Bleach: Souten ni Kakeru Unmei INFO BOX SYSTEMS Nintendo DS PUBLISHER SEGA RELEASE DATES Japan - 01/26/06 OTHER TITES Bleach DS Reviewed by Sixfortyfive Licensed anime fighting games are something the video game enthusiast should always look into with a certain degree of caution. All too often, gamers are treated to a final product that gives the impression it was developed mostly to cash in on its particular franchise, and if said franchise was removed from the product, there wouldn't be much of a game left worth playing. Having had no exposure to Bleach prior to playing this game, I can safely assure the reader that this is not the case in this particular instance. Sega struck a deal to publish Bleach games on Nintendo platforms, and they arranged for Treasure to develop their DS installment. In 1994, Sega also had Treasure develop a fighting game for the Mega Drive (Genesis) based on the anime series Yu Yu Hakusho. Named "Yu Yu Hakusho: Makyo Toitsusen," it was truly the first of its kind: a Street Fighter-esque console fighting game that could be played with anywhere between 2-4 players simultaneously (if you had the multitap and a few extra controllers, that is). To cope with the amount of action on the screen and better manage 4-player battles, the fighting field was divided into two planes, foreground and background, that the players could freely jump between. In 1996, Treasure expanded on this game's engine when they developed their multiplayer fighter/scrolling beat-em-up hybrid Guardian Heroes, which remains to be one of the most popular games on the Sega Saturn to this day. In 2006, ten years later, they've taken another crack at the genre that is very obviously inspired by their previous work. Though Treasure isn't particularly known for fighting games, I have to say that "Bleach DS: Souten ni Kakeru Unmei" is a rather impressive attempt that has just about all the trappings of legitimate, mainstay 2D fighting series like Street Fighter, King of Fighters, and Guilty Gear. The basic gameplay is decidedly similar to the aforementioned titles. Each character has a repertoire of offensive and defensive techniques, ranging from kicks and simple sword slashes to powerful energy blasts and transformations that require certain amounts of power to be accumulated before you can use them. For controls, the D-pad is used to crouch, walk, dash, jump, double-jump, and mid-air dash. You have a light attack, moderate attack, and heavy attack button in addition to a guard button, a shunpo button, and a plane change button. (Guarding can also be performed by holding back, but you'll be walking backwards as you do so.) I personally think the only basic mechanic that's missing here is a mid-air throw. It's an unfortunate omission, but admittedly a minor one. Unlike Guilty Gear Isuka, which also featured 4-player multi-plane fighting, you don't have to manually turn your character here; just walking left or right will point your character in that direction. To make things even easier, the game automatically turns your character towards your opponent when only 2 players are fighting. Special and super moves are performed by inputting various combinations with the D-pad and the attack buttons. These are reminiscent of Street Fighter-esque techniques, but they're easy to remember and not terribly complex. It's not as simple as, say, Smash Bros, but you won't have to do anything more complicated than a forward + half-circle forward command followed by an attack button, and such a command would only be used for each character's strongest super move. Thankfully, Treasure realized that the DS D-pad was not well-suited for traditional 2D fighters, so you don't have to perform diagonal motions. That means, instead of the typical down -> down/forward -> forward -> attack command for a Hadouken-esque fireball, you'd just input down -> forward -> attack. Unfortunately, this makes it easy to mistakenly perform a special move when you just wanted to go from a crouching position to a walking+attacking position instead, but it's better than being unable to perform special moves at all because of difficult diagonal inputs. It's not a huge problem by any means, and it can be avoided if you're careful. In addition to the player's life bar, there are two energy bars that each serve a distinct function. The first is the green super bar ("reiatsu gauge") at the top of the screen. As you deal damage to your opponent and take damage in return, your reiatsu gauge will gradually increase. When it fills up all the way, you earn 1 reiatsu stock. You can hold up to 3 reiatsu stock at a time, anywhere between 1 to 3 of which are used to perform each character's most powerful super moves. The second power gauge (the "reiryoku gauge") is located at the bottom of the screen and divided into three segments. This gauge gradually refills itself over time. It's used to perform shunpo / flash steps (a quick step that allows you to teleport across the arena and out of harm's way), to jump between the foreground and background, and to perform the strongest variation of each character's special techniques (similar to "EX" moves in other 2D fighters). The reiryoku gauge refills from shunpo and plane changes rather quickly, but it takes considerably longer to recover from the stronger RF techniques. The reiatsu and reiryoku gauges are used for defensive canceling techniques as well. Gameplay in Bleach DS is very combo-intensive; skilled players will be able to build up and balance their power so that they can string together long chains of attacks in succession, flash stepping and air juggling to keep the combos going. When on the receiving end of these combos, you can use up 1 reiatsu stock to "damage cancel" out of your opponent's attack (which works against any technique besides supers). If you're blocking your opponent's attack, you can use 1 piece of your reiryoku gauge to "guard cancel" and teleport away with a flash step. All of this makes