Bleach Soul Resurreccion

Game'scover

About the Game

Bleach: Soul Resurrección is an action beat'em up game based on the manga and anime series Bleach made by Tite Kubo for the PlayStation 3. The game was developerd by a combination of three studios. Racjin studio who worked on plenty of Sixth Generation Console( Ps2, Nintendo Cube) games such as Full Metal Alchemist, Japan Studio who are now known from team Asobi who made Astro's Playroom, and SONY interactive. The game was published by Sony, Nippon Ichi Japan for the Japanese release and NIS America which is a parent organisation with Nippon Ichi for the American release of the game. The game was released in June 2011 and it was only available for the Playstation 3.

What is Bleach?


Although the name Bleach is more assosiated with a cleanning product, Bleach is also a japanese franchise created by the Mangaka Tite Kubo whose work was published by Shonen Jump. Bleach was an instant success as a few years after the first chapter became public the series were soon serialised with a television Series. The manga series were long and succesfull as the series run for 15 years, with a total of 74 Volumes. As for the series, the first episode aired in 2004 and the final one was released in 2012 allowing the series to last a total of 8 years with a total of 366 episodes and 4 animated movies. The animation however was cut "short" as the final arc A Thousand year Blood war was never animated. The series popularity was shown as Bleach at some point was considered one of the big four behind Dragonball, One Piece and Naruto. The series, received a hand some of games for various platforms with it's more succesfull being Bleach Brave Souls for Android and Ios. In Jump Festa (Dec 2021) one of the major announcements was the return of Bleach with the final arc finaly getting animated. The story focusses on the main character of Ichigo Kurosaki who was born with the ability to see ghost. Ceratin events and interactions allowed Ichigo to become a Soul reaper which allow him to protect spirits and help them pass on. The story of Bleach focusses on the journey of Ichigo and his friends after his new gain powers. Events occur that forces Ichigo to act based on reactions alone without ever considering the consiquences. With his given powers he spent time saving ghost and spirits, but he soon finds himself iniltrate the Soul Society (home of Soul reapers to prevent the death of his friend as punishment for giving her powers to Ichigo). The events of Soul Society lead to the appearance of a new Villain who then proceeds to be the main focus for the next arc which is where the game takes place.

Story of the Game

Picture with 3 heroes
The story of the game follows the events of the Manga/ Anime series from the Espada arc after the team of heroes broke into Hueco Mundo. These events begin midway into the series which is around the episode 190. The game's plot proceeds from the fight with the Espada Grimmjow, all the way to the final fight with Aizen. In the series, after the defeat of Aizen, the story continues with the next arc which is something the game does not do. Further more, the ending of the game slighty changed the fate of Aizen which is something the game was heavily critisized.
The bad guys, kidnapped one of Ichigo's friends as she had some special healing abilities that the enemy leader was interested in, and inprisoned her to his kingdom in Hueco Mundo, which is a dimension where Hollows( monster Demons) and Arancars( Demons who consumed alot of hollows) live in. The Soul Society, ordered Ichigo not to do something foolish whilst they ll try to figure a way to save her But Ichigo refuses to let her friend alone. Behind the Soul society's back Ichigo and two of his friends infiltrate Hueco Mundo in an effort to save their friend.
Things dont go well for Ichigo's party BUT his allies from the Soul Society Join him during his Rescue mission. By focussing their attention to the rescue mission, Aizen with his top Espadas(Arancars who have evolve), make their way to Earth which has little to none protection. Earths defence force includes the captains of the soul society that stayed back. Once the main heroes become aware of the events currently taking place on Earth Ichigo once again rushes to save his home planet in order to rescue it.

