One of the most succesful anime/manga series available right now is that of Naruto, the tale of a young ninja who dreams of growing up to be Hokage one day. The series has proved to be very popular, leading to several videogame incarnations. Recently, Killer Betties got to take part in a conference call with Andrew Davis, localization specialist at Namco Bandai Games, about the upcoming PS2 fighter - Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2.

Can you give us an overview of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2?

The title is Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 – a sequel to last year's hopefully popular Naruto: Ultimate Ninja – and we are targeting a June 12 release date or at the very least June of this year. It's sort of more of a cartoony fighter, along the lines of Nintendo's Smash Brothers series, so you have these elaborate stages you can run around in and features characters from the anime Naruto running around and having lots of exciting ninja battles.

And can you tell us a lot more of the differences between the first game and the second game?

For one thing we have well more than twice as many characters; there will be 32 characters in the sequel here. Some of them are returning from the first game, and some of them are brand new, and even the ones from the first game, a lot of them have upgrades and new moves and new secret techniques. It also features a sort of RPG mode where you get to follow the storyline of the series and run around in the town and talk with various characters from the series, except missions, explore around, and it's also where you can customize your character.

And there will be more collectibles?

Oh yes, there is a whole shop where you can buy all sorts of ninja info cards, watch the secret techniques at your leisure if you buy them, listen to music, collect sound files – that sort of thing.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 features a point system that allows people to upgrade their characters. Tell us more about this feature.

This is a feature in Ultimate Road mode where if you play a story battle or a mission battle, at the end you'll be assigned points based on how well you did, and you can collect these points and save them up like experience points, and then spend them to increase your character's strength, their jumping ability, their chakra usage – all kinds of things.

The game sounds like it will focus heavily on the single player mission based aspects. Can you talk about some of the missions, objectives, challenges and other things players will have to overcome?

Every time you get a mission you get a background of what is going on, so for instance you might have to track down Jiraiya who is engaging in his research activity – if you know what I mean – or Choji is having a tantrum about food, or you might have to put on a ninja expedition or go to another country and demonstrate your ninja skill, and all these missions involve you fighting these battles that have certain limitations on them, so for instance you might have to not just win the battle but win not using any projectile weapons or win while your enemy is very strong while you are very weak. So there will be different conditions that pose different difficulty challenges – some are easier than others.

Can you go over a few of the minigames?

I think there are six minigames. We have things like tree climbing where you race up a tree and dodge branches, or there is a pushup battle with Rock Lee where you have to press the button to do faster pushups than he does, and there is even a slot machine too.

Since this is a fighting game, what are some of the new moves Naruto and his friends can do?

People might be excited to know the Rasengan – Naruto's signature move – makes an appearance in this game, so you'll be able to use that as one of your secret techniques. And of course all the new characters have brand new moves, so Itachi has Tsukiyomi so you'll be able to use his and enter the horrible world of Tsukiyomi – the world of pain.

Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Rock Lee, Gaara and other favorites are listed as playable characters. Who are the other characters?

Well, there are 32 of them, but most of the old ones from Ultimate Ninja are returning, but we also have new ones like Itachi, Kisame, and Tsunade – she's one of the legendary Sannin.

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