for a very balanced, well-rounded game. It's much more fair and better thought-out than Guardian Heroes' versus mode. Do you use up all 3 of your reiatsu stock for a punishing super move, or conserve some of them for canceling if you need to? Do you try and rush your opponent at every opening, or do you think he'll be able to anticipate it and cancel out of it? Guardian Heroes had a shortcut system for super moves. During battle, you could press Z on the Saturn pad to bring up a small menu of your character's magic attacks that could be scrolled through and selected almost as quickly as inputting them with manual commands. In Bleach DS, this shortcut system has been scrapped and redone for the touch screen. All of the action in Bleach DS is located on the top screen, and the touch screen contains blue and red buttons that you can press to perform techniques (blue for "specials," red for "supers"). Furthermore, you can select between "manual" and "auto" control inputs. In "auto" mode, the game will attempt to automatically block and string together attacks for you whenever possible. For example, if you're playing as Hitsugaya in manual mode, pressing light attack 4 times in succession will cause you to strike the opponent with 4 light attacks. If you input the same commands in auto mode, however, Hitsugaya will perform a light -> mid -> heavy attack combo, launch the opponent into the air, and then jump and slam him back to the ground with an aerial attack. If all of this sounds easy, that's because it is. But don't for a second think that it turns the game into a button masher. On the contrary, using auto mode completely prevents you from coming up with many of your own combos, and you can ALWAYS substitute a more damaging manual combo in place of the ones that auto mode comes up with for you. Moreover, performing specials with the touch screen will always utilize the strongest (RF) version of the attack and therefore always use up your reiryoku gauge, which can be quite wasteful. When taking all of the above into consideration, the game is extremely accessible to gamers who aren't particularly skilled at fighters, but it ultimately rewards those who learn how to perform specials manually and actually put thought into combos. The system is well thought-out, and there isn't much room for abuse. The best players will utilize, without exception, a combination of manual inputs and touch screen inputs depending on what is demanded by different characters, situations, and techniques. The last main element of gameplay is the spirit card ("reifu") system. In addition to technique commands, power up cards can be utilized with the touch screen to implement a variety of temporary effects including (but not limited to) health recovery, strength increases, unlimited reiatsu, and prohibiting your opponent from guarding. Cards are earned through performing various tasks in single player mode and by purchasing them in the shop. You can then arrange up to 5 unique decks of 15 cards each in Deck Construction mode. You can select your deck before each battle. Only a random 10 of these cards will be available to you during each match, and only a random 2 cards will be available to use at any one time. After using a card, it will be immediately replaced by the next one in your deck. You do not have to rebuy cards after using them in battle; your stock is replenished after each game. The reifu system makes for a lot of interesting possibilities, but it also introduces a random element to the game and allows for some extremely overpowered characters. I personally don't think there's any card/technique combination that's unbeatable (in 2-player matches, anyway), and I generally like it, but it's certainly not for everyone. Fortunately, you have the option of turning off cards entirely before each battle, and you can even filter your searches online to find opponents that don't use them. Most non-Japanese players I've played prefer to play without them, but you'll likely have to deal with card users occasionally online, and especially in ranking mode. Bleach DS boasts an initial roster of 14 playable characters with 14 additional unlockable ones. For fans of the series, the complete list is as follows: Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Orihime Inoue, Uryu Ishida, Yatsutora "Chad" Sado, Ganju Shiba, Renji Abarai, Byakuya Kuchiki, Gin Ichimaru, Kenpachi Zaraki, Toushiro Hitsugaya, Momo Hinamori, Kaname Tosen, Sajin Komamura, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Syunsui Kyoraku, Jushiro Ukitake, Soifon, Shigekuni Yamamotogenryusai, Yoruichi Shihoin, unmasked Sajin Komamura, Sousuke Aizen, Nemu Kurotsuchi, Hollow Ichigo Kurosaki, Yachiru Kusajishi, Kon, Bonnie, and Tatsuki Arisawa. All but 2 of these characters are unique (unmasked Komamura and Hollow Ichigo play exactly like normal Komamura and Ichigo, though they look and sound quite a bit different). Even though this game doesn't have perfect character balance (what fighting game does?), I personally think that it's possible to be competitive with every character besides Kon, Bonnie, and Tatsuki. As an example, Nemu is a character with little in the way of variety or powerful moves, but I've played as her in 200 online battles as of writing this review, and I've won 169 of them. Just about every character has their strengths; playing as some will just make your job considerably more difficult. There are a variety of gameplay modes for the single player experience. Initially, you can only play story mode with Ichigo, but completing his story will allow you to play through as other characters, eventually allowing you to use all 28 characters in other game modes. You can play as most of the cast in story mode, but the less significant characters only have a handful of matches. The final story episode is a summary of the entire series up to the point of the game's release, and you play as multiple characters in it. Arcade mode will pit you against 