Bleach: Soul Resurreccion Review

Bleach is a series where fans either love it or loathe it – although usually not for the right reasons. Regardless, it doesn't stop game makers from doing what they do best and adapting one of the most popular manga and anime series in the most recent times into an action-packed game. Developed by Sony Japan and published by NIS America in the West, it's a far departure from the PSP Heat the Soul series and it's certainly still a little rough around the edges. Long story short, we still don't know the true name of this Zanpakutou.

First up is the game's story campaign, which is criminally short for the arc that it's based on. The Hueco Mundo arc puts the series' main protagonist Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute Shinigami, and his friends in a daring escapade into enemy territory in order to rescue their friend Inoue Orihime from the clutches of Aizen, climaxing at the very end of the Deicide chapters. Fans of the series will know that despite some filler in the anime, a lot of important events happened during this arc. A lot of said important events are also missing from the game's story campaign. The story is separated into a number of chapters, each starting the same way, with a quick narrated synopsis about what's happening before dropping players into the thick of the action.

For a series that's heavily focused on its characters – this being said relatively loosely – the story campaign is really quite bare-bones. Synopsis, gameplay, cutscene, rinse and repeat. It feels quite disjointed and unless you're a fan that has followed the series since its inception, you probably won't have any idea what's going on. Key moments in the arc like the earlier battles with the Fallen Espada and Nel's transformation aren't covered, neither are the Vaizard's assistance with the battle in the faux Karakura Town.



But that's enough about the story campaign's shortcomings. While it is disappointing in that so much more could have been done with the story and yet wasn't, one can also look at it as cutting out the fat – albeit really essential fat. Regardless, what lies beyond the superficial narrative is a surprisingly addicting hack n' slash experience and a rather engaging character level progression system. Each character, there being 21, have their own unique move sets that are quite true to their personas. Ichigo himself has three forms: his Bankai, Hollowfied and Mugetsu form.

It's a relatively standard set-up with slash, spiritual and heavy attacks. While it's easy enough to label the game a shallow hack n' slasher, it couldn't be further from the truth. There is no lag time between using different attack types, making combinations a really simple endeavour. If you're smart enough, you can even keep bosses stunned long enough to juggle them in the air with a continuous stream of attacks before defeating them with an epic "Ignition" move.