User blog:Zwann/Bleach Heat The Soul 7, a dissapointing rushed work nonetheless..

When Bleach HTS 7 was announced earlier this year, no doubt the fans are excited. I, myself included. HTS 7 was predicted by fans to cover at least up till the Visoreds arrival to fake Karakura, which means more characters. Fans of the Espadas can take comfort that this time, a complete set of Espada roster are going to be available.

However, when the game was released, I was dissapointed.

Any fans that followed the HTS series could tell, that the game was a rushed work. In fact, this game strongly reminds me of the PS2 DragonballZ Infinite World, where the character sets where recycled from the Budokai 3 game, with little to no improvement in their movesets. What most definitely is the ultimate dissappointment is the fact that both Starrk and Barragan did not get their Ressurreccion stage as a playable character, instead just a special move.

There are further evidence HTS 7 being a rushed work. The most easy example is their Character Selection Screen. Fans that played HTS 6 would definitely notice that the Character Selection Screen in HTS 7 is EXACTLY the same as HTS 6, the arrangement and character graphics. Notice, how the character selection screen from previous HTS vary from one another, with new graphics representing the characters. Yet this latest installment, lacks this improvement. Why? The game developers were to busy to improve this? No good answer could justify how this game maintain its Character Selection Screen, when its previous installments could change it from one HTS to another.

The best way to compare HTS 7, is to actually compare the rate of growth from previous HTS to another. When HTS 5 was released, a few important facts were established. One of it is that not all Espadas are going to have their Ressurcion form as a playable character. In HTS 5, Aaroniero, Dordonii, Curicci, Gantenbein and Luppi all only have their ressurrecion forms as special attacks. At that point, I have already assumed a few thing for the coming HTS 6, obviously Zommari's Brujeria will only become a special attack(since he barely moves and only has Amour) and so will Syazel's Fornicaras.

However, when HTS 6 was released, my assumption was proven wrong. Both Zommari and Syazel have their ressureccion form as a palyable character. The game developer creatively implements how Zommari would attack in his pumpkin body. We can see the amount of effort, significant effort from the developers in HTS 6, a huge improvement from HTS 5. At that point, I, like other fans expected the same effort from the developers in HTS 7.

Surprisingly. there isn't. It does not make sense why Barragan, which spends most of his time in Arrogante, even has a melee weapon and Starrk which has an arsenal of moves in Los Lobos to only be a special attack, when Zommari's Brujeria gets to be a playable character. I could somehow understand that Barragan has limited attack since he uses mainly Respira, but Starrk's Los Lobos should actually made it into a playable character. His reiatsu swords as his melee attacks, his Cero Metralleta as Special 1 and Wolves as Special 2. If the developer chose to justify their acts by saying by making Los Lobos and Arrogante a character, both Starrk and Barragan will have no moveset for their base forms, then it is obvious it is only an excuse. Harribel displayed only one move in the manga(Projectile Azul), yet she managed to have a base character. Why? Because the developers creatively come up with her imaginary movelist. Same goes for Rose, Nanao, etc back in HTS 6. Starrk and Barragan displayed one power each in their base form(Aging touch and Cero), all the developer needs is to cleverly, creatively make use of those powers and make it into the base's specials. They could creatively come up with an imaginary movelist for Kyoraku and Jushiro(wind/flower and water/electricity) only based on their shikai poems. Why can they do the same for the top 2 Espadas? 2 words. Rushed Work.

Hopefully HTS 8 if there is such in the future would improve greatly. This evidence of rushed work needs to be solved. The developers has done so well for HTS 6, hopefully that would repeat that in its coming instalments.