Bleach: Soul Resurrección

Name: Bleach: Soul Resurrección
Developers: SCEI
Platform: PS3
Players: 1
Genre: Action/Fantasy




Alright, so I've NEVER played Dynasty Warriors, but I kept hearing how much Bleach was going to be like it...

While playing the game there were many more games that came to my head in describing the type of game this is, certain title include; God of War, Dante's Inferno, and the entire Devil May Cry series... the only reasons being that enemies drop souls (orbs) much like all those games and much like Devil May Cry there is a ranking system that ranks you based on speed, enemies killed, ignition attacks used, etc, the ranings are: C, B, A, S (S being the best).

Next on the list is the level system, very much like the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X but with currency much like the Final Fantasy XII License System. This leveling system is fun and allows the player a little bit of flexibility as they proceed through through game. Using the souls you've collected you use them as currency to unlock tiles to move through a huge web of tiles offing various stat boosts and abilities.


Above: A small portion of the level up grid, there is a total of 175 nodes, each levels your character up once, therefore the max level is 175

I'd say this game ranks as insanely difficult to complete 100%, but only because of the time needed to complete it all... each character has 175 levels, there's a total of 19 characters, so as you can imagine when I saw that there was a trophy for maxing out every character, I almost shit my pants, a month later and I've only maxed 2 characters, though I've slowed down my playing...

The graphics are actually quite stunning, I'm a little disappointed by how certain characters turned out, however some of them I couldn't be happier about, the environment was perfect, in fact if you're a bleach fan you'd probably agree that the whole thing looks perfect for the franchise, my only problem was certain characters faces.

I was completely and utterly disappointed with the soundtrack, most other bleach games and of course the anime all have AWESOME soundtracks... This soundtrack was sub par to say the least, very bland and repetative... and if you've watched the part of the anime that the game depicts you may be like me and prefer the original music... I actually turn off the BGM and keep the sound effects and voices on and play the bleach OSTs on my speakers along with it, uch more amusing ... however that being said I have to rate the soundtrack sper low 2/10 at best...


Above: Ichigo fights with a Menos Grande, a larger enemy, but not a boss.

In terms of actual gameplay, the game is rather fun. You travel through levels with hordes of Hollows, Soul Reapers or Arrancars and kill them all to proceed until you reach a boss... sometimes a time limit or condition (such as no jumping) is applied to the mission to create more of a challenge. The game offers 13 Story levels and 28 missions, along with 10 special challenges... all of these can be played on EASY, MEDIUM, or HARD. The movement of the characters is perfectly captured, much like the anime players can be flash stepping with most attacks and all movements are lightning fast...this is a game where speed can make all the difference... and it's actually amazing to see how fast the game starts to go as you level up... You characters can all fly in the air just like in the show.

A couple of downfalls:

-Small character list that leaves out so many great characters....19 characters total out of a possible like I unno atleast 50 or more...some of my fave characters are not present... however this is due to the max level being a whopping 175.

-The lack of multiplayer left me heartbroken I was really looking forward to beating my brother down viciously as Ulquiorra...



All in all I'm going to rate this game a 9/10 The gameplay itself is pretty much flawless, I was just disappointed by the soundtrack the most :p Overall it's worth the 59.99 I preordered it for and I look forward to playing the game some more when I get back home... it's only a month and a half later and nobody can find ths game anywhere anymore, I guess it flopped out pretty badly... it;s too bad we don't have a Bleach fanbase, here in North America, that could be compared to the fanbase in Japan... as a true Bleach fan I'm disappointed to see this game flutter away in the wind, I'll be sure to keep my copy forever, knowing it'll be rare in a few years...

I got 3 free episodes on PSN for the preorder "perk" but I've already seen them in japanese so it's really nothing special...

Sadly it is safe to say that we will not see any add-on content to the game, as said content was not released in Japan it will be the same for the rest of the world. This will leave many players disappointed.