm 3 arrived, the Xbox 360 had a dedicated, albeit smaller, fanbase for fighting games. The game retains the signature "Storm" fighting style,
UNS3 on Xbox 360 boasted:
For many Western fans, this was their first time experiencing the climactic battle between Naruto and Tobi (the masked man) with high-definition cel-shaded graphics on a large HDTV using the Xbox 360 controller. The Xbox 360 was not the primary home
Overall: 8/10 – “A fantastic anime fighter that defined a generation of Naruto games on Xbox.”
If you still have your Xbox 360 hooked up, track down a copy of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. Experience the “what-if” ending, unleash the Nine-Tails, and relive the Fourth Great Ninja War—one chakra-filled QTE at a time.
Have you played Storm 3 on Xbox 360? Share your memories in the comments below!
The Storm series has appeared on Game Pass periodically. As of this writing, Storm 4 is more common, but Storm 3 sometimes rotates in. Keep an eye on the catalog.