Bleach: Dark Souls

Fear The Reaper!

Posted 4 years ago By - Jay Acevedo

Very few people (me included) on the team knew about the Bleach franchise and its whereabouts. So why review Bleach: Dark Souls you might ask? We say curiosity of course but mainly because of two other reasons: we’re aware of the other Shonen Jump franchise (Naruto) and because it’s a DS fighting game, a very rare genre on the handheld. So after lots of hours of playing and some research on the subject, we were very surprised with this game even it’s not our cup of tea.

Without further ado, here’s our review for Bleach: Dark Souls.

Gameplay

The game, which has been developed by Treasure (who brought the amazing Bangai-O Spirits) and published in North America by SEGA, is based on the Japanese manga series of the same name. It follows Ichigo Kurozaki, who accidentally gains the powers from a Shinigami (the Japanese "Death God", akin to a Soul Reaper) from Rukia Kuchiki. With these powers, Ichigo takes on the duties of defending humans from the evil spirits of the Japanese Spirit World and guide the departed souls to the afterlife.

Bleach: Dark Souls gameplay is controlled with the D-Pad and the face and shoulder buttons, which can be used to unleash moves and special attacks. In order to give a different perspective on the game for those who don’t have the ability to pull-off moves with buttons combinations, the developers have put card-based touch buttons on the touch-screen that you can use to pull-off your character’s moves. While the usage of these buttons are a good idea, we find it very complex and very hard to manage in the end since fighting games are always based on how quick you pull-off combos with button combinations. The problem we found is that the A.I fighting mechanics are too smart and quick to be able to use only the buttons or using a hybrid method of both. Everything is less interesting when you try to use both fighting mechanics but when using just one method at a time, it is much cooler.

Of course, you will have to unlock each character’s card buttons while playing the story mode, which will be tough to understand without any prior knowledge of the franchise but manageable. Each card has its own effect such as blocking the jump ability of your opponent or increasing your attack and the more you unlock, the bigger your move list will be. This will then lead you to customize your character’s move list to your style of fighting.

But the most impressive thing in Dark Souls is the huge list of gameplay modes offered. For those who played Street Fighter Alpha 3 on the PSP a while ago, you will find a great number of modes here as well. Story, Arcade, Versus, Training and Challenge modes will provide hours of fun and addictive replayability. The game not only supports up to four players via Wi-Fi connection but also the Download Play feature where the player who has the cartridge can transmit the game to another DS to allow head-to-head battles.


Graphics & Sounds

The visual presentation of the game is exceptional and definitely one of the nicest DS games we’ve seen lately. Using a cool mix of 2D/3D animations, Dark Souls will surely please fans of the series and catch the eye of non-believers. We didn’t experienced glitches or slowdowns, everything was shiny and solid. With all the bad, uninspiring and botched games in the market right now, it’s interesting to see that there are some developers out there always ready to deliver high quality games like this one.

In terms of audio, the frenetic soundtrack, the top-notch voiceovers and the crisp fighting sound effects are faithful to the overall presentation of the game. Once again, DS audio builds always tend to be generic, cheap and boring but here, everything is so different, it’s amazing. Kudos!

Value

Although it will be difficult to sell this game to the non-manga fans, we can’t go without saying that if you’re looking for an impressive fighting game and a new franchise to discover, you can’t go wrong with this one. As for fans, we think you will get every bang out of your buck, especially knowing that Treasure has added a cool and interesting Bleach Encyclopedia filled with interesting facts about the entire Bleach universe.


Conclusion

Since we never played Blades of Fate, we have to say this game builds up on something really interesting regardless of what the previous game offered. If it wasn’t for the card system, the game would’ve rocked even more for us while experienced Bleach connoisseurs will find the perfect system to use them. Still, Bleach: Dark Souls remains a good fighting game. Of course, anyone who knows the franchise from A to Z will definitely enjoy it more than us. We didn’t hate the game but it did take us time to get used to it and understand the universe in which the game was based. But in the end, we liked our experience.

Verdict: Buy!

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