As mentioned last time, Famitsu has published their interview with Sega producer Shinji Motoyama (????) and Treasure producer Makoto Maekawa (????). Here's my translation of the interview.

Please tell us about what good points from the last game have been carried over.

Maekawa:
The games themselves have 3 main features; Shunpos, Reifus and being able to execute moves just by using the touch screen. Shunpos was one of the many suggestions that were made and added so that we could create some speedy battles. At first, we were unsure whether to make use of the touchscreen or not. There were both people who were for and against it but, after trying it we thought it helped balance the game well without ruining the gameplay itself. As for Reifus, part of it was actually my idea (laughs). Many other new elements were added to it later but I think there's still much we can do.

Motoyama
Besides that, I also thought the characters had to be portrayed at a high standard, paying attention to how they move and the special moves they have etc.

Maekawa
There was also a lot of fuss over what the original developers of Bleach wanted to put in. In the end, we settled with their ideas and I'm quite satisfied at the end result.

With "Bleach DS 2nd", there's a new "Mission Mode" added to it, isn't there?

Motoyama
The last title had a story mode which was derivated from the original story but this time, it's different. This time we've designed a system with rules and visuals so that the player can experience the Soul Society. Hmmm, I can't really tell you any more than that (laughs).

Maekawa
Following the last title, we've kept the main concept of having 4 player battles. However, we've also added in Hollows (evil spirits that attack both humans and souls) to fight against. The gameplay is mainly made up of battles against giant Hollows, smaller Hollows or just VS matches. But there are also other ways of playing the game.

Are there new characters?

Motoyama
Hmmm, what should we say about the characters? (laughs).

Maekawa
(Laughs)

Motoyama
We weren't sure about the character roster with the last game either but, in the end we have quite a list of characters lined up. I think everyone will be surprised at some of the characters they will find.

Maekawa
And there are also characters that I myself really wanted to add in by all means (laughs) For now, we've only announced Urahara and Ikkaku but there are also some other surprising appearances.

Motoyama
The Treasure staff themselves also wanted certain characters to appear and were very insistent about it (laughs). In the end, we were negotiating about how if we had one character in then we had to have another one in too.

Maekawa
The last game was done the same way but, you could say the characters are split into two categories, characters which have been made exactly the way they should and also characters that were designed in a playful manner. As long as we still have the resources to do so, I think we'll be adding in more familiar popular characters in (laughs) Bleach is a title where the popularity of characters is an important factor after all. There were various ideas about how to choose which characters to add in such as maybe using the top ranking characters, characters that would make the game interesting or, characters that would make the scenarios interesting. It was a tough choice.

Have any changes have been made to the characters from the previous title?

Motoyama
Yes, of course there is. Adding new characters was a natural thing to do but, porting over the characters from the first game and leaving it at that wouldn't be very interesting. We decided to re-look at the characters to balance out the VS matches by putting some thought into things such as adding new moves and how we would change their overall effect in battles. We want to make whatever changes we can to suit the new setting such as changing the design of the pattern that appears when Hitsugaya use the Kai move.

Maekawa
Fortunately we've received lots of feedback from players of the first game. None of the games I've worked on before has ever received so much feedback in fact (laughs). This is why we'll be able to have a good grasp of all the good and bad points of the game and go about improving the areas that were bad first. Characters in which we received the most feedback about take priority and currently we are working on patching up their graphics, moves and other areas that weren't of satisfaction from the last game. We haven't overlooked our new characters either but this is so important to us that when we do work on the new characters, others would say, "fix this first already." (laughs). We're not just planning to add new characters but to have them all in the game as a balanced out set. Something that will get pplayers excited about.

Most of the feedback was about the Wi-Fi VS system so, will you be working on strengthening that area?

Motoyama
The Wi-Fi VS mode in the last game had to be completed quickly by a third party so, it would have been hard for them to create something of satisfactory standard.

Maekawa
It was a lot work for us (laughs). The feature was requested during the last moments of development so under unprepared circumstances, we done our best to finish it. We do apologize for coming up with such a minimum standard of work. However, with that in mind we will be working to improve it so that it's easier to play and also, pay proper attention to the user feedback that we have been receiving.

Motoyama
It'll be easier to connect and setup a VS match so everyone can enjoy the excitement of using their favourite characters to battle it out.

Maekawa
We've got various ideas at the moment such as adding settings where you can have consecutive battles or, how you can fight on even if someone disconnects. However, the biggest improvement I want to work on is making Wi-Fi easier to setup.

Motoyama
In other words, "making it easy to play" is the most important part of our work on the feature.
?
I see the number of Reifus in the panel have been increased to four. Why is that?

Motoyama
To put it simply, it was to balance out the game. The last game had 2 Reifus but by doing that we found that there will be situations where the player can't use Reifus that he/she wants to use. By increasing the number of Reifus at hand will lower that chance but, besides that, we have also made changes to the Reifus themselves.

Maekawa
Yes. Beat-em-up games that never tried things like before were extremely easy to beat. Not a very good thing to have in a game. We thought the balance in the first game was right but in the end, there was some feedback about how some Reifus had some unexpected effects. So with that in mind, we thought that before we worked on a improving and creating a new system, we could work on the balance in the game first. For example, making Reifus that were too strong weaker, or in extreme cases, removing them all together and adding in new ideas where gamers thought it would make the game more interesting. Some players even said that the game would be fun without any Reifus (laughs). So with that in mind, we want to balance the game so that even they will agree that the game is better with Reifus.

Motoyama
With 2 screens, we just had to create a system that makes good use of the touchscreen. It's great to play a normal beat-em-up game without any Reifus but, we want players to play a game where they can look at Reifus being and think to themselves, "Hey, I can use this strategy too."

Maekawa
And that is why we're seriously spending a lot of time adjusting the entire system. It is an essential part of these type of games.

Lastly, please leave a message for our readers.

Maekawa
"Bleach 2nd" is a game where both the Treasure and Sega staff have been working together on, increasing the overall ability of the development team so the title will be much better than the first. Not only are there new characters but there are also many adjustments to balance the game so I'm sure there is much quality to look forward to.

Motoyama
It's a product where we've taken into account all the good points of the first game and suggestions how to make them even better. Not only will you enjoy the improvements but, you'll enjoy the new system, the new features and characters.

Source: Famitsu
Related Links: Treasure HP, Bleach DS, Bleach DS 2nd