Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising

The story begins when the Akatsuki members Deidara and Sasori reach the Hidden Sand Village, Deidara proceeding with his mission to capture the One-Tailed Jinchuriki Gaara while Sasori guards the village entrance. Gaara, now his village's Fifth Kazekage, managed to hold his own against Deidara before the Akatsuki member managed to eventually defeat him after a battle that endangered Sunagakure. Kankuro attempted to stop the Akatsuki members alone, only to be overpowered and poisoned by his puppets' creator Sasori. The two Akatsuki eventually reach their temporary base to contact the other Akatsuki members, their leader summoning the Gedo Statue to extract the tailed beast known as Shukaku the One-Tail from Gaara over the course of three days.

Upon hearing of Gaara's kidnapping, Team Kakashi left for Sunagakure alongside Temari, who was Suna's representative for the current Chūnin Exams. On their way, Naruto Uzumaki reveals to Sakura Haruno and Temari that he is the Jinchuriki of the Nine Tails and that the Akatsuki are seeking the tailed beasts. After learning this, Sakura vowed to do everything she could to protect Naruto from being a victim of Akatsuki. Temari was thankful that there was finally someone who could understand Gaara and grateful to Naruto for changing Gaara and attempting to save him.

After arriving at Sunagakure, Team Kakashi learns of the attack on Kankuro with Sakura managed to cure Kankuro while developing several portable antidotes rather quickly. Using a piece of Sasori's clothing found on one of Kankuro's destroyed puppets, Team Kakashi was able to track him, thus leading them to Gaara. Temari offered to assist them, but Chiyo, another puppeteer and Sasori's grandmother, went in her place. Back in Konoha, Tsunade deploys Team Guy to backup Team Kakashi.

While Team Kakashi tracked Sasori through the piece of clothing due they are intercepted by a replica of Itachi Uchiha while Team Guy encounter a Kisame Hoshigaki replica. Despite their victories against these opponents, the two teams realized their respective battles were distractions to buy time for the Akatsuki to extract Shukaku from Gaara, which would kill him if completed. Finding the Akatsuki hideout's entrance protected by a barrier, Kakashi directs Guy and his students to remove four seals maintaining the barrier with they facing a fail-safe created clones of themselves while Team Kakashi and Chiyo are too late as the Akatsuki succeeded in extracting Shukaku from a now lifeless Gaara. While Chiyo and Sakura deal with Sasori, Deidara flies off on a clay bird with Gaara's body, with Naruto and Kakashi in pursuit.

During Sakura and Chiyo's fight against Sasori, the former allows the older kunoichi to use her as a puppet to demolish Sasori's body puppet Hiruko with one punch. The youthful Sasori then emerges, Chiyo noting he looks the same when he left the village, he summons the Third Kazekage whom he killed to make into his puppet so he can use the Kazkage's iron sand ability after lacing it in is poison. With both her antidotes and her experience from training under Tsunade, Sakura was able to easily dodge Sasori's subsequent attacks and demolish the Kazekage puppet. But Sasori reveals that turned his own body into a puppet as he pits his "Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets" against Chiyo's "White Secret Technique: The Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets". Sasori eventually dies when Chiyo kills him using the puppets he made in the image of his deceased parents, Chiyo assuming he saw the attack coming and allowed it to occur. Chiyo then uses a reanimation jutsu developed by puppet users to save Sakura's life, Sasori using his last moments to tell Sakura of a spy within Orochimaru's ranks he to meet in Kusagakure ten days later.

During the time of the fight with Sasori, Naruto and Kakashi were chasing after Deidara. Kakashi activated his own version of the Mangekyō Sharingan and aimed to use it to take Deidara's head. However, it was difficult to aim, and all he managed to remove was his arm. Deidara tried to retreat, but Naruto destroyed his clay bird with Rasengan and retrieved Gaara's body. Enraged and powered by the Nine-Tails' powers, Naruto seemed to be defeating Deidara with Rasengan, but it turned out to be a Clay Clone. Still enraged, Naruto started to appear feral as he transformed into his two-tailed form. Kakashi recognised the bad sign and used a Chakra-Suppressing Seal he had received from Jiraiya to stop the transformation from proceeding any further. Naruto subsequently reverted to his normal form.

