We recently had an opportunity to sit in on a conference call with some of the fine folks over at TOMY regarding the upcoming Naruto title, Path of the Ninja 2 for the Nintendo DS. Path of the Ninja 2 is based on the blockbuster Naruto franchise that is currently one of the top anime/manga properties on the market today.

Path of the Ninja originally appeared on the GBA with a port appearing on the DS. Path of the Ninja 2 will be a native DS title with a slated release of September 2008.

One of the key questions to come up was concerning the choice to bring this title only to the DS and what the development team learned in making the first title that would allow them to make this title better.

They cited the DS as “the best platform for RPGs “, which makes sense given the interactive nature of the experience. They also mentioned that they were excited to take advantage of the advanced technology that the DS provided and it allowed them to implement an all new battle system with better cinematic scenes and a native touchscreen implementation. This title will also allow for 30 playable characters versus the previous 7.

The team was also quite enthusiastic about the forthcoming soundtrack emphasizing that there was a new track for battle sequences for the US version of the game.

Expanding on the 30 characters available in the game, it was clarified that you’ll actually only have access to 29 of the 30 characters for a particular game save. Towards the end of the game, the gamer is presented with a choice of selecting one character or another. We were not given details concerning which characters this choice involved.

For those of you that follow the foreign Naruto releases, Path of the Ninja 2 represents a straight localization of Naruto RPG 3.

Path of the Ninja 2 will be available in September for the Nintendo DS. For more information on the upcoming title, visit the official Naruto homepage.