85
This game itself is very fun. However from what I understand it's basicly the 1st game with 6 more characters, and nothing else. If you ahve the 1st game, you should probably wait for the next Bleachg ame to come out, however if you dont have the 1st Bleach game, this game is very very fun. I've seen the Bleach anime however I am not a major fan of it, yet this game still appeared to me.
The load times are farely short and dont get you frustrated, and the gameplay itself is extremely smooth with no lag at all. Sometimes the talking gets a little off, but the movement and attacks are perfect. There isn't too many moves, but there are enough to be entertained, with 1, or some characters, 2 special atacks. It is very fun but can be a bit difficult, you can link attacks together for major damage.
To unlock stuff, you need to get points by battling, which you use to buy cards. It will take you not too long, but a while non-the-less. After that, you unlock a block mini-game which is very addictive. And even after you have everything, you willd efinitly play this game again. So the replay value is pretty good.
Sound is not anything special, but it is OK. Voices are straight from the anime and are very nice.
Graphics on the characters are very good, yet the black outline and pixelation does make it look funky, graphics are still amazing. Best example is the ice dragon special which looks purely amazing. The background is amazing too, in almost every level you fight. However the stages themselves are just empty space, and can be a bit boring. It is like Soul Caliber, but you cant be ringed out. You can also move around similar to the Soul Caliber style.
Overall, this game is very good. I would prefer more characters but 12 is still plenty. You should get this game unless youre racsist against anime-fighters.
81
After having played Naruto Taisen Battle 2 on PS2 I had high hopes for Bleach but I guess I shouldn't have. This has nowhere near as much depth, but makes for some exciting combo battles for the first few weeks. The roster might seem small but the combos and the smooth pick and play action make the title lots of fun. Could use more variety of moves and a more varied roster. Nothing really new but nice eye candy w/ some good FMV's .
Music - 75
Graphics - 86
Gameplay - 80
Value - 69
Originality - 50
Overall - 81
77
Bleach 2 is a good start for 3D fighters, its decent, but not great. Has 12 fighters, all very unique in style, and a few modes of play. This game would have been awsome if had more of the anime characters, more special moves per character, more outfits, and if they tweaked the controls to allow more freedom with combos. Maybe they are saving it for Bleach 3, but it does the job as a fighter.
Presentation - 95: From start to end this game oozes style. Supers are nice to see also.
Graphics - 85: Cell shading is getting more popullar these days, seems like living the anime.
Sound - 65: Only the opening FMV song has anything worth mentioning, the rest ok.
Controls - 70: Very simple, maybe too simple but combos are nice to string together.
Gameplay - 70: Its a fighter, and it does just that.
Lasting Appeal - 75: Alot to unlock, cards, Block game, movies, ect, but once done thats it.
76
Great looking cel shading for that Anime look, but the lack of animated cutscenes were kind of dissappointing. The special move animations were great, but the characters themselves had a weird pixelation around them to get those thick black lines.
Standard fare for an anime game. J-pop and some ochestral tunes while fighting. The character voices really bumped up the sound score because the voice acting was great. It's a shame there was no cutscenes to go with it.
Pretty quick for a fighter but with some lag. The simple button layout is very good for new players. It reminded me a lot of the Dragonball Z: Budokai series.
The story of Bleach is pretty interesting, but if you haven't seen the anime you won't know what is going on considering that the entire dialouge in the game is in Japanese. The fighting is pretty simple and easy to grasp. The characters are pretty cool and involving, but you might not get that from the game alone.
The brand-name "Bleach" was placed on MANY games for EVERY system to make some quick bank on the name. These games are not great games, but they are good games, and almost a must for fans of the series. As a fighting game player alone, you might not enjoy this considering the game is very simple, and fairly easy to beat, but if you like the anime, but aren't skilled enough for a Tekken or Capcom Fighter, then give this a try.
Good use of the license and a pretty decent game overall. If you can't read Katakana Japanese or are not even a small fan of the anime, you probably won't get too much out of this game. I don't know Japanese, but I have watched the anime, so I do enjoy the game. If you are solely a fighting game player, it would be a good idea to spend your money elsewhere.
90
When Bleach first aired in japan, I was hooked. The characters are great, the weapons are outrageous and the creativity vivid. This is one high quality series. The only downside to excellent animes, is their reigning awful videogame counter parts. Such is true with the Gundam games, the new Inuyasha game and the Bleach game on the PS and the first one on the PSP (yes, I have played each of these games). But that changes in Heat the Soul 2.
