To date, Naruto hasn't done much in videogames, outside of what we've already seen in the manga or either anime series. Usually fans are playing the same battles over and over again, which though interesting the first time, by the second or third time around we know how everything plays out. Luckily, fans have the Uzumaki Chronicles to spice things up, delivering on a Naruto story that has never been read or seen before. Killer Betties got to attend a conference call with Andrew Davis – the localization specialist at Namco Bandai Games – to see what we can expect from the sophomore effort in the Uzumaki Chronicles series.

As mentioned, one of the biggest selling points of the game is going to be this all-new story, never before seen, which is about, "robot like puppet walkers, that are like Kankuro's puppets, except they can walk around on their own and cause havoc." Andrew continued to shed some light on the puppets, this new hidden force behind them, and just who exactly the villains of the game were going to be as well. "This is a clan once thought dead, and the Shirogane clan's leaders are Meno, Ibushi, and Gando. And Ibushi is kind of this old man who sort of controls the puppet strings of all the other people of the clan, building giant puppet walkers with their technology, and reverse engineering to make them more sinister." Given that Kankuro is one of our personal favorite characters in the series, to fight against a clan full of creatures like his puppets, we can't wait to experience the story.

For the first game, the story progressed in an extremely linear and forced way, making you play through side stories you might not have wanted to play, all so you could finally experience the original story for yourself. Though the new game will still be split into story missions and side ones, the way you approach them has been completely reworked. "The structure of the game is a little more refined. You can choose to go through all the story missions at once, or if you want you can go between missions. Every time you beat a story mission, you unlock more side missions you can then choose to play, like escort missions, find pieces of things scattered about the map, and you can go through those and build your characters up with more experience if you want, or go on to your next story chapter."

Andrew continued on about the story mission setup by saying, "We have a number of different story missions, and you follow the storyline through a bunch of fully voiced cutscenes…the team of ninjas is constantly changing, so you can go through one mission with Rock Lee and Gaara on your side, and then suddenly you'll have Kankuro and Gai Sensei or some other team." One complaint players had about the first game was the fact that you were always playing as Naruto, and could only briefly turn into a fellow character for short spurts of time. With Uzumaki Chronicles 2, however, that has been completely done away with, and now you can switch to characters and permanently stay them for as long as that mission allows. "You can basically play - whatever characters are with you - you can switch to them at anytime, and play as them, and they have their own health bar and everything."

As for the characters you'll be playing as during the course of the game, though Andrew vaguely hinted at the fact that he wasn't going to tell us every single character we'll be able to control in the game, he did give us a nice sized roster, including the names Naruto, Shikamaru, Sakura, Kakashi, Gaara, Rock Lee, Konkoro, Gai Sensei, Neji, and Choji. Andrew also elaborated on the characters by saying, "The different characters have their own fighting styles and sets of moves…and of course you can customize the characters." The customization in question comes from a chip-based system, which allows players to adjust their characters and tweak them to fit their personal play style. "We're bringing back a variation of the chip set system of the first game, so each character has their own unique plate, which is a shape you can put these chips – that have their own unique traits – that you can fit into your plate to customize your character, such as learn new moves, focus on physical attacks, boost chakra, etc."

Though there is a lot about Uzumaki Chronicles that will be familiar to fans who played the first game, besides a new story, there are also going to be some other changes to the gameplay formula as well. "There is a total graphical rehaul. The backgrounds, the character designs, are all different and brighter…more anime style compared to the first one which was very 3D rendered." Given the blockier nature of the first game, we weren't exactly thrilled when we saw a game that left the styling of Naruto behind, so we were overjoyed to hear that a more anime/manga style will be used for Uzumaki Chronicles 2. We also learned that when the game hits its scheduled September 4th release date, the game will also feature a two-player cooperative mode, where each player will be sharing the same screen, instead of having a more two-sided splitscreen mode.

We love our Naruto, but we don't always love the fact that we're playing the same stories over and over; Gaara can only crush Rock Lee so many times before we simply stop feeling anything. Thankfully, Uzumaki Chronicles 2 for the PS2 will be changing that, when it introduces a new, never before seen story, and changes up enough stuff from the original game to make it feel like a whole new series instead of just a rehash. Be on the lookout Naruto fans, when the game releases in September.