As the rest of Team Kakashi and Team Guy caught up with Naruto and Kakashi, Deidara found himself unable to escape. He swallowed some clay, turning himself into a human bomb. Neji Hyuga saw this and told everyone to get away. Deidara then swelled up and detonated. As the dust settled, Kakashi collapsed from exhaustion, explaining that he used his Mangekyō Sharingan to send the explosion to another dimension. With Naruto carrying Gaara's body, the two teams headed back to Sunagakure.

Stopping in a grassy field near the village, Sakura checked on Gaara and pronounced him dead, making Naruto very upset. Chiyo moved toward Gaara and tried to use her reincarnation technique, but she didn't have enough life force left to bring Gaara back to life. Naruto gladly lent his own chakra, and Chiyo was able to revive Gaara at the cost of her own life while the shinobi of Sunagakure watched.

Back at the battleground, Deidara emerged from the ground, revealing that it was his clone that destroyed itself. He went off looking for the right arm that he lost. After finding it, he encountered Zetsu and Tobi, a mysterious individual who wished to take Sasori's place in Akatsuki. Tobi's carefree attitude about Deidara's condition angered Deidara, and he attempted to strangle Tobi in a comical fashion with his feet after one-too-many callous remarks.

After paying their respects to Chiyo and bidding Gaara and his siblings' farewell, the Konoha shinobi returned home. Naruto stated that these situations were always a bit awkward right before Gaara extended his hand to him in gratitude. Since Naruto was not too sure how to react, a small trail of sand wrapped itself around Naruto's hand and brought it to Gaara's. As the Konoha-nin prepared to leave, Kakashi was still exhausted from his overuse of his Mangekyō Sharingan and had to be carried back by Guy. Guy did so piggyback style as he found it easier to carry him for an extended period of time, disturbing everyone present except Lee, who remarked that Guy was training. Lee then proceeded to offer to carry Neji, who bluntly refused.

• Naruto Uzumaki
• Sasuke Uchiha
• Sakura Haruno
• Kakashi Hatake
• Shikamaru Nara
• Rock Lee
• Tenten
• Neji Hyuga
• Might Guy
• Sai
• Gaara
• Temari
• Kankuro
• Itachi Uchiha
• Kisame Hoshigaki
• Deidara
• Sasori
• Sasori (Hiruko)

The game has received mixed reviews. Ryan Clements of IGN was disappointed, stating that Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising follows the same story as Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 4 and is not fun to play. He further commented that the game's battle system can be frustrating, and he described it as "a mediocre game at best"; Clements offered the game a score of 5.0 out of 10.[1] Despite praising the game's music and the English voice cast's work, Allen Rausch of GameSpot also characterized Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising as "mediocre" and offered it a score of 5.5 out of 10.[2] Aaron Birch of Den of Geek liked the presentation and the ample game modes, but he still viewed the game as "dull", with "small, often empty levels", and commented that he had begun to tire quickly when playing the game; Birch offered the game 2 stars out of 5.[3] On Metacritic, Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising received a metascore of 60 out of 100 based on 15 critic reviews and a user score of 6.0 out of 10 based on 11 ratings.[4] Brian Dumlao of Worthplaying described the game as "pretty decent", with a great sound, but with average graphics; Dumlao remarked the similarity between it and other Naruto games as well, and he offered it a score of 7.0 out of 10.[5] Rory Smith of GamesRadar+ said that while fans might enjoy the multiplayer mode, the dialogues are too long and the missions are reduced to "wandering through unremarkable environments"; Smith offered the game 3 stars out of 5.[6] Gabriel Vega of Neoseeker stated that the game offers new choices to players and has a decent stage size, but he added that the execution of the game is "clumsy"; he offered the game a score of 7.4 out of 10.[7]