83
It's true this game is way too short. With only 6 characters it does seem lackluster. But, I believe they make up for it with all the extra features such as collecting cards and viewing trailers. The animation is smooth and they use voices in the story mode. Great if you can't read Japanese. The moves in the game are basic and the game plays in chapters. Again, the game is short, you can beat it in 15 minutes. Yet the entire game is worth a shot and can stand its own. Especially for fans of the anime.
62
I imported this game a few months ago and honestly paid too much for it.
The reason I decided to import it was that I was interested in the cell shaded animation and basically wanted to import a game that wasn't going to require much translation.
First off the most annoying aspect of the game that was easy enough to get use to was the switching of the O and X buttons. You don't know how hard it is to adjust until you sit there for 3 mins trying to start a game and you keep accidentally exiting out to the main menu.
Next when you finally pick the character you want you end up waiting for what seems like a good 30 seconds for the stage/fight to load.
From there you got a basic fighter w/ the addition of soul special energy bar. The moves are very basic, none more complicated than XXO->X and stuff like that. Nothing like street fighter with their half circles and quarter circles and dragon uppercuts. No charging attacks. Like I said very BASIC.
Then there is the problem of certain character's moves are not only more powerful but are just all around better. Either because they are quicker than any other character or that their range is better. This makes certain characters much harder to play with.
Oh yeah, 6 characters ... 5 to start and one that you can unlock.
So really all I’ve done thus far is complain about the game. I’m sure you're all asking is there any reason to actually get it?
Answer is ... maybe.
It does have an unlockable mini game that totally rocks called Blockon. Sort of like alleyway if you old timers remember that from back the days of the original gameboy. The cool this is that it sports a face to face multiplayer where 2 people versus each other on the same PSP.
Aside from that minigame, the really nice looking graphics and animation, the game just is lacking TLC (tender loving care). The developers were probably rushed and didn't seem to have finished it.
There is already a sequel out which has more characters so unless you want the cheaper version I’d probably suggest looking at picking up the sequel.
I’m ending up giving this game a 62 because there was the storymode that with my inability to read Japanese didn't make much sense. And the fact that I didn't have anybody to play the actual game in multiplayer (no one else had a game). I’m not reviewing the whole game. Because of that I’m giving the stuff that I didn't cover the benefit of the doubt that it made the game more worth while. And I’m sure that if you are a fan of this particular anime then this is also a strong reason to get this game.
68
I have played the game over and over and over since I first bought it. I have unlocked all there is to get but I still pick up the game which is rare for me to do. I know people who have the game and never seen the anime. The number of characters are very limited and once you have beaten the game there is very little want to play it again unless you are a bleach fan like myself. The load time is long, graphics are so so, and the sound isn't to bad. I think bleach ranks up there with all the anime games. If your a fan get it if not save you cash for something more interesting.
97
Really Good game. Would have been better with more characters but still a great game. Definitly one of the best fighting games on a portable device ever.
80
This is the first original fighter for PSP and it's actually not bad at all. The game design is simple, two attack buttons, a button for jump, and a fourth button for super attacks. In addition to depleting each other's energy, you and your opponent battle over a tug-of-war super meter that lets you pull of super moves. Each character has one or two, and some of them are really well animated. Your characters move on a decent sized 3D battlefield, so you can run around in circles to your heart's content.
The game has a cel-shaded cartoon look that looks fantastic and really great presentation that should please fans of the anime. The intro is great looking and the music is catchy. The cutscenes are static but voiced by the series' actors. Fighting games tend to live or die on the character designs and luckily the characters are pretty likable. The only real complaint here is that there are only like five to choose from, but the existing ones due have alternate costumes (although a couple look like palette swaps).
This game is fun but it doesn't have the complexity or depth of traditional fighting games. Plus, even the original Street Fighter 2 had eight selectable characters.
Some funny options, the game has a gallery mode where you can look at bonus stuff, like TV commercials for the game and other Bleach merchandise. And for some random reason you can unlock an asteroids-like game if you beat the game enough times. It should be noted some people like this game better than Bleach.
If I remember correctly, everything is in English (except of course story text) so importers fear not.
Since there hasn't been any other 3D fighter announced for PSP, you don't got a lot of choice in this respect. But if you're a fan of the series and know what you're getting into when you buy this, it's a good addition to a fan's collection.
If you aren't a fan, you might want to wait until Tekken or Soul Calibur, or even Virtua Fighter, gets announced. But if you can't wait, give it a whirl.
82
Ok, so I'm sure the most off-putting element of this game (unless you despise anime) is the lack of characters. I bought this for 20 quid off ebay, and tbh, I think it's worth that, but not much more.
The graphics are really nice, and move pretty fluidly, although the framerate is not consistent all the time, especially in multiplayer, it's not enough of a problem to actually make it a problem.
The sound is great, all the expected effects are present and the music fits nicely. Special note must go to the intro, replete with the opening theme from the show.
As far as longevity goes, well, apart from collecting a bunch of images in a weak marketing ploy, and unlocking an arkanoid type game, then this is really only gonna in the PSP for a quick blast.
The fighting system is solid enough, good selection of combos, but a bit more variety would not go amiss.
All in all, I recommend this game, if you can get it for the right price, for those who like the genre, and particularly fans of the show or anime in general. It's a bit style over substance, but hey..that works sometimes (just look at David Beckham)
75
I picked this game up in Japan, when I got my PSP back in Mar/Apr - The graphics are stunning, and it really is a decent fighter, but my whole problem with the game is the lack of replay value.
