Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5398287-20131103024518

Some time ago, I came up with the idea of doing a joint review of Bleach: Soul Resurrección with Lemursrule. We ended up doing said review in chat around June-July, but it hasn't been posted until now due to reasons. With that said, enjoy our review of a 2-year old game.

Story
Xilinoc: Don't play the game if you want to refresh your memory about the Hueco Mundo and Arrancar arcs. While it covers the major fights, it also skips over some huge events (i.e. it literally says "But Aizen kills Gin" without any explanation as to WHY) and though it had the proper dialogue and whatnot, it focuses mainly on the combat in the story. Hence, though the story doesn't add in any unnecessary stuff, it puts too much attention on the fighting to be worth playing purely for the story.

Lemursrule: Yeah, that's sort of a major irk of mine too. You have these beautiful graphics, yet there are no real cutscenes to appreciate them. And even major fights like Komamura and Tosen, and hell Ichigo vs Aizen is dumbed down so much. Also, coming as both a fan and a player, the start of story is really awkward, especially when you are on a console as mainstream as the ps3, you need to make sure both fans and non fans can follow along. Xilinoc: Additionally, it doesn't help that it does very, very little to explain what happens prior to the Hueco Mundo arc, so it's not a game someone can play if they want to get into the story. Lemursrule: Exactly, and as I said before, if you are going to make a major console game like that, then you need to expand to all demographics.

Mission Mode
Xilinoc: Mission mode is much more interesting because it allows you to fulfill a lot of what-if scenarios, which the developers noted and paid attention to: when playing as one character and fighting another, you can hear dialogue pertaining to the relationship between the two characters, i.e. when fighting against Grimmjow as Aizen, Aizen will reveal he has no more use for him, hence why he will kill him, and when fighting against Hitsugaya as Ichigo's final Hollow Form, Hitsugaya will wonder what happened to you. Additionally, the constraints of each mission do require you to put some thought into who you'll be playing as and how to proceed. While it's not a strategy-based game, there is a need to know when to block, when to dash, etc.

Lemursrule: This is what I think one of the redeeming features of the game is. I think the amount of detail to the player experience is standout feature for the various Bleach games released, and is pretty unique for a hack-n-slash title. Although the overall game play takes a few pointers from the Dynasty Warriors series, it still hit the right notes. It’s unfortunate that what is considered the "extra" part in the game is better than the actual story. To me, Soul Resureccion had trouble deciding what type of game it wanted to be, thus why there is such a contrast in gameplay between the two modes. I feel Mission Mode better represents Bleach both as a fan and as a gamer.

Damage System and Graphics
Note: The damage system is the thing that makes the character updates itself when it receives damage (i.e. cuts, bruises, blood, scrapes)

Xilinoc: I think they pulled this off pretty well, and I do like that many of the "injured models", so to speak, reflect major injuries that occur to that character in the series, i.e. Nnoitra loses one of his horns, Baraggan loses a good chunk of his skull, Yoruichi loses some of her armor. It's a nice touch to put that in rather than have the player remain unharmed at all times. And as for the graphics, it's the same cel-shaded stuff they use for many manga-based games, but as usual, it looks fairly good. I don't have any particular thing to praise or ridicule aside from the loading screens you get which display the character and their moveset - I really like how the grayscaled, darkened model looks.

Lemursrule: Honestly, in terms of cel-shaded fighters, this is probably one of the most beautiful ones of at least the last 5 years, and really takes advantage of the PS3’s HD graphics. Instead of having a "skin," the models have more of a painted look to them, and remind me a lot of Disney's (unfortunately discontinued) Deep Canvas software, which was developed on Tarzan and used on a few films in the early 2000s. It has a very clean-cut look to it, and it feels like you are in the anime. In comparison, Heat the Soul’s graphics are pretty bad, and they appear to keep porting each model without really changing much: it's BS that you can't do it with the PSP because Square Enix did it with the Nintendo DS. I mean, some of it is borderline PS1 graphics: the GameCube Bleach game (what little video exists of it) looks much better, and the GameCube came out in 2001.

Music and Voice Acting
Xilinoc: The music in the game isn't going to render anyone speechless with awe, but it's not terribly bad either. It's reminiscent of a soundtrack to a 3D Sonic game (play through Hitsugaya's mission and you'll really see the connection) and it's pretty good at setting the mood of whatever chapter/mission you're playing, at least based on location.

Lemursrule: Honestly, it's hit or miss for me: some of the more Bohemian rock-n-roll style tracks are great, but some of the more synth heavy tracks kind of fall flat. I think either themes from the show or a more cinematic score would have enhanced the experience.

Xilinoc: as per usual, the Japanese voice actors do a good job, but the English voice acting is kind of hit-and-miss. Don't get me wrong, some of the characters have stellar performances in terms of voice (Gin and Baraggan, for example), others are downright annoying, aka Lilynette, and still others feel like they're trying too hard to act out the character, an example being Grimmjow.

Lemursrule: Since this was an extremely low budget game, many of the actors from the English dub were either away or committed to other projects and unable to voice their characters, so they were replaced. Some of the voices are better than their official voice: Michael McConnohie eventually replaced Steve Kramer as Baraggan on the show, and I wish Jamison Price replaced Paul St. Peter on the show. Additionally, the blending of dialogue with the voice and sound effects in the game is really cheap, and it's hard to appreciate the voice acting in both English and Japanese.

Gameplay and Leveling-Up System
Lemursrule: As stated before, the gameplay does take a few pointers from Dynasty Warriors, and the controls and overall experience is decent.

Xilinoc: Anyhow, gameplay-wise, it's pretty solid. You get to use some of the more well-known attacks, and the developers even gave some characters new abilities. In regards to the Ignition Attacks, they're fairly interesting in regards to how they were executed: while they all improve your strength while you're using the Ignition Gauge, some of them enhance your special attacks (i.e. Starrk summoning 4 wolves at a time with Colmillo instead of 2) or gives you a constant effect (Baraggan's Respira is always active). Additionally, not all of them are one-shot effects (Baraggan's lasts for quite a while) and they all have different ranges of effect (Aizen's hits the area around him, Yoruichi's hits the area in front of her): they even make one of them unique in the aftereffect (FGT Ichigo's drastically reduces his health in a reference to what FGT does.) And all the characters control uniquely: some are built for ranged attacks (Starrk, Uryu, Byakuya) while others are much better suited for close combat (Yoruichi, Grimmjow, Kenpachi) and still others are a mix of the two (Ichigo, Kokuto, Ulquiorra). Additionally, they make some of the characters stand out in different ways: all of Kenpachi's attacks have non-technique name ("Eat this.") and Aizen is the only character who can block while walking, but his walking speed is severely reduced as a result, making him "balanced" (not really oh my god he's ridiculous). And as for the leveling system, it's a fairly interesting concept. Requiring you to level up other characters in order to access more of the skill tree is a cool way to get players to play as other characters and get a feel for them. Additionally, the character abilities you can get are pretty referential: Orihime gives you an extra life, Nel Tu gives you life regeneration, etc. My only gripe is that you can't choose to reset everything if you make a mistake, i.e. if you're playing as Starrk and going for the 3000 hit combo achievement, because then you're pretty much stuck.

Wrap-Up
Lemursrule: Overall, it's a decent game. There are better Bleach games, but it isn't the worst, so it's worth checking out. Xilinoc: Definitely rent first though, that 60$ price tag isn't to be taken lightly. 