While Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 doesn't offer a whole lot more in the visual and audio categories over this title's previous release (at least while in fights), the amount of added gameplay modes and available characters make it a better game overall than the first Ninja Destiny title.

While in fights, players are treated to the same level of character models as before. Unfortunately, given the DS' limited graphical capabilities, these models are often jagged and, at times, hard to look at. Thankfully, the characters themselves have such a variety in their design, that it is still easy to identify which ones are fighting on the screen despite the less-than-optimal visuals. Outside of fights, mainly during the Story and Quest Modes' dungeon crawling areas, the characters look marginally better, but at times (like while in the Leaf Village), the camera is pulled back far enough to make most of these jagged edges easier on the eye.

The game's audio doesn't seem to have improved all that much either. While the background music has enough energy to really keep you interested in the fights, the characters' few sound-bites quickly become repetitive and annoying, making the game much more enjoyable with the handheld's sound turned down all the way.

If there is one area that Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 does better than the first Ninja Destiny game, it's the range of gameplay modes and the experience when not in a fight.

For one, the Story Mode isn't just a series of animation stills conveying the story between fights. Instead, you also get treated to a good bit of dungeon crawling as you move between the various locations in the game's story (which covers over 50 episodes from the Naruto: Shippuden story and takes you all the way to Naruto and Sasuke's reunion). So, when you head to The Village Hidden in the Sand, you actually end up running through the desert. Along the way, you will happen upon several random encounters with common thugs and other basic enemies, as well as collect items to use in your fights. Unfortunately, this mode does do a pretty bad job of actually covering the series' events. The animation stills are still used to actually convey the story and they end up touching on only the most high level events and talk about many of the minor fights, leaving you to only take part in some of the top battles in the show.

Once you complete Story Mode, you can then take 10 characters through Quest Mode. This is a series of randomly-generated dungeons that each end in a boss battle, allowing you to unlock even more fighters. Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 boasts over 30 playable characters, many of which, like Sai and Yamato, weren't found in the old Naruto storyline and offer some new and interesting jutsu to play with.

Ninja Destiny 2 also offers a Wireless Battle mode that lets you try your skills against other players on the Nintendo Network, as well as a new Survival Mode (a feature that many fans felt was lacking in the last title).

As for the fights themselves, nothing has really changed here. The game's unique feature of letting you use in-fight buffs and items (all activated with the touch screen) is prominent, and the characters you were skilled at using before return with their new Shippuden looks and moves.

Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2's difficulty curve is an odd one, at least in the Story Mode. Early battles are fairly easy, but it isn't long before you run up against a brick wall (my first was when I went up against Deidara with Kakashi and Naruto), only to finally get past that and have several easy fights to run through. And I'm not really talking about the random battles that plague your existence while running between the big fights, I'm talking about the main story fights themselves. As for those smaller random encounters, they tend to be little more than an exercise for your fingers, but when the game uses stills to cut through much of the story only to present you with a really big battle from the show, and have that big fight be hardly a challenge, the game gets almost as annoying as the really hard battles are frustrating. In the end, there seems to be a major balance issue involved in the progression of difficulty that taints the entire single player experience.

To make matters worse, there are times when you will have several fights between save points. This was only frustrating during those battles that were tougher than normal. In my fight against the clay-bomb-wielding Deidara, you first face him as Kakashi, then once you win that fight, Naruto takes over. Because there is no save point between these fights, if you lose while playing as Naruto, you have to go through the Kakashi match all over again. After a while, I got really skilled at taking down Deidara with Kakashi, but it would have been a lot better if I didn't have to go through that same fight over and over again until I could finally defeat the Akatsuki member with Naruto.

Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2's core mechanics are fighting and using the items you've collected on the touch screen to help you in your fights. The game's controls are simple enough, but it still took me quite a while to get used to some of the unintuitive button positions. Light and heavy attacks use the (B) and (Y) buttons respectively, while the (A) is used to activate your basic jutsu attack (provided you have enough chakra, of course). Early fights in the game had me constantly trying to tap the (A) button to perform light attacks, which would typically do nothing since I wouldn't necessarily have enough chakra built up to perform the move. This mistake would invariably lead me to getting knocked around a few times. As a result, I quickly learned that the (R) Shoulder Button was block, an action I rarely, if ever, use in other fighting games. But since blocking allowed you to not only take very little damage, but also build up chakra with each melee attack thrown by the enemy, I found a good technique was to simply hold down (R) and use my jutsu once the bar was filled up. Provided the enemy A.I. doesn't decide to use their own jutsu while I waited to use mine, this technique would get me through more than a few battles and is one of the reasons why the overall fighting experience, at least against the computer, was less than desirable. As for the enemies that used their jutsu frequently, their powers were typically so overpowered that one hit (oh by the way, Jutsu attacks are typically unblockable) would take off half or more of my life. All of these little issues ultimately lead to the unbalalnced feeling mentioned in the Difficulty section and the general frustration with the game.

Overall, the addition of dungeon-crawling, a Survival Mode and Wireless Battles make Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 an improvement over the title's previous release. Unfortunately, there are still enough other Naruto fighting games out there to make it still a purchase only for the die-hard fan who wants to play through the show's biggest battles in as many different ways as possible.