| Game Title: | Bleach: Rebirth of Souls |
| Developer: | Tamsoft |
| Publisher: | Bandai Namco Entertainment |
| Release Date: | 20th March 2025 |
| Platforms: | PS4/PS5/XSS/XSX/PC |
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is the latest Bleach fighting game available on home consoles. The last fighting game we got for Bleach was Bleach: Soul Resurrección, which was 14 years ago on PS3. Now, Bandai Namco is working with Tamsoft & Kubo Tite to deliver a high-quality experience of Bleach for both the fans and newcomers.
Story
Main Story
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls stays true to the Main Story of the Manga/Anime, with a focus on delivering the whole experience of Bleach up to the Final Battle with Aizen.
- The Substitute Arc.
- The Soul Society Arc.
- The Visored Arc
- Hueco Mundo Arc.
- The Battle for Karakura Arc.
By now, we believe that everyone knows what Bleach is about. But let us just give you a quick summary,
The story follows the adventure of Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who gains the power to see and interact with spirits. When Rukia Kuchiki, a Shinigami, is injured by a Hollow while protecting Ichigo's family, Ichigo is forced to take her powers to defeat the Hollow. This makes him a Substitute Soul Reaper, replacing Rukia in Karakura Town, where he protects souls and fights Hollows
The Substitute Arc basically serves as the prologue, and they are kind of like summing up all of the events that lead to the Soul Society Arc. While there are key point events included, such as "Memories in the Rain", everything else is basically a quick summary of the early part of Bleach.
The early chapter of Bleach
Things change when you start the Soul Society Arc until the end of the game. We must say that this is quite rare in an anime 3D fighting game, but the Story Mode is meaty, like very, very meaty, as you can experience the whole story from the Soul Society Arc to The Battle for Karakura Arc.
It took us around 33 hours to finish the Main Story alone (It's pretty long) and around 21 hours to finish the Secret Story for each character. Even games like Demon Slayer or Naruto Storm Series only have like around 8-10 hours worth of Main Story in them. And this game has almost triple of it, but that also comes with a downside,
The Main Story is too long for its own good.
While you get to experience the whole Bleach story, this also includes those daily skits and story chapters where there are only conversations between characters. Not to mention, some story content that was cut from the Main Story is available on the Secret Story section of each character.
While playing the main story, you will find yourselves waiting for 20-30 minutes between battles because of the long cutscenes, and it makes the pacing a little bit off for a fighting game.
Those things aside, we believe that this is different than the usual Anime fighting game, and by that we were pointing to the complete story experience. It's a good game for those who don't know about Bleach and want to start by playing this game, and also for those Bleach fans who have been waiting for a new High-Quality Bleach game.
It's better to just play this game for 30 hours-ish than watch a total of 309 episodes of the anime.
Personally, we enjoyed my time reliving the story and once again enjoying how great a villain Aizen is.
The legendary fight between Byakuya & Ichigo in the Soul Society Arc
Another thing that we must praise from this game is that they are not using the still image from anime for the storytelling (Thank God!). This has been a trend since DRAGON BALL: Sparking! Zero, and we hope Bandai Namco games can keep following this pattern.
This means that every cutscene is rendered with an in-game engine character model. However, they reused some of the animation of the Kikon Move and integrated it into the fighting scene.
Also, you can recreate some battles in the Main Story to stay true to the Anime / Manga. This is called "Real Moment", and there are a lot of conditions that you need to clear before you can activate the "Real Moment".
To activate the "Real Moment" in his battle, Uryu needs to reduce Mayuri's Reishi to 0%
But then again, by completing the conditions and getting the "Real Moment", you'll get an additional scene that stays true to the anime/manga, although usually it's not really significant because the additional scenes are usually less than 2 minutes.
You'll get an extra scene where Ashisogi Jizo splits in half by Uryu's Final Arrow
Secret Story
Other than the Main Story, this game also has a "Secret Story" mode, which serves more like a Character Episode.
Hisagi has 3 Chapters that can be done in his "Secret Story"
Usually, each character has 3-4 chapters that can be completed in this Secret Story. This story will give more insight into the characters and to learn more about the story of Bleach beyond the Main Story. Sometimes it involves Battle, and sometimes it's just story cutscenes.
You will be able to access all other characters' Secret Story (Other than Ichigo).
The problem with this Secret Story is that some of the characters' chapters can't be unlocked unless you have cleared the Secret Moment Condition on the Main Story chapter. Pretty normal, right?
But that's not the case with this game.
For example, in order to access the 3rd Character Arc of Nelliel, you need to clear the "Secret Moment" in the Hueco Mundo Arc, "Extolling Gamuza" Chapter.
Secret Moment condition is as written
But this can't be done when you are playing the Main Story for the first time. It will be shown as "Locked", and you won't have any idea what this is until you finish the first 2 Nelliel's stories in Secret Story, and then it will unlock the Secret Moment in the Main Story.
It's very confusing & ridiculous as you will have to go back & forth between the Main Story & Secret Story to unlock the Secret Moment, complete the Secret Moment, and then access the Secret Story chapter that was locked by the Secret Moment condition.
We know it's confusing and hard to explain, but the developer could have done it better without making players go back & forth between different menus just to access the Secret Story chapter.
Gameplay
Battle System
Gameplay focuses on the battle system, which is pretty straightforward.
Basically, both characters will start with some number of Kikon, and the number really depends on which character you are using.
 |
| Ichigo with 8 Kikons & Shinji with 9 Kikons |
Activate your Kikon Move by pressing R2, when you see this "Now or Never"
The number of Kikons that can be reduced basically depends on the character and their move set.