Thoughts on the Story

The story of the game is short and although it covers parts of the story it leaves plenty of questions unanswered. The game heavily relies on the player to be aware of Bleach's story and it's character. Knowing the universe of Bleach is important as the game's plot is given to the player mainly as a written text while the level is loading. For example while the first level is loading the game calls that events occur in Soul Society and that Aizen orders Ulquirra to kidnap Orihime as he is fond of her powers, and that upon discovering this Ichigo travels to Hueco Mundo with two friends. Any person unfamiliar with Bleach will imidietly have no idea who AIzen is, who Ichigo is, who is Orihime, what is the matter with everyone and what is happening with their blades. The game never explains, and it does not have a "library" option for someone to briefly read to get up to the point. Even if someone tries to play the game based on the text given directly to the player, since the game cuts alot of content there are plenty of issues and plot holes that re created throughout the playthrough. The game has very few in-game cutscenes as the main focus of story is literally the loading screens. Another Example of bad story telling is the fact that fan Favorite Espada, Grimmjow appears in his awaken "panther" form, simply because the company was lazy to animate and model his base form. ( this example, alone shows the effort and care the studio showed to the Source material.). Another Example of issues created by the story given through text, is the fact that the next Mission has Kenpachi, fighting Espada no5 Nnoitora (once again in his awaken form) who aparently also attacked Grimmjow and tried to kill Ichigo. Once again, knowing the events prior to the game make absolute sense BUT knowing the story through the game not.

Gameplay and controls

pic of basic Screen pic of basic Screen

Controls

The game begins by having the story of the events given to the player through the loading screen. Once the loading screen is finished, the players are given control of a certain hero. For example the first story mission has the players control Ichigo, the second Uryu, the fourth Kenpachi and so on. Once the players begin to move around the game will load a screen with the certain hero's abilities. All the heroes move around with L3, the further L3 is pressed the faster the hero will move. X allows the heroes to jump and double jump. The characters of Bleach are allowed to walk mid air. After receiving a blow that knocks down a hero, tapping X will allow the certain hero to quickly recover. R1 is the ability to block any upcomming attacks which is used as the main defense mechanism but they can also use L3 while blocking to flash step which is a powerfull defense mechanism that consumes spiritual Gauge. Holding down R2 is used for Dash. Dashing allow the hero to move faster than normal and at the same time attacking enemies that re near by. L1 is used to lock on enemies. Locking on enemies will also lock the camera on the certain targer. With a tilt of the directional button (l3) the target can be swapped and with another tap of L1 the lock on will be cancelled. Locking on base enemies, does not necessarily help the player, as in hack and slash games freedom of movement is essential. However, fighting giant enemies such as Menos Grande and flying enemies the lock on button is essential as the heroes can dash upwards to the enemies to land hits and they can also shoot projectiles towards them.

Each hero have their own unique attacks however in some cases some functions remain the same. The square button is the basic combo ability that have the heroes swing their blade to eliminate the nearby enemies or damage certain bosses. All heroes have their own unique animations but they all hit nearby enemies. Certain heroes have the ability to Charge their attacks by holding down Square. Holding down square will make the damage to be more effective. A Charge attack can be used during the middle of a combo or even in the begging of one. As mentioned not all of the heroes are capable of that but most are. A counter ability can be used with square when an attack is blocked. Square after a successfull block will allow the heroes to attack back. Counter is not available for all heroes unless the player purchases the ability when they level up. Triangle is used for range attacks with the cost of Spiritual preassure. Tapping triangle will cause certain heroes to use plenty of projectiles that cause damage. Combining Square and triangle can also be used together. Triangle attack can also be used while the characetrs are moving. Characters such as Kenpachi and Stark cannot combo their projectiles. O can be used to unleash a Super attack that deals alot of damage with the cost of more spiritual energy. L2 can be used to power up a character in order to use the Ultimate ability. The Ultimate ability can be triggeredwith L2. L2 when the bar is full is the heroes most powerfull attack that triggeres a cutscene and deals heavy damage. Keep in mind every hero differs and it's up to the player to experiment and find out each hero strength and weakeness.