70
I'd like to note that this game is targetted for Bleach fans, if you're just a general fighter fan and haven't seen or read Bleach, then this game is probably not for you.
The graphics are great, relatively solid and very smooth. No complaints here, they will appeal particularly to fans of the anime, but are great in general. The only noticeable flaw is some slight slowdown when there are lots of effects on screen (Rukia versus Renji matches tend to exhibit this). This is rarely a concern though.
Standard fighting fare, though of important note is the original VAs do the voices for all the characters, so they all sound very believable, especially in story mode. Nothing groundbreaking, but solid.
Great controls, well designed for the PSP. Square is a soul charge move (or a combo-hit or combo-super). Triangle jumps, X is a normal hit, Circle is a trademark spirit move (Rukia has assorted projecticles, Ishida uses his bow, Inoue calls her faeries). Solid and easy to use, no complicated rolls, just directional pushes and button combos. Either the analog or d-pad works fine.
The gameplay is really fun, and great for Bleach fans, it's highly polished and pretty fast paced. Standard 2 round matchups for a fighter, though your health doesn't reset between matches (Which helps the loser out generally). There's a standard super bar, which fills up as you beat your opponent (and theirs decreases). Missing a super or having your super blocked removes half your bar and fills up half your opponent's.
The problem here is that the game is very short lived. A full run through story mode will take maybe 10 minutes, as there's a total of 6 playable characters and no non-playables to fight. This means you fight 5 characters every story mode (sometimes the other five, sometimes one character twice). With such limited characters to play, the game runs out of content pretty fast, with maybe a few solid hours of entertainment within it.
The game has unlockable cards based on a Bleach CCG that's currently popular in Japan, and you unlock content as you buy more cards (using points won through other game modes). You unlock Japanese commercials (For assorted Bleach gear and the game itself), galleries of artwork, voice actor galleries, and finally a Brick (2 player game). Decent, but nothing to keep you playing.
Significant load times, especially right before fights. Story mode will require a decent amount of Japanese knowledge, though it also follows the Story of the anime, so having watched that first will help.
Likely going to be an import only, a good title for Bleach fans, not so great a title for fighter-fans, as it's very limited in content and character selection. It has the normal fighting modes like story and 2-player, so if you can find someone else with the game you may get some more fun out of it, but I can only recommend it to Bleach fans. I don't feel bad about the buy, but I wouldn't recommend it outside of a hardcore Bleach fanbase.
20
It has crappy animation graphics..don't buy it.
50
I am pretty much into fighting games, but this one isnt cool.
83
I was holding out until I played more for a review of this game. Here it is.
Bleach is a fun and simple Anime based fighting game. As far as I know its the only fighting game on the PSP and that alone makes it worth playing, and this game delivers everthing that is asked of it.
First the game is attractive and the interface is elegant. The cell shaded characters as well as the arenas look absolutely great and the voices (at least in japanese) are convincing throughout the story mode and during the fights, really giving you a sense of each character's attitude. You can select from several modes (Soul verses wireless battle, story mode, Vs CPU, Survival, and Appendix) on the main screen and pressing triangle will bring up the options, save/load, etc.
Playing the story mode takes you through a manga style story which is different for each character. You see changing artwork with (japanese) text balloons and voice overs, which lead up to each fight. They are kind of fun if you speak any Japanese, but if you grow tired of all that you can just press start.
and boom, after a medium load time your in the fight. Though it took me some manual translating to figure out that x is hit, square is strong hit, circle is "soul attack", and triangle is jump at default, I was soon comboing up to 12 with no problem. Each character has their own moves and strengths as you would expect from a virtu-fighter style game. You can block either with L1 or by pressing back. Block even works in the air. The fighting is fast a fluid and not too hard to master. Sidesteps become a valuable trick (just press up or down to step aside) but doesnt get out of everything and blocks dont work forever. All in all, though it is reminiscient of virtua fighter, the depth of moves and styles is somehow lacking when compared to VirtuFighter 4 on the PS2.
Another unexciting aspect of the game is the unlockables. All modes give you points for winning, and you use these points to buy cards in the appendix mode. The cards are from the "Soul Battle" game which is a Yugi-Oh/Pokemon/Magic the Gathering style game which presumably exists here in Japan. Once you have the cards you can view which ones you have and which ones are missing; you can zoom with the shoulder buttons and pan and almost read the cards, and not care. The system deals you cards face down and you pick one of four at a hundred points a pop. Thing is that sometimes the one you choose is a duplicate and you waste the points. Getting certain cards or a certain number of cards (Im not sure which) will net you an unlockable like a new voice for the system to use in the fights and the menus (cool) a new promotional video (lame, just commercials and credit roles so far) and the ability to view galleries and browse the voice databases for the characters (whatever). The manual says I can unlock an Arkanoid/Brickles/Breakout style minigame called (hehe) Blockout, which can be played two player on one psp, but Ive yet to get it with 99 out of 134 cards. I have managed to unlock one baddass charater, Renji Abarai, and I am dearly hoping theirs more but Im not holding my breath seeing as I havent fought any other characters that I couldnt play. That leaves (seemingly) in total 6 playable characters. Other characters in the game that show up in story mode like talking teddybear are on my wishlist of playables.
One other thing, you can access a combo list from the pause menu, but it doesnt change when you change the buttons, just so you dont get frustrated.
There you have it, lots of FUN, lots of polish, not much depth. I would reccomend this game as very enjoyable, but I will still line up for virtua fighter when its released 8.3 out of 10
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