Bleach Rebirth of Souls Review

Bleach Rebirth of Souls tells Ichigo Kurosaki’s origin story of his rise as a Soul Reaper in the Substitute Soul Reaper Arc after Rukia Kuchiki transfers her powers to him. This newly acquired responsibility will lead him to a climactic battle against Sosuke Aizen in the Arrancar Arc.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a one on one fighting game set in the long running manga, turned anime, where players are put in the shoes of the series’ main protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki. Kurosaki is a soul reaper who’s goal is to protect the world from Hollows. He carries with him his trusty sword, the Zanpakutō, named Zangetsu.

The combat is pretty simple at first and straightforward. Players use the X and Y button for normal and strong attacks. Either mashing them individually or combining both allows players to pull combos for some extra damage. There’s a also a special, strong attack that can be pulled off by pressing the B button. Players can also block, dash and move around the 2.5D arena.

This is where the simplistic combat ends. Bleach Rebirth of Souls offers a different take on the 1-vs-1 fighting genre. Instead of simply having to empty your opponent’s lifebar, you need to reduce their number of lives, a.k.a. Konpaku, to 0.

In order to do so, players have to nudge at their opponent until they are in Reishi Deficiency at 30% or below (think of this as a health bar). Once that happens, a huge Now or Never red and white banner will flash across the screen; at that moment, you’ll need to press RT to unleash a powerful move called the Kikon Move; wrecking your enemy and taking away an amount of their Konpaku.

Buried in the menu-ing of Story mode is a shop where players can purchased Soul Crystals to give your character a leg up in battle. There are four types of Soul Crystals: Attack, Defense, Spiritual Pressure and Special. They can also be upgraded and leveled up to improve their efficiency. The game won’t explain any of it though; I was 3 hours into story mode before I decided to fiddled with the options and find the shop.

Once you’ve tackled Story mode, the game also offers a Practice mode, Versus mode (vs CPU or human player) and Missions. Missions will allow you go through a variety of challenge based missions that will allow you to unlock additional crystals to equip in story mode. Under Story mode there’s also Secret Story; basically allowing players to experience other character’s stories. They are unlocked once you complete specific objectives in Mission mode.

The game looks great and the character design is faithful to the anime/manga. The world is bright and colorful. The 2.5D environments are a bit generic and you are limited as the areas are not full opened; you’ll reach a red “invisible” barrier that stops you from going further. Some areas also have a few things like pillars that can be wrecked. The soundtrack is fine; albeit more often than not drowned out by conversations during battles or cutscenes. The voiceover work is top notch; the emotions are conveyed properly and nothing sounds over the top. It’s just weird seeing two fighters beat the living shit out of each other; yet sounding like having a peaceful conversation sitting at a table.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong in terms of gameplay with Bleach Rebirth of Souls, there’s a bit of issue/nuisance in terms of the Story mode. The story itself is enjoyable but the pacing feels discombobulated. The story is told through chapters that contains a multitude of short acts. While a lot of them include battles, a handful of them are cutscenes only to progress the story. Instead of having constant interruption of a results screen, it could’ve been a chapter in a single take with checkpoints.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is great fighter that can stand on its own thanks to its unique approach and gameplay to the genre. The game offers a decent roster of 30+ characters out of the box, gameplay is easy to pick up and hard to master, and there’s enough gameplay content to keep players busy for months. Despite Story mode feeling more like a watching an anime (felt like 40% playing, 60% watching) and burying the shop under layers of menus in story mode, the gameplay is solid enough to sink its teeth into players. If you’re a long time fighting genre player or looking for some different, Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a must play.