User Interface

It is important for the players to become familiar wiith the user interface in order to understand things that occur during a run of the game. First things first hero's profile and life bar. Similar to many games the hero's profile is placed on top left with the picture profile of the hero currently played. The top bar represents the halth of the hero. Each time the player is being hit, the bar will be reduced. If the bar reaches 0, then the player will receive the Game over screen. In order to heal the bar, the player will have to collect healling items placed around the level. The game follows the same logic as some of the fighting games, where the darker sections of health bar slowly refill themselves as long as the player stays away from incomming damage. Below the health bar the Spiritual Pressure gauge is located. The spiritual cauge allows the heroes to use both their triangle and cicle attacks. When the bar reaches zero it will prevent the heroes to use their attacks . The bar will start re filling slowly slowly on it's own Or with the hero's collecting items found in the levels. Below the profile of the hero, there is a vertical bar representing the Igntion cauge that is responsible for the ultimate attacks. Unlike the others bar, this one begins empty and it can be filled by either doing damage or by collecting items in the levels. The bar can be used with L2 to power up . When fully powered up the bar will slowly decreased. Another way of spending the bar is to use the ultimate attack. Below the bar there is a geen flame with a number next to it that represents the soul points. Soul points are rewarded when enemies are eliminated, and can be used to level up a character. Leaving a game without completing it will not reward the points. Next to the ignition Gauge there os a number that appears specifying the combo the hero does. The bigger the combo the more soul points re awarded. On the right side of the screen, on top there is a small mini map representing the heroes location, the weak enemis, important key elements and bosses. A Yellow parenthesis represents the enemies that are targeted when the player locks on into enemis. Last but not least, on the bottom right, there is a number that represents how many monsters the player had slayed.

Overall Synopsis

picture of all heroes
Overall The Bleach franchise had a few games that are good, some mediocre, and some poorly design. Bleach Soul Resurreccion is a game with mixture of reviews. The story of the game is probably the weakest part of the game Majorily to the fact that the story is delivered through a loading screens. There are plenty of anime games that approached a long lenth series in order to tell their tale, some with succesfull attempts and some with not as much. For example, during the playstation 3 era, there was a succesfull franchise called Naruto: Ninja storm which captivated plenty of players and fans for both it's story and its gameplay. At the same time another popular series such as Dragon ball had releases such as Dragon ball: Burst Limit and Dragonball: raging Blast who although failed to capture the essence of the story they managed to deliver on a pleasant Gameplay. The gameplay of Bleach is complicated as the game successfully captures the essence of the characters and they all feel unique and special, however, although the game feels great and has unique aspects and mechanicks it lacks in other departments.

The Good and the Bad

The game has a roaster that consist of 21 characters that each play different with Unique animations. Although the pictrure above depictions a total of 18 heroes, Ichigo Kurosaki has 3 different versions. Base form, Hollow form and final form, where each of them, although they have similar playstyle they differ from each other. For example, Hollow Ichigo can transform to his hollow form who is capable of throwing his blade and proceed in mellee combat with soul attacks becomming more effective. The basic Ichigo, fights mainly with his sword and can be powered up by wearing a mask for a limited time. On the other hand the final form ichigo moves faster and his ultimate attack although it deals heavy damage to the opponent it also deals heavy damage to Ichigo himself. Every hero has unique attacks, unique animations and combos. Uryu is is more of an archer that relies on long range attacks. Byakuya, can attack enemies in close range but he can also use his flower petals to deal damage on enemies far way. Heroes like Yoruuichi is more of a melee hero who aproaches enemies with her fists. When playing the game through story mode, the game locks a hero for the player to play with, nevertheless the game offers an option called mission select that allows the players to use any of the hero in any given mission, wheteher it makes sense or not. (for example having Grimmjow vs Grimmjow) The graphics of the game looked very good when it was released and they are still very good 10 years later. The game has a large skill board that enables players to freely upgrade each hero on the playstyle they find most suitable. Boost damage, boost health or even focus on the soul bar to cast more long range attacks.
On the other hand the game has alot of issues. The map/ level design of the game looks beautiful, however the game uses the given maps alot which takes away from it. When a map is overly used nomatter how great they may look they lose their magic and become extremely generic. The Game's difficulty is none existing as the game is considered extremely easy in both medium and hard difficulty. The game can be finish within two to three hours, despite the difficulty. The boss battles are not treated any different than special encounters. The only main difference is that enemies do not spawn as they do usualy. Ultimate attacks , both the ones caused by the player and the one caused by the enemy AI are not blockable. The moment an unltimate us cast, the game cuts to the cutscene of the hero casting the attack and then the damage is dealt. Furthermore, the game allows for the player to skip content found in game's level, by having the hero dash from one point of the level to the other unless there is a must encounter. When a player dashes through the screen they can approach weak ghouls and hollows that might die from the damage dealt by dash. By doing that the player is not only skipping the content of the map but it also kills low rank enemies that reward the player with soul points that can be spent to level up the hero.

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