Editor’s Note: This initial review in progress is based only on the PlayStation 5 version so far, with the PC version experiencing launch issues.
Although Bleach is the flashiest member of the shonen anime “big three,” standing shoulder to shoulder with mega popular series like One Piece and Naruto, it has long suffered from middle child syndrome when it comes to arena fighter adaptations. Bleach Rebirth of Souls aims to break the cycle of run-of-the-mill anime fighters this series has previously been part of, delivering a unique action game that attempts to raise the genre to greater heights. Even though I still have a lot left to play before my final review, having only spent 10 hours with it since I received review code just before the Ultimate Edition went live yesterday, it’s evident that developer Tamsoft has a deep respect for the anime. Every detail of its crisp character models is meticulously crafted, and the combat feels like it’s been lifted straight out of the show, with a depth that begs to be explored. However, the story mode, where I’ve spent most of my time so far, plays like a laughable attempt at a visual novel that was hobbled together as a last-second afterthought.
Bleach Rebirth of Souls opens with a tutorial that puts its best foot forward – its combat. It’s easy to get overloaded with a bunch of confusing anime jargon as it explains how its health bar, counters, and super moves work, but here’s the quick way to understand things: This is a 3D arena fighter with Super Smash Bros.’s life stock system, Sekiro’s stance-breaking swordplay, and Bleach’s unique visual flair. Unlike other arena fighters, which often have combat so shallow you only need to find a single combo or spam super moves to win matches, Bleach’s combat feels like a challenging game of tug-of-war – one where victories are clinched rather than mindlessly stomped out of opponents.
Each sword swing feels snappy and weighty as you teleport around the screen, ambushing your enemies from behind and breaking their guard. It never gets old to see large blocks of text wrap around freeze-framed characters with every successfully landed counter and super move. Even when you play Rebirth of Souls on its Standard Mode button layout, which streamlines things by letting you dish out flashy auto combos, it still harbors complex and unique mechanics specific to each character that warrant further exploration. That could be Uryu’s long-ranged bow attacks or Yoruichi’s in-your-face brawler style. Variety like that is important as I both decide on a main and try to understand how to defeat different characters.
As a massive fan of the anime and manga’s stunning artistry, stirring character development, and shocking plot twists, I had high hopes that Rebirth of Souls could deliver a worthwhile story mode. Sadly, I’ve been disappointed big time. By and large, cutscenes in an anime fighter should act as a sparkly reward at the end of battle, meant to bring the momentum of a fight to a thrilling climax. Cutscenes in the story modes of Naruto and Dragon Ball Z’s games are sometimes so well animated that they could serve as a substitute for watching the actual shows. That is not the case with Bleach. If anything, they nearly bring things to a screeching and embarrassing halt.
The look of its combat may have a lot of tender love and care put into it, but the story moments between that action instead play out like a cheap visual novel. Outside of a few pre-rendered cutscenes, the SparkNotes version of the anime this story mode attempts to tell is a rushed, hobbled mess. Instead of being greeted by bombastic scenes where my favorite characters clash, I was met with Machinima-looking animations where in-game models would fart out energy waves at each other and stiffly fall to the ground. Even the emotionally heady scenes lose all sense of tension as its characters move around like clumsy action figures with limited points of articulation in bright, low-poly arenas. What’s more, exciting moments like sword clashes and beam struggles lose all of their gravitas as these scenes incessantly cut to black with bright slashes on the screen that look less like a creative choice for dramatic effect and more like a placeholder for an animation that wasn’t added in time.
If this was a genuine attempt to resemble a visual novel, it definitely missed the mark, as it feels more like an unfinished first draft – and with review codes arriving so close to launch, it’s hard not to see this as an intentional hope that fans will buy-in based solely on the goodwill of the franchise. Which is a shame, because both its English and Japanese voice cast are putting in work with their vocal performances and the character models are faithful recreations that do look great in action. As if Bandai Namco took pointers from Invincible season 2’s joke about how animators cut corners to make more scenes, Rebirth of Souls put all of its focus on the fights, and every moment outside of them looks like a fan-made animators first crack at recreating the anime as a result.
But although the story mode has yet to wow me in the 10 hours I’ve spent with it so far, there’s still more to play with — namely, the online and offline versus mode — before I can settle on a final verdict. As it stands right now, Bleach Rebirth of Souls’ combat goes above and beyond a run-of-the-mill anime arena fighter, with a dense battle system and tons of love put into making each of its characters feel unique. That makes it all the more disappointing that its crisp character models, vibrant sword slashes, and stylish typography accompanying each super move feel wholly at odds with the animation in its unevenly crafted cutscenes. Instead of making me want to play through the anime’s sprawling story myself, it’s only encouraged me to revisit the source material so that the emotional climaxes actually land. But despite not delivering on that lofty promise, I’m keen to see if the versus modes will pick up the slack as I work toward my final review.
