Interview - Hiroshi Matsuyama (President/CEO CyberConnect2)

Click: Can you give us a little background to the Naruto Shippuden franchise for those who may not be familiar with it?

HM: The Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja series has sold more than twelve million units worldwide over the last ten years and Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution is, of course, the latest game in that series.Click: What kind of gameplay can players look forward to in Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution?HM: The major difference to the playstyle in the series is that we’ve totally changed the battle system. Obviously we have been refining the battle system over and over with previous titles but because we want the fans to play more and increase their enjoyment, we have also asked for support from other developers of well-known fighting games to make the game even better.Click: How many selectable characters are we looking at?HM: So within the new battle system, the character roster has more than one hundred playable ninja to choose from. Because we have full support from Studio Pierrot, which is the original Naruto animation studio, we have two animated episodes that are exclusive to this game. Actually, there are three episodes but we can’t tell you about the last one.Click: What else is new in UNSR?HM: In addition to the new battle system and animated episodes, we also have a new single-player mode called Ninja World Tournament. In this single-player mode, you can fight against three other ninja. Because of all these new features, we expect to sell over 1.5 million units worldwide when it is released in September, 2014.Click: What made you guys decide to add new Naruto content to the game?HM:Actually, when we told Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto’s creator) that we wanted to make a new character, we told him “If we just make an all new character, it will still be boring. We need to come up with something really interesting.” When Kishimoto faxed us his design for Mecha Naruto to CyberConnect2, we were all stunned. Me and the whole staff were like “What is this!?” So Mecha-Naruto’s appearance is quite unique, too unique maybe, not just how he looks but also because he has a whole episode in the game, which is found through the Ninja World Tournament. And so when the player plays his scenario, they find out his characteristics and his friendships so at last, we can guarantee a real connection with the players. Some of them might even tear up.Click: How do the game’s events tie in with the anime?HM: Mecha-Naruto’s scenario will be a spin-off from the original anime or the manga but of course his character and the scenario was still created and supervised by Masashi Kishimoto. So even though it is a spin-off, we can still say that this is an official part of Naruto.Click: When can we look forward to getting our hands on the game, and what platforms can we expect to see it launching on?HM: The game will be released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 but will also be supported on Steam. Fans can expect to see the release of the game in September, 2014.In Short: Play Magazine We caught up with Hiroshi Matsuyama to chat about forthcoming fighter, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution.

Interview - Hiroshi Matsuyama (President/CEO CyberConnect2) on ClickOnline.com