You can see how many Kikons can be reduced using which moves on the Character Selection Screen
As you can see from the screenshot above, Ichigo has 4 different Kikon Moves that can be activated through different conditions. And the numbers that come after the name are how much Kikon can be reduced using it. So, in one way, you also need to do the calculation in your head to ensure you can reduce your enemy's Kikons to 0 as soon as possible.
As the battle goes on, each character will be able to enter an Awakened State, which will also change some of their move set and the appearance of your character.
Ishida Uryu can do Reawakening to become Quincy Letz Stile
Some characters have more than 1 Awakening that can be activated. Like Ishida Uryu or Ichigo (Bankai).
The battle system, unfortunately, has a limited combo that you can perform. Normally, there are 3 types of attack that you can use.
①Quick Attack
②Flash Attack
③Signature Move
Input Command
You do a combo by pressing the Quick Attack or Flash Attack button repeatedly, unfortunately, there are no variations to that. You just do a combo and then chase them with the Dash/Step button to activate the additional chase combo. The good news is that when your character is entering their Awakening State (Either Bankai or Shikai), their combo will also change.
Also, you can do a "Just Evade" using the Spiritual Pressure Move Trigger + Dash Button
Activating Hoho at the right time will trigger a scene where your character goes behind the enemy
The battle is pretty simple and easy to understand. The most important thing about Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is understanding your character's attack range and the usage of the guard button.
The outcome of the battle really comes down to whether you understand the range of attack for the character you use or not. All of the characters have different types of range for their moves. So understanding the timing and distance to use the move or combo is really crucial for winning. Don't forget to use that Guard button when fighting strong opponents, but remember they can also break your guard with the Breaker button. It's all about timing.
Characters
We have a total of 33 characters available for Bleach: Rebirth of Souls. 3 of them are different types of Kurosaki Ichigo (Typical for this kind of game).
You will only get access to 32 characters in the beginning and will unlock the 33rd one after you finish the Main Story.
Unlock Ichigo (Final Getsuga) by finishing the Main Story
This is something that's not good in our opinion. Compared to Bleach: Heat The Soul 7, the playable roster is half of what we had.
We had 63 playable characters on Bleach: Heat The Soul 7
For the Visored team, only Shinji Hirako is playable. Not to mention that Hiyori only appears as Shinji's Signature Attack.
The worst thing about this is that some of the characters that are not playable appear in the Main Story mode as enemies that you can fight.
For Example, Hinamori, Yami, some Arrancars, etc.
They already have the character models and move sets, but for some reason, they just don't want to make them playable for us. (We smell some DLCs incoming though)
Graphics & Performance
There are a lot of things that we want to discuss about this.
First of all check out the Resolution & FPS Specs taken from the Official Website.
・PlayStation 4 : 1080p / 30fps
・Xbox Series X|S : 1080p / 60fps
・PC: 1080p / 60fps (Depending on the spec, the resolution can go up to 4K)
We played this game on my basic PlayStation 5, and we must say that the framerates are pretty stable at 60fps. It might dip a little during the battle with a huge enemy or an enemy that has lots of effects.
The problem is the resolution. It looks really bad on our 4K TV.
It's blurry & the character lining is jaggy as well
Probably it's a little bit hard to see that on the screenshot, but if you zoom in, you will understand what we're talking about.
It feels like we're playing a PS3 game on PS5. It probably would look much better if you played it on a 1080p monitor or TV, but on a 4K Display, it looks super blurry. This seems like a common issue on all platforms, including the PC.
It feels like the original resolution is 720p, and it was getting upscaled somehow.
On the other hand, the game has very good facial expressions for each character. Not to mention the details on the character models.
Great visuals & effects for each character
Tamsoft really did a good job incorporating the details of each character, not to mention the effects and the animation of all Kikon Moves are awesome as well.
The real problem here is the resolution of the game.
Sounds
Now we are talking about the sounds!
Bleach is usually known as being very stylish, for their terminology, and the other one is for their music & ost.
One of the notable OSTs for Bleach is 「Number One」by Shiro Sagisu.
Unfortunately, it is not available in this game. We were hoping it to be in the game so much though!
Youtuber ShonenGameZ has the full OST available on his playlist.
Our favourite will be the Character Selection Screen OST.
And also the Final Getsuga Tensho OST that starts playing in the background at the Final Battle between Ichigo & Aizen.
While every OST in this game is new original music, nothing really notable. There are some OSTs that sound nice, but most of them are just like okay, and not something that will keep playing in your head.
The Verdict
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a definitive way to experience the whole story of Bleach from the beginning until the end of the Battle of Karakura Arc. Compared to the other Shonen JUMP games with the same genre, they did a great job of delivering a complete package of story to the fans, and also to newcomers.
Unfortunately, because of the complete contents, this game also suffers a lot in terms of pacing. There are a lot of 15-20 minute story cutscenes that you have to see before you can move to the next battle in the main story. The game is too long for its own good. (Finished the Main Story in 33 hours, and Secret Story for 21 Hours).
The battle gameplay is also designed to be more & more exciting as the fight goes on. Character can go into Awakening mode and use their Bankai or Shikai, making the fight get more intense as time goes by, changing their move set along the way with the Awakening.
However, it all comes down to how often you use the Guard button and understanding your character's attack range, as there are no complex input needed to master this game.
We definitely recommend this game to all Bleach fans, including newcomers who are interested in it. It features a complete storyline that recaps the story into 54 hours of experience, impressive details on the character models, and move-sets that stay true to the original manga/anime.
Despite all the flaws like the slow pacing, resolution problem, & small roster of characters, it's the Bleach game that we have been waiting for a long time. But it could have been better as well.
We finished the game in 54 hours, getting the Platinum Trophy along the way for finishing the Main Story & Secret Story
Comments
Post a Comment