Graphics - 90
The cel-shaded graphics are phenomenal, and really bring out the color and attitude of the style of the show. Each character is modeled so well, and the swords look lethal. The soul slayers special abilities are what really amazed me. When I saw Hitsugaya's amazing blue ice dragon attack unleashed, that did it for me. The only complaint I have for this area is that the mouths are sometimes out of sync in the manga-esque cutscenes.
Control - 90
The controls in this game are superb, you really feel like you are in control of your character. In fact, it is so good, that you forget you are playing a Bandai game and things begin to feel second nature to your fingers. I also love the eight way run freedom, you can get into some heated battles of dodge and strike, which is fine tuned by the near flawless control. I would even go as far as to compare these kind of controls to Soul Calibur.
Sound - 70
The only quality of the game that could have been tuned a little better. There is a quite noticable delay in the clashing of blades and movement of mouths. It's not too bad, but its not great.
Gameplay - 80
The gameplay is high quality as well, in that you can go as far as to unleash every type of attack for each character in the show, which is a boost for me. Although it is somewhat simplistic to execute each attack, (as simple as pressing the square button followed by circle to unleash the soul slayer ability) the more damaging you wish combos to be, the harder it gets. This is no mere button masher, you will not win with even timed presses of the x or circle button. The combos it takes to beat harder cpu enemies can be quite satisfying. From swinging your soul slayer, to simple punching, the gameplay is of high calibur for this type of game.
Value - 90
There is more than meets the eye here. In the event that the story is cleared, it is not close to over. There are many unlockables, including cards and new characters you purchase with points you win by just playing the game. The fun that is had fighting in this game is so rewarding, that it's hard not to want to go back.
Final word
This game is definetly geared to fans of the series like me, but fans of fighting games are sure to enjoy the outrageously fast paced battles that can happen. Also, even if you dont understand Japanese, it's easy to memorize what does what, as well as guess, seeing how there is much English to be seen subtitling the Japanese.
I highly reccomend a look at this game. You won't regret it like the previous version.
73
Bleach: Heat the Soul 2 is very similar to the first game released a while back for the PSP, if you liked it or played it, it'll handle in a very similar fashion. It has a few new modes (Including the '13 Captain' mode that plays a lot like the quest mode in Virtua Fighter 4, with you building up rank and keeping an ongoing record).
The core gameplay is largely the same.
Graphics - 80
Graphical style is still great, and works great for this game. I think they may have refined it for some of the specials (Hitsugaya's is beautiful for instance)
For those who haven't played the first game, it's a an emulation manga/anime style that puts 2D characters in 3D, and works quite well.
Sound/Music - 80
Great job here for the most part, they have all the original seiyuu, so there are no real complaints about sound quality. Music is mostly ignorable, but it certainly doesn't interfer with gameplay at all.
Story - 70
You'll need to know Japanese to understand it, and it again follows the story of the anime (not so much the manga) pretty closely, so for fans of the Bleach series (everyone who is playing this I imagine) there isn't much enw to expect.
Nothing major, but it is there, and the voiceovers during story mode are done by the original seiyuu so...
Gameplay - 70
Identical to the first one one in pretty much all ways, save with the addition of some new characters.
You have a basic weapon attack (circle) which will do the character's signature attacks (Ishida uses his bow, Ichigo slashes, Rukia uses Ways of Destruction) as well as a kick attack performed with the X button. Different combinations of those two buttons plus directions result in the game's simple though effective combo system.
You can perform a special move when half of the bar in the middle of the screen is your colour (by beating the enemy it increases yours and decreases theirs). These specials tend to be relatively strong, though some of the new ones are difficult to land (Hitsugaya's) or leave you very open if you miss with them (Byakura's or Gin's).
This is the large portion of the combat in the game, though it is interesting to note that health does not reset between matches within a fight, so if you win with 5% health left, you start the next fight with 5% health. (Making it more of each player having two health bars, and less a seperation of matchs).
Extras - 60
The game has some extras similar to the first game, including an unlockable character (no spoilers). It uses the card system the first game used, where you buy cards with points you win from matches, and every X number of new cards unlocks something.
Importability - 60
It's a fighting game, so it's very easy to navigate. The menu system has less English than the first game did, so you might have a little bit of a problem navigating your way around (Important note: Kon is the options menu). But it is still pretty intuitive, especially if you can read kanji or katakana (the majority of menus are katakana)
Overall - 70
It's a solid game, it doesn't really change much from the first game, save the inclusion of some new characters. The new characters seem to be vastly overpowered (think Renji from the first game), but that is fitting for Shinigami captains really, it gives a good sense of accomplishment when you finally beat them (though kind of boring when you play as them)
|
0