Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 takes the next step in the Ultimate Ninja series. Not only does it seem to do all of the features of the previous versions, but it also cleans up a lot of the messes the last ones left behind.

Visually, nothing has really changed since the last version. Ultimate Ninja 3 sticks to the manga-style shadowing of the previous games and displays the arenas, characters and village of Konoha in superb detail.

All of the voicework seems to be the same actors as before and all dialogue has that very Naruto feel to it; namely Naruto's over-anxious attitude combined with everyone else's frustration and bewilderment over him. While a lot of the story mode's dialogue from the series is skipped, the script for Naruto's interactions in the Ultimate Path mode is fairly well done.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 improved on a lot of aspects from its predecessor making it probably one of the most enjoyable Naruto games to date. During fights, there have been quite a few tweaks like giving you a display for when to tap the (O) button in order to pull off a Substitution Jutsu, or letting you customize the type of input you use on your characters' special moves. These are just a couple of the little differences that really made this version stand above the previous ones.

There are two story modes in Ultimate Ninja 3, the Hero's Story and Ultimate Path. Hero's Story takes you through the five major storylines of Naruto Part 1. You take part in the major fights from Naruto's training with Kakashi to his battle against Sasuke. Unfortunately, this is not the mode for people who aren't familiar with the series to try and catch up on the story. At best, you will have five fights from the saga and a lot of the details will be left out. When going into the Chunin Exam, you will fight Orochimaru, then Neji (skipping over all prelims), and before you know it, you will have to face Shikaku. I found this mode to be a bit lacking as far as story coverage is concerned, but I spent most of my time in the Ultimate Path mode anyway.

Ultimate Path is an unrelated storyline where Lady Tsunade decides to throw a competition where the participants will fight one another in an attempt to earn crystals. The winner of the tournament will be able to make a decree that the entire village must follow. As Naruto runs around the city (and jumps on its buildings), you will encounter many of the main characters from the show and learn what they want to make their rule. Rock Lee wants everyone to have his hair cut, while it is suggested that Naruto should ask for a lower price of Ramen (of course, his actual wish is to be Hokage).

Not every encounter in this mode is a fight. There are times when you will go up against other characters in timing or skill based mini-games like exercising with Rock Lee or throwing shuriken with Kiba, but for the most part, there are fights.

For a player who has been following the series from the beginning, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 doesn't have much of a learning curve. For someone coming in from other fighting games, the fact that arenas are broken up into multiple 2D planes, and the heavy use of items, might throw you off.

As it is, once you get the hang of the Ultimate Ninja style, this version isn't all that bad. Most fights were winnable and I rarely lost in the Ultimate Ninja mode. Where I did see a struggle was in Hero's History. Most fights are easy to get through, but a lot of them required a few attempts. Where things went bad though is in the "Search for Tsunade" arch, when you play as Tsunade going against Orochimaru's summon, Manda.

Introduced in this game are summons where you have to face off against one of the giant creatures the series is known for. While they don't have a wide array of moves, what they have can hurt you badly. In these battles, I found that the only way to take out the enemy was to find some combination of moves that actually did damage and just do it over and over again. Time after time, I found this battle to be way too much to handle. It got quite frustrating since this difficulty spike seemed to come out of nowhere.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 adds a whole lot of customization to the game. While previous versions had some, there was just too much of a hassle involved to actually attempt it, and many, if not all, of those issues seemed to be resolved here.

There are two ways to customize your characters and their moves, the first being the way you actually assign a move to a character. As you play though Ultimate Path, you will be able to buy, or unlock, various items. Giving these items to characters allows them to use their various Jutsus.

The other ability you have is to assign the type of input you use on your major attacks. In previous versions, as well as similar games like Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, moves require you to tap a series of buttons, or spin the sticks. Here, if you are better at spinning analog sticks, then you can assign that input type to your Jutsus, or if you have quick enough reflexes to make the button-tapping work, then you can set them to that. I found this to be a nice piece of customization since I tend to be better at the stick-spinning.

There was also an odd mechanics issue I found in the Ultimate Ninja open world. The village is littered with buildings you can go into; unfortunately the button to enter the building is the same one you use to jump. I can't tell you how many times I was trying to jump onto or over a building and ended up going inside it. While this is only a minor annoyance, it was frequent.

With its large roster and generally fun gameplay, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 is one of the best fighting games to hold the license and I would definitely recommend it to any orange-jumpsuit fan out there, but like I said, other fighting gamers might want to rent first since the gameplay style of this series isn't exactly the same as most other games.