6 random characters in 1-on-1 matches only. There could have been more work put into it, in my opinion, but it's not too big of a drag. As it is, it's only worth playing in order to earn cards or money for the shop. Training mode allows you to look through each character's command list and practice against a CPU dummy, which you can instruct to perform certain actions. Time Attack pits you against 20 characters in succession with the goal of defeating them as fast as possible. In Survival Mode, your life bar carries over between fights, and you must try to survive as many matches as possible. Challenge Mode is particularly noteworthy. In it, the game will present you with 10 individual custom combos for each of 20 specific characters, which you will be rewarded for completing. This is a big help in teaching the player how various attacks in the game string together and cancel into each other. Some of them can be quite maddening to complete as well. It's certainly not easy. The multiplayer options available in Bleach DS are outstanding, and they pretty much make the game for me. For local multiplayer, you have the option of multi-cart wireless play or single-cart download play. There are no restrictions in either mode. You can play as every character you've unlocked, on any stage, with or without cards, with teams or without, etc. You can also log onto Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to go head-to-head against others online. There are three main online modes: Japan Domestic Battle, Friend Battle, and Soul Society Ranking Mode. In Japan Domestic, the servers will randomly pit you against other opponents. In Friend Battle, you can play against others you've exchanged "friend codes" with. In both of these modes, you can filter your searches by 2 or 4 players only, deathmatch or pointmatch, and other restrictions. In Soul Society Ranking Mode, you go head-to-head with one other player of comparable rank to you and try to defeat him in order to increase your rank. My only complaint about the Wi-Fi features (aside from the occasional jerks you bump into online, anyway) is that there is no way to rechallenge opponents after each match, meaning that you either have to reinitiate searches after each game when playing online, or everyone has to redownload the game when playing in offline download play. The download times for single-cart multiplayer are rather brutal, too. Sure, you get all the features, but the time spent redownloading every time you return to the character screen and every time you start each battle is painfully long. Download play really isn't viable as a regular multiplayer experience, in my opinion. It's best to use it as a showcase for friends who might be interested in obtaining the game themselves, but you'll definitely want every player to have their own copies of the game if you want to play with each other regularly. As for online play, finding specific opponents can take quite a while occasionally, but I can't really fault the developer for this. In my experience, Nintendo WFC just isn't managed as well as it could be, and there's not a whole lot that can be helped. It just would have been extremely convenient had Treasure put in a retry option after each match so you only had to find your opponent(s) once. Bleach DS earns a passing grade on production values. The characters don't have a whole lot of detail, but they're animated well enough. The backgrounds and special attacks all look nice, and the field zooms in and out of view depending on how close opponents are to each other. It's easy to keep track of all the action. In typical Treasure fashion, the soundtrack is split between some really catchy, cool tunes and a lot of forgettable ones. Nothing that grates on my ears though, which is nice, and it's unlike anything I've heard the composer (Norio "NON" Hanzawa) do before. This game also utilizes the handheld nature of the DS rather well. When using shunpo, your character is invisible to all other players, but you can see a faint image of him on your screen. Tosen's bankai renders all of his opponents' screens pitch black for a limited time, but he can see the entire field. A lot of thought has been put into it all. There's also a metric ton of unlockable content: 14 secret characters, a variety of spirit cards, alternate outfits, gallery artwork, sound and voice test, etc. Most of this is unlocked through Urahara's shop with money you earn from normal gameplay. It can take quite a while to buy everything, but it never felt tedious to me. Pros: * 2-4 player mayhem with team battles, handicaps, and other options * 28 playable characters, 26 of which are unique, and all but about 3 of which are worthwhile * intuitive and fairly deep gameplay that plays to the strengths of the Nintendo DS * very accessible to just about everyone, but much more rewarding to the skilled players * a variety of single player modes, including an elaborate story mode and rewarding, instructive challenge mode * fully featured single-cart, multi-cart, and online play * lots and lots of unlockable content Cons: * multiplayer could really benefit from a retry option * download times for single-cart play are painfully long Misc: * optional card system is interesting, but not for everyone * generally import-friendly, but a guide will be needed for story mode if you can't read Japanese Bottom line: If you're a Treasure fan, I'd say this is much more worthy a successor to Guardian Heroes than Advance Guardian Heroes was. It's much more balanced and much less "floaty" than the original GH. It's accessible and easy to pick up but deep and fleshed-out enough to hold its own against popular fighters. The online features give it quite a bit of leverage over Jump Superstars and Guilty Gear Dust Strikers; I've put in 1000+ matches online to date and am not bored with it so far. If you're a fan of Bleach or are looking for a 2D fighter for your DS, I'd say this game absolutely warrants a purchase.