Before nerd culture went mainstream, and everyone was into or aware of anime in all its forms, there was what anime die-hards called The Big Three. It was the three iconic and long-running shonen action manga & anime series that were mainstream titans compared to any other series – Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. The first two have had a healthy variety of video game adaptations over the years, but Bleach has never truly had its moment in the sun. A number of middling arena fighters have come and gone for the stylish and edgy series, but Bleach: Rebirth of Souls aims to be a breakout hit by combining a reverence for the origins of the series with the sleek underground futurism of it’s recent anime revival seasons, all bundled together in what is easily the most inventive anime arena fighter I’ve played in years.
Bleach has a huge amount of major story arcs, not unlike Naruto or One Piece, and its final story arc from the original manga was only just adapted into anime form with a stylish new set of finale episodes. You might expect a new game to tie in with that arc for the sake of recency and relevance, but Bleach: Rebirth of Souls goes back to the beginning. Literally all the way back to the very first scene of the very first episode. In a world where most video game adaptations of lengthy anime tend to skip over the fluff and dive right into the major moments, the story mode in this game is a refreshingly slow and detailed journey through the finer and often brushed-over moments of the franchise.
Is it so successful that you could play this as a substitute for reading the manga or watching the anime? Maybe not entirely. You do get a great dive into the world of Ichigo Kurosaki, a Japanese teen who encounters a mysterious woman calling herself a Soul Reaper and a giant monster attacking his family, leading him down a long and complicated road of becoming a Soul Reaper himself. While the details are there, and the character models are gorgeously detailed and incredibly accurate to the style of the source material, the animation in these story scenes can be really stiff at times, and some iffy dialogue pacing ruins the flow of otherwise impactful and emotional moments. I think it’s an incredible story mode for a die-hard fan of the series, but a newcomer might be left wondering what all the hype was about.
Thankfully, Bleach: Rebirth of Souls delivers plenty of it’s own hype that more than makes up for some minor story mode issues. The game is packed full of music from the composer of The World Ends With You, and I got goosebumps from almost every needle drop moment in the game. Each character’s theme plays when they awaken in combat and every impactful moment in the story mode is paired with a wild song, each track blending the style and mood of Bleach’s original soundtrack with vocals and in-your-face beats that made me feel like I was right back in front of Shibuya 108 fighting Noise with Neku. On top of that, every menu, transition, and piece of UI in the game is sleek and stylish in the coolest way possible – it’s an element of the presentation from the newest seasons of the anime that I’m really happy they adapted for this game.
Of course, the heart of Bleach: Rebirth of Souls, like any arena fighter, is in the combat, and this is where the game shines brightest. Battles are focused around a dual-health system slightly reminiscent of Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. You have a minor Reishi health bar that is drained normally when attacks land on you, and if that bar goes into the red, you’re susceptible to suffer a Soul Break when another attack hits you, letting your opponent trigger a special attack that depletes a certain number of lives from your major Konpaku health gauge. Different characters deal a different number of damage in these attacks, but are also balanced in different ways beyond how strong those special attacks are.
I was blown away by how faithfully the game managed to take the silly, ridiculous, and often unfair abilities of its cast and adapt them into actual gameplay mechanics. Iconic villain Aizen can trigger his Kyoka Suigetsu ability in the middle of an opponent’s super attack animation, cancelling it completely and rewinding the clock back to before it ever happened. Shunsui, meanwhile, can trigger a mode that randomly activates one of several mini-games that you’re forced to play at the same time as your battle. It’s often hilarious how some of these characters operate, but what’s consistently impressive is how gorgeous every attack, ability, and Awakening animation is.
Those Awakenings are a core part of combat. Each character, after taking enough damage, has an Awakening they can trigger that will let them transform into whatever their respective power-ups from the original series entail, changing their attacks, abilities, and more. It’s a comeback mechanic built into the flow of battle, but rather than acting as a quick reversal of circumstances like a Tekken 8 Heat move, it instead adds a new layer to combat mid-battle that complicates the situation for both players. It’s a really fun way to emulate the tug-of-war patterns so many battles in the original series fall into, but it does so in a way that’s actually rewarding and exciting.
There’s more style, soul, and spark put into Bleach: Rebirth of Souls than I’ve seen from any other anime spin-off game since some of the earlier Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm releases. This is a game clearly made by fans and for fans where the aura and energy of the original series has been perfectly adapted into a fresh gameplay experience. It’s the game that Bleach fans have deserved for a long, long time.
