Yes I know the title is spelled wrong compared to the game, so what?
Bleach Soul Ressurection is a third person hack and slash in the vein of Dynasty Warriors and Sengoku Basara. It's based on the long running anime during the Arrancar/Vizard arc. Sounds like it'd be a match made in heaven with Hollow's flying everywhere, Super powers snapping off, the Soul Society going crazy right? Well no, the long and short of it is that it feels like the developers don't quite have a grasp of what makes something like Dynasty Warriors fun (at least, in my personal view). The combat feels jerky, with very little in options for combo's (no XXXY combo for example). Instead it's all based around single button strings for combos. I suppose a higher level player could find a few combo's that work, but they'd feel jerky because of how the animations would play out.
Not everyone can get smacked into a building like that
Now then, Characters are varied, with all the major fighters from the arc (well, except for Renji and the evil scientists), each playing somewhat differently. The game design for their progression however is... painful. You remember the Sphere Grid from FFX? Basically the leveling up system is that with the options of either 5 basic upgrades (attack, spiritual pressure, health, defense, or limit breaks) or unlocking a character. Ok, not actually a character, they couldn't seem to fit in the various other fan favorites (Kisuke Urahara for example, isn't on the roster), so instead they added them as upgrades that allow various different actions. For example, Ichigo can unlock Urahara and get the ability to do a quick counter if you time the attack correctly, other "characters" tend to provide more static buffs.
Who doesn't love a good fight?
As you can see in the screenshot above (not the face, above that!) the game is GORGEOUS. Cell Shading makes the entire thing look very much like an anime, and honestly would probably be a good way to go in general for the industry for more outrageous games, particularly anime (anyone remember the original DBZ:Budokai look? Yeah...). The Cell Shading also provides a very much less taxing way to show these off compared to more "realistic" engines (like Unreal) so the entire game RUNS fantastically. Also it makes exploding buildings, sand dunes, or people, look like they actually took a BAD hit. A nice touch is that if your characters get their asses handed to them, the characters model starts to show the dust and damage from the fight.
Entirely Playable baby!
Now, here's the downfall of this game, there's actually less content than you may think. The "story" runs from Ichigos arrival at the Arrancar palace, until the defeat of Aizen, but it doesn't really have much of a connection between the missions so you need to have watched the anime to understand wtf is going on. Added onto this are a mission mode, and a semi-competative mode where you kill as much as you can for points. I managed to do the entire story in about 4 hours overall (no, I'm not kidding), and have done a couple of very samey missions. The game just doesn't have that much of a hook to it, and you feel either VASTLY overpowered, or REDICULOUSLY underpowered depending on the situation (basically you can flick on your "limit break" (not the technical name) and get an upgrade to your stats, which lets you throttle anyone nearby, but if you face a boss without it? eewww). The story's length is particularly annoying when you consider just how long the arc was in the series, and how many fights there were, and yet you're left with 12(!) missions to compress that entire story. For non-viewers, there were about 100 episodes for the arc, along with some 20 odd fights. Most of the fights not in the game were skipped because of the roster limitations, but some of the omissions are just.. bad. You don't get Ryujin Jakka (Old Man Yamamoto), any of the lieutenants, Komamura, or any of the Vizards.
There was SO much potential for this, but in the end, the game just feels like a cash in... at least Mugen Ichigo is unlockable.
Bleach Soul Ressurection is a third person hack and slash in the vein of Dynasty Warriors and Sengoku Basara. It's based on the long running anime during the Arrancar/Vizard arc. Sounds like it'd be a match made in heaven with Hollow's flying everywhere, Super powers snapping off, the Soul Society going crazy right? Well no, the long and short of it is that it feels like the developers don't quite have a grasp of what makes something like Dynasty Warriors fun (at least, in my personal view). The combat feels jerky, with very little in options for combo's (no XXXY combo for example). Instead it's all based around single button strings for combos. I suppose a higher level player could find a few combo's that work, but they'd feel jerky because of how the animations would play out.
Not everyone can get smacked into a building like that
Now then, Characters are varied, with all the major fighters from the arc (well, except for Renji and the evil scientists), each playing somewhat differently. The game design for their progression however is... painful. You remember the Sphere Grid from FFX? Basically the leveling up system is that with the options of either 5 basic upgrades (attack, spiritual pressure, health, defense, or limit breaks) or unlocking a character. Ok, not actually a character, they couldn't seem to fit in the various other fan favorites (Kisuke Urahara for example, isn't on the roster), so instead they added them as upgrades that allow various different actions. For example, Ichigo can unlock Urahara and get the ability to do a quick counter if you time the attack correctly, other "characters" tend to provide more static buffs.
Who doesn't love a good fight?
As you can see in the screenshot above (not the face, above that!) the game is GORGEOUS. Cell Shading makes the entire thing look very much like an anime, and honestly would probably be a good way to go in general for the industry for more outrageous games, particularly anime (anyone remember the original DBZ:Budokai look? Yeah...). The Cell Shading also provides a very much less taxing way to show these off compared to more "realistic" engines (like Unreal) so the entire game RUNS fantastically. Also it makes exploding buildings, sand dunes, or people, look like they actually took a BAD hit. A nice touch is that if your characters get their asses handed to them, the characters model starts to show the dust and damage from the fight.
Entirely Playable baby!
Now, here's the downfall of this game, there's actually less content than you may think. The "story" runs from Ichigos arrival at the Arrancar palace, until the defeat of Aizen, but it doesn't really have much of a connection between the missions so you need to have watched the anime to understand wtf is going on. Added onto this are a mission mode, and a semi-competative mode where you kill as much as you can for points. I managed to do the entire story in about 4 hours overall (no, I'm not kidding), and have done a couple of very samey missions. The game just doesn't have that much of a hook to it, and you feel either VASTLY overpowered, or REDICULOUSLY underpowered depending on the situation (basically you can flick on your "limit break" (not the technical name) and get an upgrade to your stats, which lets you throttle anyone nearby, but if you face a boss without it? eewww). The story's length is particularly annoying when you consider just how long the arc was in the series, and how many fights there were, and yet you're left with 12(!) missions to compress that entire story. For non-viewers, there were about 100 episodes for the arc, along with some 20 odd fights. Most of the fights not in the game were skipped because of the roster limitations, but some of the omissions are just.. bad. You don't get Ryujin Jakka (Old Man Yamamoto), any of the lieutenants, Komamura, or any of the Vizards.
There was SO much potential for this, but in the end, the game just feels like a cash in... at least Mugen Ichigo is unlockable.