SEGA takes their Bleach games from fighting to SRPG in the newest DS game. With a brand new story not told in the manga or anime, new characters and new genre; can they pull it off?
Spinning the webs...
The game features a brand new story, giving players that are fans of the show a new storyline to explore instead of just having them replay the story arcs they have watched and read. The spin off was written by the Manga writer and artist Tite Kubo, so you don't have to worry about someone missing around with your favorite series and making it not feel natural.
When you start up the game you will be able to choose from female or male, this won't really effect the outcome of events much, so choose whatever you want. I picked male, just to let you all know. When you start of the story, you will notice that the story takes place in the past, back when Aizen was vice captain of Squad 5. The captain of 5th squad in the game is a character named Seigen Suzunami, seems to be a video game exclusive character. Both Suzunami, Aizen with the help of Kisuke Urahara go and exterminate a group of hollows.
After you beat them, you find a pair of kids. Brother and Sister, called Matsuri Kudo and Fujimaru Kudo, orphan twins. Depending on the gender you selected, you will play as one of the characters. You get taken in by Seigen Suzunami and his wife. I mean, the story is nice that it is in the past, but later on in the game there is a time travel, after you fight the Arrancar named Arturo Plateado (who was in Bleach: Shattered Blade). Just seems a bit tacky, I know it sounds stupid saying this game is about an anime series, but just seems a cheap way of putting in all the characters from the present Manga.Outside of that, the story is pretty good if you are a fan of the series.
Looking and Touching...
The visuals for the game are fine, its a 2-D game and it works fine for it. It isn't going to win awards for its 2-D animation or anything, but it pulls off what it needs to do for a 2-D SRPG. My only real grip is the text. I know people are going to tell me that its me being really picky, but I don't care. When you play the game, the text that SEGA choose is horrible, I don't know why they picked it! Why does it bother me? Well, the "M" letters look like "N". That is my only grip with the graphics.
If you see the YouTube video, you will notice that the game uses a grid, which is very common in SRPGs. I know a ton of people that hate the grid, me, I don't mind it. The game will be pretty simple at first, using partner moves and solo attacks. Not to mention counters. But later on you will be able to upgrade your Zanpakuto. Sure, the game doesn't offer a great battle system, like Disgaea. But it isn't a "Pokemon of SRPGs" either. Its a nice balance, I guess.
One aspect of the game that might bother some DS owners is that the game makes zero use of the touch screen, actually it uses none of the unique features that the DS has to offer. I find this weird, I always though SRPGs would make the best use of a touch screen, I guess I was wrong since the developers decided not to use it at all.
Another big issue with the game is pacing. When I play games, I actually want to play games. The game has walls of text you have to go through before you could move on that it almost put me to sleep. I like character development as much as the next guy, but there is a limit to the text I will go through before I get fed up. I know fans of the Manga will be very happy with all the reading, but the average gamer that bought a Bleach DS game expect a game, not a digital Manga. Also, like most SRPGs, the game doesn't have a world to explore, you can't walk around Soul Society to explore like I wanted to, you are held back by menus with faces of character you can talk to.
Those extras, replay values...
Something that I actually liked about the last two Bleach DS games is that you could choose the voices from Japanese or English, seems that SEGA did away with that feature in this game. Maybe it is due to being a bigger game and taking up more cart space or maybe they didn't want to pay the extra money to use the Japanese voices. Regardless of the reason, the feature to use Japanese voices is not in the game. Though it is not that big of a deal, since voicing in the game is minimal, but I have to admit, Kon's English voice is very annoying.
For those of you scared that the game will be too short, the game does feature 25 chapters. The length pretty much depends on skill and how fast you can read, I think it took me about 15 hours to complete, give or take. The game offers a Wi-Fi mode, if you want to extend the game's life, sadly I have not tried it since I don't have Wi-Fi at my house, also seems to have a share option to play offline, again I only have one copy of the game.
Conclusion
The game offers up a brand new story to "explore", revolving around new characters and old characters. If you are a fan of the Bleach series, this spin off story will have you really entertained, if you are buying it as an SRPG fan, the walls of text will end up boring you to death. Bleach world is one of those worlds you want to explore, but sadly the game has not world exploration, relaying only on menus with characters you can talk to. The game offers a lengthy game, spanning 25 chapters and has multiplayer modes to extend the game's life.
+ New spin off story written by Tite Kubo
+ Fan service is awesome
+ Lots of game to play
+ Interesting new characters
- Font used for text drives me crazy
- Pacing, too much reading
- No Japanese voices
- No exploring
